Wait until you see this guy's shoes. 
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Punk Rock Hootenanny
Sunday night my band the Chest Pains played a show at Chaz's Bull City Records in Durham. We played with Raleigh's Street Sharks (pictured), Richmond's Pink Razors and some other band that opened from Wisconsin.This shot pretty much sums up the night.
I fulfilled a life long dream of being in a band and having people sing along with you; we played of cover of Government Issue's "Hall OF Fame" [Joyride version] and had a good four or five people singing along during the chorus.
Being A Dad Is Cool
As much as raising kids can make you insane, it can be the most rewarding thing in your life.left: Spencer Brooks, 5 1/2, 45 lbs. likes sports, art and Thin Lizzy.
right: Cole Burdick, 2 1/2, 35lbs., likes sports, art and the Chest Pains.
Monday, January 16, 2006
ACC Junkie
The call came out of nowhere.
“I’m in,” I said without having to think twice.
“Okay, cool,” said my neighbor. “Meet me in ten minutes out front.”
“I’ll honk the horn,” he said.
Ten minutes later, right on time, the horn honked.
I slipped on my leather jacket, stuffed my wallet into my back pocket, topped off my head with a knit cap and walked out the door. “Good luck,” said my wife. “Thanks,” I said.
Once inside my neighbor’s car, I got the instructions: We were to go to the Shell gas station at the intersection of Route 54 and Interstate 40 and wait.
The wait was painstakingly long, both of us salivating at the prospect of what would soon be in our possession. My mouth was dry.
“You want anything?” he said as he got out and purchased dry goods from the mini mart inside the gas station.
“Water,” I said.
He came back and we sat and waited in silence, a silence broken occasionally by the sound of my lips slurping water off the tip of my water bottle; a nervous tick.
“This sure is taking long,” said my neighbor.
“It is,” I said back.
I’ve know this guy sitting next to me since I was 13-years-old. Yet suddenly we have nothing to say.
“Can I borrow your cell phone?” he asked breaking the blanket of silence. I handed it to him while disengaging the lock that blocks the phone from being inadvertently dialed when on your person. He dialed a number and asked for another. Then he dialed the second number.
“Hey,” he said.
I heard the garbled voice of someone on the other end of the phone.
“Yeah, it’s me. Where are you at?”
He hung up without a word and handed me the phone as a flash of headlights streaked across our windshield. He got out of his car. I heard the slap of a hand shakes and a “thank you” or two.
He slid back into the front seat, slamming his door in the process.
“We’re golden dude,” he said with a big sly smile on his face as he held out his hand revealing two tickets to the Carolina versus Davidson basketball game.
It’s like he just handed me the Holy Grail: in the ten years I have lived in the Triangle, this is only my second Carolina game.
I finished the last drop of water from my bottle, turned and said to him, “done.”
Then I threw my bottle on the floor board of his car.
“Done,” he said before bursting out in a maniacal cackle as he jammed his car into reverse.
“I’m in,” I said without having to think twice.
“Okay, cool,” said my neighbor. “Meet me in ten minutes out front.”
“I’ll honk the horn,” he said.
Ten minutes later, right on time, the horn honked.
I slipped on my leather jacket, stuffed my wallet into my back pocket, topped off my head with a knit cap and walked out the door. “Good luck,” said my wife. “Thanks,” I said.
Once inside my neighbor’s car, I got the instructions: We were to go to the Shell gas station at the intersection of Route 54 and Interstate 40 and wait.
The wait was painstakingly long, both of us salivating at the prospect of what would soon be in our possession. My mouth was dry.
“You want anything?” he said as he got out and purchased dry goods from the mini mart inside the gas station.
“Water,” I said.
He came back and we sat and waited in silence, a silence broken occasionally by the sound of my lips slurping water off the tip of my water bottle; a nervous tick.
“This sure is taking long,” said my neighbor.
“It is,” I said back.
I’ve know this guy sitting next to me since I was 13-years-old. Yet suddenly we have nothing to say.
“Can I borrow your cell phone?” he asked breaking the blanket of silence. I handed it to him while disengaging the lock that blocks the phone from being inadvertently dialed when on your person. He dialed a number and asked for another. Then he dialed the second number.
