Castor Oil...sickeningly good

Yea the tide has crested, the dams they have burst

2011-12-08T21:41:00.001-05:00

I tried. I really really tried.

I tried to not care about politics, to not fume and snicker and foment internal dissent and watch with ghoulish fascination at the parade of freaks and mutants that are drawn to the offices of the land. After you people, (if you are one of the you I am referring to shame on you...go paddle your bottom), broke my heart and crushed my hope in there being even the dimmest flicker of cognitive activity in the collective brain of America by re-electing George Waterhead Bush so he could continue us on his fool's march to destruction I slowly faded away. It was too frustrating to care and frankly I did a pretty good job at toning down my interest in such silliness, (at least outwardly).

I was kind of surprised that I didn't feel the urge to comment on the 2008 elections. Sarah Palin was easy pickings for dusting off the rust and John McCain....well...he's John McCain. If I could write about Dick Cheney having S&M policy trysts with Barbara Bush and canned peaches surely I could snarkle a bit about John McCain. But no.....I guess I was busy trying to figure out my life or was just lazy or falling into walls around town...whatever....I didn't write.

And that carried over to the musica as well. I let the Pharmacy Prophets just fade away which in retrospect was sad, we should have done some sort of wing-ding of a farewell show if for nothing else so I could have had my picture taken a bunch of times. But we didn't. I wrote one song in three years.......that made things kind of boring.

And then, like Santa and Jesus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny all dressed up as a gaggle of mildly disguised racist idiots in terrible clothes the 2012 Republican candidates trickled forth from the primordial ooze and goddamn it baby, they flicked my switch! If I can't find something to say about a guy that is running for the most powerful office in the world calling himself "Black Walnut" I might as well just shrivel up and die. Rick Perry? Seriously? Rick Perry is like playing T-Ball. His big square head just sitting there, still as can be, waiting to have the shit smacked out of it. Michelle Bachmann in and of herself is more than enough, but have you seen her husband? Good lord. I just don't know where to begin. I feel like Violet Beauregarde after she ate the forbidden fruit, (you know what I mean), and got herself all blowed up. I'm positively floating with material.

Needless to say Newt Gingrich and his Jonathan Swiftian plans to redo the nation's janitorial crew give me plenty to think about. What a fucking maniac...not to mention a prick....not to mention a fool...not to mention...ahh, screw it. It's too late to even get started on that one.

So as has happily happened with the music stuff I'm going to really get back to writing around here. As always if you like it or don't that's your business. Say something if you feel like it, or don't. If you get offended good for you. We should all get a little offended from time to time, maybe if we found some of these mental patients offensive a little more often we wouldn't be in such a bizarre state of affairs.

I have other stuff in my life of course and will write about other things as they come to mind.

God speed Black Walnut.....we hardly knew ye.

Oh my my my

2009-09-07T21:10:00.002-05:00

So I was sitting and thinking "OK, I will finally get off my ass after the extended authorial vacation and start writing again." I figure if Phil Rossi can write seven novels and produce 237 podcasts, (and knock out a couple of babies along the way), every five days at least I can post something about something on my long neglected blog. I fired up the computer and dramatically cracked my knuckles, (always a strong way to kick things off), and stared at the blank canvas, (ok, laptop screen), in front of me, and stared at it.......and looked some more.......and after some more interminable staring just said screw it and started typing whatever the fingers decided to produce. The following is finally what I wrote. Upon review and edit I think I need to get back into therapy.

.............................................................................................

David Bowie was surveying the parcel of land that seemed to stretch to nowhere. There was a chill wind in the air which was strange for that time of year, stranger still that there was any wind at all on the moon, as the moon has no atmosphere, which makes the whole wind thing highly unlikely. So it was a strange day indeed.

Anyhoo.......

"Semmthin taint right heah" muttered Bowie as he mopped his glittery brow....."I smell trouble." His companion grunted in affirmation, the steadfast pistolero was a llama of few words but you could read his black moods clearly in the way he spit or shivered his hindquarters and at this moment spit was spittling and hindquarters were shivering quicker than a 1970's motel room bed that had just been fed a fistful of quarters.

Trouble was nigh.

Bowie and the llama moved slowly ahead on the backs of their large space seahorses looking for what they didn't know, they just knew that whatever it was, it was coming and soon. Bowie turned as he heard a rock clatter behind him and there before him was what he half expected to find and dreaded more than having to eat Mama Bowie's cream of mushroom and sweet potato quesadilla sopapilla surprise. "The guddum monkey...........I knew it", he muttered. "State your business monkey and clear off willingly or get cleared by me and the llama. You know if I was willing to do the China Girl video I ain't skeered or too proud to do you in like I did all my Ziggy Stardust era credibility."

The monkey laughed the laugh of a thousand Full House live studio audiences full of demons and shouted from his perch "CHINA GIRL WAS AWESOME COMPARED TO THE PANTS....HEY YOU KNOW BOWIE WHAT PANTS YES BOWIE YOU KNOW TELL ME BOWIE WHAT'S UP WITH THOSE PANTS YOU WORE IN THAT DANCING IN THE STREET VIDEO WITH MICK JAGGER BOWIE HAH?!!? WERE YOU HIGH AS HELL ON GLUE OR SOMETHING BOWIE TO WEAR PANTS LIKE THAT BOWIE? DID IMAN KNOW YOU WERE GOING TO WEAR THOSE PANTS BOWIE??!?!? WHAT DID JAGGER SAY BOWIE??!?!?! C'MON BOWIE TELL ME ABOUT THE PANTS TELL ME WHAT YOU WERE THINKING BOWIE ABOUT THE DANCING PANTS BOWIE?!?!?!"

Bowie pulled his 45. and took five clean shots at the monkey who suddenly evaporated into a cloud of fairy dust, gone for the moment but sure to return. He had regretted the pants for decades. He kept a bellyful of resentment and blame that he would foist on Jagger, on the bottle, on Nipsy Russell, on MTV and "Triple J", J.J. Jackson, (and to a lesser degree Martha Quinn with who he had fathered four carnival freaks), but deep down he knew he had only himself to blame for falling prey to the allure of those captivating billowing trousers. He was resigned to the fact that he alone would carry the curse of the weird Dancing in the Street pants and the monkey that came with it across the moon for the rest of his days, or at least until his lawyers could get a copyright injunction against YouTube and take down the videos.

As he glumly began the long ride back to his moon ranch and the waiting arms of Iman he noticed the llama staring at him quizically. "Wuts on yer mind llama?" he queried. The llama simply said, "dude go back to rehab. You're talking to a moon llama."

And so he did.

The end.

Funny

2009-08-05T14:34:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about dead friends lately, two in particular. One named Jimmie, one named John, and how they were quite the same at certain points in their lives until the fork in the road came up and one went thisaway and the other went thataway.

I'm trying to go thataway.

If this sounds morbid it really is not, the subject just happens to be relevant to much of the mumbo and the jumbo floating round and round the noggin.

On a wholly positive note my fish in the yard pond had babies, (lots of them.....my fish is like the octomom only smarter), and three of my tadpoles grew into hopping bopping cool little green frogs. I just tell them that I'm God and they should pray to me for I created their world. 99% sure the message is getting through.

BOINK!!!!

Oh hi!

2009-01-07T13:39:00.002-05:00

Is this thing on?

I gotta gotta get back to it.

So much to say......

So much to do.....

Beepdeedooboo!

Words, (nerds?)

2008-09-18T19:22:00.004-05:00

I've been archiving shit off this blog, editing and revamping and whatnot to use in the great, nay greatest, American novel for some time now.

It's weird to go back over it sometimes, like a time capsule of how different my life was not so very long ago. Some of it is bad but most of it is good to read. For a long time when revisited some of the more chuckle inducing stuff I wondered if I would get that sense of humor back. I think it has found me again, I have been amusing myself pretty well and I think the stuff in the book to be is pretty good.

OK, you know me....I think it's great. Still.......

I don't know if I will ever really fire this thing up to what it was, with the frequency of posts and all'a that. I'm busy as hell these days and have a lot more creative outlets, but I'll try.

For you, my lovely public.

A piece of advice....don't ever eat at Checker's. Ever. Like, not once in your entire life even out of dumb curiosity. Trust me, I have taken that bullet for all of us. While most of my internal organs have the tenacity of a wolverine and the tensile strength of worm silk my stomach got a white trash fall off the porch style beating worthy of a hall of fame episode of Cops within ten minutes of ingesting that swill.

The chili dog, it was tasty, to be honest.

Doesn't Sarah Palin just seem like the most obnoxious bitch you would ever have to sit next to at a back to school night or soccer game or something of the like? She makes me want to throw appliances at the TV set when I see her. I think it's that weird speedbump thing on the back of her head that sets me off, either that or her insane position on things and completely retarded ascendancy to something larger than the Vice Presidency of a home owner's association, (or a position of similar meaningless stature).

My cat is insane.

Jimmy

2008-07-21T13:25:00.002-05:00

My friend Jimmy died on Friday. What a waste. Rest well big man, and thanks for the laughter, the friendship, and all the years we had. You'll be missed by many, and certainly by me.

Communication

2008-06-03T14:38:00.004-05:00

I talked to someone on the phone last night so we could figure out how to get their IM to work so we could then hang up the phone and immediately start a discussion over IM, which we did.

I just thought that was funny.

Pussies

2008-06-02T07:20:00.002-05:00

Really, what happened to people?

It's not like I consider myself some tough as leather lion killer, (I love kitties and am way too pretty to be made of leather). I'm not some crusty old bastard that scaled the cliffs during the Normandy invasion, someone who survived the plague or won a streetfight with the bad guys from Roadhouse or any of that kind of thing but I think I'm somewhat resilient, or at least accepting of things that are beyond my control. I was amazed this weekend at how many others seem to not be.

I am of course referring to rain.

I mean, it's rain. What the fuck are you going to do about it? You're on the ground, it falls from the sky, you get wet. Big deal. I was out and about amongst the rabble on Saturday when a monsoon with the sideways rain deal blew in. The hysteria that arose was just bizarre, one woman was running around with her gross hair in her hands screaming to either God or no one in particular, "THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!!"

Not acceptable by who's definition? It's FUCKING RAIN you self-absorbed harridan. Rain. Nature. The circle of life, evaporation evaporation the water cycle the water cycle, (from a film strip I saw in the 1st grade, a catchy little ditty there as it has stuck with me all these years).

She was just one of many that were grousing and whining and getting insulted by getting rained on. I thought the whole thing was pretty hysterical, I could have done without the 36 pound underpants that were a side effect of getting soaked like that but otherwise, it was quite comical.

They're drops of water, not flaming dollops of lava or hunks of dogshit that are coming down. Unless you have a dedicated aversion to standing in a shower and follow that course religiously I just don't get the angst. If you do so however, feel free to stay the fuck away from me as I prefer to surround myself with the hygenic and sweet smelling amongst us.

Maybe that whole 40 days and 40 nights thing wasn't such a bad idea. The world could use a bath.

Oh and to the sorority hag with the blistered third degree sunburn all over her back and shoulders, try some SPF or at least putting on a blouse. Oozing puss and cracked red skin just isn't the look that will get Warren from the lacrosse team to slip you that roofie that you're hoping for.

Just saying.

Drizzle

2008-05-08T11:39:00.002-05:00

I am recalling the line that Stork uttered in Animal House - "Well what the hell we supposed to do ya moron?".

In this case the we is me and I am directing the question to myself, as much as it pains me to cast myself as a moron. Still being fantastically self-actualized can be sobering at times, (now I want to have a beer so I can love myself all over again), so I have to twitter about and sort myself to and fro which sucks but is necessary in my quest for stupendousness.

The point of all this? It's rainy and I kinda feel like a dick about some things, but don't really know how to get the metaphorical train back on track, or if there is even track left ahead, and if there is track how to navigate it.

What to do, what to do?

Listening to Hanoi Rocks helps, at least my feet are tapping while my brain is spinning. I'm creating energy here people!

I just read this over again and it really makes no sense whatsoever. Ah well, there will always be band idiots to write about if I get too esoteric for my own good.

Zoinks!

2008-05-07T11:47:00.003-05:00

Edit - Way too nice to not be sitting on a patio getting refreshed. That is all. I now return you to your regularly scheduled bullshitting.

Every once in a great while something is said to me that makes me go, "WHUUUUUHHH???". It isn't that I don't hear ridiculous shit on a daily basis, because I do, but I feel pretty well armored up against 99.999999% of it. Just when that one little morsel of conversation that seems so totally whackyjack boociferously insane comes through the aural cavity that can make me blink repeatedly, well, that is just got to be some off the wall communication the likes of which would make a Michael Jackson album cover proud.

Such a thing was said to me yesterday, and I'm still shaking my noggin to and fro about it in hopes of removal.

Shake Shake.

Nope, still there!!!!

This hangs on with more perseverance than a crusty booger on a cafeteria lady's nose hair.

The blogs and pundits are all a-twitter about whether Hillary will drop out of the election in the next little while, and I'm kinda torn about it actually. Part of me wants to be able to stop paying attention to this piece of things and get ready for the, "Rev. Wright is an agent of voodoo who has that Muslim operative Osama Obama preparing his subversive plan to destroy Amurrikah ", advertisements the RNC will throw out there. The other part of me wants to chant "let them play" like the kindly Houstonians watching the Bad News Bears at the Astrodome and let Mz. Clinton battle it out at the convention floor. Dan Rather would have to let the crotch out in his pants if that were the case, (as revolting a thought as that might be).

Speaking of news guy crotch, I saw Garrick Utley's ballsack once. That was pretty grody.

Nuts aside and as mentioned yesterday I firmly believe the Dems will fuck this whole thing up somehow, so the end result in how the nomination goes won't matter either way.

Thus ends the thoughts for the day on boogers and balls. I need to get back to work.

Snacks

2008-05-06T09:14:00.002-05:00

My dog just ate a bee out of midair. Tasty.

This beautiful morning has not been fun so far, hopefully the day will be more fun as it progresses. The car is in the shop and peoples that are important peoples are upset with me, alas! Still all in all, I have it better today than that bee. He's fucked, (and being digested). Poor bee, the world hardly knew ye.

$66.00 to fill up my tank yesterday, thanks George Bush!!

Today legions of voters head to the polls to help choose the nominee that will inexplicably find a way to lose to John McCain in November, thus cementing the Democrats as the must superb bunch of lunkhead campaign failures in modern history. It's not like they just can't hit a meat pitch, they can't even accidentally knock the ball off a t-ball stand.

This Gutter Twins album is the balls.

Looking forward to some rocking and rolling tonight.

Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo which for many is a cause for great booze filled celebration, for me it brings back painful memories of burning flesh, bags of frozen peas and the longest drive home in history. Vaya Con Dios Cinco de Mayo, I have to say I won't be sorry to see you go for another year.

I had a very weird dream last night, the kind you wake up from and look around yon surroundings to see if it really happened. As I have no sand in my toes nor the sound of waves crashing in my ears I guess I can sadly assume that I have not actually moved to the beach. Oh well, let's see what the Sandman brings me this evening, maybe he'll move me to New York City and I can be superbly fashionable in more conducive surroundings than where I currently reside.

I have to go to Georgia next week, that's always a bit of a culture shock. Last time I was there some Bret Michael's lookalike wanted to hug me at the bar, as he was absolutely devastated by the untimely demise of Heath Ledger and needed some bro consolation. I liked the Patriot and all too but jeez dude, we don't really need to hug it out in public.

I picked Dandelions with the wee one yesterday, that was good for the heart and mind. Simple pleasures, but the best kind of them.

Enough randomness, time to grease the wheels of Capitalism and let the pooch out to further pare down the already dwindling bee population.

ARF!!!

Grace

2008-04-29T10:02:00.002-05:00

I went to a funeral on Friday to be there for two very dear friends of mine, who had lost someone they loved very much somewhat unexpectedly. I've been to a lot of services like that, too many, (I guess one is too many but my scorecard is fuller than most people my age), and have spoken at a few. It's never easy but it can be healing and important to do for one's heart and soul.

I'm not a church going type, I've made my views on organized religion clear as glass over the years, but I was impressed by the service, particularly the homily. The Priest was very genuine, he was very honest, and what he said resonated with me in regards to some of the things I have gone through myself over the last couple of years. Things like the difficulty of forgiveness, the ease of sliding into despair and anger, and the general frailty of the human condition, all of those things were easy for me to recognize and I did take comfort and insight from listening to him. Will it send me back to church, doubtful, but for that moment in time I was glad to be where I was.

Both of my friend's got up to speak and reminisce and I was intensely proud of them. They spoke with love and fondness, and of course sadness but they didn't canonize their lost one. They celebrated his humanity and the things that made him unique, both in strength and weakness, with honest words. That kind of honesty can be hard to come by when you are saying goodbye to someone that you love but ultimately it is the most loving and caring tribute you can give, to tell the world that you valued them so highly despite their faults, despite their weaknesses, despite everything, you loved them unconditionally.

So to my friends, I'm proud of you and I love you dearly. You are remarkable and I am truly blessed to have the kind of love you showed at the service given to me, as you always have and as I will always give back to you.

You're the best.

Weird Day

2008-04-17T22:35:00.002-05:00

Today was definitely a weird day, just plain weird. To get into it would be to do it a disservice. Ah well, life has those in spades it seems. It ended well though and I am almost giddy, hence my frenetic tippy tapping on yon keyboard well into the night.

On the thoughts of the day, to the someone out there, please be well, be happy, be awesome. You know who you are.

Tomorrow though will not be weird, but quite spectacular.

The band doth returneth at Iota in Arlington Vee Aaa tomorrow night. I'm jazzed, good God I might even wear leather, (in honor of Leather Tuscadero, an object of my boyhood adoration from Happy Days...please to be referencing Suzi Quatro for more info).

Rock it fools, foolishly and with great joy. I will.

The Pharmacy Prophets return like MacArthur, (sans wet pants and corn cob pipe)
April 18, 2008
@Iota
2832 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA
w/ furious Philito Rossi and the Hypersonic Secret

Dig it like the dude in traffic next to you digs for gold in hist nostrils.

Get It On

2008-04-04T10:11:00.000-05:00

Dig It.

Rubber band or band of rubbers?

2008-04-02T20:21:00.001-05:00

It's kind of funny that after I reposted the seven stages of the bad gig stuff yesterday that I spent this morning crafting the email blastarama to pimp our show coming up on the 18th, (at Iota….what?!?!?). There are some distinct differences between me and the shaved apes that were the subject of my story though.

1 - Our show will be totally awesome.
2 - Iota doesn't serve pizza.
3 - Our guitarist looks like Jesus and doesn't spike his hair,
4 - I'm not a delusional egomaniacal lead singer.

Ok, I'll let you strike numero cuatro but you have to roll with me on the top three.

It's been good to have the band fired back up after a year off. That was kind of stupid to do that, to shut down, but it just sort of happened and was necessary at the time with everybody's lives having different levels of kookiness, (mostly me), and big changes, (the other dorks), occupying their time. Lot of shit can settle in a year though so we're back on solid ground. The songs sound good, the hair is still fucking beyond fabulous, general sexiness abounds. It's going to be good to get it on again in the live show woah woah sort of way.

It's also the week of the anniversary of one of the greatest events in the history of mankind, a seminal blessing of sorts that not only made the world ultimately a better place but changed the way mankind perceived his place in the universe. I am of course talking about my birthday. Leonardo da Vinci's as well, so it's just custom made for intellectual badasses.

Of course it's also the day that Abe Lincoln died and the Titanic sank. And income tax day.

Fuck it, let's drink.

Seven Stages of the Bad Gig - Redux

2008-04-01T14:10:00.005-05:00

I posted this a few years ago, (damn.....I'm old), and though it's kind of lame to reuse your own content I wanted to share it with the Bitty, as it will strike very close to home.

For you then Bitty.

Warning, all in one post this shit is pretty long. But as it's brilliant, who fucking cares?

Seven Stages of the bad gig or the delusional idiot’s roadmap to the logical conclusion

A very few bands get to play lots of great gigs, some bands before their inevitable destruction can latch onto a couple to talk up for the next twenty years but for the vast majority the great gigs never come. These are the serfs that toil, that clog the inboxes of the world, that harass the telephone and guilt trip causal acquaintances in ways that would make the "for only 13 cents a day you can save this child" commercial producers proud. These are they that play on the Tuesday, on the floor, at the pizza parlor for no money and half-price beer. They are the players of the shitty gigs and lord, they are many.

Somebody’s gotta play them right? Say there are 8 decent to really good places for a local rock and roll band to play in a given area. You figure two bands a night on the weekends which leads to 32 decent to good gigs a week. Now in any given town there are going to be hundreds of bands looking to rock out and those 32 slots are gonna go quickly. Those that do get the good slots they stop appreciating them because musicians are unappreciative assholes with delusional senses of entitlement that get fed to beastly proportions upon even the slightest glimmer of attention from anyone outside the band. Every other band is dying to get to the point where they can be the assholes with the good gigs and for most it’s a pipe dream because A) they suck B) they’re on the verge of breaking up whether they know it or not and C) they’re not friends with the people who book the clubs (how else do you think the shitty bands you are forced to listen to on a Saturday night get the good gigs in the first place?)

Being that musicians can talk themselves into anything to avoid the reality that no one gives a flying fuck about their band there is a pattern of behavior that leads up to the shitty gig and the inevitable hellishness of the performance.

I call this the Seven Stages of the Bad Gig.

Stage 1 - The book:
Part of the band awesomeness formation process is the singer telling all his new best friends about his amazing connections and how they will be totally hooked up with awesome shows once the band has written their (the singer’s) awesome songs. After the band has written a few of these magnum opuses and declared themselves primed to unleash themselves on a breathlessly waiting world the singer starts making phone calls to his guaranteed hook-ups. Twenty minutes later after getting completely rebuffed by every one of his "totally good buds" he starts calling the clubs to book his own goddamn shows what the fuck does he need those asshole’s shitty bands for anyway goddamit!!!! Upon getting ignored by the better clubs, the not-so-good clubs, and the "promoters" that promote wikkid rawk showz when they are off-duty from being line cooks at the Golden Corral buffet the singer calls every restaurant in town that is, for whatever reason, willing to move a table out of the way to allow bands to play. The restaurants, almost always pizza parlors, usually have bands play on Tuesdays and Thursdays as weekends are prime soccer party time for the pizza industry. They might support the rock but they ain’t crazy enough to miss the soccer crowd!!!! The singer asks for a Thursday (just as good as a weekend really) and is told he can have a Tuesday five weeks from now. He takes it.

Stage 2 – The layout:
The singer calls the rest of the band with the good news about the show. It will be awesome. He gets pissed when the band is mysteriously wondering how the promised Saturday night headlining show at Club Bass Player Is Sure To Get His Dick Sucked has morphed into a set on a Tuesday at Joe’s Suds and Pies. The singer is understandably miffed by this obvious attempt to take away the credit he is due by jealous dicks that don’t know shit about the music industry and he starts to pout really really hard. The rest of the band feels his pain and talks themselves into the fact that this is the gig they wanted all along and all their friends totally like to drink up and party like freaks on Tuesdays instead of the weekend anyway and boy howdy Joe’s is going to get rocked to the ground. The singer, now justified in his excellence, takes this as a mandate to boss everyone around and assigns tasks for promoting the fuck out of this rock and roll event.

Stage 3 – Developing the marketing strategy
When throwing down at a major rock event it is imperative that the masses who will drop everything including giving birth to be there know what the dillio is. This being the case upon directive from the singer the marketing machine gets gassed up and ready to roll. While the band surely deserves to get on the radio, TV, porn soundtrack, etc., promotion activities that do not involve harassing friends, co-workers, causal acquaintances, employees at the mall and the band’s parents are zilch. It’s common fact that bands as awesome as every band on earth playing on Tuesdays should not be required to proactively contact the media in any way shape or form to promote their kickass shows and it is squarely the fault of Clear Channel and those corporate whores at the local record store that don’t support the scene that there isn’t the justifiably deserved story with picture on the front page of the paper for this major rock event. It’s tough, you can’t fight the man, especially when he doesn’t even know you exist so the band turns to their fanbase…mom dad and anyone unlucky enough to have given a member their phone number or email address. The strategy is clear, you just gotta keep on telling your fans just how bad they want to rock……no matter how much they might protest otherwise.

Stage 4 – The ‘sup doode?
As spam filters become more advanced and thus band mailing lists culled from casual encounters and stealing the contents of the "win a free meal" goldfish bowl at the local Pizza Hut are rendered more and more worthless it is the direct contact that the "fans" get from the band. This happens by a series of communiqués starting with email, then instant messenger, then the phone call.

Email from band member to fan – Hey man, wanted to give you and the crew a heads up that we’re jamming out on (date) at (place). This show is going to kick MAJOR ASS!!! Would be fucking KICK FUCKING ASS for you to come out and rock out with your cock out!!!! ROFLMFAO!!!! THERE WILL BE TONS OF PUSSY THERE BRO!!!!!
Email reply – Shaun, this is my work address man, thanks a lot for getting me chewed out by my boss for writing that dumb stuff about your stupid band you retard.

IM exchange from band member to fan –
BassPlayaz2112 – doode, sorry about that shit with your work addy man.
BassPlayaz2112 – seriously bro, this shit is going to rock
(1234kittyface is typing)
BassPlayaz2112 – you’re going to be there right?
BassPlayaz2112 – I’ll see if I can get you on the guestlist…..
BassPlayaz2112 – the place is cool man
(1234kittyface is typing)
BassPlayaz2112 – I can see you typing bro….you writing a book or something.
BassPlayaz2112 – So can we meet up so I can give you some flyers to hand
1234kittyface has signed off

Phone Message from band member to fan – "Hey doode, I tried to call you 8 or 9 times but you never answer your damn phone!!!! Anyway bro, see you at the show man, call me back and I’ll give you the deetz!!! PEACE!!!!!!"

At this point this string of contact has taken place with approximately 158 people. Of the 158, four have committed to being there and the other two band member’s parents are either playing bridge or will be out of town but really wish they could come!!!

Stage 5 – The prep and primp
It is the day of the gig and the harassing has hit maximum overdrive. Cell phones across the region are being turned off, scads of terrible flyers are in a big stack being ignored at Tower records and the band members are performing their pre-gig rituals.

Singer – Has trekked to Marshall’s to buy a new gig shirt. This is very important to the success of the rockfest as we all know that no one has ever made it big in rock and roll in an old t-shirt. The singer is very conscious of his diet all day and spends a lot of time sucking his stomach in and out to harden it up. He considers going for a run to open up the pipes but talks himself out of it. He is nervous and irritable all day and guilt trips everyone he knows about coming to the show. He is a basket case in six dollar sunglasses.

Guitarist(s) – Doesn’t bother to change the strings on his guitar or clean the electrical connections on his amp but does go to CVS to buy some new SuperSpike hair gel. The six-string slinger(s) spends an inordinate amount of time walking back and forth between his gig bag and his amp doing nothing but touching the amp lightly and picking up and putting down the gig bag while zipping and unzipping it about 723 times. Seven hours before load-in time for the gig he puts his gear in the ride and goes to Target to get a gig shirt of his own. The rock garment will be of the shiny polyester bowling shirt variety, usually black with a flame design or skull or some such nonsense on it, (the design signifies to anyone and everyone that this hombre’ is not to be messed with and is no doubt part of a forceful and dangerous rock and roll outfit). After leaving Target he makes the holy trek to Guitar Center where he futzes about, tries to engage the counter clerk in conversation about his "gig" later that night and buys the following –
45 guitar picks
New strap with badass design on it
Tuning fork
Guitar pick holder for mike stand
Two guitar stands
New cable
What he does not buy –
9 volt battery
This will come back to bite him in the ass.

After leaving Guitar Center he goes through the McDonald’s drive-thru and buys a super size value meal. The butterflies in his stomach go to work and by gig time el Mariachi will have a volcanic case of the shits complete with paint-peeling farts. Upon arriving home he gets in the shower where he washes his hair three to six times, gets out and cleans up his goatee and starts to go to work on his hair. As there is rock to be brought at a level of ten he uses ten times the regular and required amount of hair gel to work on his rock ‘do. The results leave him with a goopy mop on top of his head that will just not spike correctly no matter what twists and hand machinations he tries. Sensing disaster and with a tweak of panic he rubs a towel all over his head to straighten things out. This has the effect of making him look like Bozo so he starts matting down the bombsite with handfuls of water. In the end he looks about as rock and roll as the red stapler guy from Office Space on bowling night and his hair looks like someone poured a bucket of Elmer’s glue on it.