“Hey,” he said.
I heard the garbled voice of someone on the other end of the phone.
“Yeah, it’s me. Where are you at?”
He hung up without a word and handed me the phone as a flash of headlights streaked across our windshield. He got out of his car. I heard the slap of a hand shakes and a “thank you” or two.
He slid back into the front seat, slamming his door in the process.
“We’re golden dude,” he said with a big sly smile on his face as he held out his hand revealing two tickets to the Carolina versus Davidson basketball game.
It’s like he just handed me the Holy Grail: in the ten years I have lived in the Triangle, this is only my second Carolina game.
I finished the last drop of water from my bottle, turned and said to him, “done.”
Then I threw my bottle on the floor board of his car.
“Done,” he said before bursting out in a maniacal cackle as he jammed his car into reverse.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Monday, January 02, 2006
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Damaged II
What happens when your older brother rolls into town whom you haven't seen in a year and hasn't been to your digs in five years?Why you throw down the gauntlet and get wasted.
Here's to more good times in 2006.
Damaged
What happens when the best man at your wedding - who you haven't talked to in a good year because he's getting divorced - rolls into town for a surprise visit because his father lives in North Carolina... and he comes with his soon-to-be ex wife?Why you throw down the gauntlet and get wasted.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
The Room of Spencer
And to think, I just had him clean it the other day.Notice "makeshift" drummer set in the left corner or the Ron Liberti signed rock poster above the bed.
What Is This?
Spencer art.Skateboard tricks. Notice the movement of the arms or the guy second from right with the pink deck who is doing the ollie. Or maybe it's the first guy? Or maybe it's a sequence!
Assessment
After my brother-in-law came over and assessed the damage, we took a trip to Home Depot for some roofing sealant slash caulk. Sealed the area around the exhaust piping and left the wet insulation to dry. Hope plywood dries out otherwise it'll need to be replaced. At least I didn't fall through the roof when I stood on it.
One More Time... Closer
I see many trips to Home Depot in my future...and a headache the size of Texas.
Shit
This is what greeted me this morning in the bathroom my sons use. It used to be a little brown spot. Then we got three solid days of rain.Happy, happy, joy, joy.
Guess I'll call the landlord.
Oh wait, I am the landlord, I own this place.
Shit. shit, double shit.
I think I'll take aliens up my nose over this type of home improvement.
And it's 38 degrees out.
The Aliens Are Coming
Or maybe they already came...
Had another mind blowing, yet harrowing, lucid dream last night.
This time I go to some weird compound lured by the guise of it being some family entertainment place a la Chuck E. Cheeses-meets-Seasame Street or something. Only once you get in there the kids are seperated from the adults. I have to go through these myriad of doors but they play it off funhouse funny like the beginning of Get Smart. At the last door I have to do some sort of light-in-the-eyeball ID check.
A mechanical woman's voice calls out your specs: "Greg Barbera, male, [there's some sort of escort waiting for me to enter and he says in unison w/ the voice], age 37."
I turn to him and say, "I've been here before. That's how you know."
He gives me a sheepish grin. I imagine they are going to up the dose on my amnesia meds this time. I now recall why my sinuses always hurt so bad, it's because the method they use to do whatever procedures they want to do involves entering via your nasal cavity. I shudder thinking about the pain of it all.
My recollection is patchy from here.
I know I took some sort of ferry to get to the place. But it was through the artic circle or some shit because all I remember is passing iceburgs and being frigidly cold and wondering where am I going because clearly there is no life here only to be greeted by some Mission District on ice neighborhood/city. Covered in 24hr darkness. Streetlight/car lights bouncing off the slushy, wet mess that seemed to be streets.
Had another mind blowing, yet harrowing, lucid dream last night.
This time I go to some weird compound lured by the guise of it being some family entertainment place a la Chuck E. Cheeses-meets-Seasame Street or something. Only once you get in there the kids are seperated from the adults. I have to go through these myriad of doors but they play it off funhouse funny like the beginning of Get Smart. At the last door I have to do some sort of light-in-the-eyeball ID check.
A mechanical woman's voice calls out your specs: "Greg Barbera, male, [there's some sort of escort waiting for me to enter and he says in unison w/ the voice], age 37."
I turn to him and say, "I've been here before. That's how you know."
He gives me a sheepish grin. I imagine they are going to up the dose on my amnesia meds this time. I now recall why my sinuses always hurt so bad, it's because the method they use to do whatever procedures they want to do involves entering via your nasal cavity. I shudder thinking about the pain of it all.
My recollection is patchy from here.
I know I took some sort of ferry to get to the place. But it was through the artic circle or some shit because all I remember is passing iceburgs and being frigidly cold and wondering where am I going because clearly there is no life here only to be greeted by some Mission District on ice neighborhood/city. Covered in 24hr darkness. Streetlight/car lights bouncing off the slushy, wet mess that seemed to be streets.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Nightmares
Had incredible nightmares last night.
- One involved a elephant running lose in a suburban neighbor and headed right for the backyard cookout I was at. People screaming. Nowhere to turn. "Fate or luck is going to get me out of thsi one," I thought. Dream fades
- Second involves alien abduction. I am sleeping in my son Cole's bed. I sense something. Get up and look out the window. There's bright lights but it's not the street lamp. Too bright. I seek solace in the room. Only now I'm lying w/ Cole and my wife. We are looking at the stars out of a sky light. And then the bright lights come. A ship, which looks like an oil drilling rig laid on its side, hovers over the sky light. "Shit," I mumble. "It's here." And then scramble to get Cole and wife out of the room. I'm behind Cole and standing in the doorway looking back on my wife on the bed. "Get up!" I yell and reach for her hand. And then the window crashes and this mechanical arm comes reaching towards me. "It wants me," I say to the room not sure to whom. "What do you want?" I scream. "Answer these questions," says a voice from nowhere. Dream fades.
- Third one. Three of my best friends and a childhood neighbor break into my house. Armed robbery. They are surprised I am home and I am surprised they are trying to rob me. They are dressed in black like cat burglers yet their faces aren't covered. This is bad they say. They tie me up, slap duck tape across my face and inject me with a needle. To put me to sleep or to kill me I do not know. Dream fades.
Seems like a good time for some Black Flag:
NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
I'm about
To have a nervous breakdown
My head really hurts
If I don't find a way out of here
I'm gonna go berserk 'cuz
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
It's going...berserk
I hear the same old talk talk talk
The same old lines
Don't do me that today, yeah
If you know what's good for you you'll get out of my way 'cuz
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
Going...berserk
I won't apologize
For acting outta line
You see the way I am
You leave any time you can 'cuz
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
Going...berserk
Crazy! Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!
I don't care what you fuckin' do
I don't care what you fuckin' say
I'm so sick of everything
I just want to...die!
- One involved a elephant running lose in a suburban neighbor and headed right for the backyard cookout I was at. People screaming. Nowhere to turn. "Fate or luck is going to get me out of thsi one," I thought. Dream fades
- Second involves alien abduction. I am sleeping in my son Cole's bed. I sense something. Get up and look out the window. There's bright lights but it's not the street lamp. Too bright. I seek solace in the room. Only now I'm lying w/ Cole and my wife. We are looking at the stars out of a sky light. And then the bright lights come. A ship, which looks like an oil drilling rig laid on its side, hovers over the sky light. "Shit," I mumble. "It's here." And then scramble to get Cole and wife out of the room. I'm behind Cole and standing in the doorway looking back on my wife on the bed. "Get up!" I yell and reach for her hand. And then the window crashes and this mechanical arm comes reaching towards me. "It wants me," I say to the room not sure to whom. "What do you want?" I scream. "Answer these questions," says a voice from nowhere. Dream fades.
- Third one. Three of my best friends and a childhood neighbor break into my house. Armed robbery. They are surprised I am home and I am surprised they are trying to rob me. They are dressed in black like cat burglers yet their faces aren't covered. This is bad they say. They tie me up, slap duck tape across my face and inject me with a needle. To put me to sleep or to kill me I do not know. Dream fades.
Seems like a good time for some Black Flag:
NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
I'm about
To have a nervous breakdown
My head really hurts
If I don't find a way out of here
I'm gonna go berserk 'cuz
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
It's going...berserk
I hear the same old talk talk talk
The same old lines
Don't do me that today, yeah
If you know what's good for you you'll get out of my way 'cuz
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
Going...berserk
I won't apologize
For acting outta line
You see the way I am
You leave any time you can 'cuz
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
Going...berserk
Crazy! Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!