The bassist – Gets home from work, goes to his room, masturbates and goes to sleep. After he wakes up he slips on his Tevas and heads out to the gig. He has never broken a string on his bass before and sees no reason to put new ones on for the show, really what are the chances that a string would break for the first time EVER during this excellent rock event? More future ass biting will happen based on this foolish faith in a kind and merciful God. God hates delusional musicians; everyone should know that by now.

The drummer – Can barely function on a normal day and this one has him especially keyed up and irritated. A flare-up at the work has caused him to not only not eat all day but to stay late. He gets stuck in traffic and does not have time to change or shower before the show. This sucks. The lord of Rhythm Nation heads to the big gig in a polo shirt and Savane Active slacks with uncomfortable shoes on. He was born to rock but tonight feels like an abortion. Pounding as hard as he can on the steering wheel he gets angrier and angrier when the singer calls every three minutes asking him where the fuck he is. By the time he hits the pizza parlor parking lot he is ready to chew nails, breathe fire and shit mountain lions.

The band has arrived and now the shit is on.

Stage Six -
The band has arrived at the pizza parlor and has a hasty and edgy conversation in the parking lot about the gig. The singer is pissed because the drummer was supposed to be at the show for load-in at 6:00 for the show that starts at 10:00. Being that it is now almost 7:00 things are off schedule and the strain of the unknown is starting to crack the cool demeanor of the band of rock badasses. Following a stern admonishment about "focus" and "getting our shit together" from the singer the band shuffles into the pizza parlor and are greeted with the same words Bono probably gets when arriving at the venues U2 plays – "Table for four?"

The singer is suddenly gripped by a wave of panic that coalesces in a tight ball of heat that centers at the top of the back of his thighs and radiates up through his balls and into the pit of his stomach. "How can they not know we’re the band?" And then the crack in the façade is born, the first focused look at the slob in the Tevas and the dork in slacks and especially the glue-headed feeb in the bowling shirt. "What have I gotten myself into? What the fuck is the matter with these assholes….they’re going to ruin my career!!!!" He stands silently while the bass player tells the maitre’d that they are indeed there to rock and asks where they should set up. Obviously the place is psyched for the rock but you wouldn’t know it by the look of puzzlement on the face of the menu distributor who yells to his boss, "HEY JOE ARE WE HAVING A BAND TONIGHT?????" With an affirmation from afar he nods at the band and points towards the west end of the dining room, "That’s where you play but you can’t bring anything in until we stop serving dinner."

Uh-oh

Total and absolute panic envelops the singer. The rest of the band however feels a sense of relief and goes to the bar where they are treated to half price draft beers. They start drinking….and drinking….and drinking. Beer quickly turns to manly drinks like Appletinis and rum and cokes and time and sobriety start to slip away from the minstrels. The singer sitting glumly by himself watching TV gets up and frets…."we’re never going to get set up in time, what the fuck…..look at these jerkoffs….I have to do everything……." Deciding to take what matters he can into his own hands he walks out to the parking lot and looks at the cars. Then he opens his trunk, unzips his gig bag, fumbles around in it for a bit and comes back inside. He asks the guitarist, "can I take a look at the setlists?" and gets a blank drunken stare in return.

Uh-oh numero dos.

Singer - "Dude….I specifically asked you to print off four copies of the set-list that we worked up at practice the other night….did you forget to print them or forget to bring them?" Guitarist – "uhhhhhhh……….what difference does it make? " Singer – "IT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD. IF YOU FORGOT TO BRING THEM YOU’RE JUST STUPID IF YOU DIDN’T PRINT THEM WE HAVE A MAJOR COMMITMENT TO THIS BAND PROBLEM…"
Guitarist (lying) – "Chill dude…..I uh, man I forgot them on the counter. But I totally printed them man. Look, I’ll write up new ones while we’re waiting."
Singer – "This is fucked man….really fucked…"
Exit singer to the other side of the bar to huff impressively.
So the guitarist bereft of any writing utensil or parchment upon which to scrawl asks the barkeep for what he needs. The bartender, reluctant to turn over his only pen to a sticky headed tenpin refugee gives old six-strings a couple of unused dinner checks and the grease pencil the restaurant uses to figure out table assignments for the waiters. The band minus the singer put their heads together desperately trying to remember not only the order but what songs they were going to play. "dude we were going to open with ‘Rain Falls’….what does he call the dunt da dunt dunt da song…..uhhh, I think ‘Plush’ was supposed to go fourth….I know we close with "Foolish Hearts"…." Twenty minutes later there are four setlists written in smudged and barely legilble black grease, all four are different.

At 9:15 the final pie has been served and the last spumonti delivered and it is time to load-in and get the rock on the road. The band carries in their stuff bumbling drunkenly to and fro and sets things down in exactly the opposite order of what makes the most sense for getting ready in a timely manner. As this is going on several co-workers of the singers have come in and he sets out to do his #1 job, schmoozing the crowd. This irks the band who is carrying in the equipment and trying to figure out how to hook up the antiquated and woefully underpowered P.A. system that the busboy pulled out from behind the wetmop in the dish room. There is one P.A. speaker and no monitors, two radio shack microphones, three microphone stands in various states of bustedness, one very dirty and beaten power-strip and no extension cords. The area where the band is to rock the fuck out is in front of a window, on the way to the bathroom and has a single electrical outlet in the corner.

At 9:55 the singer has come over to ascertain what the hell is going on with the band. He turns on the P.A. and a horrific buzzing sound comes through the single speaker. Everyone stands around looking at each other. The singer unplugs the speaker cable and plugs it back in, recreating the noise. He goes through this exercise several times. The busboy comes over and sets the P.A. up correctly and walks off muttering in Spanish, most likely about how he wishes it was he who was about to take the stage (floor) and live the dream….the ROCK!!!! The singer runs over to his co-workers who are putting their jackets on and assures them that the show is going to start. He skips back over to the band and glares at them really, really, really hard and says "WE NEED TO PLAY….NOW!!!!!." The band, drunk and woefully unprepared to start playing scurry to and fro and trip over their guitar cases and microphone cables. Somehow, someway they have their guitars on and plugged in. The amps are on and the guitarist says, "just one sec and let me tune up," He steps on his tuner to turn it on and……………
Nothing happens. The battery is dead and while he is flush with guitar picks, guitar magazines, bandanas for wiping off his axe and other unnecessary accoutrements neither he nor his band of fellows have the one thing that can make more difference in the shitty show than anything else, a functioning tuner. He decides to use his awesome ear and sense of internal pitch to tune up the old fashioned way and plink-plunks his way up and down the neck. Satisfied…..the bass player tunes to him string by string. The drummer is thudding away on his snare drum and the singer is gripping his mic stand. The band has arrived, they are plugged in and ready to go.

Oh God.

Stage Seven – this is the end, my non-existent friends

And with a One…Two…Three….Four….from the drummer shaky hands grip guitar picks in a Kung-Fu death pinch, knees knock and hearts palpitate. There is a micro-second of peace in the air and then.......BUYWHONNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!

A dissonant rattle comprised of vibrations from a snare drum and cymbals and severely out of tune and way too loud guitar and bass notes bouncing off the highly sheened wood paneling on the other side of the room fills the room. The few people in attendance are stunned, they don’t know what to do so they look at the floor, the ceiling, the cigarette machine, their beers…….anywhere but at the band. Should it sound like this? Shouldn’t the band stop and fix whatever the fuck is going on in the name of sweet baby Jesus before we all go deaf?!?!?!?!
To the credit of P.T. Barnum’s eternally damned soul stopping would not be an option even if the band had any idea how insane and horridly atrocious they sounded. The show, no matter how retarded, must go on. This is why musicians drink so much, alcohol helps them cope with facts by enveloping their brains and auditory senses in a haze of thickly applied bullshit. It’s not that they don’t care that it doesn’t sound good; they have no idea that it doesn’t so they keep pounding away. The band has been playing for six seconds before the guitarist turns up his amp.
Now it is time for the star of the show, the VOICE of the band to be introduced to the "fans" that are blinking uncontrollably with every hit of the snare drum and trying desperately to avoid eye contact with any of the band. The singer’s stomach is squarely in his soft palette as he steps up to the mic, closes his eyes, accidentally lets loose a fart and zaps the fucking shit out of himself when he opens his mouth and his spittle hitting the ungrounded microphones completes a circuit that sends electrical current across his lips and into his metal dental fillings.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH……fuck….."

Plunk. Enter the feedback…….

Being out of tune and microphone feedback truly comprises the soundtrack of our lives for the shitty gig musician. It doesn’t matter what the band’s style or makeup it always sounds the same….the same cacophonous death rattle of the patron saint of melody and goodness. It happens all the time but the look of panic, of guilt and of utter and complete lack of control dawns anew on the faces of the bands that it happens to. The band chugs on for a full minute and seems to be getting things under control until.....

CLAAAAAAAAAAAANNGGGGGGGGGGGGGg………..

Someone dropped a tray in the dishroom. People laugh. This can’t be happening.
So the singer decides to make up for the hiccups with severe rocking out. There are several variations of the shitty gig rock move but all pretty much make the mover look like a guy having a seizure and dropping a big load in his drawers at the same time. He shimmies, he shakes, he finger points and he makes little kissy faces at the microphone to avoid touching it and electrocuting himself.

Mercifully the first song ends and the spirit of Diamond David Lee Roth is invoked by for the bazillionth time by the bazillionth unimaginative and wholly unprepared front-man. In response to the half-hearted and almost frightened clapping and the single "whoo" mercifully uttered by the bass players cousin the singer replies –
"WELL ALRIGHT…..HELLO (town)….YOU READY TO ROCK TONIGHT…YOU KNOW (band) IS!!!! AIN’T THAT RIGHT???? (band looks up in confusion. Guitarist smiles like a village idiot and hoists his cup for a toast, catches it on his guitar strap and spills beer all over his gig shirt. (Shit.)

The band tries in vain to tune their instruments for three of the longest minutes of the singer’s life. He glares, he shrugs playfully at the 12 people left in attendance, he tells jokes, and eventually he starts to mumble. Finally with a painfully loud DUNT DWANT DUNT from the guitarist’s guitar the band is ready to re-launch into the rock universe.

Song number two, just as out-of-tune as song number 1. The band plays on and the singer pussyfoots around and things are getting better all the time. Three people sneak out with a half-hearted wave while pointing at their watches. This is a classic shitty gig maneuver that seems to be part of the human genetic imprint as it is replicated in every town in the civilized world where assholes can buy guitars and someone sells pizza.

Songs three – six are terrible but unremarkable. Average time between the start and stop of a song is 93 seconds. Nothing happens during these horrendous soul-destroying lapses in the rocking except a lot of foot shuffling and staring.

Song seven – Rocking away..in the groove….DUN DA DUN DA DUN POINK!!! da diddle diddle poot poot poot….. Something has gone wrong. Houston, we have a problem! There is a hole in the sound and the singer has the look of a crazed animal. He glares at the guitarist and the drummer but they look dopily confused and innocent and then he turns to the bass player. Mouth agape he is looking at his axe and the limp string hanging off of it. He has broken his A-String, he is butt confused and has tried to transpose what he plays on the broken string and move over to non-broken ones. He has failed miserably. The song limps to a merciful end.

Singer - "We’re gonna take a quick break (four people bolt for the door) so we can take care of an equipment issue…be right back….."

The drummer and guitarist sprint to the bar. There are five people looking miserable and the night is a disaster. The singer is pissed, pissed at his band, pissed at the P.A., pissed at the inventor of the calendar system that made Tuesday’s suck and pissed at God. The one person he is not pissed at is himself because after all, he’s awesome. The bass plalyer is kneeling by his amp but not changing the string, ten minutes has passed and the night is going downhill. The owner of the pizza parlor is resigned to this shittiness and grumbles in the background. The singer asks the bass player "what the fuck is going on man…?" "I don’t have any extra strings."

Poof goes the last vestiges of coherence for the frontman. This is the last straw. He storms out of the pizza parlor and starts dialing people on his cell phone to vent his outrage and frustration. Of course they are all avoiding him as it is gig day so he leaves a lot of …"sup dude, just wondering if you’re coming by…." guilt trips on people who don’t even like him that much anyway.

Going back inside he finds the band huddled by the drumkit. The bass player assures him that the gig can go on. He can manage, he is a pro. They shuffle back to the mics and start playing songs with no emotion, energy or thought. It is the march of the damned and blissfully no one is left to hear it that isn’t on the Joe’s Pizza payroll. The band plays on…and on and on and on and on until 12:15. The owner says, "you can wrap it up whenever" and they do. The amps are turned off, the cords wrapped up, the band is drunk, the singer is heartbroken.

The tab is rung up and the cover charge is added. For the privilege of rocking to 12 people for 76 minutes the band owes the pizza parlor $83.55. The singer pays it on his debit card and the band promises to settle up with him at practice. This will never…EVER…happen. The band loads their gear, smokes cigarettes in the parking lot and talks about how it wasn’t that bad and this song and that song sounded kick-ass and "practice on Thursday??? Yeah..yeah….sure…" and the cycle repeats itself.

For there is as much hope and ego as there are Tuesdays in the future and the idiocy is as thick in the music world as the sheen of grease on the pizza parlor bar. Yeah, they’re retards but they’re retards with purpose and guitars. So check your caller ID and watch the fuck out because like the Stone Temple Pilots said, "HERE THEY COME THEY COME THEY COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Popeye

2008-04-01T13:27:00.006-05:00

Sometimes a casual cocktail can derail into full scale debauchery, which is just a lovely thing when the mood hits right, as.demonstrated by the photos right here. I mean you can make the best plans but meeting a dude that looks like Popeye is always just going to be a random occurence in the universe.

Pix courtesy of the Bitty.

Oh yeah, nice to see you again.

Midlife Crisis

2007-12-04T15:04:00.000-05:00

The Good, the Bad, the Apocalypse

2007-07-20T12:19:00.000-05:00

Bush to Have Colonoscopy at Camp David

While it's comforting to learn that Bush will finally take it in the ass instead of having the rest of the world do so on his behalf, knowing that Cheney will have the keys to the gun closet for even a little bit is terrifying.

Oh well, it was a reasonably nice run for humanity.

Back To Mystery City

2007-07-18T08:30:00.000-05:00

Hello......

Well it's been some time since I had something to say, or rather the wherewithal to say it in this forum. Suffice to say about a year ago my life started blowing up rather dramatically in my beautiful face and I went into remission from the outside world trying to figure all that out.

But I am back now, and dammit I look pretty good.

So as part of my life reclamation project I'm going to commit myself to posting on a regular basis. I have a bunch more mover profiles running around my head, band dude bullshit to write about, and of course a year's worth of monumental stupidity by our electorate to ponder. That is all to come but for now I will start with a simple poem -

I know a guy
He is like a lemon rind eaten by a syphilitic weasel
And then pooped out on the sidewalk
And then the lemon poop rind is stepped on by a crack whore
Who is then hired by a one armed leper with goopy eyes
Who licks her lemon poop feet
And then the leper eats a raw onion
And drinks sour milk
And sits down next to you on the subway
And his breath wafting into your face
That's this guy
Lemon weasel shit leper crack whore onion sour milk breath tinged with herpes and syphilis guy

If you see him feel free to send my regards, preferably with a bat to the mouth.

Nice to be back with you all!

In Dallas I Gave My Heart To A Killer

2007-02-19T17:05:00.000-05:00

If bullets were bottles
My chamber is loaded
And all I need is the company of the gun
If hearts were like bottles
My floor would be littered
And I know that I’ve broken some

Now I've gotta get back to Memphis Church
To make a promise to my son

If bottles were buildings
My city is empty
Save for shadows running from the light
If bottles were people
I would never be lonely
But empty people are what got me in this fight

Now I gotta get back to Memphis Church
To keep a promise to my son

And I gotta get out of Dallas
Because I know that something’s wrong
I locked the doors in sixty three
And I haven’t seen my son

If bottles were bullets
My chambers are emptied
All I have now is the smoke trailing from the gun
And if hearts were like bottles
My floor would be littered
And I know that I’ve broken one

Now I gotta get back to Memphis Church
So I can see my son my only son

And I gotta get out of Dallas
Because I know that something’s wrong
I locked the doors in sixty three
And I haven’t seen my son

If bullets were bottles
My chamber is empty

And thus begins Fantome'

Murder

2007-01-18T10:46:00.000-05:00

There is a murder of crows outside of my window.

They act with definite purpose, the scraps that they are looking for are the singular act they need to survive. They live, they fly, they eat, they generate more crows, they exist to simply exist. The crows have no sense of confusion or ambiguity, they have none of the conditions that plague the human heart. They are simply crows and that is all they will ever be.

There is a murder of crows outside of my window.

Sometimes I wish I could join them.

That's better.

2006-12-30T17:37:00.000-05:00

Rocka Rolla

I have no idea what these labels are all about so I just put some stuff in that seems relevant.

Friday Friday Friday, (next Friday the 12th anyway)

2006-12-30T17:30:00.000-05:00

We're coming out of hibernation and playing at Iota on January 12th. Lots of new stuff from the big Fantome' project. I'll post up a flyer pic as soon as blogger stops huffing wang.

Crime Fighting

2006-12-08T12:19:00.000-05:00

So there's these little bastards that drive around our neighborhood on weekends running their car through piles of leaf bags that have been put on the curb, exploding them and sending megatons of leafs all over the place. When I did the exact same thing in this exact same neighborhood years back, it was of course, hysterical but now I want the perps put to a painfull death.

I was driving home from the chiropractor a little bit ago and these two redneck dudes who live a block away had an old stove out on the curb and were piling leaf bags all around and on top of it. I stopped to say hey and asked what they were doing.

Dude 1 - "It's for them little fuckers that drive through the leaf bags.
Dude 2 - "This'll fucking teach em' a lesson."
Dude 1 - "It's filled with cinder blocks and paint cans."
Both Dudes - "Heh heh heh heh heh heh."
Me - "You dudes should get a medal for your service to the community."
Dude 1 - "Rather get a bag of weed!"
Me - "I hear ya, later dudes!"

I'm heading back out in a bit for a four beer lunch and to survey their handiwork.

Dear bums

2006-11-08T10:21:00.000-05:00

Get the fuck out. I'm exhausted from watching this shit all night but it's worth it. If flat-top out in Montana can pull this off it all comes down to the final and well deserved rebuke and humiliation of George Felix Allen. That dick. Have fun being known as the guy who lost the Senate for the rest of your life.

Damn I would love to be able to read Bush's mind right now.

Oh wait, I can!!!

"........................beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep......................................."

And now a word from our sponsor!

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

--Thomas Jefferson, 1798, after the passage of the Sedition Act.

Thanks for the memories

2006-10-18T09:50:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I got an email from a family member, forwarded along by and to who knows how many others which said in the subject line, "VOTED AGAINST ENGLISH IN AMERICA!!!!!"

Uh-oh.

The text is copied and pasted below -

WHAT A SHAME

38 SENATORS VOTED TODAY AGAINST MAKING ENGLISH THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF AMERICA.

HERE THEY ARE, ALL 38 WHO VOTED AGAINST ENGLISH IN AMERICA ARE DEMOCRATS.

Akaka (D-HI), Bayh (D-IN), Biden (D-DE), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-C A), Cantwell (D-WA), Clinton (D-NY), Dayton (D-MN), Dodd (D-CT), Domenici ( D -NM), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Harkin (D-IA), Inouye (D-HI), Jeffords (I-VT), Kennedy (D-MA), Kerry (D-MA), Kohl (D-WI), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Lieberman (D-CT), Menendez (D-NJ), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Obama (D-IL), Reed (D-RI), Reid (D-NV), Salazar (D-CO), Sarbanes (D-MD), Schumer (D-NY), Stabenow (D-MI), Wyden (D-OR)

REMEMBER THIS THE DAY YOU VOTE. PLEASE PASS THIS ON

So I sat there reading this and thought, "I should for the good of familial relations and happy smiles at Thanksgiving just give this a pass." But being that my own best interests never seem to rate high on my priority list I got pissed off and started thinking further about the person who sent this to me, a person that while I love has never done a good goddamn thing for themselves and has taken whatever handout has been proferred possible. I got mad, did some reading to make sure my facts were at least pretty close to accurate, and responded thusly. Should make for some good times round the turkey!!

Dear *unnamed family member*

I deleted anyone I don't know from your distro from this insanely long response but this kind of stuff just drives me crazy, (hence the length...and accompanying insanity).

The issue that the email refers to was not a simple “Let’s make all people in America speak English”, (which in and of itself is wildly counter-productive from a social, educational and fiscal level), at all. In fact that had so little it was almost nothing to do with it. So bear with me if you want to and apologies for the length but hey, what else do I have to do but talk politics at 8:30 in the morning.

First off, this vote took place in April. Congress is now in recess. No one is voting on anything until after the November elections.

Second and most importantly the vote was whether or not to continue floor debate on a comprehensive immigration reform bill, sponsored by John McCain and Ted Kennedy, (strange bedfellows indeed!!). The bill had been sheperded through committee proceedings by Arlen Specter a Republican Senator from Pennsylvania. The bill passed through committee with bipartisan support but when it hit the Senate floor, 435 Amendments were added to it. 435 with many of them being nothing but earmarks, or pork, that had little to do with immigration reform and NOTHING to do with mandating English as a National language. To break the impasse and pass a pork laden piece of crap bill the Senate would need a 2/3 majority vote.

The 38 Senators referenced blocked that majority, this was the vote in question, and sent the bill back to committee where, it was amended closer to it's orignal form and passed by the Senate several weeks later.

The newly passed bill was then taken to a caucus with the House of Representatives who had their own bill which focused solely on border enforcement. The President had said he would not sign a bill that did not include comprehensive reform (the Senate Bill was more like that type). In caucus our spirited majority lawmakers were supposed to work together on a compromise bill that would pass muster with the White House but it simply died due to an inability to compromise.

Like almost everything else with this Congress, it never saw the light of day again once the news started focusing on who killed Jon Benet and/or Natalee Holloway instead of immigration as the hot point of the day. The closest we got to immigration reform was a bill tossed to the White House right before the recess to build, but not fund (that probably sounds familiar to those who have dealt with "No Child Left Behind") a 700 mile section of fence along our 2,300 mile southern border.

If you want to hear more about it watch Lou Dobbs on CNN, he talks about it seemingly 24 hours a day.

So if you want me to remember something about 38 those Democrats, I will. They made a deal with John McCain on a bill, passed it through the proper channels with Republican leadership at the helm and when it hit the Senate floor and was turned into a pet project money vacuum they kept the now completely fiscally absurd bill from being railroaded through the Senate. I will remember them for that.

The rest is long winded political venting so read it at your leisure, (or peril!)

There are some other things I'm going to remember come election day.

I'm going to remember that in the last six months Tom Delay, Bob Ney, Duke Cunningham and Mark Foley have been so disgraced and/or found guilty in a court of law that they had to leave their seats in Congress with Duke and Ney heading to prison. Curt Weldon, you're next up to bat.

I'm going to remember Jack Abramoff buying members of Congress and people given the public trust like David Safavian, (pleaded guilty too!), the government's chief procurement officer, and defrauding constituents, American taxpayers, to the tune of millions of dollars.

I’m going to remember that just yesterday a bill was signed into law that undermines the basic tenets of Habeas Corpus, (innocent until proven guilty) not just for gun-slinging terrorists but for anyone the Office of the President decides to label an enemy combatant or who “provides material support” to such. What does that mean? Right, it’s up to the President at his whim. You know anyone with family in Northern Ireland that could have inadvertently donated money to a front organization for the I.R.A.? See you in Guantanamo Bay. Think that sounds crazy, it is. But as of today it’s entirely legal for the President to punch that ticket with no formal charges brought.

I’m going to remember the unending stream of lies that have come from the people who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, not their stranglehold on political power.

I'm going to remember the Senate calling a special session so they could attempt to walk all over the Constitutional rights to privacy between a man and his brain dead wife. I'm going to remember the majority leader of the Senate, Bill Frist M.D., saying that he could make a definitive medical diagnosis that Terry Schiavo had cognitive thought and should be kept on a feeding tube against her husband’s wishes after watching three minutes of videotape and trying to ram through illegal legislation to make that happen. I'll also remember Frist's silence when her autopsy revealed that her brain was more than 50% water and the only sensation it could possibly register is the most primal, pain.

I’m going to remember that those self-same rights to privacy are the ones so adamantly "defended" against gay marriage by way of the Defense of Marriage Act. That act makes it unlawful to pay pensions to survivors of Federal employees in these circumstances; Under federal law, pensions can be denied only to lawmakers' same-sex partners and to people convicted of espionage or treason. Nice.

I'm going to remember Hurricane Katrina and the fact that they're still pulling bodies out of houses in New Orleans and coastal Mississippi. I'm going to remember what a heck of a job Brownie was doing.

I'm going to remember the absolute betrayal of our public education system by the Federal Government with the passage of "No Child Left Behind" and the cutting of funds to support it. Anyone who is up in arms about government mandated English and a one size fits all Nation and then needs a government funded special needs program for their child, watch out, you might get the kind of government you're voting for. Oh wait, you already have it!!!

I'm going to remember Ted Stevens, Republican Senior Senator from Alaska, blowing a gasket when he was questioned about an earmark to build a $212,000,000 bridge to the 50 (yeah 5 and 0) residents of Gravina, Alaska to connect them to the bustling metropolis of Ketchikan, Alaska. Right now they have to take a ferry that only runs only every 15 MINUTES!!!! HORRORS!!!! That $212,000,000 is approximately 30 (yeah 3 and 0) times the budget that was just halved for brain injury research at the Veteran's Administration. "Honestly, they would have loved to have funded it, but there were just so many priorities," says Jenny Manley, spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee, "They didn't have any flexibility in such a tight fiscal year."

I'm going to remember that our "this is unacceptable" foreign policy has led the "Axis of Evil" into a full scale Sectarian civil war, (Iraq), thumb nosing and continued development of a nuclear program and vastly more influence in the greater Middle East than they could have ever dreamed of (Iran), and oh yeah, the detonation of a nuclear bomb last week and a declaration of War yesterday, (that would be North Korea). I'm going to remember that after six years in office with a same party control of Congress, Bush still blames these things on Bill Clinton and, at times, his own father.

I'm going to remember that we still can't seem to find Bin Laden.

I'm going to remember the innocent Americans that were murdered on 9-11 and how their deaths have been bastardized and used for political gain. You can reference Ohio Republican Senator Mike DeWine's campaign ad where his staff photoshopped smoke coming out of the South Tower of the WTC for dramatic effect, because the real pictures just weren't dramatic enough. It was pretty easy to spot it as a stock photo as the North Tower, the one that was hit first, wasn’t smoking at all and the position of the sun placed the shot at about 4:00 in the afternoon. In March.

I'm going to remember how Americans that served this country in combat like Jack Murtha (37-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps, Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts), Jim Webb, (rifle platoon and company commander with the Fifth Marine Regiment in the An Hoa Basin west of Danang; was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star Medal, two Bronze Star Medals, and two Purple Hearts and has a son serving in the Marines in Iraq), Patrick Murphy (Bronze Star in Iraq, JAG), and lost limbs like Tammy Duckworth (Iraq, lost both her legs) and Max Cleeland (Captain, U.S. Army 1965-68; Silver Star & Bronze Star, lost three limbs), have had their patriotism and courage called into question by people like Dick Cheney (five Vietnam deferments for "other priorities"), Jean Schmidt (unadaulterated idiot...there's really no other way I can more clearly put it when she called Jack Murtha a coward from the floor of the House and then later said, "oh I didn't know he had been a Marine for 37 YEARS...my bad yo) and Senator George Allen (Vietnam deferment, some of that time spent working an internship as a "buckaroo" on a dude ranch during the draft period...you don't believe me look it up.), when they had the “audacity” to call B.S. on the Iraq policy. My favorite though was Tom Delay saying why he didn't volunteer for service in Vietnam, "So many minority youths had volunteered ... that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself." Right.

I'm going to remember how less than one month before this election we had an official White House commemoration of the sixth anniversary of the bombing of the USS COLE. Sad though, that we never had one for years 1-5. I guess they were too busy.