I don't care what you fuckin' do
I don't care what you fuckin' say
I'm so sick of everything
I just want to...die!
Thursday, December 01, 2005
If I Was A Podcaster!
Fortunate Son - CCR (just because my band Chest Pains is partaking in the local Minutemen tribute show at the Local 506 on 12/10 [www.local506.com] and I had to learn it)
The Time Flys - Teenage Is The Stoneage
Bonniwell Music Machine - Two Much (sometimes you just got to raid the vaults)
The Blazers - Nobody Told Me
Souled American - Notes Camp Fire
Blackheart Procession - Release My Heart
Tom Waits - Underground (inspired to play this because I heard it in the suppose-to-be-for-kiddies movie Robots but it really ain't a kid flick)
X - We're Desperate
Los Olividados - Don't Cry
Lyres - Gonna Find A New Love
Blowtops - Black Jebus
Mountain Goats - Alpha Desperation March
Odell Thompson - Georgia Buck
Supersuckers - Pretty Fucked Up
Electrick Frankenstein - It's All Moving Faster
Guided By Voices - Jane of The Waking Universe
Cheap Trick - Stiff Competition
Ween - Gabrielle
Beil Young - Hopeless
Built To Spill - Else
Yo La Tengo - False Ending
Polovo - Feathers Of Forgiveness
The Time Flys - Teenage Is The Stoneage
Bonniwell Music Machine - Two Much (sometimes you just got to raid the vaults)
The Blazers - Nobody Told Me
Souled American - Notes Camp Fire
Blackheart Procession - Release My Heart
Tom Waits - Underground (inspired to play this because I heard it in the suppose-to-be-for-kiddies movie Robots but it really ain't a kid flick)
X - We're Desperate
Los Olividados - Don't Cry
Lyres - Gonna Find A New Love
Blowtops - Black Jebus
Mountain Goats - Alpha Desperation March
Odell Thompson - Georgia Buck
Supersuckers - Pretty Fucked Up
Electrick Frankenstein - It's All Moving Faster
Guided By Voices - Jane of The Waking Universe
Cheap Trick - Stiff Competition
Ween - Gabrielle
Beil Young - Hopeless
Built To Spill - Else
Yo La Tengo - False Ending
Polovo - Feathers Of Forgiveness
When The Shit Hits The Fan
So my shitty sound-less PC died the weekend before thanksgiving.
I got drunk late one night and just listening to music...
I got drunk late one night and just listening to music...
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Mike Brainard Made A Movie
and he wants you to see it:
go to www.independentfilmforum.com
sign up to see movies
click on "Lookin' For Some Posse"
nuff said, pard'ner
go to www.independentfilmforum.com
sign up to see movies
click on "Lookin' For Some Posse"
nuff said, pard'ner
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
And Yet Still More Flipper!
Living For The Depression Lyrics
We're living for life to be the way we feel Not living for life, but the Death appeal Who wants a cancerous boring end when you can die from misery and following the trend? I say "Who cares anyway? Who listens to what I say?" This song rhymes and we play it in time And if you wanna live in Super Market Isles And take your vacation by flying for miles Take a day off and live in the lies While others work and capitalize I say "Who cares anyway? Who listens to what I say?" This song rhymes and we play it in time We're living like cockroaches in this place Sprayed with insecticide that leaves no trace And if we could crawl on you at night You could be sure we'd love to bite I say "Who cares anyway? Who listens to what I say?" This song rhymes and we play it in time I'm not living life to be A really cheap fucker like you Copout
We're living for life to be the way we feel Not living for life, but the Death appeal Who wants a cancerous boring end when you can die from misery and following the trend? I say "Who cares anyway? Who listens to what I say?" This song rhymes and we play it in time And if you wanna live in Super Market Isles And take your vacation by flying for miles Take a day off and live in the lies While others work and capitalize I say "Who cares anyway? Who listens to what I say?" This song rhymes and we play it in time We're living like cockroaches in this place Sprayed with insecticide that leaves no trace And if we could crawl on you at night You could be sure we'd love to bite I say "Who cares anyway? Who listens to what I say?" This song rhymes and we play it in time I'm not living life to be A really cheap fucker like you Copout
Someone Say Flipper?