I'm going to remember that if the Johns Hopkins study that was released last week and the low end estimates are only half right Iraq has lost over 1% of its total civilian population since 2003 to violence. That percentage would, as of today, translate to 3,000,000 American lives. This violence was referred to as “a comma in the history books”, by our President last week.

I'm especially going to remember that as of today we have lost 2,761 Americans in a war built on ineptitude at best and nothing but a pack of lies at worst, a war that has cost over $300,000,000,000 of our tax dollars and has no end in sight.

Mostly I'm going to remember to vote.

More Ted

2006-10-11T10:15:00.000-05:00

In the interest of fairness I just read the official Allen rebuttal to the latest Webb ad. Now I realize that Ted Stevens was head of the Appropriations Cmte. at the time in question so his name is all over this kind of spending stuff but still, I was almost, (almost), shocked that Allen would reference Stevens in any sort of way.

From the Allen rebuttal, (explaining his no vote), about not funding body armor via the bill sponsored by Chris Dodd:

Sen. Ted Stevens, WWII Veteran, on the amendment. "What Senator Dodd's amendment does, though, is it adds money to accounts we have already plused up, and it takes it from money to bring the troops home. He has attacked the exact wrong part of the bill." (Congressional Record, October 2, 2003)

Can anyone with a smidge of brain function put any faith in the ramblings of Ted Stevens especially surrounding fiscal responsibility in regards to Govt. spending? Senator Stevens has lorded over a committee that has decimated funding for things like brain injury research and long-term care at the V.A. I guess in his mind tough choices have to be made because of "more important " priorities (my emphasis added) in spending bills.

First and foremost #1 issue to deal with is the fact that the 50 residents of Gravina, Alaska have been denied their rights as Americans by way of not having a $212,000,000 bridge built to connect them (as earmarked and demanded for by one Ted Stevens) to the bustling metropolis of Ketchikan, Alaska. Right now they have to take a ferry that only runs only every 15 MINUTES!!!! HORRORS!!!!

So if George Allen wants to hitch his cart to Ted Stevens and ADMIT IT he must be even more brazen, shallow or stupid than I thought, (if that's possible).
And one more thing on Sen. Stevens' quote, isn't the mere suggestion of wanting to bring troops home suggesting we "cut and run" thus emboldening the terrorist thugs and killers that want us to be destroyed and more scarily allow homosexuals shared property rights?????

Sigh...............

Saddle up Buckaroo, it's time for George Allen's Hoedown!!!

2006-10-04T10:17:00.000-05:00

According to the Devil worshipping liberal elite mainstream media (probably lying.....in the service of Satan) Mark Foley donated $2,000 to George Allen's campaign. I did some research and found that If he put it towards attending George Allen's Hoedown! him and three friends could have been "Buckaroos"!!!! For another $500 he could have been a "COW BOSS!!!!"

I wonder if he's still invited? Do they serve non-alcoholic beverages to the Buckaroos and El Ranchero Grande's at a Hoedown? I assume so since they're all so down with those traditional Christian values and moral terpitude. Early to bed and early to rise and all that....

Maf54 (7:46:33 PM): did any girl give you a haand job this weekend

Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:38 PM): lol no

Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:40 PM): im single right now

Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:57 PM): my last gf and i broke up a few weeks agi

Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): are you

Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): good so your getting horny

Xxxxxxxxx (7:47:29 PM): lol…a bit

Maf54 (7:48:00 PM): did you spank it this weekend yourself

Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:04 PM): no

Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:16 PM): been too tired and too busy

Maf54 (7:48:33 PM): wow…

Maf54 (7:48:34 PM): i am never to busy haha

Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:51 PM): haha

Maf54 (7:50:02 PM): or tired..helps me sleep

Don't forget to say your prayers!!!!!!

Junk mail

2006-10-03T16:32:00.000-05:00

"Hastert told CNN Monday that he does not recall being told by Reynolds about the e-mails between Foley and the Louisiana teen, although he did not dispute that the conversation may have happened. "If he did, he brought it in with a whole stack of things," the speaker said.

Yeah I can see that......

"Hey Tom what'cha got.....lesse yeah bills, bills, hmm menu for a new Chinese place...probably illegals but if the Kung Pao is good who's countin' right???, junk, Tsunami relief...yeah right!, bills, ooooooh the new Maxim, "CHERYL BLOCK ME OFF SOME MEDITATION TIME ON MY CALENDAR FOR THIS AFTERNOON...FIVE MINUTES WILL DO.........AND MAKE SURE THERE'S TISSUES IN MY OFFICE AND UHHHHH HAND LOTION FOR.......UHHHH.........THE CONSITUENTS OR....OR FOR FRIST WHEN HE COMES BY...HE'S GOT DRY SKIN Y'KNOW"...., bills, junk, bills, bills, one of my party members is probably a kid toucher, bills......NEWSWEEK WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?!??!?!?, bills, goddamn another thing from those Delay brats.....how much fucking wrapping paper do I have to buy from that bastard's spawn before he'll tear up the goddamn pictures, bills, phone book, junk mail, bills, bills..........that's it? A'ight let's go hit the bar and make fun of some homosexuals!!!"

All in a day's work I guess.

Now with Disclaimer! - I'm George Allen and I think you're a bunch of stupid assholes

2006-10-03T09:26:00.000-05:00

Good lord, do I really have to do this. The posting below is satirical in nature and is intended solely to make fun of Senator George Allen's alleged racism and definitive poor governance of of Old Virginny. The statements in parenthses (those are the smiley face mouths) have been inserted as commentary that, in a perverse world, might have run through the Senator's mind while reading his ninnyish statement last night. I'm sorry if this was hard for some to understand and I find it baffling what with all our awesome improvements in the schools and all.

I'm a racist. THAT is fucking funny.

Now on to the show..............................................

"Good evening (white people) I'm George Allen, (check it out, I'm so white this Jack-O-Lantern standing next to me calls me Clorox). For more than a decade with Susan by my side, (keep grinning baby, the morphine will kick in ANY second now), I've had the honor of serving you, (well, serving you a load of bullshit but hey, you get what you pay for!); as Governor, (YAY!) and now (for now) in the United States Senate. (or as I like to call it the REAL White House).

"Virginians, (like me…sorta), expect to hear us (who?), address the real issues you care about, (NASCAR, the big value menu at Taco Bell and whether Tom Cruise is really a godless homo….oh, and tits). Over the past several weeks that hasn't been the case (thanks a lot Macaca and you fucking no sense of humor internet nerds). Some of this (OK, OK) I've brought on myself, (by not having that little asshole's shit kicked in the parking lot like I should have). But (I said but…hee hee hee) the negative personal attacks (did I tell you Webb eats babies at his gay Satanic altar..just saying..) and baseless allegations (ALLIGATORS!) have also pulled us away from what you expect (for me to infer that there are dark skinned Boogeymen that want to eat your toothless faces off) and deserve (for me to tell you what to do).

"I'm confident (I mean, don't let the fact that I had to buy this airtime let you think otherwise) that if this Senate race (NASCAR…I LOVE NASCAR!!!) is decided on issues, (hello WHITEY!) ideas (reference my shit kicking idea above, now that was a good idea!) and my proven record of performance, (you think that grin on old Toothy McBriteWhite over here is from prescription drugs? HA!!!! I'll show you performance!) you'll allow me (like I should have to be "allowed" to do anything) to continue serving you, (phew thank JESUS I got through that one with a straight face).

"As Governor, we (I) made Virginia safer (for me) by abolishing parole for (black) violent criminals (or as I like to call it, "George Allen's Urban Improvement By Putting THOSE PEOPLE Away Program). Brought high (now we're talking!) academic standards (comparative to the Sudan our school lunches are the tits!) and resources (hot young white women) to our (your) schools (not for my kids but I mean, come on!) Reformed welfare, (Hey, they're the ones going around singing MO MONEY MO PROBLEMS so I considered it a favor!) cut taxes (farts) and recruited new, (RELATIVE TERM!) good paying (not to me but it's more than enough for you assholes) jobs (for white people in Northern Virginia).

"In the Senate, (you would not BELIEVE the vacation time) I've offered clear (clear is subjective....) plans (hey you can make plans when you're drunk so shut it) to end (sorta) our dependence (that's really unfair, I like to think of it as a civil union; not that I support that kind of thing in general....for homos.....but for the bubblin' crude it's OK for now) on Mideast oil, (rename Iraq as Allenville, take the oil, subjugate whatever natives are still around and send WHOEVER nudge nudg wink wink happens to be in our prisons over there to go buck wild. It'll be just like Australia! Who doesn't love Australia?), secure our borders (well, make a run for the border at the very least. I might be all positive White Christian gung-ho America but damn do I love me some Taco Bell), and strengthen our (my) economy by controlling spending (for you) and reducing the tax burden (for me) on families, (mine) retirees (my golfing buddies) and small business owners (hey, Korean massage parlor owners gotta eat too!).

"My National Innovation Act (HAHA!) will promote math, (DOUBLE HAHA!) science (I like this intelligent design business, it makes me feel ever more distant from the pigmentally afflicted) and technology (PS3 BAYBEE!!!) to provide our students (those little assholes) with the tools (X-BOX and elimination of interest in anything of import and the loss of general cognitive thought) they need (what I need is for this goofy freak standing next to me to turn her head, the shine from those choppers is making me look a little TOO pasty. Wait, that's not possible!! Smile on Jack!) to compete (do….not……laugh….) and succeed (…thinking bad thoughts….no smiling……remember Daddy and his whippin' stick……control control control…....)

"Since 9/11 (or as I call it, Free Ticket Tuesday) we've (who, me?) taken steps to protect our homeland. (Sure, they were all in the wrong direction but I like to think of it as more like a walkabout than a journey with an actual destination). But like many of you, (Mark Moseley and Jack here) I'm concerned by the war in Iraq. (that I need to continue until I get this whole Allenville idea fleshed out). I want our (white) troops to come home as soon as possible (ASAP = right before November, 2008 except for Webb's kid, he can pound sand and take his goofy ass dad with him). And I want them to come home in victory (because victory means parades and parades means horsey rides) - not defeat. (I have never seen a defeat parade)

They (them) - and their families (not mine!) - have made great sacrifices (as great as, y'know, those kind of people can make) for our (my financial) security. They understand the consequences of failure. (but who gives a shit? I'm riding horsies in parades ((see above)) and knocking back suds with Diron Talbert. Y'know what I say and how I roll, out of sight and out of mind is OUTTA SITE AND DY-NO-MITE!!!!!!!) Leaving Iraq (wasn't that a Sheryl Crow song, I love Sheryl Crow, she's like a dirty safe little minx) as a safe haven for terrorists (we built it we own it mofo) will leave America (and Allenville) less secure (to white people). And that's a risk we cannot afford.(which is why I want to send another $180,000,000,000 over there to build a democracy…………and Allenville).

"In the weeks ahead, it's my hope to have an invigorating debate worthy of our rich history. (if by 'have an invigorating debate' you mean find 'pictures of Jim Webb barebacking a pack of Cub Scouts').

"I'm George Allen (MY DAD COACHED THE REDSKINS!!!!) and I approve this message because I believe (that all of you rednecks are fucking idiots that will line my pockets as long as I keep scaring you with the blacks and homos) in Virginia (rednecks)... I believe in our (white) people (see aforementioned position on idiots and pocket lining) and most importantly (aside from getting Jack another armload of dope before she opens that maw and starts babbling about my special Wizard costume)... I believe (HAHA!!!) in our (my financial) future together (with white people)"

What is the matter with you liberal sickos?

2006-10-02T10:51:00.000-05:00

You people and your left wing agenda just make me all volcanic inside. Seriously, why do you hate America? Why do you hate freedom? It's the yammering flip-floppers like you that embolden the terrorists and make us less free to live our lives the way that we're told to!!! You lay out your "facts" and I say HOGWASH!!!!!!!!

For one I'm happy to see how well our "we need to go kick SOMEBODY'S ass" Toby Keith theme song foreign policy is working out. It's great to see another $70,000,000,000 going over towards Iraq, seeing that we have no problems here that we could have used that cash for. Money and lives well spent seeing how the Iraqis are really putting up that U.S.A. loving steadfast government and wicked awesome military, the people are docile, waving the stars and stripes and wishing they were us and the oil is flowing Westward quicker than you can say, "let's go marginalize some homosexuals!!!"

On top of that the Taliban has been totally dismantled and Iran, North Korea and Syria, (Axis of Evil...HA!!! ...more like AXIS OF PUSSIES YO!!!!!!), have been shown their place and have totally capitulated to what we want them to do. Man, you stack up that with the sweeping demopcratic and social reforms made in the rest of the Middle East and I totally feel like things are going great.

Now that we've taken care of the ragheads we can get to taking out the Germans for bombing Pearl Harbor!!! Who's with me? After that we can deal with the real threats to our country like gay marriage, the teaching of evolution, hair gel on airplanes and the wanton slaughter of adorable little frozen embryos that could lead to advances in (stem cell research) HUMAN ANIMAL HYBRID MUTANTS!!!!!!

First and foremost #1 issue to deal iwth though is the fact that the 50 residents of a Gravina Alaska have been denied their rights as Americans by way of not having a $212,000,000 bridge to connect them to the bustling Alaskan metropolis of Ketchikan, Alaska. Right now they have to take a ferry that only runs every 15 MINUTES!!!!

AMERICANS CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MR. PRESIDENT....BUILD THAT BRIDGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tell you friends, every day I take inspiration from my elected representatives and thank baby Jesus that they are in power and telling me what to do and just want the finger wagging naysayers to shut it and get on with loving America!!! Why would you think these folks don't know better than you what's right? Just today I ruminated on this epistle from (right thinking) Mark Foley, (R), from Florida, talking about keeping our kids safe -

"I have said repeatedly that in this country we track library books better than we do sex offenders." - Mark Foley

If I had a son I would totally like him to go to the beach with a guy like Mark Foley and learn some hard, yet strangely tender, life lessons.

So in conclusion I say get with the program and stop hating freedom!!!

Has anyone seen my Lee Greenwood CD?

My new BFFL, Tom

2006-09-14T15:13:00.000-05:00

I don't really need to elaborate for comedic payoff, just follow the link.

http://www.webbforsenate.org/blog/node/147#comment-312

U MAH BOO TOM BFFL LOLLERCOASTER I WUNNA MURRY U FO RILL!!!!!!!!!!

Showdown at the Hoedown

2006-09-12T10:22:00.000-05:00

Despite my best intentions to the contrary I find myself getting more and more aroused (huyah!) by the political landscape a-forming around the November elections.

Now being a lifelong Virginian of course my interests gravitate to the contest for Senate here in the Old Dominion, a slugfest between Jim Webb and George Felix Allen. It is with hope, hope that I thought had been beaten out of me by the ineptitude of John Kerry's campaign and the general stupidity and laziness of the populace in the 2004 go-around, that I begrudgingly affix bumper stickers to my hooptie. Worse I'm even thinking of opening my wallet yet again to try and secure a win for Slim Jim Webb, (not really slim at all but it's a cool rhyme).

Granted, I would vote for any of the random dumbshits at the local idiot's bar rather than Felix. That's just on general principle and a grape jelly dollop sized smear of common sense, (not to mention the gut instinct that if I met him in person my asshole radar would blow off the charts). But after much reading and watching Slim Jim has actually peaked my interest as a Pol who might not be 100% loathsome and could do some good as a Senator. Being that all we can seem to talk about these days is the war on Terruh and such I'll make my case for Jimbo focused on that. If anybody wants to tout the merits of either Jim or Felix on other topics feel free to comment away but as to the gunslinging this is where I'm coming from.

I come from (told you I was coming) a military family. Me beloved Poppa was slogging in Vietnam on the blessed day of my birth by chance, and I have a certain level of respect in the knowledge and opinions of those that served. I believe by virtue of having lived through something it gives one a certain level of insight into the realities of the circumstance than someone who hasn't. Not just in war or military matters in general but in pretty much all things. Simply, folks that have been "there" in just about any circumstance know more about what "there" is all about than those who never were. For instance I think I know more about playing bass, driving trucks, moving furniture, getting hit in the head with a Budweiser longneck, having a super hot wife, being short, raising kids and having awesome hair than those who have never experienced such things. I couldn't tell you with any level of confidence what it's like to fix a car, build a bridge, fight a war, be married to a hag, dunk a basketball, play a good guitar solo or be the fatassed scion of a Redskins coach born into privilege and living life as a stupid asshole because I've never done any of those things.

So I look at Slim Jim's resume' and thinks to myself, "hmmm….this looks pretty tight for the job of figuring out how to get the holy hell out of Iraq, avoid a whole scale world war and generally not be stupid."

At the Naval Academy he was a four-year member of the Brigade Honor Committee and a varsity boxer.
In l968 he chose a commission in the Marine Corps, and was one of 18 in his class of 841 to receive the Superintendent's Commendation for outstanding leadership contributions while a midshipman.
First in his class of 243 at the Marine Corps Officer's Basic School in Quantico, Virginia.
Served with the Fifth Marine Regiment in Vietnam, where as a rifle platoon and company he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star Medal, two Bronze Star Medals, and two Purple Hearts.
Served as a platoon commander and as an instructor in tactics and weapons at Marine Corps Officer Candidates School.
Member of the Secretary of the Navy's immediate staff, before leaving the Marine Corps in 1972.
Attended Georgetown University Law Center receiving his J.D. in l975.
Won the Horan award for excellence in legal writing,
Authored his first book; Micronesia and U.S. Pacific Strategy
Worked in Asia as a consultant to the Governor of Guam, conducting a study of U.S. military land needs in Asia, and their impact on Guam's political future.
Has written six best-selling novels and literature at the Naval Academy as their first visiting writer.
Won an Emmy for his PBS coverage of the U.S. Marines in Beirut
Served in the U.S. Congress as counsel to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs from 1977 to 198l.
In 1984 he was appointed the inaugural Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, working with NATO.
Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan
Resigned as Naval Secretary in 1988 after refusing to agree to a reduction of the Navy's force structure during congressionally-mandated budget cutting.
He was a Fall 1992 Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics.
Webb's original story “Rules of Engagement”, which he also executive-produced, was released in April 2000 and starred Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson.
His fifth novel The Emperor's General was purchased by Paramount pictures as the largest book-to-film deal of 1998.
His book Born Fighting, which is his first commercial non-fiction effort, was published in October 2004 by Broadway Books.
Awards include the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal, the Medal of Honor Society's Patriot Award, the American Legion National Commander's Public Service Award, the VFW's Media Service Award, the Marine Corps League's Military Order of the Iron Mike Award, the John Russell Leader-ship Award, and the Robert L. Denig Distinguished Service Award.

(I copied and pasted the above with fluff removal editing from his campaign website)

So I look at that and think, "that jonx is pretty tight yo Webb is lyk BFFL wif SOLDIERZ". (to borrow form the vernacular of today's potential young voters).

Now to be fair I will take a look at George Allen's resume, also copied and edited, with fairness in mind, from his website -

Attended the University of Virginia, earning his undergraduate degree in history before going on to earn his law degree.
While a student at Uva was named state Chairman of Young Virginians for Reagan.
Opened his own law practice in an historic Charlottesville building that he restored himself.
Served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1983 to 1991.
Won a special election in 1991 to represent the Seventh District in the United States House of Representatives.
In 1993, was elected Virginia’s 67th Governor, receiving more votes than any other candidate for Governor before or since.
In 2000 elected to serve in the United States Senate.
Member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
In 2002 elected to serve as Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee

So from what I can tell you can either have a guy who knows a metric assload about war, warring, fighting, all things related to war, is literate, has had a pretty wide range of life experiences and has served in the both the military and Federal Government, (and was appointed by Reagan of all things to whom Allen has pledged unwavering devotion and willingness to give up the bung), or some guy who's a career politician and if taken at his word is a decent handyman.

I think I'll support the former. If nothing else Jim kicks it with Samuel Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones so we're on the tip when it comes to dealing with airborne snakes and escaped fugitives.

If you need just one more piece of supporting evidence as to why George should be run out of the state on a rail check out this site (with thanks as always to Wonkette and the Dceiver for the heads up), for the details on his "Hoedown."

https://www.donationreport.com/init/controller/ProcessEntryCmd?key=T7C5H7S0C0

Seriously, what's 10 Large when you get to wear the mantle of "Ranchero Grande"

All in all things are just fine.......

2006-09-08T14:48:00.000-05:00

I came across this picture today and just felt all happy about life.

She's quite the best that there could possibly be.

Have a jolly weekend.

Ali Baba is coming to town

2006-09-08T11:04:00.000-05:00

Ali Baba is coming down from NYC tonight to punish my liver and possibly break my new microwave that replaced the microwave he previously murdered.

If you would like to see for yourself why I both love and cower in fear of my friendly neighborhood force of nature come to the show tomorrow. You won't have a problem figuring out who he is, I promise.

He's the one on the left, covered in gore.

Good vs. Evil and Ali Baba to boot

2006-09-05T11:18:00.000-05:00

And yea the time of peace hath run its course and now war is nigh upon the land of Fairfax…………

This Saturday ye olde Pharmacy Prophets are rocking and rolling, (for the last time till the cold days of December mind you), at TT Reynolds in Fairfax.

While every show is an earth shattering pelvic destruction machine this one has a special quality of menace and mirth to it. Y'see for both those that know and those that don't (yeah right, like those of you who live on the moon!), we used to have this big bald tattooed guitarist named Wesley in the band. Sure he acts like a big softie but in his soul he is an agent of Satan much like Steve Vai in Crossroads.

Being pure of heart the Prophetitos parted ways with Skinhead McSouleater sometime back and he went to ply his malevolence with a band called Honeychuck. Meanwhile we added our own Ralph Macchio, (to keep the Crossroads parable consistent), on the electric twanger box in the form of one Trey Ponish who is so angelic that he even looks like Jesus!

I guess with all of the hoopla going on across the planet that a final showdown of good (that's us) versus evil (that's Honeychuck), was inevitable. So it's all coming to a head on Saturday. Basically the two of them will go at it and determine through guitar histrionics which way the sun is going to rise from here on out.

Personally I think it's about time, not knowing what spiritual force has ultimate dominion over all of creation leads to confusion amongst the masses and that's never a good thing for those of us who are kicking it on a higher level of consciousness and power.

So if you want to find out firsthand who you shall have to swear fealty to and not just catch the highlights through visions and images on pieces of buttered toast get out to TT's and see it all go down for yourself. While I can't promise the outcome I'm pretty sure that the lightning bolts, archangels, demons, blistering guitar solos and shots of whiskey turning to blood before your eyes are going to be worth the price of admission.

I know Trey's up for the challenge. At practice last night he was slapping around a sock puppet with a "Hello Kitty" guitar drawn on it and muttering something about being Wesley Ringo's huckleberry.
Guitarists are weird, that's why I concentrate on singing and having great hair.

Saturday, September 9th at TT Reynolds
10414 Main Street - Fairfax, VA
The Pharmacy Prophets save the universe from evil
w/ Honeychuck and Random Access
Five Bucks
Shirts, shoes and souls required

Well

2006-08-30T14:15:00.000-05:00

Sometimes in the course of human events there comes a time for a reckoning and for me the reckoning is nigh………………

I've just been blah on the blog, blah on the column, actually blah on everything about the band other than writing which I have been 100% non-blah about.

And so I think about things and why I'm just not fired up about most anything. I find myself wanting to do not much more than wile away time in a bar and obsess about the rock opera and smoke too many cigarettes and just generally be a middle aged degenerate motherfucker. It's a pattern that I have cut many times in the past, a malaise that portends something awesome soon to come, whether awesomely good or bad is always the rubber.

But I know it's coming.

So many of all y'all stop by here on a day to day basis, thousands actually but I don't give you shit to ingest and you don't give me shit to gag over. It's really quite voyueristic and I find myself feeling guilty of not providing more titillating action through the shades. But really, what is there to say? I went and saw another shitty local band, the President is a fucking dimwit, gee my hair smells teriffic? It's not that I don't want to write but how do you make compelling what's on your mind when what is really on it is lyrics about dead hookers and whether the new coat of stain on the fence will eventually blend with the rest of the enclosure.

And ants. I hate fucking ants. Go Terminix.

I'm hoping to get out to see a band called Lejuene' tomorrow night at the Black Cat. That would be good for the soul.

Several shows to catch this weekend as well, tomorrow night I'll hit the State Theatre, Iota and Fat Tuesday's on my local yokel appreciation tour.

Whee!

Happy Birthday!

2006-08-22T16:26:00.000-05:00

"If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence." - Charles Bukowski

Happy birthday to Charles Bukowski and thanks to the Dceiver for reminding Information Leafblower who reminded me by way of reading his blog that it was Hank's big day.

Even though he's dead.

The Factotum movie looks awful but Barfly was awful too and I've seen that about 97 times.

So I'll check out Factotum.

MACACA!

2006-08-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

First off, what is a Macaca? Is it really a French Tunisian racial slur? If so George Allen's madre' being French Tunisian would make that just bad, cest, noi?

Is a Macaca as has been reported a sub-species of monkey? Or are we really to believe Allen's camp that it's a euphemism for mohawk, (yesterday) or go with today's explanation, "I don't know what it meant when I said it three times."

Secondly and in more indirect terms how does an asshole like George Allen Jr. get to spend his whole life NOT getting his can kicked up and down the block for just generally being a douchebag? If I were a redneck Frito Bandito like certain friends of mine who actually grew up on and around horsies I would find his whole urban cowboy get-up and associated routine he's sporting insulting considering he was a rich elitist prick since birth. Somehow I don't think he tended too many fences out at Redskins park when he was growing up.

And on that note, doesn't this whole wannabe a cowboy (R.I.P Joe C.), business have some whiff of a dirty Oedipal diaper to it, what with his pappy being the coach of the Redskins and the fomentor of the Skins/Cowboys rivalry back in lil' Georgies formative years? I can just hear crazy old George Sr., now..........."YOU MAKE ME SICK, YOU'LL NEVER BE A MAN LIKE DIRON TALBERT YOU PASTY FACED DOUGHBOY SASSYPANTS!!!! NOW TAKE OFF THAT RIDICULOUS LONE RANGER COSTUME AND DO SOME SIT-UPS!!!! GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY YOU MAKE THAT WEIRD SLEEPYEYED MUMBLING GORE KID DOWN THE ROAD LOOK POSITIVELY DYNAMIC. YOU WANT A HORSIE?!??!?!?! HOW ABOUT I GIVE YOU A HORSE COLLAR TACKLE AND KNOCK SOME SENSE INTO YOUR BIG SOFT HEAD?? HOW ON EARTH COULD A LION OF A MAN LIKE MEHAVE SIRED A LAMB SUCH AS YOU, YOU IN YOUR SILLY BOOTS AND WATERBRAINED WESTERN SHIRT!!!! I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD WISH MR. COOKE'S BRATS ON ANYONE BUT LORD DELIVER THEM TO MY DOOR IF THEY'RE THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE TO YOU!!!!"

......storms away....

George Jr., sniffling - "why I'll show you alright, I will be a cowboy when I grow up I will...."

Anyway and in third place; does it speak well of the media when they breathlessly break down the fact that the Macaca in question doesn't have a mohawk, rather he sports a mullet?

Fourthly does the level of complete idiocy shown by a sitting Senator in a state with an exploding immigrant population saying, "Welcome to America and the real State of Virginia", to someone of non-white origin, the only one in the crowd and the "Macaca" in question, entitle him to ride in a special bus to Capitol Hill? Does he put Redskins stickers on his special edition protective kevlar ten gallon hockey helmet in honor of his old man? And this fool is seriously being considered a contender to be the President? Allah have mercy on us all! I guess he can't be any stupider than what we have now, not with a shown ability to breathe on his own.

Fifthly, does anyone else think Joe Lieberman always looks like he just got woken out of a binge drinking induced coma-sleep?

Yours truly,

Liberal elitist tree-hugging socialist supporter of gays burning flags at their wedding ceremonies

Bring it on you facist prog-rocking animals!

Fuel for thought

2006-08-11T15:11:00.000-05:00

I just downed an entire box of Whoppers, half a box of Trix with questionable 1% milk, a Patio beef and bean burrito and a twice refrigerated and warmed over Miller Lite.

Watch out world, it's time for a revolution!

Pick me!

2006-08-11T14:34:00.000-05:00

I want to get the Bush shout out. You know the pointed finger smarmy dot.com CEO style "I'm giving my rich white guy propers to that piece of shit over there with the 3rd degree burn wounds" routine that he loves so much, with the boney finger point and smirk. That fucking routine never fails, its amazing.

I want to be in a situation where his handlers think it's beneficial to pull my name off a teleprompter, like he gives a flying fuck about me and say something like - "I was talking to Castor Oil the other day, he has done a lot for this country, and he said to me stay the course and that really, y'know, like it resonated, like cocaine ground into the edge of the asshole, it was really powerful, meant something, meant something to the American people…"

Then I would stand up manfully and with purpose, nod to the dope in charge and suck my own asparagus shaft on national television.

With one fist in the air…..

And the other up my ass.

I can hear Chris Matthews now, "now we're playing some hardball!!!!"

The best email ever

2006-08-01T14:31:00.000-05:00

From my buddy Jim, currently in country in Bangkok, Thailand. I have no idea what the fuck he's talking about but I think I can safely say, he had a solid night at the bars.

To wit:

This comes as an unsolicited comment from 1/2 way around the world...but.....
Yinz Guys r fags.... Both the formerly of Springfield Darth Vader and Guitar Guru and the 'gee my hair smells terrific Lou Curly Hair (take a walk on the South Side (Pgh....and the {Polish girls sing....)) with the idiot who cuts himself because he can't sing....can't recall his name but he influenced a hundred or so peoplev wearing safety pins.....
That is all from SE Asia except to quote Beeker (from the Muppets), "Memememememe."
Sincerley,
Dr. Benson Honeydue
"Dream Theater Rules......" so stick that up yur arse....

I love it.

What's better than boozing I ask you? NO-THING!!!

I didn't have the heart to tell him the name is Bunsen Honeydew, as in Bunsen Burner.

Kyp, you are so money I just can't stand to see you breathing.

2006-07-25T11:07:00.000-05:00

We keep it rough in Springfield, cut off our own damn limbs, (on purpose!), while grocery shopping and its no big deal at all!

In other news.

Last Friday I accompanied my friend Jamie down to the old stomping grounds of Clarendon, VA. We went to a bar right down the block and across the street from my old apartment ($225 a month, utilities included…guess how long ago that was?) and the offices of Kidner Transport, the moving company of Brigaddonish lore I have written about on this site a time or ten.

The bar was rocking a beach theme, it's called Mama Quan's Tiki Bar I do believe, and was packed to the gills with all manner of people I would love to see dead. They did nothing to me per se to deserve a deathwish but it's just their manner and energy that makes me hate them, hate them with an insane passion that unnerves me. Perhaps it's the nasty eye-cocked staredown that you have to endure with these fucking idjits whenever you want to take a step forward, maybe it's the mating call of a pasty white kid yelling, "YO DAWG THAT GURRRL IS MUNNNNEY FO RILL SON!!!!!", (see visual aid at top left, the bomb is a beautiful wish on my part and was not an actual part of the occurences of the evening at hand). Perhaps it's the clothes or maybe all three.

Most likely it's the entire package.

Whatever the formula for my ire, I would like to see them all gathered together in a pasture, say lure them in with a free Mister Greengenes concert so it's like Woodstock for dumbasses, and drop a daisycutter onto the beer bong tent in the center of the field. The ground littered with limbs and sandals, ill-fitting tube tops and cottage cheese legs shimmering with fake tanning spray, would bring the world closer to back to center. How come none of these nitwits ever get the urge to throw themselves into the meat saw? Life is so unfair.

I don't question where they come from (or accordingly why our college graduates are still fucking stupid after getting diplomas). I just find it stunning that anyone would willingly, repeatedly and worse excitedly join that herd. What am I not getting? Do I somehow miss the Siren like allure of pot-bellied loudmouthed harridans waxing poetic about how krunked they got at Dewey Beach and what a slut whoever isn't standing in front of them at the moment is? Do they somehow bark an inviting melody from their spittle flecked and Hecht's procured lip gloss covered mouths that my ears aren't attenuated to receiving?

Perhaps my neurons aren't firing correctly that I can't get jazzed about rolling with a posse of roundheaded chronic masturbaters that cop their vernacular from the Sports Junkies and think they're badasses when they crank up Nelly at the stoplight, (as long as no real black people are around). Obviously there's some kind of disconnect between my view of their detestability and the world at large because one thing about them, they do gather in tremendous numbers.

I imagine that my horror of being in their company and associated blood mission to glare at them hatefully despite no discernable effect or damage to their worthless selves is akin to that of a South Korean border guard knowing there's a million damned souls just over the hill waiting for the order to charge. The guard knows that despite his best efforts there's nothing he could do to stop them once they started to mass and he has naught to do but load a magazine, pray for his children and try not to shed a manful tear.

Ok, it's probably nothing like that but still..............

Jamie says I'm just grouchy and old, (true) but even when I was young (admittedly still pretty grouchy) I despised the then version of these dildoes hopping to and fro to Young MC and the like. No wonder the country keeps getting itself into so much trouble, these are the future upper crusties spawned from the homes of the current upper crusties that are in charge of things. If they're this detestable can you imagine what is going on with the lower class!

Odds Bodkins!

Did you see Batman Begins? Maybe I'll work on concocting some sort of potion to drop in North Arlington's water supply ala the Scarecrow. It won't drive people crazy with fear, it will transport them twenty years ahead in time so their future straw-brained selves can see what fools they were as young adults and give them a chance to save themselves from reflectionary embarrassment.

Or perhaps I'll take the path of least resistance and go to a real bar where I can be assured that none of these fucking fools could ever spend more than 30 seconds and not burst into flames or get stabbed in the face with a pinball machine.

That sounds like a better option.

See you there.

Oh my

2006-07-21T15:56:00.000-05:00

The world is going to hell in a chicken bucket. The end is nigh..............

And yet Bud in a can is still magically delcious.

Lots coming next week, I've got more fire than Rove's dickpipe after contracting VD at a whorehouse for lumpy agents of Satan.

That's right baby....

You want the best, you got the best.

Andrea you are a monkey, (but not descended from one of course)

2006-07-18T15:03:00.000-05:00

My nom de plume, Max, has decided to strike up a correspondence with Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition. I'm hoping she writes back -

Dear Andrea,

I have just found your website after seeing your group mentioned in an article about those Godless wimps in congress somehow voting against defending marriage. I am so mad, I haven't been this mad since I saw the report on the news about the 14 million mexicans that you and I have to pay for. I would like to send the homosexuals and the mexicans packing back to Mexico so they can do whatever Godless perversions they want and answer for it when they try to get past Saint Peter, (like THAT will ever happen). I just don't get it with this pandering to the gay elite. Why I was going to go see Superman but I read that HollyWEIRD has decided he has to be gay too. What blasphemy, what happened to the Man of Steel? Now he is the Man of Pink Flowers!

Are we not allowed to have any right thinking values in our entertainment? My son was watching some trash called "Project Runway" the other night until I took care of that!!! He told me he wants to be a fashion designer like some pervert on there named Santino, (guess what HE is?),of all things! Lord help me and a prayer from you would certainly be appreciated.

I liked the Homosexual Urban Legends section of your website. I sent a link to my ex-wife, (don't get me started please!!!!), and her reply was certainly not fit for sharing. Why I ever married that woman I don't know but I pray for her even though it's hard. I do struggle, she got Poison Ivy all over her last year and I laughed which is not the Christian thing to do but it was so hard not to. I pray for her, I do, even though I really do hate her most of the time. Did you ever see the movie Urban Legend? It was supposed to be scary but it's not as scary as watching two perverts of the same sex blaspheming a marriage altar, AM I RIGHT!?!??!?!

I was wondering where you attend services. I go to a church in Annandale but there has been an influx of mexicans lately and I just don't like it. Some of them don't even believe Jesus was white! Can you believe that? I ask them, "Have you seen the painting of the Last Supper??!!?!?!" but they don't answer me. It's like. "HELLO DON'T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE ANY BETTER THAN A BORDER CROSSING!?!?!?!?" LOL!!!

Is that your father in the pictures on your website? He is a handsome man (but I don't want to marry him LOL!!!) and I have to say you are quite fetching. If you would like to meet for coffee or a drink after or before church someday I would love to talk to you about everything. You are a great person to talk to I can tell! So please write me back and let me know where you worship. I will be here writing letters to my Congressman and demanding why he lets perverts like Barney Frank call the shots in our Congress!

Peace through Jesus,

Max

Even if it isn't true

2006-07-06T14:53:00.000-05:00

Apparently, (according to my sources at On Tap), this incident has already been debunked, but even so, the mere concept of a bombed up David Hasslehoff demanding entrance to Wimbledon yelling, "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM...I AM THE HOFF!!!!!!!" deserves some recognition.

Those whacky British. Tidelair, a feather in your cap sir, truly.

In a finger injury/upcoming gig update we had a really not solid practice last night. I was seeping blood and associated gore from my finger, Ben had a fever and was about to pass out and Philito was preoccupied with concerns about the newly crowned Mrs. Philito's impending surgery. Best wishes to lovely Jennifer Mrs. Philito as she goes under the blade today.

It should be a great show tomorrow as awful practices usually precurse (is that a word?) good shows and vice versa.

In microburst news another tree just fell over up the street today. I guess it did the delayed death due to stress, sorta like Ken Lay. I find it kind of odd that folks feel that old Ken cheated the system by dying before getting incarcerated, but that's because I believe in Hell, not Christian bible Hell but my own special version of Hell where he had a pending reservation. The VIP list in my Hell is lengthy, even with him scratched off but there's plenty of room. Shit, there are extra special BlingHell areas reserved for folks like Swingin' Dick Cheney and that asshole from Blink-182 that started an emo band.

I forgot to report on my trip out to see some local bands the other night. I suppose it would be interesting to write about if I had actually been able to stay to see the band I came to see, (late start times the bane of my being caused me to miss them. Their guitarist said my hair looked great though so I figure the cover charge was well spent). I could write about the one opening band that I did see, (for about 106 seconds), that was so boring I felt my blood start to calcify as I watched them but I don't feel like going comatose thinking about it. I think the first band that played, (missed them too), is the band the lovely Mrs., Philito and I saw a few months ago that is fronted by a hyper-kinetic smelly hobbit. Very strange, not very good.

One notable thing about that night, as I was sitting at the bar ignoring the bands I was watching the James Spader movie, "Crash". It's not the Crash that won the Oscar, this one is about people that like to crash their cars and then screw each other. It was pretty stupid but entertaining to watch with closed captioning. At one point Spader is canoodling nude with some skanky lady and she's asking him if he wants to go down on the movie's protagonist, Elliot from Law and Order - SVU. Reading stuff on closed caption like "Do you know what his anus looks like...do you want to touch his anus....does his big car smell like penis....do you want to touch his big penis in his car" while drinking a Budweiser in a bar is pretty comical. Knowing that she's talking about James Spader having sex with Elliot Stabler just adds to the mirth factor. If only Ice-T was involved in the plot I would buy that DVD in a nano-second.

Velvet Lounge tomorrow night. Plenty of parking for your big smelly cars of penis.

Attack of the Coathangers

2006-07-05T13:07:00.000-05:00

My oldest daughter has the grace and good fortune to be a true Yankee Doodle; that is she was born on the Fourth of July. The shared birthday is the start and finish of her similarities to Ron Whatshisface from the Tom Cruise movie. Speaking of which if anyone saw the episode of, “Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, where the guy put on the Ron Whatshisface costume and pretended to be a war hero in the strip bar, that shit was funny.

Anyway, as yesterday was a Holiday and her Birthday all together we had friends and family coming over to eat our food, dirty our carpets and drink our booze in the afternoon. Around noon as I was cleaning up the yard, trimming hedges, feeding fishes and the like I looked at the grill and thought, “Hmmm, I haven’t taken the cover off that thing since October, maybe I should take a peek before having to cook food for my loved ones on it.”

Its a good thing that I did as a fucking pack of squirrels had co-opted it for a vacation home and acorn storage repository. Obviously I had to scrub away any trace of rodentia detrialis and with a scrub brush, a grimace, some industrial strength Lysol and love in my heart I went to work on that motherfucker like Superfly Snuka on the Iron Sheik. Inside, outside, the grates, the lines, the handles and finally the internal super-structure where all the grease and nastiness do creep drip by drip. It was during this juncture that I discovered something of value to pass along to you.

Y’know the silver grease deflector in the middle of the bottom of a gas grill, the shiny thing? Yeah, that son of a fucking bitch has a razor sharp edge to it, as I found out when it cleaved off the tip-top of the tip of my middle finger on the left hand. So to frame the scene, I’m covered in grease and other grill filth, bleeding profusely, the hose is running, and my plasma is ruining my socks. Not a good situation. I headed inside screaming for the Mrs. to come to my aid, “DEAREST I HAVE BEEN UNDONE, ATTEND AS YOUR HEART DOTH ORDER, ATTEND TO THY MATE!!!”, (as you can well imagine at this point I had lost a lot of blood). So down she raced and with an exclamation of either, “AVAST MY BELOVED, WHAT FOUL FATE HAS RENDERED YOUR DIGIT THUSLY, or, “Jesus Christ what have you done now”, (I can’t recall which exactly), she washed, applied pressure and a clean dressing, (Bounty paper towels wrapped with masking tape), and dispensed first-aid and a smooch to calm my nerves.

Not having the necessary supplies to staunch the bleeding we headed to Target to stock up. My finger was still layered in the homemade and very large wrapping, now turned a deep stain of red and starting to drip here and there. I got a few stares as I waltzed through Target but when you’re fabulously and magnetically attractive like I am that sort of thing is as common as needing to fart in Church so I rolled with it. We got our supplies and a chocolate bar and headed back to the Mansion on the Hill as the guests were anon.

My madre’, who is a nurse, was soon to arrive and she examined my depleted digit and declared it, “gross”, and, “pointless to go to the hospital for a stitch as there’s nothing there to stitch together.” She butterflied it up and zip, bam, bing I was at the accursed grill with a latex glove and tongs of fury. Those ribs were putty in my 9 and 6/8 hands.

My mom is a pretty cool character about injury; I guess working in an E.R. for a few years will get you that way. My Pops came rushing into the house one time claiming that he had hit an artery with a power drill, (I come by this kind of thing naturally), and she couldn’t help but laugh at the little fountain of blood spewing from his index finger. He survived. I have prepared a visual representation of our respective injuries above, I hope my finger scars up as nicely as his did.

The situation got me thinking about my family’s propensity for injury coinciding with celebrations. At my seventh birthday party my, “friend”, Gary, (who posts here occasionally), couldn’t catch me in a game of tag using conventional methods due to my catlike reflexes and explosive accelaratory capabilities so he punked out and tripped me, knee-first, into a brick used as a birdbath border. 16 stitches and several hours later I watched him break my birthday piñata while I had to sit, lock-legged and mortified, in a lawnchair. At times I can still feel the tears…DAMN YOU GARY!!!!!!!!!!! (We’ll discuss this at length as we’re vacationing together next week).

Two years later on my birthday I was trying to shave the little blobs of plastic off the bottom of a pair of G.I. Joe ski boots, (the blobs clicked into the skis which I had lost rendering the boots useless unless they were, as intended, deblobbed), with my brand spanking new Cub Scout knife. Of course I was strictly forbidden from doing dumbshit things with the knife, (like boot deblobbing), so after I sliced my thumb wide open I needed a plausible explanation for the wound that didn’t involve the knife.

To this day I still have to hear about, “the coathanger that jumped out of the closet and attacked me”. At the time it sounded better in my head than it does now, (or then to my parents who were wide-eyed at the combination of blood and stupidity pouring out in their living room). Nine stitches. End of party.

My mom broke her leg on a family trip to Colorado. I have been to the Nags Head E.R. twice on vacation and my brother once got bit by a rat and had to get rabies shots on my birthday, (he was a continent away but still, he could have called between injections).

My beauteous better half inflicted an injury on her finger very similar to my latest on New Year’s Eve a few years back, (with 40 people on the way over). On a Satanically evil and disastrous trip to Maine over a 4th of July some time ago the lovely daughter reared back to take a mighty breath, (to blow out the birthday candles y’know), and toppled backwards off a picnic bench, landing squarely on her head. That put a damper on the festivities.

I can’t wait for Christmas, maybe I’ll get shot in the face or penis.

The show on Friday should be interesting what with the gaping wound on the mandible. How will I play guitar? Will my electric twanger be awash with gore?!?!?!?

Tune in to the Velvet Lounge on Friday and see for your own damn self.

The sound of chainsaws in the morning

2006-07-03T09:54:00.000-05:00

Damn, the mansion on the hill got hit by something called a "microburst"!

We have a twisted up tree with some branches that got split right down the middle, it's pretty crazy. Lots of twigs and about a zillion or two leafs blowing twixt and hither, (not to mention yon), but compared to the neighbors we got off light.

See, Jesus really loves me best but he had to at least make a show of being impartial, hence the cosmetic damage.

Speaking of Jesus, the Flowers in the Attic gang at the top of the road who have a nativity scene up from Halloween to Easter each year got hit the hardest. Guess they need to pray more fervently.

Things are good with the band, we're playing this Friday at the luuurvely Velvet Lounge in the murderous heart of D.C. It will be the first time Saint John, (my exalted and wholly too Abercrombie and Fitch modle looking for his age older brother), will have ever seen me play in a full bandito situation. I'm looking forward to working out all my post-adolescent insecurities in that regard. Hopefully I can exorcise the pain of a million whistle or lose it titty twisters delivered by him in the formative years and move forward with a less psychically painful life.

In other news I want to murder a twitty Englishman who spends his days wearing Adidas shorts and yelling at little kids. He's a cock. I'm glad England lost to Portugal, I hope he cried like a kicked dog.

I saw "Annie" at WolfTrap last night. That's right, rock and roll motherfuckers.

It's a hard knock life indeed.

Still alive

2006-06-13T09:06:00.001-05:00

Still alive but have been very busy. I have a column in the latest On Tap if you want some histrionic ranting.

I'm completely nerding out on the World Cup. Went with some pals to a bar yesterday to watch the USA v. Czech Republic debacle and got soused accordingly. We were interviewed by Voice of America Television. I guess I wasn't being too brilliant because they talked to me for about six seconds and turned off the camera. To make matters worse they interviewed my neighbor Billy for about half an hour, he was quite eloquent for a bastard with too much TV and a redundant basement in his house.

Since last we spoke at length I have been to Vegas and Knoxville, both really really hot.

Blah.

Gotta go, Togo needs my full time and attention.

Still alive

2006-06-13T09:06:00.000-05:00

Is it that close to November?

2006-06-02T16:09:00.000-05:00

From the Washington Post -

"Bush has invited some of the nation's leading social conservatives to the Rose Garden on Monday, to cheer him on as he strongly endorses a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage."

Fucking sickening, really. I would love for him to be on the receiving end of the fear-mongering hatred for personal gain that he repeatedly foments. Asshole. Have fun in Hell you hateful little halfwit, you too Cheney. Way to be so up the ass of your own bullshit agenda that you'll smile along while your boss gets every roundheaded idiot in America to get fired up about discrimnating against your daughter.

Every one of you, every single one, should just feel gut churning guilt at your immoral moral bullshit every day of your life, but I'm sure you don't.

As I said, have fun in Hell.

Watch out for Zebra Man

2006-05-16T08:45:00.000-05:00

From El Presidente's speech last night:

"We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger, or playing on anyone's fears, or exploiting the issue of immigration for political gain."

Damn! That is so shameless that I bet it made Charlie Sheen feel all oogy inside, (a thought more terrifying than any human animal hybird could ever be!)

How can a guy who has made a career aout of scaring dumbasses to death about nothing to feed his political coffers put on semi-sad (head tilted slightly downward but eyes, full of concern, lifted up and a voice that….pauses…..for effect……when………touching……on…..a…part……..that…….has…….highlighter…on…it….) Bush face and say that shit and not instantly get torched into flames by his tin can telephone buddy Jesus Christ?

I mean c'mon, remember the great threats of the day that only he could protect us against? The aforementioned human animals, (maybe they're in Gitmo or have been squired back to the Island of Dr. Moreau by Air America), and the Godless pillagers of our friends in the land of Embyonic Stem Cell People? And please never forget the scourge that the GAYS could have laid down had they been allowed to deflower the holy sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. I mean we can't have some sissies degrading the consecrated spiritual bond of marriage that can be locked up for $29.95 (with photo) at a drive thru window in Vegas, can we? Heavens to Betsy!!!

Sure those are completely fucking stupid things to be concerned about when we happen to mired in an increasingly unwinnable war of sorts, have a broked down and back up again education system, our healthcare system is pathetic, our infant mortality rate is off the charts, we're a nation of obese sloths that get increasingly fatter and stupider by the hour and most of the world hates our guts. But thank God Almighty the guys in charge are protecting us from mutants and homosexuals! Maybe they can roll out the color coded terror threat charts that have so conveniently disappeared since Georgie got re-elected to keep us up to date on when Zebra Man has been spotted in Tonganoxie, Kansas. At least then we can think of something other than the four bucks a gallon we just had to pay for gas.

You think I'm exaggerating? Watch what happens starting in early September as we get nearer to the mid-term elections. You watch as the threat of the gays and abortion and all of that pandering fear-mongering shit comes back up. We'll be code red and get your duct tape ready with a new Bin Laden tape and great news in the war on terruh but watch out for the Iranian mushroom cloud and the fact that the two guys in the Miata not only want to get married but they want to adopt good Christian babies and raise them in a house of Sodom and for all that is Holy don't forget that we have Zebra Man in our midst!!!! It's going to happen. By Halloween we'll be under so many threats we'll need an extra hour in the morning to get our gasmasks and holy water in order.

And the Democrats who should just stand up and say, "do we have to get collectively punked as a nation again and if so can we at least get that darling Ashton Kutcher to do it?" will flounder around and say half of what BushCo says and act like imbeciles and the whole thing will start all over. It's pathetic. They could get the message across if they either talk really slow or realy really fast through a bullhorn like that jacked up freak on Extreme Home Makeover who makes me cry with his selfless devotion to others and the glorification of Sear's where all of your appliance dreams can come true. But they won't. They can't. They're so beaten down at this point that they remind me of Charlie Brown and BushCo is that bitch Lucy who keeps pulling the football away every time.

That whore.

I mean Bush, not Lucy. She's just a kid I shouldn't pick on her. Unless she's half Zebra.

Post deleted because some of you just can't fight fair.

2006-05-12T15:10:00.000-05:00

Sissies.

A fog in the brain

2006-05-08T14:28:00.000-05:00

Hey you……..two barstools down……leering out of the corner of your cloudy eye….

Some people have what is known as a magnetic personality. Whether I have one in the classic sense is up for debate but it’s indisputable that I have a predilection for attracting the attention of the most misanthropic and maniacal yahoos that frequent whatever bar I happen to be in. It seemingly knows no boundaries or datelines this attraction of mine as I have been accosted with congenial insanity from asylum escapees in joints from Central America to South Central Los Angeles. It usually goes like this……….

I’m sitting at a bar happily minding my own business when the heebie jeebies start sending a shiver up my spine. When I’m in this state I’ll casually turn my (beautiful) head to and fro and do some recon on my surroundings. It never takes long to lock in on my inevitable companion. Crazy eyed at the bar with a purpose that if put towards humanitarian purpose could knock out global warming and the scourge of Mister Spock haircut sporting Emo bands in about fifteen minutes. As it is their energy is focused towards invading my space and scaring the holy crap out of me. Maybe it’s inherent to people that have been bartenders. Go to Little Italy in Springfield and ask Alex, (bartender extraordinaire), I’m sure he has stories that will curl your curliest of hairs.

Y’see across all racial, cultural and gender boundaries there is a look that is commonplace to the mildly insane and lonely. Part manic, part desperate, part despondent but all wholly motivated the leer gives them away every time. “I’m looking to talk and that feller down yonder has just the ear that I’m looking for.” I used to go into a shrug and tuck trying to insulate myself from the madness sure to come but as I have gotten more accepting to universal law I now just meet it head on. Who am I to change the inevitable? I’m awesome and all but some things are beyond the capacity of man to effect. So I shudder, I order another, and get ready for the onslaught to come.

They come at me with an innocuous opening of “I really want to kill something today” or “Damn you have nice hair, (at least with that one I know they have SOME grasp of reality), or, ““This is some crazy shit” which is when I know I’m really in deep. From there things quickly escalate as the commander of Starship Crazyass works to find our common ground. I never really have anything in common with them but that’s beyond the point. It’s not at all about my acceptance or agreement with their bullshit, rather it’s all about their Herculean focus on what’s on their addled and scary minds and I have been pegged as the conduit for their babbling. I’m powerless to blow them off so I take it all in and how many ever hours later and walk away simply saying, “Damn.”

But in a way I love them all because they provide me with the fodder for the songs and the jibber jabber that I write about. Sure it’s painful to have a guy with no teeth rub your back and talk about how Rage Against the Machine could have used a horn section but like getting a vasectomy the long-term benefit outweighs the momentary discomfort, (from what I hear). Did you know that feral hogs are a greater threat to our well being than nuclear warfare? No? That the singer of AC/DC was second cousins with Jimmy Swaggart and they’re both Nazis? Bank it. The lunatics know all the shit that most of us are too afraid to even consider and I guess it’s up to me to spread the word. So here I am. I’m still waiting for one of them to pick up the tab though I mean does being crazy have to preclude you from being polite?

My band is playing at the Black Cat on May 22^nd. Come out and be insane, you’ll have plenty of company.

Woo Woo Woo

2006-05-07T13:04:00.000-05:00

Been pretty crazy lately, I was in Georgia most of last week and came home to have some minor but fantastically uncomfortable surgery on Friday. I'm rolling on the Vicodin right now and feeling pretty decent.

That being said...........

I'm not going to make visiting a little Indian guy and having him go after my body parts with a scalpel a Cinco de Mayo tradition.

Vicodin on the other hand, I can see that making it on to the calendar as an annual event.

Whee! I have a post in the works about the gubberment that I will get up in the next day or two. I thought it was ready to go until I saw Nancy Pelosi yammering away on Meet the Press today and my ire warrants some editing.

But for now I'm going to hit my pill bottle and dial up "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Zenda" or whatever it is for some mind blowage. I watched Anchorman under the influence yesterday and thought I was going to blow my stitches out.

"THE MAN...I HIT HIM WITH A BURRITO....HE PUNTED BAXTER...THE MAN....BLAAAAAARRRGGGHHHHHH...."

Good shit.

Take me to Pleasuretown.

Fuck you Krakken

2006-04-24T15:08:00.000-05:00

Fuck you motherfucker and your scheme to drive me insane by overflowing my toilets. You can't bring me down!!!

Son of a bitch.

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where's my owl?

Ashes to ashes dust to dust

2006-04-22T13:53:00.000-05:00

The circle of life for a band dude and a message board, in ten easy to follow steps. It's a pretty easy roadmap to destruction to follow along with.....

Step one - Hey what's up so funny glad I found this board. Check out my band can't wait to do showz... :)

Step two - OMIGOD LOL I can't believe that band got mad because someone said something about them on a message board. I would never do that what a bunch of sissies LOL!!!!! CUM 2 MY SHOW!!!!

Step three- OMIGOD THIZ IZ SO ORRZOME AN OPPORTUNITY FOR US YOU ALL HAVE TO GET BEHIND IT BEST THING EVER 4 LYF!!!! VOTE 4 US SO WE CAN REPPRIZENT!!!!! THIZ COULD GET US SIGNED!!!!! LOL, NOT THAT WE WANT TO BE ROKK STARZ LOL!!!!
WE LUV U GUYZ!!!!!

Step four - I really expected more out of you people.

Step five - It has come to my attention that certain unnamed individuals that participate in this message board have been disparaging the good name of our band. Listen here, we pour our heart(s) and soul(s) into this band and for anyone to disparage it is just out of the boundaries of
decent human behavior and possibly subject to litigation. Therefore because of your unprofessional and childish attitudees I have decided to take my username and avatar and leave. I will now 100% officially say goodbye to this board..so....goodbye. It has become unseemly and out of line with what it used to be when I was on the right side of talking shit about other bands and now that you said about me what we all used to say about those other guys my enlarged heart is filled with histrionic anger. You all are jerks and I hope you get crabs. I'm out, you won't hear from me again losers. If you want to talk about this in person I'll be at our show at Spritzer's Cue Club on Tuesday.