The Way Of The World Lyrics
There are eyes that cannot see And fingers that cannot touch That's the way of the world There are dreams left empty and blank And legs that have ceased to walk That's the way of the world There are kisses undelivered Sighs and moans unuttered That's the way of the world There are hearts no longer beating And there are entrails spilled on the floor That's the way of the world
There are eyes that cannot see And fingers that cannot touch That's the way of the world There are dreams left empty and blank And legs that have ceased to walk That's the way of the world There are kisses undelivered Sighs and moans unuttered That's the way of the world There are hearts no longer beating And there are entrails spilled on the floor That's the way of the world
Moonshadow, Moonshadow
We had the moonshadow tonight.
I am an Aquarius, I get the fever sometimes at full moons.
Like real insane, howlin' shit.
Werewolves of London and shit.
Fucking moonshadow.
A shadow cast by the moon?
Do you know I almost went blind tonight from that shit?
[CAN YOU SAY SHIT ONE MORE TIME. GREG?-Ed]
Got the [CHEESEY] telescope out, the one Gramps gave the kids years ago and tried to peeps me some astrology. I'm into horoscopes to some extent (www.freewillastrology.com), so, so, so, so.... so I almost lost mytrain of thought but lookin' into a telescope aiming for moonshadows is almost like bringing a magnifying glass to an eclipse.
[WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS KID SAYIN?]
[HE'S NOT TALKING VAN MORRISON IS HE?]
[NO, MAYBE THE PROMISE RING?]
Who is Ed? And why is he in my head? Get him out. I don't want him there anymore.
[GREG, IT'S ME Ed. I'M JUST WONDERING, WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID?]
I am an Aquarius, I get the fever sometimes at full moons.
Like real insane, howlin' shit.
Werewolves of London and shit.
Fucking moonshadow.
A shadow cast by the moon?
Do you know I almost went blind tonight from that shit?
[CAN YOU SAY SHIT ONE MORE TIME. GREG?-Ed]
Got the [CHEESEY] telescope out, the one Gramps gave the kids years ago and tried to peeps me some astrology. I'm into horoscopes to some extent (www.freewillastrology.com), so, so, so, so.... so I almost lost mytrain of thought but lookin' into a telescope aiming for moonshadows is almost like bringing a magnifying glass to an eclipse.
[WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS KID SAYIN?]
[HE'S NOT TALKING VAN MORRISON IS HE?]
[NO, MAYBE THE PROMISE RING?]
Who is Ed? And why is he in my head? Get him out. I don't want him there anymore.
[GREG, IT'S ME Ed. I'M JUST WONDERING, WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID?]
In Through The Out Door
The door to Spencer's room. Replete with the prerequisite punk rock show posters. He's a flyer artist in the making. Most of the white ones are for his band Sharks & Lions. The stickers under his name represent trips to the doctors' office over the years (7 stickers, 5 and a half years; unless he pinched two at one time which wouldn't surprise me).He's probably behind that door listening to Thin Lizzy's Live And Dangerous, a drum set made out of old powdered Gatorade tins and a couple of shoe boxes for floor toms.
This is the kind of shit that spooks the moms on play dates.
That and the number of empty beer cans on top of my fridge. I store my empties there. When the top fills up they then are placed outside in the recycling bin... speaking of which, it is time to curb those empties.
This Is Cole's Room
My wife felt it ideal to repaint the room from the set-up we had for Spencer which was, uh, I forget but different.So crazy Martha Stewart girl that she is, she made the curtains, did the "trains, planes, and automobiles" border (she wanted to do the whole room Thomas The Train - I objected), and got the big boy mattress.
Not that the kid ever sleeps in his bed. He's one of those that falls asleep on the floor trying to stay up with his older brother and then gets moved to mom and dad's bed after he passes out.
I object but there's no arguing with a mom. Especially a working mom who finds comfort in sharing a bed with her toddler. If he would just piss in the bed one more time maybe she'll see the light.