Step six - yeah this me surprise surprise....just got in from Spritzers .....heard some shit.....listen up bitches......kick your ass......talk shit....this "SCENE" sucks....probably need...a new drummer.....Joey sucks....and all of you can go to hell....

Step seven - OMIGOD CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ALL FELL 4 THAT LMFAOZZZZ!! IT WUZ ALL A PLUBLIZITY STUNT!!!! HA HA HA!!!

Step eight - Subject "CLEARING THE AIR"
Messages -
post edited..
post edited..
post edited..
post edited..

Step nine - IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT - WE ARE SORRY TO SAY THAT OUR SHOW AT P.F. DINGLEBERRY'S HAS BEEN CANCELLED. AFTER MUCH SOUL SEARCHING THE BAND HAS DECIDED IT IS BEST IF WE PURSUE OUR DREAMS IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS. WE KNOW YOU ARE ALL REALLY SAD AND WE'RE SORRY BUT THIS IS FOR THE BEST. WE LOVE YOU ALL. U R THE BEST FANZ EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

----THE BAND

Step ten - Dude seeks other dudes for new band. No attitudes or JOBS!!!! THIS IS SERIUZZ AND WE ARE GOING TO THE TOP!!!!! IF U R NOT LAME EMAIL OUR MANAGER.

SERIOUS INGWERRIES ONLY!!! email - hawtamy@acelawncare.com

No really....fuck me.

2006-04-18T13:41:00.000-05:00

So today life was going along swimmingly. At 2:17 I decided to take a quick shower before hopping on a 2:30 work call with plans to finish that up and then spend the finest part of the day hanging out with the kiddies and the dog and enjoying the sunshine.

I headed up to the Hef suite, (my room), and disrobed and there I was happy and naked and ready to bathe my huge muscles and glisten and smell totally delicious. The only thing left to do pre-soak was hit the flusher on the toilet, (yes I peed before showering as I am not a barbarian like some of you who yellow the shower stall...you know who you are) and wash that funk right out of my angelic locks.

Flush......whirl whirl whirl. Hmmm....Oh water God Poseidon why is the water not going away? Worse...why is it coming back towards me? Uh-oh. It appears he has unleashed the Krakken!!!

I figued I better get some plumbing supplies pronto!, (not to mention a metal owl to guide me if I could find it amongst the tools and suitcases). Now as it's a super nice day outside every door and window in the house was open wide which is great in theory but when you're au nauturel and in dire need of getting to the other end of the mansion on the hill to procure a plunger and a mop...not so good. Well, I mean, not so good for me and my sense of modesty but 100% wonderful for any random passersby who would catch a glimpse of me streaking by and think "My gosh, who knew the Sun God Apollo lived in this neighborhood?!?" Anway.........you get the beautiful if massively panicked picture.

So with no other recourse for coverage as all of the towels had been tossed to the floor to mop up the flood and I didn't have time to pick out a wardrobe I went flying down the stairs as is and procured the plunger and the mop. A-OK. On the way back up to the bathroom however I caught the mop handle on a stair causing it to jam into my armpit and spin me around, naked, into the wall which I bounced off of handily and fell flat on my face in the stairwell. That...really...really....hurt.

Cursing and in pain I stumbled up the stairs and through the living room where of course some crusty old bitch walking her dog caught me full agander as she was peering at the open door. You can have that one for free Granny but the next peek will cost you plenty.

It was now 2:19. Frenzied I stabbed at the pool of water and cursed my ineffectual mop to the lower quadrants of Hell. After realizing that I was dealing with a massively ineffective not so quicker picker upper I ran down to the linen closet for more towels. Sheets, blankets, bibs all of those were readily available but a couple of towels? No way. This was also not a great time to recall the Mrs. telling me every day for the last week that we were out of paper towels and could I keep my promise to get some. Not a great time but the memory of the request from my sweetest was boring into my brain like that slug did to Mr. Chekhov in the Wrath of Kahn. I had to make do with what I had and it looks like whoever sleeps over next will get some spanking new sheets on the guest room bed. Sigh........

Eventually I got the water under control and bundled up all the soaking shirts and tea-towels and socks and sheets and whatever else I could use and brought it all to the basement for a thorough warshin'. Passing the kitchen I saw the dog having a nice refreshing drink off the tile floor and thought, "Look at that cute dog having a nice refreshing drink on the tile floor she's so sweet and WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE DOING DRINKING OFF THE FLOOR WHEN THERE IS NO WATER CONSTRAINT DEVICE LIKE A BOWL ANYWHERE NEAR HER!?!?!??!" It seems gravity has decided to fuck me along with Poseidon and cause the flood to migrate through the bathroom floor to my kitchen cabinets and down through to the floor. So now I have toilet water soaked Uncle Ben's to go through and toss along with the dismantling of cabinetry, Cascading every kitchen utensil we own, washing the soaking wet sopper supplies, scrubbing everything to surgical sterility and hoping the dog didn't really drink any pee. All of this occurred between 2:17 and 2:32.

I got on the work call at 2:33 as no matter how flustered I was I had to take care of the business of taking care of business and the first thing anybody says is............. "Sorry I'm late, had to take a bathroom break!"

If you only knew.

I know Cheney is behind this somehow. Damn you Cheney and your foul allegiance to Posiedon and the God of Gravity!!!!!! You will not deter me from my right to happiness and fresh armpits!! I will overcome!

Right after I finish cleaning.

Good Kitty

2006-04-17T15:04:00.000-05:00

<-----Trey at Iota. Basking in the warm embrace.
<------------------------------------------------------

We just, after months if not years of scheduling problems, booked our first show at the Black Cat or as I like to call it El Gato Del Negro. I am finding this booking to be quite exciting.

Y’see when you’re in a band there are certain rooms that embrace you with more open arms than other for whatever reason and as is human nature you tend to yearn for the love of those that cast your affections away. It’s not a logical thing at all, at least for me, as there are certain rooms that I hold in middling regard that others find tremendous and rooms that I hold dear that some find odiferous. The Cat is one that I have wanted to snuggle up to since the birth of the band but no matter how I flipped my hair it just never seemed to happen until now. I have seen so many shows there they have my liver on speed dial and I even played there once in Luka Brazzi but the Prophets have never mined their gold for whatever reason and I’m really happy for the chance to swing my sledge hammer, (musically speaking). The show is on a Monday, no sweat. Is it weird to go from playing weekends to being geeked for a Monday? Not really. It's the room we want to get into so we'll take what we can get until we can prove that we can get what we can take. Translate that into a big invitation for all of you to get out there and drink the bars as dry as Ruth after the salt incident so they want us and your hollow legs back for bigger nights.

But back to the concept of room love. Other rooms big or small have their own relationship with the Prophetitos and logically there doesn’t seem to be a real reason for the love or lack thereof from one to another but there is. Fer instance….

Above all places on this here earth I will always hold Iota more dear than others for many reasons most of them more personal than band related. My adult life and the important players in it are one way or another intrinsically related to the bar and a bit of my soul is layered in the paint on the walls, at least I think so, and I will always call Iota home. It is a special place for me. Bar none number one. Is it the biggest, nope, but it is the best. Bank it.

Another great great place for the Prophets is the Velvet Lounge. The Velvet calls to the darkest and warmest places in my heart. It’s a room built for rock and roll. Fuck the TV’s, fuck pool tables and that ilk; just a stage, a great sound system, a floor for people to get groovy on and murder in the air. I love playing there. Some people don’t, I call them sissies. The Velvet rules.

I would love to play the 9:30 Club just to say I did it and have a lot of pictures taken.

On the other hand a nice joint that a lot of bands round here play is DC9 and for whatever reason we never clicked. We sent some show ideas back and forth but I think both parties just said…..ehhhhhhhhhhhhh. I go see shows there and maybe someday we’ll play there but it’s just off my horizon and I’m reasonably sure we’re off theirs. Is there a measurable difference between Iota, Black Cat backstage, Velvet Lounge and DC9? Not really. But in my little universe there is and for no good or bad it just is the way that it is. Odds.

That’s a mini-microcosm.

May 22^nd, Pharmacy Prophets for the very first time at the Black Cat.

It ain’t just another Manic Monday.

Woah oh oh.

Like a Viking

2006-04-14T09:50:00.000-05:00

It's been four years and two days since one of my best friends, John Kidner, died and in my busy business and selfishness I forgot all about it. Goddamn I feel like a shit.

If you ever read the mover portraits on this here blog all those maniacs worked with me at his company, Kidner Transport. The first show the Pharmacy Prophets ever played was a benefit at Iota in John's honor and I thought about him a lot when we graced that same stage last Saturday. I find myself thinking about him even more today.

John Kidner was my boss and my greatest irritation, my landlord for a time, my conspirator in awful behavior and above all my friend. At his funeral we buried him with a pair of red Chuck Taylor's and our friend Shaun from the band Kung Fury played a Jeff Beck song by the grave. To this day I have never been more gut punched by a piece of music and I doubt that I ever will. Pretty rough but amazing stuff.

John I'm sure you're up on some celestial plane or another laughing at the fact that your picture still makes me cry. I can't help it, I'm just a sensitive soul despite my brusque and intimidating exterior. In the spirit of toughening up the innards I'm sporting a Kidner Transport, "Manly Men Moving Manly Things in a Manly Way", shirt and promise that I'll try harder to live up to the ideals of a Viking.

I miss the shit out of you buddy.

Rest in Peace.

It's too much...too much.......too much

2006-04-14T07:37:00.000-05:00

Somewhere a marketing intern is looking at this on the Ikea showroom floor and thinking to himself, "I can't believe those Swedish idiots didn't catch that."

Too funny.

I want to buy one.....because I'm a jerk silly!

And now on to the show.

Wow, it's been some time since I graced this pasture. I have considered just shutting down el bloggo due to lack of time but I'm going to do the opposite and make it greater than ever. Get ready.....I'm going to start posting when drunk!

Possibly.

Anyhoo things have been terribly busy with the other half of life that concerns employment but who cares? You work a bit, you get paid, you go have some fun, big deal. I type on a computer all day. Boo hoo. Woe is me. It's really a piece of cake just one that takes some time to consume on occasion.

It's my birthday tomorrow which should be a huge ceremonial event across the land but mostly it's a bunch of pissed off people in line at the Post Office waiting to drop off their taxes. The thing about having a birthday on April 15th, you can always find someone to have a drink with. The downside is they're usually borderline suicidal and looking to stick you with the check. I do get free shots tonight at the local yokel tavern up the road and will take full advantage of that. My liver has yet to even think of recovering from last weekend's visit from Ali Baba but internal organs like the Warrior Knights of Kima must eternally soldier on.

I just made up the Warrior Knights of Kima so don't bother googling it, (Jeff.)

Speaking of last weekend that Iota show was a full out blast. The place was jammed and the spirits were high and much rocking and frolicking was occurring. Good good times. One of my oldest friends from la neighborhood came down from Williamsburg and we caught up well. I met a guy who played guitar and bass for George Clinton for 22 years, how fucking cool is that? He was a total swank character and I hope to run into him again and hear the stories that run through his veins. Many thanks to everybody who came out to our show, any other Six Points show , and especially to the folks that put the whole shooting match together. It was good and it will get gooder.

This just in - Cheney throws a baseball as well as he figures out foreign policy.

I am still fully ambivalent despite my want for ire about what's going on with the country. I watched a Joe Biden interview last week and couldn't help thinking that he could have won where Kerry lost, that is, appearing to not be made of tin and having a rusty mousetrap for a yapper. But he didn't run, Kerry did and now we're all heading towards Armageddon. Ah well...pack your water wings for I hear the rivers of lava in Hell have strong currents.

Now playing - "Back to Mystery City" by Hanoi Rocks. Good juju on this one.

Philito rolled the dice and got a questionable haircut. My reign of Sexy Hair Overlord is now uncontested until he can regather his strength for another run at the title. Like THAT will ever really happen. I just got his wedding invite in the mail, I hope it won't ruin the moment for him when people are like, "God this is so beautiful, almost as beautiful as that guy's hair, (pointing at me)."

Monday is the anniversary of the day I hoodwinked the Mrs. Into legal union with yours truly. She is quite the thing and every day I think she's cooler and cooler. So bless you dear for you are of the Saints, the really sexy Saints.

I have some tip tapping to do in return for the Johnny Paycheck but will probably post up some thoughts on the full out stupidity and absolute absurdness of a guitar player experience I recently had. It's funny and dumb all at the same time, like John Gibson!

See ya later and thanks for hanging in there with me.

Just for old time's sake - now with updates!!

2006-04-06T14:44:00.000-05:00

Bow down before me and before my prescient nature!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Suck my hammer Tom.

And in other news just in from the Washington Post. It seems that Bush authorized the Iraq intelligence leak to that uber-hag Judith Miller!!

Wow.

Who could have seen that one coming?

What's next the sky is blue, I am raw sex appeal and water is wet??? What the fuck? Can't we just buy out his contract for gross ineptitude, dishonesty and general shitheadedness at this point and call it a term? But why you say? Sure things aren't going so great what with Iraq heading into Civil War, painting ourselves into a corner over Iran, Hamas getting the keys in Palestine, the Taliban sneaking up like George Mason in the NCAA tourney over in Afghanistan, the gulf coast heading for another marvelous hurricane season with the place still a wreck and so many other annoyances to BushCo but at least we're protected against human animal hybrids and embryo molestation!!!!!

Onward Christian soldiers!!!!!

Oh yeah and just to be fair I think McKinney is a fucking dolt who should be tossed in jail so dumbassedness is fair and alive on both sides of the aisle.

GAD!!!!

JUST ADDED - WE'RE ALL LIVING IN THE MOVIE "SWING KIDS!!!"

New On Tap column is up and I'm about to fall down

2006-04-04T14:27:00.000-05:00

The weather is great in Chicago and I can't wait to get the fuck out of here.

I'm beat.

New column is live at the fortress of On Tappito.

Big show on Saturday night at Iota, come worship with style and panache.

Pharmacy Prophets w/ Koshari and the Speaks

Dig it.

Sheesh!

2006-03-30T12:16:00.000-05:00

I've been busier than a freelance proctologist at an NRA convention (think about it, it's a joke that needs to marinate) with trips to 'Bama, Florida, Hershey PA and tomorrow leaving for Chicago. Lots of anecdotes with little time to tap them out. Hopefully post Caponeland I'll have some time to recount.

I can tell them to you in person next Saturday at Iota, (that's the 8th).

Dig it.

the Pharmacy Prophets at Iota
w/ the Speaks and Koshari

Whole life I'm ah gonna live it up!!!!!

See you soon.

A smorgasborg of choices!

2006-03-23T12:51:00.000-05:00

Sampling of the links available on CNN at the moment -

MORE NEWS
• Tour bus plummets into canyon, kills 12 Americans | Gallery
• Coalition rescues peace workers in Iraq | WATCH
• Fears mount for missing Milwaukee boys
• Bouncer charged in student's death | WATCH
• Report: Aruba has new lead in Natalee Holloway case | Gallery
• Woman missing since 14 was with school guard
• 360° Blog: This 'folk hero' sheriff could face charges
• Behind the Scenes: Meet Jesse Sullivan, real life bionic man
• Watch: It's jewelry, it's a pet, it's alive!
• Watch: Charlie Sheen shares his 9/11 theory
• CNN TV: Former President Bill Clinton, 7 p.m. ET

I don't know about you but for me it's all about meeting a real life Steve Austin or hearing Wild Thing get to the bottom of the WTC attacks. Oh, and it's always fun to watch Clinton be happily full of shit and himself on TV. I love that guy. I really have no urge to go look at a gallery of dead folks from a cruise ship, that's only a tad less appetizing than looking at pictures of living people from a cruise ship.

I'm not sure what's so special about "it's jewelry, it's a pet, it's alive!". I have my dog pinned to my chest as a brooch right now, big deal. Once you get used to the squirming she's an accessory with both sass AND class!!

Sadly at this point I have to say that I wish Natalee Holloway was alive so she could go back to her white-bread Alabama hoochie mama at night church in the morning life she had laid out for her an dI never had to see another picture of her slap-happy face. It sickens me that because of the media coverage about her case I have come to dislike her and her mother personally but it is so and so must it ever be.

Sad world. I'm going to ease my pain with a bowl of Apple Jacks.

the story speaks for itself

2006-03-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

Really, what is there to add that the facts don't already do justice to? From the New York Daily News:

Prince had Utah Jazz forward Carlos Boozer seeing purple after he gave the NBA star's Los Angeles mansion an extremely tacky makeover. The pint-size pop star painted purple stripes on Boozer's house and adorned the exterior with the Prince "symbol" and the numbers "3121," which happens to be the name of his new album, court papers state. Inside, Prince installed purple monogrammed carpets in the master bedroom and black ones in a downstairs guest room, removed baseboards - and even cut a hole into a wall. Using "unlicensed carpenters and contractors," Prince also rerouted plumbing to a "downstairs bedroom for water transfer for beauty salon chairs," the papers state. -- New York Daily News

Parenthood

2006-03-21T15:09:00.000-05:00

I love being a parent, for real. Being able to have a real growing interaction with my older daughter as she gets up there towards teenagerdom and watching my younger daughter develop and learn to talk and act like a lunatic is awesome. It's simply great, the greatest, and greater than anything else that I do. I love my kids more than life itself and will kill anyone or anything that threatens their wellbeing.

That being said......

This article here at the linky linky from the Washington Post gave me the fucking creeps. It's not that it's new to me, I see these goddamn freaks all the time. They're insane with the level of perverse attachment they have to the pieces of veal they're raising. It's like Stepford only the kids are stuck with the robots instead of the husbands. All the time I get the glares from them when out and about with my wee ones, glassy eyed stares of hatred from fat little eyes pushed back in fat little faces from parents who think if you don't look like the cast of Roseanne and have the interests that dovetail perfectly with the Sunday flyer for Wal-Mart you must not really love your children.

If you think that by reading between the lines I'm saying that I don't care what my kids do or how they behave you couldn't be further from the truth. It's not people like me that have insane little shitheads running through TGI Friday's like the gang after Piggy in Lord of the Flies, no way. Those types of little freaks belong to bigger freaks who think little Johnny Precious can do no wrong in any way shape or form and he's so damn special that no one really minds that he just knocked over their dinner. This whole super-parent attitude leads to a total lack of meaningful parenting. I'm sure it will be a shock to the uber-rents when their kids graduate go away to college and put Moms and Dads at about #48 on their priority list behind letting an auto mechanic do body shots off of them at happy hour and having lots of unprotected sex but hey, that's nature at work. If you're not ready for it I'm sure it's a bitch but by getting ready for it in the first place you just might avoid it or at least the worst parts of it. Y'see if you let your kids live a life of their own within the boundaries of what you deem to be acceptable so they can figure out who they are and just be that way they probably won't feel the need to prove their individuality to you later on with tattoos on the asscrack, STD's and calls from a jail in Cancun. You don't want to be one of these parents that ends up living like that do you? No, I didn't think so. Nor do you want to let anyone you love become one because you'll be stuck talking to them on the phone all the time when things go to shit and that's a fate worse than death!!

Here are some warning signs that someone you think is an otherwise rational human being, (it could be you!) is going to be a maniacal Stalin like parent. Take preemptive action if you can, if you can't move and change your name, (unless it's you that you see in here, in that case just tighten up and don't make me hate you.)

1 - Before getting pregnant they say "we're trying to get pregnant". Women get pregnant, men assist in the process by working for about 90 seconds, grunting and then passing out. "We" CANNOT get pregnant. She can. Post-coitus dude is pretty much along for the ride and abuse until it's time to head to the hospital at zero hour. This whole "WE" concept of all things equal in a parenting relationship is dumb, especially at the very beginning squishy icky part. It's not equal either in effort or responsibility towards the baby before the baby is born, I'm sorry. If it was supposed to be we'd all be like earthworms and be able to fuck ourselves to procreate.

2 - While pregnant the happy couple has a lockstep plan for exactly how they're going to raise the kid and are more than happy to tell you (presuming you already have a kid) how great they're going to be at it, (the insinuation being that they'll be much better at child rearing than your dumb ass is). These people are short-sighted idiots and I almost laugh when I see them a year or so later with their wretched bratty children covered with snot and puke and the whole family looking like the homeless guy from "In Living Color" I said almost. While truly funny my deep sense of disdain perversely mixed with satisfaction overrides the humor switch and instead of laughing I smirk contentedly at this type of situation.

3 - When having had the baby the implication given to the world is that taking care of the infant is the most monumental task ever pursued by mankind and everyone should be VERY careful how to approach this incredibly blessed yet burdened couple. A note to those of you without babies; they're really not that hard. They sleep a lot, they're cute, they crap a couple times a day and then they sleep some more. People that can't handle that kind of burden are probably as equally inept at handling much of anything including the future notion that their kids will give more of a shit about their scooter than their parents and are probably of average intelligence and ability at the very best.

4 - After having a baby the parents morph into weird pudgy sexless beings wholly without form or physical definition and every sentence they utter from their fat fucking mouths is about their kid or how tired they are. These people have stopped living as individuals and have given into the idea that their purpose in life is to entertain the every whim of someone who takes off their diaper and rubs poo on the walls when given the opportunity and would be more than happy to chug a liter of Dran-O if left unattended. People like these are, again, idiots and it would be great if you could just avoid them but they pretty much run the schools where your (hopefully) normalized kid is trying to get an education so you have to get ready to engage and run interference for your tykes.

So watch yourself if you're going to have kids. Have them, love them, enjoy them revel in them but for the love of Christ don't be defined by them. They eat dog food, why would you let them be the boss? It's your job to teach them how to survive and most importantly survive without you. Just get your shit together and leave them alone a little bit so they can figure this life thing out. They'll love you for it later and with a bit of freedom now maybe when they finally leave the nest they won't be so fascinated by Al the tow truck driver who thinks stripping is a HAWT job for his old lady.

At least they'll have a chance.

Logic

2006-03-15T10:14:00.000-05:00

According to my new email friend if I "have any balls" I will skip my own show on the 8th to attend a "real fucking rock show" going on that night.

COUNT ME IN!!!!!!!!

I'll keep you posted via posting.

Whither thou Castor?

2006-03-14T10:04:00.000-05:00

I just can't get motivated to write much for the blog these days. It's nice of all y'all to send me emails asking for updates and I think about stuff to write all the time but the usual waterfalls of inspiration just aren't flowing.

Like politics........

What else is there to say? I mean things are so bizarrely fucked up with more fucked upness coming out everyday that it's impossible to find something to focus on without it just being a rehash. On top of all the other illegal and immoral bullshit perped by the folks at 1600 Penn now they're involved in refund fraud at Wal-Mart? C'mon?!?!??! That is comedy gold. I barely touched on Cheney shooting some dude in the face. I can't even believe it myself. We have a civil war, the ports fiasco, wiretapping, SHOOTING PEOPLE IN THE FUCKING FACE and yet I can't think of a damn funny thing to write that I haven't written before. Sob.

Musicians are idiots, that's well documented. Lately I keep getting anonymous emails written in the same dunderheaded voice from different email accounts daring me to stir shit up with some local band over some dumbass thing or another. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. I'm being called out and deserve an ass whoopin'! Whee. It's not that I'm not up to the challenge but railing on born fools with delusions of grandeur just isn't greasing the gears these days. In a world full of Thatguy's and Voodoo Blues I find no motivation to razzle and dazzle. Sad.

I ate an entire box of Lucky Charms over the course of two days. Now that felt like an accomplishment.

OK back to the musician thing, just one point. In one of the emails to me that was rampaging on about the last On Tap columnito I was told that "EVERYBODY KNOWS WHO YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT." I love that. I love the fact that some boner thinks that everyone in the universe is aware of some local band and the ins and outs of their everyday doings. If you went to a mall and asked every single person there, "What is your opinion on the state of things that have occurred recently with local Band X?" my guess is you would get 98% blank stares, 1% punches to the scrotum .9% people dialing security and .1% equal to one sullen dope at Hot Topic replying with, "I heard those doodez rock."

Everybody.

Give me a break.

In other news my fish have weathered the winter out in the backyard pond and are happily un-fishsicled and swimming about enjoying the warmer climes. What's that? Not EVERYBODY knows that I have a pond with goldfish in it nor do they care?

OMIGOD YOU BASTARD I'LL TOTALLY KICK YOUR ASS FOR THAT DISRESPECT!!!!!

Gad.

I'll try to hit the local yokel shithead bar this week and dig up some inspirational nuggets from Boob and the gang. It's the least (truly) that I can do for the folks that stop by here on a daily basis.

Finally I'm totally sure that you have heard this from all the major media outlets already but just in case you have been trapped in a tiger cage recently the Prophets are playing at Iota on April 8th as part of the Six Points Music Festival. It will be sassy and magically delicious.

For those of you who asked

2006-03-06T09:48:00.000-05:00

Update numero dos -

After another brief discussion Philito and I agreed that this post goes nowhere without an image of some sort. He was kind enough to send over a baby picture I could use.

Cute tyke, no?

Why is all of this shit underlined? I kinnah seem to fix it. Weird.

Update - After letting the caffeine absorb into the cranial mass and a brief chat with Philito I took the picture down because of all the goddamn perverts and whackos out there in Internet land. May you rot in hell.
I am still accepting testimony to my greatness though.

You may fire when ready.

"Definitive proof that the lovely kids are not figments of my brilliant imagination. You may now commence to tell me how cute they are. Proceed."

The latest On Tap column, show stuff, general gloriousness

2006-03-03T12:30:00.000-05:00

This month's On Tap column is available for you loving.

We have a cool show coming up on the 8th of April at our home away from home, the lovely and delicious Iota Club. The show is part of D.C.'s Six Points Music Festival, 40 bands playing shows all over and around D.C. for the weekend of April 6-8. Find something you like, get out, be seen, you know the drill.

Unbelievably ThatGuy was not invited to perform.

We're playing with the Speaks which is always a good time. Ali Baba is coming to town so madness will commence I'm sure.

Have a good weekend.

Predictability 101

2006-02-28T08:24:00.000-05:00

So one of the waterheads from ThatGuy finally decided to post a comment in response to last week's analysis of their manifesto to assholery that I wrote up. From "Mike":

Sweet! It doesn't stop when my rant is forceably removed from CL! You people bring it to another forum and just keep racking up the hits on our site.The Name is Mike... www.thatguyonline.com ... You guys feel free to come to any show, and PLEASE introduce yourself, cause I owe all of you a drink for all this effortless publicity!!
By ThatGuy Mike, at 9:51 PM

This is the usual step in the cycle of band Bros doing stupid shit and then getting their assholes puckered about it so they go into a spin mode that would make Scott McLellan proud.

"AWWW YOU GOT SERVED DAWG, DINNYAH KNOW THAT WAS ALL A JOKE AND YOU BOUGHT RIGHT UP IN DAT SHIT!!! THANKS HOMEY AND SEE UR AZZ AT A SHOW. I CAn'T BUHLEAVE ANYBODY WOULD TAKE THAT SHIT SURRIEOUSLY DAWG. BUT YO THANKS FOR GETTING OUR NAME OUT LOLLERCOASTER. YO CATCH US OUT AT P.D. THRUSTHENHEFFERS AND I'LL BUY YOU A BEER BRO! THANX FOR THE WEBHITS!!!!!!!!!"

Right.

Anyway I encourage all of you to go see ThatGuy. Seriously. Go out and watch them putter around and play karaoke band to a bunch of drunken 46 year old bar hags that have been at Sully's ever since they finished their shift behind the reception desk at Long and Foster's. Go out and listen to the calls of "JAGERBOMBS MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!" and pedantic little versions of Blink-182 and Limp Bizkit songs. You'll feel better about just about everything.

Mike you can consider me served my man. You keep being a fucking dope and I'll keep waving your dope flag for you.

stop and diddle the roses

2006-02-27T15:17:00.000-05:00

Let me give some backdrop on the whole “I’m sick and tired of crybaby musicians that talk about how hard everything is. They’re simple whiney pussies that need to get kicked in the face by hob-nailed boot wearing kangaroos and thrown into a river of hot death”, attitude that I carry around with me.

That style rant is pretty much the premise of this month’s column in the On Tappito. I will hail the gods of synergistic print and online journalism, (“bundled content” to those of us who spend time interminable at newspaper conferences), by dovetailing that there column and this here blog with a story about why I feel the way I do on this subject. It’s not just band dudes that act this way that I hold in such disregard, they just catch my ire because I’m around them and they’re fun to hold a literary gun to. No, in the world at large these bellyaching waterheads are everywhere crying and moping around because their sandwich order is wrong and the mail is late and the Redskins lost and their fat wife is a fat whore and woe is me sob sob sob boo hoo hoo.

Fuck.

Off.

(A brief side note – I just heard from a friend of the Mrs.’ who was recently in Vegas and caught the last Prophets show that my guitarist Trey bears an uncanny resemblance to a male stripper in a traveling show called “THUNDER FROM DOWN UNDER!” that she saw perform whilst in Sin City. This news and the associated years of mirth I will have at his expense have completely made my day. Back to ranting.)

Here in America amongst the people I am usually amongst the vast majority do not have hard lives. When I see some nitwit at the airport talking on a cellphone about how terrible things are because his flight is ten minutes late I want to make him the secret ingredient on Iron Chef. Life for most of us blessed middle classers is a fucking breeze. Sure I complain but I don’t think my life is hard, my life isn’t hard at all. I have a great wife, two healthy kids, a roof and a car and a band and my hair…..not a lot to bitch about, (certainly not the hair). Jobs can suck but most people I know don’t have hard jobs. Moving furniture is a job I did for years, that shit is hard. Everything else has had modicums of difficulty but it’s all pretty much been a walk across a park made of buttermilk pancakes compared to humping a piano up five flights of stairs.

I have a good friend who had it hard. Ten years ago I was at the funeral for his wife which was a kick to the nuts just a few years after I was the best man at their wedding and drunkenly wished them a full life of babymaking ahead. In the intervening years between the joy and the heartbreak they had a baby boy who came too early and passed away after fighting as hard as he could to hold on. That was hard. A few years later my buddy’s wife was diagnosed with cancer right after she found out she was pregnant. They had to make a decision on how to treat the cancer and she held off on aggressive treatment so she wouldn’t risk the pregnancy. That’s a hard decision. The baby came healthy but the cancer came along full steam ahead and when my buddy was barely 26 years old he found himself a widower that had already lost a child and now had another one to raise alone. That shit is hard. Are you starting to see where I’m coming from?

Anyway he had little else to do but get his shit together, get a job that could provide for his wee family of two and try to put some sort of a life back together. He didn’t really have time to feel sorry for himself and just got down to the business of living instead of the business of being a self-absorbed sissy. I took a lot from that and on the anniversary of the shittiest few days of my life which involved laying his wife to rest I can smile at the memory of my friend Jill and how proud I’m sure she is of my buddy who is now remarried, has two kids, a house, two smelly dogs, a cool job and an independent film company that makes movies at a pretty steady clip.

It’s even more impressive if you knew us way back when. The two of us were definitely on the list of, “most likely to mouth-breathe and chew their knuckles as an occupation” when we barely graduated from high school. But y’know sometimes life treats you to an unwelcome lesson about having priorities other than your own convenience and how unfair it is that you have to share drumkits at P.J. Quackenberry’s on a Tuesday night and you learn to adjust and work and take some laughs along the way. That’s the thing that drives me crazy about people, it’s not the fact that they have it easy, certainly easier than most it’s that they refuse to take a second and appreciate it. Fucking jerks, if you get the chance to have a hoot don’t piss in the face of those that don’t by being a shit for your entire life. Idiots. I want to see them all destroyed and have their good fortune presented to some dude tilling a field that in his heart is a rock star waiting to happen. Someday when I’m appointed master of the universe this will be my first order of business.

See the movie guy at www.twentyoneproductions.com

See me at DC9 this Wednesday looking magnificent at the Six Points Music Festival shake and tickle happy hour.

I’ll see you later.

Sometimes it's as easy as shooting an old guy in the face

2006-02-17T10:43:00.000-05:00

I'm really just jumping on a bandwagon here that's already full of bloggers from across the blogosphere but when said bandwagon offers a free ride to comedyville with a stocked bar and a full body massage chair to sit in well who am I to turn it down. It seems that there is a cover band called THAT GUY that has a really sad problem with people who don't like cover bands. To that end one of their members (members...y'know sometimes words have two meanings and are doubly delicious) decided to post a manifesto to Craigslist detailing the level of hurt and outrage that they feel in their much maligned hearts, (beating right there underneath the Green Day t-shirt).

I have copied said manifesto for your review with my comments in red. Enjoy.

Reply to:email deleted because I really am a nice guy
Date: 2006-02-15, 5:17PM EST

As most of you know, {always good to begin with a hearty bellyful of delusion. First of all who is the you and of that you how does Mike know that most of you knows or cares about a cover band called THATGUY that rocks out the haggard denizens of Chantilly?} of we've been hunting {who says Dick Cheney doesn't inspire!} for a bassist for a little while now, (. So while we've been combing the city papers, contacts, myspace, craigs list, and every other outlet possible we've come accross quite a bit of hostility from the "ORIGINAL ACTS." {open hostility...I'm sure. Did THATGUY draw a cartoon of an original musician with a bomb in his turban?}

Apparenly you insecure palm-stuffers {eh?} are under the impression that what we do is 'easy,'{learning songs is a repetitive muscle memory task much like shampooing. For those who find later rinse repeat a challenge this band is for you} and that you should apparently be afforded respect {in my case certainly true} because you're "original." {not to mention devilishly sexy} That somehow we took the path of least resistance, {I think the question here is if there is a path at all and if so where do it go?} and that we are not a REAL band {I have no question that That Guy is a band, a band of what remains to be seen. As it stands BAND OF BROS is the leading candidate.}. Hence the constant term "coverband" {dramatic pause....fart...continue reading}

Lets just explore this shall we? {Carry on Dr. Livingston!}

ThatGuy has been an official band for about 2 ½ years. {as certified by the American Association of Dudes with Jelly Hair and Blink 182 Fan 4 LYF!!! Membership cards} Have you checked your ego long enough to stay with one project for that length of time? {Let's see....ego....time...check....yup. Uh-OH!} Of course not, {but I just told you that.....} you {me?} wouldn't be on craigslist, {I'm just here to make fun of THAT GUY} myspace, {LOL BFFL I {3 PHI SIG SEND NOODEZ!!!!!!} or the city paper everyday {so this is the data the NSA is looking for. GO USA!} . You're too busy scolding coverbands {BAD BROS! Where's the newspaper?!? I told you about pissing on the carpet!} for being sellouts {Oh scolding you for that? Sorry. But to sell out you have to have actually sold something I think. Regardless....} to actually get that platinum album together. {coming soon to a retail location and QVC. We're just waiting for Hasslehoff to sign the endorsement papers} And desperately combing the internet {brushing is more accurate} for someone that thinks your indie slop {hey now!} could pass for music doesn't count. {Foreshadowing to the math section of the manifesto soon to come}

I just did a few calculations. {If you're bored this is where things start getting pretty weird} In the past 2 ½ years there have been THREE weeks that we haven't had a practice. {Life = Pathetic to the power of Grayskull} Most weeks we practice 4 hours, {OoooH!} but when we think it's necessary we'll easily top 8 hours in one week. {That's some Balboa vs. Drago style commitment right there motherfuckers} I'll be generous {thank you} and say that we've done that ¼ of the weeks, {where does the generosity come into play? So far I see nothing in it for me here} so we'll round out to about 6 hours a week for roughly 124 weeks. That comes to 744 hours. {Did you know the Beatles recorded "Meet the Beatles" in 9 hours. Just a thought.}

We'll add to this the fact {prove it!} that everyone in this band practices {has guitar in lap, picks nose, thinks about masturbating, picks nose some more, eats booger, puts down guitar, masturbates, hits SportsCenter, gives self lusty Bro hug, picks flakes off belly, goes to bed}, their instruments every day, {see above} but we'll subtract 2 days {kind of takes the effect off of "every day"} a week because, admittedly, {honesty it's such a loooonely woooorrrrd} there have been quite a few days {we're doing hard math here Holmes, give us the nombres!} when I don't have the time {E.D.} to pick up the guitar. So we'll give it about an hour a day, 5 days a week. {That is a commitment to well excavated nostrils and vacated Vons Deferens not seen by many mortals} That's a minimum figure. {Humility being a tenet of the THAT GUY credo} 124 weeks, 5 hours of individual practice. Bringing us to 620 hours of individual practice.

Now lets factor in shows. {YAY SCHOOL OF ROCK TIME!} Because we're organized {heh} I know exactly how many shows we've played. {This is the real math right here rock music nerds} To date we've played a total of 85 shows. {Roughly one show for every nine hours of practice now that we're on the math tip} That number is going up rapidly these days, {SWEET!} but when we first started out {like Fivel in an American Tail} we didn't play often {or like Rudy at Notre Dame} because, contrary to your assumptions about cover bands, {mine?} we had to prove ourselves, {like Daniel-San to Mr. Miagi} play to many empty bars,{all of a sudden the story is gathering HD level clarity} and endure a lot of confidence-crushing-defeats to get where we are now. {Playing at Sully's in Chantilly, Virginia. It's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll my friends but the Everest of Rock has been reached. God bless the Sherpas.} Each show is roughly 5 hours of work. {Practice...we talking about practice man....PRACTICE??} Loading up the van, {heave ho} driving, {dude who bogarted the Puddle of Mudd CD?} setting up, {is it OK if we borrow this milk crate to jump off of during Home Sweet Home?} playing, {WE ONLY HAVE 17 MORE FER YA !!!!} breaking down, {awesome set Bro...totally Bro....you're my Bro 4 lyf Bro....we rocked the fuck out tonight....dude you have to wait til we're in the van, I KNOW YOU LIKE THESE JEANS BUT YOU HAVE TO WAIT!!!} driving, {chilling out to Staind...} and unloading the van. {I'm beat Bro, give me a Bro hug. I'm Audi 5000.} 5 hours is actually a low figure {are you sure}because we actually {loves this word} play places that take hours to get to, {On a dark and lonely highway East of Omaha} but there have been shows that we didn't have to use all our own gear etc, {and so on and so on and so on} I'm rounding down. 85 shows at 5 hours brings us to 425 hours. {I'm trying to decipher how this makes the cover band legitimacy argument. Maybe Mike thinks that original bands all travel to and from shows by way of Tinkerbell's Insta-Fly Magic Fairy Dust and have voodoo instruments that are conjured out of mid-air when they come flitting into the bar so they don't put in the hard work of driving or picking up a nine pound guitar case. Mike, as much as I wish it was so I actually have to drive just like you do, (sans Puddle of Mudd and Jelly hair stains on the ceiling of the van). I'm sorry if this comes as a shock. Now please call home, your mom has something she wants to tell you about the Easter Bunny and where babies come from."

I'm not even going to factor in the marketing work we do, {writing manifestos, posting pictures of rednecks on website, masturbating}, time spent booking shows, {y'know something no original band has to deal with} balancing our books {ENRON ROX!!!} because yes, {YES!} we are a company, {and a Confederacy} with an accountant, {there's no sex and drugs for Irving!} we pay taxes {who could ask for anything more!} and have a back account under the name ThatGuy {I had a Squirrel's Club bank account when I was seven. It really legitimized me as force to be reckoned with} with a debit card reading ThatGuy, which we always find amusing). {LOLOLLERCOASTER!!!!!!!} We'll just compute based on this. {I cast Magic Missile}

Thus (forsooth!) over the course of 2 ½ years we've logged roughly 1,789 hours of work. {I love how all of this is work. The one calculation we never see on here is the breakdown on the hourly rate of pay for all of these work hours. You would think the human abacus could work that out but apparently it's beyond the pale} Since you're only sporting a highschool diploma {SPORTO!} I'll break that down. That's over 74 days straight. Keep in mind we have day jobs too, (WOW!) and not at Starbucks either. {We're part of the J-Team! It keeps the THATVAN rolling and the hair properly jellied as well as giving us the skills we need to succeed in life!"}

(ThatGuy Dan's addition:) {oh boy}

You write your own music. {I do} That's great. {Now we're getting somewhere} But, that also means that the only musical challenge that you ever get is trying to get that MONEY vocal line {did you know that Swingers came out over ten years ago and these Cro-Mags still drop that vernacular? SWEET BABIES!} (that you thought up sitting on the shitter reading kiddy porn) {Did Gary Glitter offend them, is that what this is all about?} to match with that MONEY {I'll have the roast duck with the mango salsa} guitar riff that you've had going on for a couple months now (when you're not arguing with your mom about taking out the trash). {Apparently Gary Glitter moved back home with Mumsy after that Thailand incident} Have you ever tried to learn someone else's guitar riff? {Why yes!} Furthermore, have you ever tried to master it? {Indubitably!} So well that the original writer wouldn't be able to tell if it was a recording of him or someone else? {In some alterno universe where a guy who wrote a song THATGUY is covering would put on headphones and listen to THATGUY's version and think "Is it live or is it Hemmorex. I have to know!" instead of "Why would I care about listening to some redneck Bro band imitate something I already know how to play note perfect becuase I came up with the fucking thing in the first place?"} Has anyone ever noticed at one of your lame shows that you botched a certain guitar part? {Well, that's not really a fair argument in my flawless case} OF COURSE NOT {I guess THATGUY DAN has seen me play} - they don't know what it's supposed to sound like! {Errr...they do when I play it Dunklestiltskin because I wrote it therefore I play it the way it's supposed to be played because it's mine} Try mastering the guitar lines of over 100 different guitarists, {I'd really rather not} and then having everyone in the audience critique you {if it's so bad out there why do you torture yourself so? It must be the love the art....oh wait a second..no.....ummm. I got it. You're too cheap to pay for the beer!} on how close it sounded to the original recording! {I'm sure Johnny Cash and Ray Charles struggled with THATGUY angst when they weren't able to perfectly recreate the songs they covered. I can see old Johnny in his chair weeping because he just couldn't program the synth the way Trent Reznor did on the original of "Hurt".} Ever tried to figure out a song by ear? {Again, yes} Oh wait a second, {whistles....waits} you have! (I HAVE!!!} You're the 13 year old that posts the tabs online, aren't you!? { I {3 MYSPACE LOLLERCOASTER 2TYMZ!!!} Right, they're HORRIBLY wrong {Dang yo, sorry that on top of someone else writing the songs that you play some dude from Fargo incorrectly transcribed the bridge to some Simple Plan song and posted it on the interwebz so after you downloaded it for free you had to go back and figure some of it out for yourself. You BROS really do have it rough} Nor someone couldn't show you how to play it- every time. Anyone that has ever touched a guitar could tell you that. {Coco, (my dog), c'mere and touch this guitar. That's it. Good girl. Now I have a question for you, do you have any idea now that you have touched a guitar what these BROS are talking about? No? Me neither. Thanks, here's a Woofers for you. Good girl.}

But wait, {whistles....waits} I'm not done! {even for me this is getting tiresome}

Honestly I can't keep going through the whole thing sentence by sentence. I'll just pull out some juicy tidibits out of the remaining 278 paragraphs and provide some summaries from here on out.

Endless boring chest thumping about how hard it is to figure out someone else's guitar parts.

If you buckled because you couldn't figure out the two seperate guitars in a song then you're a true chump. {CLUBBER LANG!!!} If you think you've got the two seperate guitar riffs down, then lets talk about the solos. {Was that a bend, a hammer on, or a slide? Is that Delay, or echo? Wait, is it a flanger, or a phaser? Is it ACTUALLY recorded in the key of E-flat, or did they just tune their guitars down a half step and play it in E? Maybe it's a capo? Wait, what's this? You've never heard of that? You've never heard of alternate tunings? Whoa man, just think what powers you could yield if you knew what I was talking about!? Ahh, but we aren't even CLOSE to being finished yet.

Endless boring chest thumping about how great the singer of THATGUY is because he can sing like Stephen Tyler, the dude from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Fred Durst all in one night. Pretty impressive.

Are you the singer? Are you the guy that's aspiring to be the front man that all the ladies will throw themselves at? Well, before you can dominate the world with your goose bump inducing pipes, why don't you try our job sometime? Our singer has to perfectly replicate the vocals tones, pitches and general sounds of Steven Tyler, James Hetfield, Steve Perry, Anthony Kiedis, Bert McCracken, Gerald Way, Brian Johnson, Liam Gallagher, Chris Martin, Patrick Stump, Brandon Flowers, Bono, Fred Drust, Eddie Vedder, Maynard James Keenan, Rivers Cuomo, Billy Joe Armstrong, Glen Danzig, Matt Bellamy, Tim Armstrong...and the list keeps going. I could literally list HUNDERDS - why? Because we can actually play HUNDREDS of songs. Can your band? Hell, can your band even play a full night at any local bar? That's about 3 hours worth of music in case you don't know because you've never done it. Taking into account the above singers, you'd have to be one versitle singer to handle all of that stuff and have people think it sounded good...not to mention do it 3 hours a night for up to three nights in a row!

I guess since this paragraph is about playing the bass THATGUY has added some Oprah stylee finger snapping noyoudin't to the voice of the manifesto. Funky. They also are threatening to kick their awesome fans in the balls if they happen to request one of the hundreds of songs THATGUY purports to know perfectly.

I won't even get into sampling (Kris can talk about that) or all of the equally as funky bass lines that we have to learn...not to mention being able to pull it out of our brains at the drop of a hat when one of you assbags tries to throw us a curve ball and request a song mid-set. BTW - if you do this I'm going to kick you in the balls.

By comparison, lets examine what you have been doing.

Now we get back into the magical world of orignal bands never practicing, booking, recording, playing shows or doing the all torturous driving. Apparently original bands spend a lot of time on IM and pull EP's out of their butts.

You've been either masturbating or IM'ing one of your equally unsuccessful original friends and discussing how awesome your 8th EP is going to be, and how you're totally going to release a full album soon. I'm sure you're going to surpass everyone's expectations and sell one of those piece of shit EPs to 5 people beyond your family.

And everyone in an original band works for minimum wage and bags THATGUY'S groceries after they get off shift with the J-Team. Also THATGUY seems to be rock badasses that really enjoy a good latte' from Starbucks.

You've been working for slighly more than minimum wage. You've probably bagged my groceries, checked me out at Target, or made my coffee. And you probably did a really shitty job because you're only working this job until you make it HUGE.

THATGUY seems to know a lot about the kind of shows original bands play. Somehow their experience (from above) of "when we first started out we didn't play often because, contrary to your assumptions about cover bands, we had to prove ourselves, play to many empty bars, and endure a lot of confidence-crushing-defeats to get where we are now." is different and somehow more awesome than that of the original band starting out playing to many empty bars and blah blah blah. They also go out of their way to denegrate a club called DC9. Apparently a club owned by a guy who is opening two more downtown venues in the very near future and is pretty well respected around the area can't hold a candle to the awesome venue that is Sully's.

Your show at DC9 was fucking awesome. You totally got 3 people to sign your email list. You're definitely going to get a Tuesday night next time you play 7 months from now (cause sunday night is the proving ground, and you TOTALLY proved yourself.).

I have no idea what the point is here but if anyone is defending the door policies of the Grog and Tankard they deserve to be dragged to their death behind the horse of a righteous and vengeful God.

The grog and tankard TOTALLY ripped you off. DAMNIT. They've never done that to anyone, and you're doing them a favor by bringing your crowd to their bar. $2 a head? We TOTALLY made enough to get a cheeseburger on the way home. We'll have to split it, but that's what the rockstar life is all about.

Original bands play in battle of the bands in high schools and their friends don't come out because they're busy with their flair at TGI Friday's. It's funny that in the last month the 9:30 Club has had nine local bands on Friday nights, I have no idea where they stack the desks in that place. Regardless any original show is like the total opposite of playing at Dewey with all the BROS who totally have your back and are going to like full on support THATGUY for like their whole career, (until they turn 26, get married and never leave the house again).

You totally should have won the battle of the bands at (random town) when you played there (that random weeknight), but all your friends were working at TGI Fridays so they couldn't drive 3 hours to watch you play in a High School gym. (By the way, they didn't have to work, you're just not worth the gas money).

I know who that is, it's THATGUY!!! Now I'm beginning to see the genius behind all of this.

You met a guy, that knows a guy, who's brother just started an Indie record label in the basement of his mom's house.

A dude who just posted this load of shit about how awesome he is for making money playing other people's songs and how everyone else is a suck fucking asshole says -

Truth of the matter is that you spend all your time trying to drag everyone else down. You are a parasite.

Boring.

In the time we've spent working our ASSES off establishing respect for our abilities and our ethic you've dedicated all your time to hitting "refresh" on the CraigsList message board, your MySpace group page, or the City Paper.

Pre-emptive ass covering BROness in case someone he knows in an original band calls him out on this message. BRO YOU KNOW BRO, YOU GUYS ARE MY BROS AND YOU'RE NOT LIKE THOSE ASSHOLES AT ALL BRO BECAUSE I KNOW YOU BRO THEREFORE YOU CANNOT BE LUMPED IN WITH EVERY OTHER BAND I DON'T KNOW BRO BECAUSE LIKE THAT WOULD BE AGAINST THE BRO CODE. Even though THATGUY thinks all those bands suck anyways.

I can say one thing without hesitation if you're an original act in this area (with the exception of a handful of bands that we know personally).

My band is better than yours. {errr....doubtful} We work harder than you do. {But I thought all the dudes you hate were hard at work bagging your groceries. That's hard work too!} We've earned 10 times as much, {as much what?} and deserve even more. {What do you fucking deserve? You deserve as much as my clock fucking radio} If you were to face off with us {hahahahahahaha. PISTOLS AT DAWN!!!!} 100% {back to the math rock} of the people watching would agree. Your friends {but I thought my friends wouldn't be there what with the scheduling at TGI Friday's and all} would tell you that you beat us, {LIARS!} then sign our email distro list {check it out BRO, eathotlavafuck@youreadouche.com signed up AGAIN!} because they've been to our site and want to hang out with hundreds of gorgeous women.

Laughter break, back in ten.

Your music sucks {how dare you!} . No one likes it. {I am not a no one. I'm somebody!} Your friends come to your shows because you beg them to. {Not true, I ply them with Ruphinol} When they can't be there, they've fabricated their excuse, they're actually just sick of hearing your whiney-gypsy-indie-newage-emo-rock bullshit. {THATGUY plays Weezer and Dave Matthews band covers. This jut makes me laugh.}

Your girlfriend is ugly, and probably fat. {Apparently all original rockers are male or lesbian.}

In our search for a bassist we've gotten a lot of shit from these worthless "original" guys that have nothing better to do between their job at Target and masturbating than to give cover bands a hard time. {Unlike ourselves who have produced a manifesto about our awesomeness above anyone that has played anything remotely original ever save for the BROS that we're making sure we can still ass kiss and, oh yeah, those guys that write all the songs that we play.}

If you're an original band that works even close to as much as we do, and you really are putting in LEGITIMATE and MEASUREABLE amounts of work, {DO THE MATH!} and you actually have some talent, more power to you. {Although as repeatedly stated here you do not exist} I've got nothing but respect for people who put a lot of work in and deserve it. {As determined by my high standard of BROS that I know and lick anus upon} As for the rest of you clowns that are reading this {you should see our car, there must be 47 of us crammed in here!} and coming up with 100 reasons cover bands are sell-outs, {really only one big one comes to mind} that we have it easy, {I think it's been well established that you don't have it easy but fear not, there is an international sporting event held just for you where everyone is a winner} and that we don't deserve recognition as a real band, {I still want to know who was saying this before THATGUY brough it all upon themselves with this ridiculous post. Honestly why do BROS as badass as THATGUY care? I'm just involved in this dumbass bullshit for some laughs at their expense and could care less if they self-destruct or reach the ultimate goal of playing for the 5,000 attendee Dershowitz barmitzvah. The fact that they're some BROS playing Creed songs in Chantilly doesn't mean anything more to me than if they were a ventriloquist group rampaging about not getting respect from the guys who twirl plates on sticks. They should just pick themselves off shut up and stride forth to Brohalla and sit at the throne of Gonzo's Nose.}

One last statement:

You are going nowhere with your life. {Who, me?} In 15 years you will still be posting on the internet, {and I will be a 39 year old guy playing cover songs at the same bars that I play now} you'll still be unable to get anyone to like your music, {definitive word being YOUR} and you'll still be making a living {that's bad?} working a job that no one wants. {A semi-serious point; from what I can tell this whole thing is based on some bass players saying that they don't want to be part of THATGUY, (who proclaims this whole band thing is work and therefore a job they should have their collective wangs huffed by the world for having the momentous balls to carry out), because THAT GUY is a dumbass cover band that plays BROhead music to drunken rednecks and they (the bass players that is) would rather play originals than be stuck in THATJOB. So THATGUY guy is coming down on people for not taking THATJOB that they don't want while at the same time saying they're so clueless that they're destined to be stuck in a job they don't want for the rest of their lives instead which is what they just avoided by not taking the THATGUY job in the first place. It's just bad circular reasoning that never goes anywhere. Surprising from a band so good at math.} Meanwhile we will still be working our asses off, playing in front of hundreds of people, {The Reston Pool and Suds Hall is making plans for a major expansion} and living the life that you will NEVER HAVE A CHANCE TO LIVE. {The depths of my sadness at this can never be measured} You will never make it. {To Sully's} You will never be famous. {Unlike all the super famous cover bands out there like...ummm....}

Fuck off... get over it...

{ Wipes brow, shakes head, prays this whole thing was just a whacky marketing ploy, goes to eat food and get ready to play terrible original songs later on tonight, reminds self to call Tinkerbell to try and not be late."

www.thatguyonline.com
MIKE {RARRR!!!}

A good rule of thumb

2006-02-10T13:23:00.000-05:00

When doing anything don't try to make a point about something you're against by comparing it to anything to do with Nazis. To wit:

"Steele Apologizes for Holocaust Remarks
Compared Stem Cell Research to Nazi Medical Experiments

By Matthew Mosk, John Wagner and Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 10, 2006; 11:30 AM

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele apologized this morning for telling a Baltimore Jewish group yesterday that he believes stem cell research could be comparable to Nazi medical testing on Jews during World War II.

"I'm just sorry for having said it, for it having come out the way it did," Steele (R) said on WBAL radio. "I made an inappropriate inference, and I apologize for that."

Really is it that hard to remember? When in doubt stay away from all things Nazi.

Idiots. Anyway I'm off to Alabama tomorrow so I should get some good idiotic ammo to wrtite about. Whoopdeedoo! And totally out of context this might be the most insane thing I have ever written. You can figure out the whole thread by going here and heading to the message board.

Too much tension? What???? I take that as an insult after all I have done to instill civility and free love around here. Well now that my honor has been besmirched a reckoning is due. What's a proper course of action, indian burns, head butts, paper football, maybe pistols at dawn? Naw I know, German sabre fighting!

Yeah, I'll give you the renommier schmiss (known as Bragging Scars to those of you not versed in 19th century Prussian honor dueling) of a lifetime buddy. You'll be all rocking out at a show and somebody'll say something like "damn what's up with those puffy purple scars on dat
doodez cheeks" and some A&R rep who is totally down with the scene and about to write me a big check will be all like "dat doode stepped up on the interwebs and insulted some message board's honor and den got all called out by that big tall handsome dude called Castor Oil who I'm
about to write a big check to and give him a sandbag full of cocaine as a signing bonus cuz his band is like the best band since Dion and the Freaking Belmonts and yeah but whatevah LOL anyway yeah they stepped out back of the interwebs and had a German sabre fight and
Castor totally rocked him up like Superman got his butt rocked by Disco Kryptonite in Jam on it and all dat.

Castor was flying through the air and running on the ceiling like some Ninja Lionel Richie or sumthin yelling "YOU WANT SOME APOLLO..HERE'S SOME APOLLO CREED FER YA, AND SOME APOLLO ADAMA YOU CYLON LOVER AND HERE'S SOME APOLLO ANTON OHNO GOD BLESS THE U.S.A AND A CRESCENT SHAPED SCAR ON THE LEFT CHEEK IN HONOR OF THE ABORTED LUNAR MISSION APOLLO 13 AND A MATCHING ONE ON THE RIGHT FOR APOLLO THE ILLEGITIMATE (yet fetchingly handsome) SON OF ZUES AND THE TITAN LETO AND A NICK ON THE NOSE FOR HIS TWIN SISTER ARTEMIS." It was crazy!!

Yeah baby dem dere puffy purplez is what are called renommier schmiss, scars left by the traditional German honor duel of sabre fighting" and the first person'll be all like "DIZZAM DATZ FROOTY DOOTZ" and then when they see me eating eggs at Bob and Edith's'll be all like "hey
Mr. Oil how you doing don't mind me just go back to your eggs and cocaine and please don't slice me up" and I'll be like "chill little homey...I left my sabres in the Escalade....but get out my face anyway before I stab you wif this bottle of Texas Pete picante sauce" and then they'll buy my album on iTunes and thank their lucky stars.

Well it could happen that way. Have a nice weekend.

Pharmacy Prophets next Friday 2/17 at Jammin Java
With the Echoes and Steve Wynn (from the Dream Syndicate)
8:00 - We start that early for real and for true

Check your weapons at the door, it's an all ages show

King for a day

2006-02-02T12:51:00.000-05:00

Just in case anyone has forgotten that we used to like totally love this crazy little madman........................

Linky - Hey Saddam, thanks for coming!!! Go ahead and lock up when you're done. You have a key!

Thanks to Jason Linkins at the Dceiver for writing something pithy for me to entertain you all with.

A letter from my pal John Kerry (with my comments in red)

2006-01-31T14:44:00.000-05:00

A letter from my friend John Kerry (with comments in red)

Dear Steve,

Yesterday, 25 Democratic Senators joined our effort to filibuster the Alito nomination (swanky…just yesterday I took a piss and didn’t get a single droplet on the seat). -- that's more votes to filibuster the Alito nomination than there were votes against Justice Roberts' nomination itself just a few months ago, (we still lost our asses but this time it was just 87% of the cheeks and hole!)

This morning, 42 Senators (in an effort as meaningful as Webster declaring for the NBA draft) voted against Alito's nomination (then went to the strip bar and glared at the Japanese businessmen who seemed to be getting all the love from Candace and Vanessa). That's the highest number of votes against any Supreme Court nominee since Clarence Thomas in 1991 (this might mean something if I was a Detroit Lions fan or Leif Garrett’s addiction counselor and hard up for anything that smacks of progress).

It's hard to lose (but harder to win apparently) -- but it's important to fight for what we believe in (as evidenced by the gains we have made since banding together under this email list…..oh wait, scratch that, just..umm…go watch Rocky and send more money). I want to thank the hundreds of thousands of you who signed our petitions, (hundreds of thousands…eleven or twelve including two for Kennedy, it’s an inexact science) called your senators, (I LOST MY DRIVER’S LICENSE CAN YOU HELP I HATE THE LINE AT THE DMV!!!) wrote letters to the editor (ok just stop it) and, most important, refused to stand silent (sitting quietly is SO much more meaningful) while President Bush worked (after vacation) to pack the highest court in the land with far right ideologues, (damn if only someone could have done something to not let that happen like last November or something that would have been totally bitching).

We fought a fight that needed fighting, (?!?!?!). We made sure the nation knew the truth about the Alito nomination, (like you lost the election and reinforced the notion that Democrats are a bunch of whiny pussies so no matter how valid your argument may be it’s going to get ignored and this dude is going to get passed up to the bench no matter how red faced Teddy gets because no one takes a fucking thing you have to say at all seriously anymore if ever). We made sure America heard how a right wing ideological coup sandbagged Harriet Miers' nomination (wait, you would rather SHE got up there?!?!?) and replaced her with Judge Alito (seriously, Kerry must think I’m high to follow this line of reasoning).

No one will be able to say, in five to ten years, that he or she is surprised by the decisions Judge Alito makes from the bench (that could be accurate, pointless but accurate). People who believe in privacy rights, (you have plenty of privacy but refuse to take it!!! SHUT UP!!!!!) who fight for the rights of the most disadvantaged, (57 Sauce for all my people!) who believe in balancing the power between the President and Congress had to take a stand, (but instead turned on American Idol and sat down to take a crap. Isn’t that just a hard kick to the nuts.)

We also made it clear to the Bush administration that no matter what they throw at us in 2006 -- whether it's extreme nominees, special interest giveaways, shortsighted policy or Swift Boat-style attacks against Democratic candidates -- we will never surrender, (ummm…..aren’t you the guy that basically let the Swift Boat Vets shove a rusty propeller up your butthole the day of y our acceptance nomination?). We will always fight back (with much slapping but to no discernible effect other than it gives Bill O’Reilly something to talk about other than Holiday trees so in some small way you are serving the betterment of America.)
Now, we must be clear about something else, (something else implies we had clarity about something previous, but please continue). Winning the 2006 congressional elections is the only way to change the dangerous path George W. Bush has put us on, (other than winning the 2004 election which I screwed like a drunken Ukranian goatherder turned loose on the fettered beasts in the barn after getting a lapdance from Maria Sharapova). We need to defeat those Republicans who have overlooked this administration's incompetence, (not so much overlooked but bolstered but again…please continue) turned a blind eye to its failures, (WHAT FAILURES….why do you hate America?) and lent a helping hand to its dangerous ideology, (dude if they lent a helping hand you’re the fucking Gates foundation and Bono rolled into one for these clowns. Jesus).

Together, we have to act to make sure 2006 is the year Americans (yes!), led by Democrats, (doubtful) stand up (but I’m so comfortable) to incompetence, (HA! Do y ou recall your entire FUCKING PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN!?!?!?) cronyism (if I help you what’s in it for me?) and corruption, take back Congress, and get our nation moving in the right direction again. (I thought we just moved too far to the right. This guy is hard to follow!)

I look forward to fighting alongside you, (it’s like the Charge of the Light Brigade and Groundhog Day all rolled into a calzone of delicious loserdom)

Sincerely, (HA!)

John Kerry

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YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!

Hey jealousy

2006-01-26T15:57:00.000-05:00

I don’t have much time to get my dulcet words tipped and tapped out today but I would like to say this. My dog is the cutest damn dog on the planet and all of you ugly dog owning people should rightfully be totally jealous.

That's right.....you're the best.

BARK!!!

Vincent you are not the crap

2006-01-24T09:56:00.000-05:00

Guitar playing to me is like hooking up with girls in high school. It seems to come so easily to some yet to me it’s all fumbling and bumbling and feeling like a dope. I don't know if you can correlate the abject misery and time alone with a four year old copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to guitar playing but if it can be done I'm your boy. My ineptitude was put on display at practice last week. We were working on a song of Philito’s that has this kooky Latin feel break in the middle where Trey (our real guitarist) plays this Magnificent Seven feeling rattlesnake thing and Philito (also a real guitarist who plays bass for the Prophets) is Sambaing away on the bass line and me……

CRONK CRONK CRONK CHONK CHONK CHONK

Not too tasty.

One thing about the two guitarist in the band dynamic between Trey and I that is different between that of our former guitarist Wesley and I is that Trey is trying to actively make me a better guitar player. That’s not to say that Wesley didn’t care, he just let me find my own road for the most part with mixed results but to his credit he said that’s your style so go forth and be stylish. In the earlier days of the Prophets my guitar playing was a source of humor to all of my real guitar playing friends, (probably still is those fuckers), and I was fine with the joke but as time went on and we started recording I would listen to my style and begrudgingly admit, “Son that style is dogshit.” The joke had run it's course and as the band evolved it became apparent I needed to get things tightened up. To that end Trey has been showing me stuff that when he does it looks as hard as cracking a fart after lunch at Taco Bell but when I attempt it it’s like shitting out a Volkswagen Vanagon with the pop-up camper top. Not that I have ever really shat such an object but I think we can all agree that it doesn’t sound too comfortable.

Anyway back to la session de musica from the other night, Trey showed me a pretty simple chord to play that when I took about forty five seconds to position my fingers in the awkward and painful shape required sounded really cool with the song. No more CRONK and CHONK, it was really adding some flavor to the stew and I was joyful in the joyful noise I was making. Took a five second break, the fingers lost their iron grip on the strings and it was BWAAAANNNG BLOOONGGG TWANGADOO BONGGG all over again.

DAMMIT FOUL VIXEN OF THE SIX STRING YOU HUSSY!!!!

And there I stood like Danny DeVito in “Twins” when he lamented to Arnold that he got all the crap DNA….sad was I. The fellas were very supportive and in true mature fashion I pouted and hammered away at that cruel bitch of a guitar getting progressively more distraught and angry. Mercifully things wrapped up soon after and I took the bitch home with me determined to break her like Drago was going to break Rocky. Of course we all know how that turned out. “The guitar……it is like iron.”

Not wanting to be thought of as anything less than supremely glorious I have endeavored mightily to become a better guitar player. I practiced and practiced but my fingers just were not willing to twist and bend and behave the way that others do. I don’t want to play solos or any of that shit but I do want to play credibly and add something to the songs other than CRONK CRONK CRONK CHONK CHONK CHONK. The desire is there but the fingers and hands were not really getting with the program. Until…..

This morning I was amusing the more wee of the wee lassies playing with blocks and little plastic zebras and the like. She toddled (as toddlers are wont to do) over to the guitar case where Cruella de Musica resides and started banging on it and chewing on the corners. Ah well thinks I, here comes a life lesson for the bonnie child seeing her magnificent Pops as human and fallible. I glumly broke out the twanger quite aware of the mess to come when I would try to play the chord of DOOM. But like magic the digits assumed the position and a strumming we did go with the girly twisting and spinning away to the beat. I just stopped strumming to tip tap this here entry and announce to the world that I have finally gotten to first base with the guitar. If I keep practicing maybe I’ll get its metaphoric bra unsnapped and be able to play “Angie’ by the Stones by the time I’m fifty.

Baby steps Doctor Bob, Baby steps.

A whore from Whore island

2006-01-23T10:01:00.000-05:00

My first column for On Tap will actually be birthed next week. I wasn’t exactly sure which tact to tack to and went in lots of different directions before settling on something awesome…talking about myself. I have lots of ideas for the next few months though. Some interviews and reviews in mind. One thing I want to do is have a very frank interview over drinks with someone that I truly honestly hate and would like to see dead. That could be cool. I also think I’ll interview myself as I know that will be spot on terrific.

In other news…

Lately in the casa de magnifico (aside from repeated viewings of Anchorman on HBO) we have had a lot of discussions with the elder offspring about the value of honesty and the problems that lying can bring down up one’s head. It's not that my wee lass has issues of any sort with it, this sort of value system teaching is just a central theme of parenting. Good parenting involves teaching your children to always tell the truth after you have consistently lied to them since birth about everything from Santa Claus to why that one cousin is always falling asleep at Thanksgiving dinner and crashing his car into the mailbox. It's just the right thing to do, (as Wilford Brimley once famously declared about eating Oatmeal). We do have to keep the future therapists in appointments after all.

Lying is a biological human characteristic as much as flight or fight or drunk dialing after drinking Jose Cuervo, it just happens. Why? Who knows? The ramifications are almost always worse from the lie than the event being lied about. Sure there are exceptions, I mean if you’re some lawn mowing duder with a wife and kids who happens to be giving BJ’s at the local rest stop after work maybe it’s better to let the fantasy of the work happy hour perpetrate. I don’t know about that particular situation but I bet there are a few mid-level White House officials who have an informed opinion on which way to spin it. But for the most part telling the truth wins out over not for all parties involved. I speak from experience as I was a horrendous teller of tales as a kid and a teenager and consistently found my nuts in the wringer as a result. It only took me about twenty years to figure out that it wasn’t worth the trouble. Lying, especially after cocktails, is way too hard to manage down the road. At least with the truth you have the story straight as sad, twisted, boring or magnificent as it may be.

Anyway as I was chatting with the family about this stuff and being super parent of the millennium I thought about a situation where someone sorta slandered, busted my balls, lied about me from last week. Y’see there’s a band around town that works really hard to get done what they need to get done to get where they want to go and they generate a lot of commentary in the process, mostly good but sometimes not so much. That comes with the territory and as they say any press is good press…..but is it really? Not surprisingly to any of you I’m sure I’m not really focused on them as much as me and my peripheral involvement in their business. Check this out……………

http://www.dcist.com/archives/2006/01/06/full_minute_of_mercury_iota.php#more

Great review and the reviewer is obviously a big fan and thumbs up for the band. That should be it right? No reason for me to have anything to do with it at all other than read it and think, “Good job, local music getting press is good, I need to get my picture in the paper, what’s for lunch, damn my hair looks good today” and the rest of the usual thoughts I have when perusing the internets. But if you scroll through the comments you’ll see a reference to me (despite my imposing presence Lilliputian really could only refer to me…..no matter how tall and commanding I appear when I enter a room) from a whore from Whore island (thank you Ron Burgundy) calling her/him self Jen in response to a not so positive comment left by another anonymous soul calling him/herself Rob Styles:

“Of course "Rob Styles" is in a band (probably that two-faced lilliputian from the pharmacy prophets or some other irrelevant local band).”

What the fuck is that? For the record I am not Rob Styles and even if I wanted to say something about the show I couldn’t as I wasn’t there. So Jen the whore from Whore Island is a fucking liar but he/she/tranny can lie without consequence due to the beat into the ground conundrum of faceless shitheads talking shit on the internet. How do I reconcile this with my awesome parental teachings about the value of honesty and the absolute certainty of consequence for telling fibs? That’s something I’m still working on. I mean if there’s any semblance of karmic justice Jen (whore) will get shot in her/his wretched genitalia by a pistol wielding Killers fan who got slipped some Ketamine in his P.B.R. and flipped out in rage and despair when BedHead stopped producing his much-loved hair goop (for that greasy slept in the trash bin look) or some shit but I really can’t count on that. Posting denials as I did is lame and just validates their bullshit. What to do what to do? Sure I’m reading too much into it as Jen the whore from whore island didn’t come out and say I was this Rob Styles as much as imply that it probably was me but still…….

That is not the kind of reverent adulation that I deserve from you people.

Maybe I can drop a note to the NSA telling them that this Jen is actually sending coded messages to Bin Laden and have her shot in the face by a sniper. Hmmm, that could work, (in a very scary way it probably WOULD actually work). Or maybe I should just look at it in a different light and think that of all the bands in town, all of the hipster dorks and metal freaks and shaggy haired mopers with band names like September’s Withered Ovary this whore from Whore Island found my band just relevant enough to talk shit about it.

Nah.

I still want that whore dead.

I have to go now, I'm having lunch in Pleasure Town.

Skins Mark Duex

2006-01-20T11:52:00.000-05:00

I left things off at the local yokel bar and the Brokeback Mountain brothers ass-slapping away and everyone yelling at the TV sets.

So………

The game was hotly contested and things were not looking that great for the home team. Memories of games lost at the final moment were sending everyone into throes of stress and distress. It was tight and the brothers Dimm were the tightest of them all. As I related in the last post I had joined the throng at the bar leaving the lovely Mrs. to her taquitos and the company of Uga and Footsie Lisa. The three of them had many laughs at my expense (deservedly) and things were fit to bursting. Something had to break the ice…and the ice got broken.

Well, a table got broken but its close enough I guess.

The Brothers in a throe of exultation over the Redskins holding strong on a Buccaneer 4th down went totally insane. Bro # 1 went sprinting up and down the length of the bar while Bro # 2 bent at the waist like he was trying to pass a gourd and screamed “FUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!!” over and over. I guess he was getting winded from the wind sprints and needed a break so Bro #1 leapt onto the back of prostate Bro #2. In a maneuver that would have made Tai Bablognia and Randy Who Remembers His Last Name and Who Gives a Shit Anyway envious Bro #2 stood up and simultaneously flipped and spun Bro #1 around and over so Bro #1 was straddling Bro #2, both Bros face to face, with Bro #1’s legs wrapped around the sizable waist of his kin.

It was awesome until gravity, momentum and alcohol took over.

Bro #2 held strong for a few seconds but the weight of his Bro was soon to much to bear. He lurched to his left, wobbled, stood and them both Bros went crashing into a table about five feet over. The table flipped, the patrons that were slowly dying there scattered and glass and cheap booze went everywhere. Chaos ensued. Much yelling and gesticulating and of course Bro hugging finished off the game watching experience.

And that as they say was that. We bailed after the game, at sushi, stopped off at another bar where some dumb drunk dick was buying rounds of shots for the bar. I’m sure he was thrilled when he looked at his $900 bar tab the next day.

Anyway…..

So the Skins are out and now I have to slog through another interminable baseball season before I can get my hopes up and dreams crushed by the Snyder Banditos. Such is the life of the fan.

Hail to the Brokeback Bar

2006-01-10T16:01:00.000-05:00

Last weekend the lovely lovely paramour of mind relented to the idea of going to a bar and watching the Redskins/ Buccaneers game with me. “The biggest game in years” I ranted and raved, “we have to go commune with others to get the full experience!!!!”

Right.

Being a charitable sort and kinda hungry with a hankering for something fried and delicious she agreed and after securing the wee ones in capable hands off we went to meet with the fellow citizens of Fandom de la Redskinsville. To be fair to the fucking morons soon to populate this story we headed out midway through the 2nd quarter so there was plenty of time for said morons to get retardedly wasted before we showed up. And wasted, oh Lord, they were. Anyway…

First we went to the local “sports bar” which was a nightmare. It was packed beyond all recognition and as soon as we walked in I saw some guy screaming at the TV imploring the broadcast gods “GIBBS FUCKING GROW A SACK AND GO FOR IT ON 4th MOTHERFUCKING SHIIIIIIITTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!! PORRRRRTISSSSSSS GO FOR IT MOTHERFUCKING REDDDDSKINZZZZZZZZZZ YAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” It was second down. Needless to say, they went for it. High fives all around!!!

If you ever go to a sports bar and you’re not an afficianado of whatever event is being spotlighted and want to find out something about the event do yourself a favor and keep as far away as possible from the loudmouthed high-fiving mouthbreathers in replica jerseys that ass grab each other and curse out the officials after every play. These are the same shitfaces that buy Three Doors Down records and think Vin Diesel is a good actor. They should be burned alive as their combustible carbon based life structure is worth more in measurable BTUs to the human race than any malformed opinion they might ever come up with. If you want to hear some insight worth hearing gravitate to the quieter drunks in simple team caps watching intently from their seats, usually they at least know what sport is being contested.

When the Redskins got zero yards on a drive and the punter punted a truly shitty punt we were assaulted with a “WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BAYBEEE EAT MY ASS FUCKING BUCS YEAH MOTHERFUCKER!!!” and knew it was time to beat it. We had been at the sports bar for approximately 37 seconds.

I desperately wanted to see the game and I was indebted to my beloved for something fried and delicious so we headed up to the local yokel bar that’s been well documented in this here blog. The gang was definitely all there minus Magic and Boob who I think might be dead and if so I’m writing the Better Business Bureau to recommend an A+++ rating to Madame Satan’s House of Voodoo and Curses for giving me the two for one bargain special of a lifetime. Amongst the usual rabble of the despondent and nearly dead there were some new faces there and the bar was really full but my Madame Beauteous and I were able to find a booth. Properly squatted we settled in to grimace and glower and feel the sting of certain doom (me) and enjoy some taquitos (she). Our friends UgaBully and Lisa showed up and joined in the fun. Lisa was totally playing footsie with me which was kinda weird but she covered it up with an excuse of “I thought that was the table leg” which forestalled me and Uga having to duke it out or draw pistols at dawn, (never fun anyway, much less fun with a hangover), and get at it till the death. I’m not a big fan of killing my friends even when honor calls for it so I appreciated Lisa calming down the situation (even though it was all her fault to begin with….TRAMP!!!).

We were all watching the game and having a good time in spite of the stress except for the nonstop assault of finger in the teeth foghorn whistles and truly aggressive latent homosexual beast behavior from two meatheads across the way from our booth. Backward hatted and replica jerseyed they were hugging and high-fiving and ass slapping each other without pause or conscience. The booth next to ours was occupied by some repulsively ugly but otherwise harmless almost sentient beings who somehow became the target of the two residents of Brokeback Football Stadium’s witticisms.

“COOLEY PUT THAT ONE IN YO ASS!!!!”
“LAVAR PUT THAT ONE IN YO ASS!!!!”
“PUT THAT ONE IN YO ASS!!!!!”
“UP YO ASS WITH A RIDDELL HELMET!!!!!”

And so on and so forth. It was getting pretty silly, they came over and high fived me and the Mrs. (odd) and then implored me to “GET THE FUCK UP AND GET OVER HERE AND CHEER MOTHERFUCKER WHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Of course I had to, how could you not?!?! It turns out these two are brothers, (very affectionate brothers to boot!!!), who have never set foot in the bar before that day. Like Spinal Tap said about the Druids, “No one knows who they were…or what they were doing”, these two yahoos were a mystery to all involved.

I have to go now, I’ll finish tomorrow with tales of smashed tables, kissed lips and a $500 round of shots.

Sorry for the delay!

You're the meaning in my life

2006-01-04T11:42:00.000-05:00

So I’m going to start writing a monthly column for On Tap and I’m trying to think of how to get it started. I pondered doing another fantastically entertaining interview of myself by myself as that tact got this blog going pretty well some time back but I want to break some new ground so I’m shelving that idea.

I wrote a few paragraphs about how I muse about flinging poo like the apes at the Zoo do to people who annoy them at the jerkholes that stand in line to get into Whitlow’s in Arlington. That was funny but after you get past the ape to me corollary it was pretty hard to keep the humor train chugging. Then I started plipping off about my adoration for Hanoi Rocks. That’s always fun but not a great lead-in column. I really need it to sizzle and for some reason many of the lepers out there don't find Finnish dudes playing glam/punk/trash rock sizzling. Idiots, (that means you Doctor Jones).

Of course there’s always the local dickholes in local dickhole bands to write about and I still might go that way. It’s hysterical that into their late 20’s and 30’s these retards think they can shoot off at the mouth about what bands they think suck and are “fags” (whoever isn’t standing next to them at the time) to whatever band dude they’re talking to at the time and that said band dude won’t go running at the first opportunity to reveal to the “sucker” what was said. That leads to lots of “I’ll beat that fuckers asshole off with a baseball bat made out of the petrified cock of God!!!” statements made at band practice until they all end up in the same room and pat each other’s ballsacks and Bro it up about setting up shows together. I have that topic in the back pocket if I can’t come up with other ideas.

I could write about shatteringly important things like politics, religion, hairdos, lotto tickets and the proper way to make a cheesesteak but none of that is flaming the fire.

Hmmmm…………….

Thank God for mirrors and the wonderful inspiration that they supply me.

Happy New Year

2006-01-03T09:45:00.000-05:00

So far 2006 is awesome. The Skins are in the playoffs, my eyeballs are clear, the flu has passed and things are generally jolly. This is just icing on my personal cake. From CNN - "Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close associate of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, to plead guilty to corruption, other charges, source tells CNN."

I have a feeling my 2006 is going to be a lot more fun than the Hammer's which is good. I'm fun, he's a fucking dick, fun people should have more fun. I mean I might not be sitting in a position of high power like old Tom but I don't have a weasel like Slinky Jack looking to cover his own broad ass by opening up a vault full of shenanigans that I pulled to worry about either. I am so hopeful Delay will go down with a resounding explosion. I want to see his eyes bug out of his head like Large Marge's in Pee Wee's Big Adventure when the verdict comes down. It would also be nice to see critical disaster fall upon Dick Cheney. Keep eating bacon by the pound Dick, you fucking dick you, it's the other white meat y'know!!

Anyway...

There's a long series of posts coming so keep checking back. I promise to be entertaining with more frequency in the next few weeks.

Auld Langs balls and all that!

Bumming

2005-12-21T09:11:00.000-05:00

I had a terrible experience last week and surprisingly it had nothing to do with getting my eyeballs cut by a laser knife. That whole thing is great, my vision is tremendous and I look just super. No, the bad occurence was my hard drive committing suicide on my laptop. Not giving a shit about technology at all at first I saw it as an inconvenience but as I think more and more about what was on there I get increasingly depressed about it.

First off I lost all the stuff I have ever written for this blog which isn’t THAT big a deal as I can go through and cut and paste all the crap off the site and save it again. A pain but doable. I lost lots of other stuff I have written for On Tap, lyrics, general stuff for the amorphous book,,,I can rewrite or try to remember all of that. My brain still works so that can all be regenerated (I hope).

I lost my iTunes and have to go figure out how to get the shit from the iPod to the computer instead of the other way around. I’m sure that’s doable as well.

The absolute worst is that I lost my picture gallery with a year’s worth of stuff from the digital camera and that has me twitchy with sadness. A year’s worth of images that I can’t recover, of the wee child going from swaddled infancy to a walking blabbering fun machine…gone. A year where the elder darling child went from little kid to not so little kid….gone. I can get a bunch of stuff from my parents and other folks who snapped photos of our beautiful selves but there is just so much stuff lost, it totally sucks.

I’m sad.

If any of you are thinking of leaving a comment about how I should have backed everything up feel free to burn in hell.

It does cheer me up to hear that Jack Abramhoff is going to cut a plea deal and send DeLay and Ney down the river. That’s great news. The NSA spying thing is about the least surprising big news story I can imagine. Is there anyone out there that still thinks the POTUS and his crew have any thought whether they can do whatever the fuck they want regardless of inconveniences like laws?

This entry sucks but I’m too depressed to be entertaining. I’m as sad as John Gibson is stupid and Bill O’Reilly is…well…stupid.

You may fire when ready

2005-12-15T13:03:00.000-05:00

In just about two hours I will be getting lasers shot into my eyeballs so that I can achieve wholly unheard of levels of attractiveness by never having to wear full-time eyeglassess again.

I just can't wait till the doctor asks if I'm all set so I can look at him and in a fantastic Grand Moff Tarkin voice intone -

YOU MAY FIRE WHEN READY!!!

After that it's sit back, get sexy and head home to ingest prescription painkillers.

Wiping Bill Kirchen's ass

2005-12-12T12:13:00.000-05:00

I’m not exactly sure what precipitated the fiasco but out of the blue Drunky the Clown was yelling and screaming about how Bill Kirchen and Tom Principato are the two best guitarists in Washington, D.C. and how I was the embodiment of all the disrespectful punks not fit to wipe the asses of these esteemed guitar twangers.

What the fuck you say?

To set the scene I was up at the idiots bar to watch the Redskins game with my friend Marucs Aurelias. We were all at the bar....me, Marc, Scotty, Slim, the Busdriver, Anthony Quinn, Dumb Jack, Massage Parlor Vinne and a few others including the heretofore never seen by me (amazingly) Drunky the Clown. The bar itself is about 25 seats long and Drunky the Clown was at the far right end facing the Alex the bartender and I was halfway down square in front of the TV set (having wiled my way to the Pole Position for watching the game as was my purpose for being there in the first place). As Drunky was yelling Alex asked my opinion about Tom and Bill and if I knew them. I said I had met them both and opined as it comes to being THE BEST that I think they're great (which I do and have made many trips to see both of them) but not the best I have heard in town. Simple as that.

Drunky leered down the bar and hollered, “Tell me again what you just said cuz I’m hoping I heard you wrong!!!!”

Uh-oh.

Here is my reply to Drunky in full context and if you can’t believe I was this self-effacing and polite I totally understand but I was. I simply said, "in my opinion and it's just my opinion and is no better or worse than yours I think those guys are completely and totally awesome but TO ME for the music I dig they're not THE BEST I have seen around here." Let me clarify that statement a bit because I want it to be clear that I think both Bill and Tom are astounding guitarists. I spent many evenings at the Sunset Grille nodding in pure joy when Kirchen would peel the paint off the walls. But I’m not a huge blues or blues-rock guy and never have been. So for me to say that someone is THE BEST I have to put it in the context of what is the best FOR ME. Trying to quantify that shit is idiotic anyway, another chucklehead jumped in saying Keith Richards is the best guitarist ever and you know what, if he believes who’s to say he’s wrong? Drunky the Clown obviously.

But to get back on point…………..

Somehow by the time my quiet little statement of opinion reached the ears of Drunky the yeller it had translated into me saying that I'm a better guitar player than both Bill and Tom not to mention Danny Gatton and Jimi Hendrix and that I didn't know "my place" and was disrespectful of “people who have put in their time.” I politely told him that I didn’t say anything like that, that I’m an admitted extremely limited guitarist which is why no one will ever see me attempt a guitar solo and that he was either surely deaf, way too drunk or mentally challenged or a mixture of some or all of those ingredients and besides Bill Kirchen moved to Texas so his theory was half fucked anyway.

Well I said it in a nice tone at least.

At some point during the exchange he started referring to me as Young Buck which was intended as an insult but came across like a sweet affectation for a principal character in Brokeback Mountain. Things kept going on and on and on and on with this guy and I’m just sitting there getting yelled at and laughing with my friend Marc about the idiocy of this whole situation but over time he stopped being unintentionally funny and there was a fair bit of annoyance building up not just with me but with everybody else who was still conscious (not all the patrons I assure you) and had to listen to his shit. He had a loud and awful voice, like the sound of a dumpster full of glass being emptied into a trash truck made of chalkboards and it made the skin creepy crawly as he got more progressively more drunk, angry and loud.

He had fallen backwards off his bar stool and crashed his thick head hard to the floor and from that point on went reasonably berserk with full on about to have a stroke red-face when I wouldn’t relent to his opinion. After the skull thumping and associated laughter at his expense from all his buddies it was pretty quick that he started crossing over from drunken loudmouth to aggressive lunatic.

Some choice tidbits from the latter part of the conversation…

"Who the fuck are you...what makes you so great?!?!"

"What are you...19 years old...you don't know shit about a goddamn thing you little baby!!"

“You couldn’t wipe Bill Kirchen's ASS!!!!”

“Something about you make you think your shit don’t stink Young Buck, makes you think you’re so much better than these MEN. You isn’t no man young Buck, you’re just a fairy who can’t even tune his guitar!!”

“You think because you’re young and pretty you can play guitar better than Bill Kirchen. Well let me tell you something Young Buck being pretty will only get you so far.”

The bartender replying with “How the fuck would you know?” really was an astoundingly funny moment.

As I was getting yelled at I was answering back as best I could amusing myself while trying to get him to calm down but the more I placated and tried to play the nice card the angrier he got. He was like the Hulk, only a Hulk that weighed around 115 pounds and had early onset Emphysema and thinning hair and wore an ill-fitting Redskins sweatshirt that saw its best day back when Billy Kilmer was getting arrested for drunk in public the night after a game, (that was the 70’s for you non-Redskins-o-philes out there). The entire bar at this point was either laughing at or cussing at Drunky which got him ever more hostile. Probably not the best comment to make to defuse him was - "I've met both Bill and Tom a number of times, I'm sure they'd be thrilled to have a fucking dumbass clown like you waving their flag for them." but I made it, it seemed so right at the time.

That witticism was the straw that got Drunky off his stool and the bartender around the corner. Apparently I needed to get some of my "attitude smacked off". Now its one thing when some old brokendown douche is yelling at you across the bar but when they shuffle off the stool and start breathing the breath of the damned in your face it’s just too much. I have not been in a proper dust-up in years and have no interest or intention of ever getting in one again. They almost always ended up with me getting punched really hard and trying not to cry. Rarely was there that kind of punishment given to or reaction seen on the other side of the argument so I’m not throwing out the bad-ass card at all, just retelling the tale as it happened.

I was pretty sure that I could push Drunky over with a finger or concentrated breath if Alex ever let things get to the point of actual altercation which there was very little chance of. Alex is bigger than me and Drunky combined and is a friend so he would never allow a mess to be made that way over something as stupid as this. Being in a pretty safe position and tired of laughing it off I told Drunky in as stout and manly yet amused voice as I could muster (it’s an affectation worthy of trip to “Inside the Actor’s Studio” if you want to know the truth) that if he wanted to continue I'd be happy to bust his narrow ass and shove it up the coinslot of the payphone he was standing next to.

BOING!

Drunky followed the laws of the Slobberingly Pathetic Wino Universe and immediately softened the eyes, rocked back on the heels, raised his arms and tried to BRO hug me. You see "he was just kidding Young Buck!!!" It’s amazing really the politics of the drunks. Once you know the game plan it all unfolds like A-B-C every time. I sat back down and Drunky shuffled away with a muttering and a grumble. For the record I did not engage in a single fisticuff, push, shove or Bro hug with him. For this I am glad as touching him even cursorily would have meant a trip to the Doc’s for a Tetanus shot and I just don’t have time for that in my busy schedule!

To wrap it up; the bartender transferred my last beer to and then bought me a shot on Drunky's tab as a way to make him pay for being an asshole and peace was restored in the Kingdom. Marc dropped me off at la plaza de magnifico (my house) and upon my joyous arrival after the blaring of the horns of rapture had faded and the doves had flown away the lovely Mrs. asked how the game was. I said it was ugly but the Skins won and that the idiots were idiotic and all in all things were jolly and well. Later on I thought about asking her to refer to me as “Young Buck” but thought better of it, without the context it would be a little creepy.

Why do I keep going there you ask?

Why for you of course. Someone needs to make a sacrifice for your pleasure!!!

Call of the Wild

2005-12-07T13:51:00.000-05:00

When traveling repeatedly to the same locale it's a good idea to set up a reliable base of operations. I travel to a certain mid-sized Southern city quite often for the jobbidity and always stay downtown at the same hotel so the hotel bar would seem to be the logical choice. However my loathing of the animals and maniacs that frequent hotel bars in general combined with overpricing and really scary bartenders invariably led me on a quest to find an alternative go-to location to wile away the time until I can get home to the happy embrace of my palacial estate and it's surreally cute occupants.

Some time back I ventured out on a warm fall evening (it's the South remember) wandering up Broad Street looking for the hovel away from home. I shuffled past the boarded up windows and tea houses and anything that resembled a cigar bar or a place most likely frequented by assholes. I was looking for some pretty basic criteria -

1- Dark
2 - Good jukebox
3- Good bartenders
4 - No dudes in French cuffs smoking cigars
5 - Cheap liquor

Not too much to ask for and after a few blocks and some looking about at unsuitable venues I stood at the threshold of a place called the Firehouse. "Hmm", thinks I, "this looks promising." From the sidewalk I could hear "Big Dumb Sex" by Soundgarden playing and saw a print of Iggy Pop's "Brick by Brick" album cover on the wall.

So far so good.

BDS ended and as I stepped to the threshold the opening strains of "For Those About to Rock" cranked out of the speakers the nanosecond my foot hit the floor of the bar.

Promising indeed.

I let my eyes adjust to the gloom, (two seconds in and criteria 1 and 2 had been met), and saw bounding up to greet me a happy faced yellow lab with a tennis ball in his mouth. The bartender yelled, "Awwww don't worry about him he's super-friendly. If you like dogs and play ball with him for a minute first drink is on me."

Check on #3.

At the bar was a motley looking assortment the kind you see at working class rock and roll bars in cities like Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Tattoos and dirty shoes, that kind of thing. Nary a collar much less a French cuff in sight. I tossed the ball to my new best friend and had a seat. The guy sitting next to me had two shots in front of him and said askance, "My buddy had to take off before we could tell Neil he didn't want another round. That's Jack Daniel's if you want it."

Tickmark next to #4.

So I'm just soaking up the atmosphere and listening to the tunes and enjoying my now two free drinks and was very well pleased with my discovery. Looking at the chalkboard I see that domestic cans cost $1.50 and shots are $3.00.

Bingo on the fivespot.

And I have found me a home. So I head over there whenever I visit and have gotten on a semi-regular basis with the bartenders and regulars. Enough to get an honest "good to see you" but not enough where I really have to get to know anyone. It's perfection with uneven floors. That being said the charm of the place is the rough edges and from time to time you're going to get some entertaining yet idiotic events taking place.

I headed over after dinner one night last week with some of the work folks that I have shared the secret of my Fortress of Solitude location with. A good group and we were looking forward to some bent elbow time at the bar. We got in the door and before I could order a beer a wild-eyed Grizzly Adams looking local yokel got into a push and shove with another yokel then punched him square in the mouth. The bartenders pushed them both outside where they proceeded to yell, advance, grimace, stomp, yell some more and then as is the nature of the universe give each other the big BRO hug and become best friends.

Awesome!

The BRO hug knows no boundaries!

So while I would rather be at home it's nice to have a place where you can curl up with a cheap cocktail and watch dumbasses punch each other in the face. Home is indeed where the heart is.

There is a God after all......

2005-12-05T12:21:00.000-05:00

See?

Next thing you know they'll tell us cigarettes are good for the heart and girth of the dirty bits and then what a party we shall see!

Take that duck

2005-12-02T14:47:00.000-05:00

This picture of a dog named Doobie just makes me laugh. Doobie eats shit and humps cats. He is a scary beast not in the "I'll rip your throat out" way, (unless you're a duck), but in a, "that dog with the addorable fluffy tail and sassy little underbite apparently has water on the brain and who knows what he might do next so watch your leg!!!" kind of way.

Me, Doobie and Jeremiah Johnson will be kicking it this Saturday at Philito's birthday extravaganza. Bring your own poo and waterfowl.

See ya later assholes!

2005-12-02T12:15:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm upper crust and rolling in the dough who needs the likes of you people? It seems oh lower class minions that I'm a big lucky winner of the $500,000 consultation prize from Netherlands Powerball! I appreciate your friendship and all over the past years of my life, really I do, but you can't begrudge me denying your existence from here on out as I rub shoulders and bump into the Hiltons and Olsenseszz of the world now can you?

Thank the baby jesus for email and Internet Powerball Wheel LOTTO!!!

Now if you'll excuse me I have to contact the Due Process Unit (DPU) to collect my fortune.

Au revoir suckers!

from my inbox -

POWERBALL LOTTO -wheel E-game 2005,
Date: 28th-November-2005
Ref Nr: PBL/CN/7754/CPDear Consolation Prize Winner, CONSOLATION PRIZE WINNER NOTICE.

Europe/America private international e-games organizers and co-sponsors, POWERBALL LOTTO Group International, officially bring to your notice of the final draw result of the 28th November-2005 POWERBALL LOTTO -wheel E-game which was conducted at our international corporate office complex in The Netherlands. Most recently this foundation setup the NEW LOTTERY SCHEME to give out prizes based on COMPUTER BALLOT SYSTEM. By doing this the foundation seek to encourage the use of Internet for academic and business pursuits. It major aim is to promote music, theater, art, literature, projects in the social and political arena with a focus on health, as well as science, research, and higher education. We wish to congratulate and inform you on the selection ofyour email coupon number which was selected among the 45 lucky consolation prize winners. Your email ID identified with coupon No.PBL4548974321 and was selected by our E-games Random Selection System(ERSS) with entries from the 50,000 different email addresses enrolledfor the E-game. Your email ID was included among the 50,000 different email addresses submitted by our partner international email provider companies. You have won a consolation cash prize of US $ 500,000.00(Five hundred thousand US Dollars) only. The POWERBALL LOTTO Group. BV,have approved a payout of your consolation cash prize which will be remunerated directly to you by the official Payment Agency Board.

Our DUE PROCESS UNIT (DPU) will render to you complete assistance and provide additional information and processes for the claims of your consultation prize. For due processing of your winning claim, please contact the DPU Information/ file Officer: Mr. Janick Hills who has been assigned to assist you.

Contact E-mail: pbinfolott@netscape.net
TEL:+31-650-892-317
Fax: +31-847-580-560.

Remember,your winning must beclaimed not later than 17-12-05. After this date, claim will be return as unclaim fund. Once again congratulations from all our staffs on your consolation prize winning, we hope you will partake our forthcoming POWERBALL LOTTO -wheel Email-games.

Regards,
Mrs. TheresaPrunk, (Group Coordinator).

Note: It has come to our attention that fraudulent emails are being sent out from the Netherlands by some group of people. These emails are NOT from Powerball -wheel Email-games or the Multi-State Lottery Association. These emails may claim that the recipient has won a prize in Powerball -wheel Email-games or Australian Powerball, theNetherlands Powerball or some other non-existent international version of Powerball. These emails may include our name, our logo and links toa copy of an old Powerball web page as we are working seriously to ensure security on our web page. In accordance with the POWERBALLLOTTO -wheel E-games policy and regulations, this notification is dispatched directly to only the 45 lucky consolation prize Winners.

This notification also contains information that is proprietary,privileged or confidential or otherwise legally exempt from disclosure. If you are not the right recipient whose email address attached to the lucky numbers along with the winning information’s you are not authorized to read, print, retain, copy or disseminate this notice or any part of it.

Well done grasshopper

2005-12-01T13:30:00.000-05:00

Well it’s been some time now….

I’ve been busy. SHUT UP!!!

Anyway to recount the last couple weeks in detail would be long and hard on the brainpan so I’ll just summarize some of the high and low points.

The band(ito) played a really fun show at the Velvet Lounge. An odd moment came and then came and came again post-set when an amorous attendee set her sights squarely upon young Trey and tried to lay lip smuckers on him over and over. Rebuffed by our stalwart Texan she proceeded to lavish attention upon other brutally handsome rakes such as me, myself, and I. Using my highly developed catlike reflexes I shucked and jived this Morganna of rock….back, left, right to and fro I went and was left with barely a smidgen of a smear of lipstick on my cherubic cheeks. Sometimes being raised in a puritanical ninja household has its advantages.

Thanksgiving festivities were good. The older brother of yours truly, Saint John as he is known, was in town looking younger than ever. People think I look young for my age but the Saint takes it to a completely ridiculous level. If he weren’t so damn virtuous and overall nice I would suspect he has a withered portrait of himself stashed away like Dorian Gray but I think he just keeps to a good diet and strict moisturizing regimen. Freak. I did my level best to get him good and drunk as often as possible and came close on a couple of occasions but never to the level I desired….the one where I could get him to confess to something really rotten that I could use against him when it was time to get Pops to update the will for instance. Yeah, Saint John talks a good game regarding the spirits but when it comes down to brass tacks he usually won’t go for it and get really stupid. In a last ditch hail-mary effort to get him dizzy I took him up to the local yokels bar along with Ali Baba and the Mrs. and it was high-spirited fun as it always is with the Baba and my loveliest of lovelies. My brother came out of the night OK but me and Ali were in pretty rough trade by the end of the night, something to do with shots named after cheese-based desserts and gallons of shitty domestic beer will do that to you. The brain damaged brethren that inhabit the bar were in good cheer that night getting fueled up to fry turkeys and burn their shitty houses to the ground the next day. Speaking of the cranially challenged I haven’t seen Boob up there in a while. Maybe he’s dead…...hmmmmmm. That would be SWEET as I would be one step up on the ladder of who gets to man the remote control for the TV set over the bar. The death of four hours of Hunter re-runs is nigh, it’s What Not To Wear and Justice League Unlimited on deck!! No wonder those assholes hate me so much.

In a sad sad turn of events my friend Bernard died and that was a pretty rough one to get through. He was a good friend, father, buddy all around. For instance he used to mow my lawn for free without being asked. Seriously. It all started when he bought himself a ridiculously large riding mower and sadly ended when it became apparent that his mowing skills consistently left the lawn with the appearance of a Marine Corps freshcut (complete with bald spots!) after he was done driving over it. Can you imagine how much it sucks to ask someone to stop mowing your lawn for you? If I didn't consider the lawn to be the equivalent of the hair on the head of my house I would never have asked him to stop but sacrifices must be made for the good of the hair...errr....lawn...whatever. He didn't get bent out of shape about it though as he was truely a good one. God bless ya Bernard, you were the swankiest Moroccan I ever did know and I will truly miss you telling me how shitty my wine is and taking me to the most God-forsaken restaurants NOVA has to offer. Sleep well.

Now back to me but still speaking of Bernard; As if going to the funeral of a friend isn’t shitty enough when the Mrs. and I went to pay Bernard our respects we had the stupid asshole family sitting behind us with stupid asshole little kid saying stupid asshole things and making me want to have them all trade places with Bernard. If your kid is such a fucking stupid asshole brat that it can’t keep still and quiet for ten minutes at a funeral leave it out in the car, preferably in the cold. Worse than dealing with the stupid asshole family came directly after the service. We had wrapped up the praying and damn if I wasn't in tears even while glaring at the stupid assholes on the way out of the funeral proper. We got in the receiving line comprised of grieving family including Bernard’s kids and there I am teary and reflective and thinking about Bernard and his family and my kids and the wifey until I’m rudely shaken from my reflection by the fuckface standing in front of me with his gross wife and disgusting kids. Lord King Shitface, (that’s my pet name for him) was talking loudly through his handlebar mustache (no lie) to no one in particular that he was “going to be cutting it close to making the tee time if we don’t get out of here.” I couldn’t believe it. What level of prickdom do you have to attain to even have that train of thought running through your brain at a FUNERAL?!?!?!?! On the off chance that you’re reading this you Rollie Fingers wannabe piece of dogshit why don’t you go shove a seven wood up the hole of your pathetic withered cock and attach yourself to one of those gigantic junkyard magnets so I can shoot arrows with sticks of dynamite duct taped to them at you like the Dukes of Hazzard used to. It would be the only possible useful purpose I can imagine you serving.

Later that day…..

I went with Ali Baba to Iota to see our friends in Brother Seamus play. The Mrs. stayed home to rest her weary head as she apparently finds weekends with me and Ali to be exhausting. Strange thing that but very good times all around hanging and banging with the Arlington crowd of yesteryear. The singer from my beloved old band, the mighty mighty Luka Brazzi, was DJ’ing between sets and all was swell and jolly and it lifted the veil of sadness that I was feeling about Bernard. He would have dug it with all the yukking and hoisting of the devil's piss, Bernard was always up for a party and I toasted him in quiet several times that night. As randomly happens all too often when you have lived in the same area as long as I have I ended up standing next to someone I had not seen in years and had never thought of seeing again. Like a vampire all of a sudden….there he was!!! Johnny V. in the flesh. Ali and I knew Johnny V. from back in the dot-com days when he was a salesman at the company we worked for that tanked through $47,000,000 in less than two years and never saw a dime of justifiable revenue come through the door. Johnny V. was on the business development team......that's just enough of a joke that I don't think I have to embellish it. I don't know if times have been lean for Johnny V. but Ali and I are both convinced he was wearing the same shirt as he was the day we met him. It's like we were frozen in time.

HAS ANYONE SEEN MY 487,000 STOCK OPTIONS?!??!?!

I got yelled at once for not spending enough of the company’s money on a weekly basis. Being a good employee I quickly made up for my dereliction of duty by taking my co-workers to Mister Smith's and running up a $600 tab which is a feat in and of itself. I got a "high-five" award for my commitment to bringing "energy and fun to the corporate culture". Now I would get fired for that kind of company spirit....stupid rules and businesses that make money spoiling my good cheer!! On one occasion at the B-2 dot.bomber I was given some cash at a company happy hour by one of our totally drunk corporate officers to procure some "special tobacco wink wink nudge nudge" for a client. Not being interested in that errand and despite what you may think not being 100% stupid I tried to give the money back. I was refused with another wink wink and nudge nudge so I said fuck it and fuck you and pocketed the dough and took the Mrs. to dinner the next night with the proceeds. Never was a word said about it again although that guy never really liked me too much after that. Irregardless…..

So we’re at Iota hanging out with the Tab Burglar (you know him…..just figures since you’re BROS that he can add a drink or twenty for himself and the sluts he is trying to get drunk so he can molest them on to your tab), Kentucky Rob, a guy named Floppy, Johnny V., Backlick Keith, G.B. and this guy Crazy Rob who is Ali’s slightly insane business associate hooting and hollering and having a ball along with a host of others in the bar, (including a gaggle of really scary heavily maked up middle-aged women that were the picture of the severely horny real estate agent from one’s worst nightmares. I stayed as far away from them as possible). Ali was holding court at the bar as he is prone to do hoisting these snot green shooters and getting love from the throng. Ali is great like that, if they were ever to do a remake of the Gong Show he would have the Chuck Barris gig in a heartbeat. I was chit-chatting with Kentucky Rob and Adam and thinking of how much I would love to dismember this one unfortunate patron that I have long standing disdain for when Ali approached with a wild look in his eye. He had found some companions who assured him that the party of the lifetime was occurring at Club Spank and he just had to go, (it being that kind of party). Heartbroken as he was at my reply of “no fucking way” to his invitation to join him and his new party favors he manned up, banged down three snot shots and with a hug and a smile and four dollars shoved in my shirt (I don’t why) he was off to Spank…fare thee well young Baba!!!! The lights went on and it was time to so go so I went to settle my check and ended up settling the one for the 24 snot shooters which Ali had ordered in his state of ringleaderly madness. Ali squared with me the next day when we went to the grocery store. He’s not a Tab Burglar or worse a Tab Walker by any stretch of the imagination, he was just excited and confused about who paid for what, (and staggeringly drunk to boot!!)

I got home and bade the cruel world goodnight smelling like the devil’s ashtray and wondering who transplanted a washing machine into my gullet. The next day I yelled at the Redskins, ate turkey and fell asleep like a good boy should. It was a good night and a good weekend and a good week mixed with some melancholia and true sadness. The whole range of the human experience…..with shots.

Anybody else read our new and improved strategy for achieving victory in Iraq? I could have sworn that “hoping blindly that the baby Jesus makes things start going our way" was the strategy we had already employed but I guess I was wrong. Thankfully we have a new and improved shit covered piece of toilet paper to use as our roadmap to success instead of the old one.

And now the end is near
I see before me the final curtain

Doo lee doo…

Sucking it

2005-11-21T16:37:00.000-05:00

I have lots to say but little time to say it.

Regardless......

Bang your ass with a big can of fruit cocktail and dance the shimmy shimmy dang dang until the lights come on.

Then go to church and beg your daddy for salvation.

I'll be here lighting candles and firing up the bourbon trolley.

I look great.

And the lordah saidah.....

2005-11-09T13:15:00.000-05:00

Did anyone else catch Jerry Kilgore's concession speech last night? I have been totally creeped out by him ever since I heard him speak and just couldn't put my finger in...I mean on....who he reminded me of. So he lost and I'm laughing at watching this fucking jerk on TV try to smile through his seething anger and frustration. It was great, I could almost hear his teeth cracking they were grinding so hard. Still I was confused about who his other half was until he started thanking Jesus for his getting his ass kicked by a baby killing murderer loving homo marrying Democrat and it struck me. Kilgore is the real life version of Reverand Timothy Lovejoy from the Simpsons (minus any intentional comedic value). They sound the same, shit they LOOK the same. It's crazy. Go watch the speech on CNN and then catch a Simpsons re-run with Lovejoy in it and recognize my brilliance once again.

Goddamit I'm smart!!!!

On another note I have been trying to hold my tongue on some serious band guy idiocy that has been going on lately. Basically some band guy has his band guy titties all in a twist because people criticize band guy's band yet band guy actively participates in forum that slams other bands that band guy is playing shows with. I think it's rude at best, totally weak and stupid at worst. Rudeness causes wrinkles. I might get the better of myself (whoo whoo) and fire away at band guy if things continue.....what do you think?

Speaking of bands there's a bunch of shows I'd like to catch this Friday night starting with Philito and the Bad Habituals playing at Stacatto down in la Morgana de Adam's which should be good for the ears and bad for the liver. In grand old Virginny which restored a modicum of faith in the sanity of it's citizenry last night, (see Kilgore/Lovejoy bit above), my good pal and holder of the angelic tones Claire Gilbride is playing at Zig's in Alexandria. Zig's has a terrible name but a healthy attitude towards the ideal liquor to mixer ratio in their cocktails so it's worth the trip when you add Claire to the cocktails.

Also in the Commonwealth enfant' terrible (in a totally good way) Viki Nova will be rocking it out with "How are they going to fit on that stage?!?!?" blogger beloved Full Minute of Mercury at TT Reynold's in Fairfax on Friday. Full Minute's drummer Dan was apparently at our CD release show so I want to return the favor and I have yet to see the new lineup of the band. It's purported to be rocking and lord knows I love the rocking. Six strong like the Brady Bunch, (though I think it's 4-2 boys v girls these days).

If I can procure that transporter beam from Overstock in time I'll be at all of them rockers. If not.....well.....I'll do my best.

Anyway tomorrow I'll be back with some inspired thoughts on what a dick someone is, (I'm just not sure who that's going to be yet).

Robin and Bill

2005-11-07T10:11:00.000-05:00

My phone has been ringing off the hook lately.

It seems that Robin DeJarnette who is the Executive Director of the Virginia Conservative Action Pac or VCAP!!!, (VCAP is a Political Action Committee committed to electing white male shitheads with big teeth and disturbing hair into the Virginia political system), has put me on the auto-dialer hot list for tomorrow’s elections and assumes that I can be swayed into getting all my friends and neighbors to vote for JERRY KILGORE because “CANDIDATE BILL BOLLING” CALLED ME PERSONALLY!!!!!!!!!!! Over and over and over and over again.

There is no option during the call for removing myself from the list and they never answer the phone at VCAP HQ when I call to ask that they do so I am left to the age old written word to voice my displeasure. I thought I would share the correspondence with you and you and you, (and you too!) Following is an email I sent this morning to my pals Robin and Bill. I’ll put their contact info here as well in case you want to say hi.

Robin DeJarnette
Executive Director
robin@vcap.org

Bill Bolling
Candidate for Lt. Governor of Virginia
bbolling@mindspring.com

So here we go……

Dear Robin and Bill,

Your second pre-recorded phone call of the day from "candidate Bill Bolling" just woke up my sleeping daughter. Is waking up cherubic little tykes by calling them early in the morning really the best campaign strategy that you can come up with? Bill, do you hate babies? Robin, is that your real hair in the photo on VCAP.org.? These and so many other questions about you and your team run through my mind every time I answer your calls over and over and over again on both lines coming into my house. Like, why does Jerry Kilgore look like he's crapping a razor blade when he smiles and who dressed him in that ill-fitting orange dress shirt for the TV commercials? Don't you people have eyes!?!?!?!?!

Anyway since you seem totally convinced that it's OK to bug the hell out of me and my family I thought I would offer a suggestion. If you're going to spam people relentlessly be kind enough to do it in a way that won't wake sleeping children. That might at least give people the impression that you're semi-cognizant, (although still disturbingly rude).

For example you could send me unasked for and unwanted tripe from "candidate Bill Bolling" via email. His message would fit in nicely with the other unwanted and uninteresting stuff I get. Bill can abuse my inbox and I'll have it all....calls for me to spice up my sex life, my penis size, buy a new watch and after going through a full frontal lobotomy possibly vote for an unqualified wingnut like Jerry Kilgore.

JESUS BILL YOU JUST CALLED ME AGAIN!!!!!!!! STOP IT!!!!!!!

Now I know these must be busy times for both of you Bill and Robin. Tomorrow is the big Election day after all and I'm sure you and Jerry and the gang are busy out there scaring as many white people as you can find about those crazy loco immigrants, radical homosexuals and how Tim Kaine wants to kill their babies. It must be time consuming to get out that kind of fear-mongering and petty thinking to even one person so I suppose I can understand why you have to record the phone calls and have HAL 2000 auto-dial all the white folks. It's just a matter of not enough time to get done what you need to get done, right? I get it, I really do. Can John Denver go around singing "Leaving on a jet plane" personally to everyone that doesn't want to hear it?

Of course he can't!!!

He's dead!!!!

But even when he was alive he had to record records and go on the Muppet show and the like to put his soul crushing melodies into the ears of the innocents. Just like you, only instead of singing it's that reedy voice that sounds like gravel being sucked up through a vacuum cleaner on the phone..."this is candidate Bill....."

Back on the life and death angle....now I'm assuming that you're both alive although you could possibly be part of an army of undead demons from the 6th circle of hell. If so that would technically put you in the middle between life and death. A tricky wicket there with the pro-life every life is precious until we decide to execute you in the name of Jesus thing you have going on. Not saying that you are but if one or both of you do indeed happen to be servants of Satan and part of the legions that walk in the night can you clarify whether....

a) you can campaign during the day and not turn to dust.

b) does Chris Craddock's hair scare you like it does us mere mortals?

In closing I would like to tell you that I am a registered independent voter who leans Democrat but would definitely consider voting for a Republican if they impressed me the right way. So far you guys have impressed me as being mean-spirited, petty, annoying and without any sort of genuine idea other than to be assholes and hope that all the other assholes line up behind you. That's not really the impression that will get my vote. Who wants to hang out with assholes all day and not get paid for it? Not me!!

So you blew it with me anyway. Maybe next time Bill. If you want to talk about it you have my number.

Cheers.