And that lamp? Hell yeah, that's some shit I cribbed from my parents and is total real deal '70s shit. Used to be olive green until Mrs. Martha Stewart Barbera got her hands on it and transformed it into some Trading Spaces room essential.
Go Gnomes!
So Spencer had his last soccer game of the season this past weekend. I missed it of course because I was working some bar mitzvah in Durham but my wife snapped a bunch of awesome pictures of our boy in action. Here he is jukin' some opponent enroute to a scoring the third goal of the day and sealing his umphteenth hat trick of his soccer career. As much as I bitch about my boys and rigors of being a parent, things like magic marker tattoos and little league soccer make it all worth it.
Dean Smith Has A Posse
I worked a catering gig at the chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill's house last Friday.
Carolina's legendary basketball coach Dean Smith was in attendance. Smith is like a deity around these parts.
So I was walking past him with a tray full of spent wine glasses and empty dinner plates and he said, "Excuse me."
I stopped. His voice is very nasally. Like the antithesis of Bobby Knight's.
"Can I get some coffee. Black," he asked.
I looked at my tray full of empties and then gazed over at the two girls who were making the rounds in the room with coffee and dessert, then returned to the Dean'er not saying a word.
"That's your job isn't it?" he said.
I wished I had some witty b-ball retort.
I didn't.
I went and got a cup of coffee from one of the girls and placed it in front of him.
Carolina's legendary basketball coach Dean Smith was in attendance. Smith is like a deity around these parts.
So I was walking past him with a tray full of spent wine glasses and empty dinner plates and he said, "Excuse me."
I stopped. His voice is very nasally. Like the antithesis of Bobby Knight's.
"Can I get some coffee. Black," he asked.
I looked at my tray full of empties and then gazed over at the two girls who were making the rounds in the room with coffee and dessert, then returned to the Dean'er not saying a word.
"That's your job isn't it?" he said.
I wished I had some witty b-ball retort.
I didn't.
I went and got a cup of coffee from one of the girls and placed it in front of him.
Friday, November 11, 2005
Tattoo You
So my boys have decided that in order to fulfill their rock star fantasies, they have to be tattooed. So in recent days they have taken to drawing on themselves with these Crayola (washable I might add) magic markers.Spencer has had a cough for the last few days and had a coughing jag so bad last night that he puked twice. So today I took him to the doctor's office. You should have seen the look on the nurse when she pulled up Spencer's shirt.
"What have we got here?" she said.
The turned to me and said, "Kids get to have all the fun. Don't you wish you could sit around all day and draw on yourself?" Little does she know.
Then Spencer's doctor comes in. Same thing happens all over again. He asks about his cough. "Do you have any chest pains?" he asks.
Spencer turns and looks at me with a smirk then mouths the words "chest pains!"
Kids.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
The Studio
Here's a picture of the studio we recorded in. The studio - Track and Field Recording - is nestled upstairs in the GO rehearsal space. Essentially, one of the room is wired for recording. Upstairs houses the boards and computer with Pro Tools and Rockets & Mortor's Nick Pedersen at the helm. It's amazing how long it can take to record something. We did most of our songs in one or two takes with the exception of "Action!" which took about five takes before we got a version we could live with.Now we're going to take a week or two to sit on the rough mixes we got and see if there are any parts that need to be redone or if we want to add anything. The we'll mix it down and master it.
Fuggin' A.
It's a dream come true.
Now if we could just find somebody who wants to put it out on 7 inch vinyl...
Punk Rock
So my band went into the studio last sunday.
We recorded 10 songs.
Set up at noon and went clear through to about 9pm.
Got some good shit if I don't say so myself.
One day I'll figure out how to post audio tracks...
We recorded 10 songs.
Set up at noon and went clear through to about 9pm.
Got some good shit if I don't say so myself.
One day I'll figure out how to post audio tracks...
Monday, October 31, 2005
Halloween
Halloween used to be my favorite holiday when I was a kid.
I remember being scared shitless as a kindergardener going into a neighborhood haunted house with vienna sauges and ketchup representing the home owner's cut off fingers. Or the time the one neighbor was on the roof and would throw down this rubber jack o' lantern in front of your face and then have it spring back up on its little bungie cord.
By elementary school, Halloween was a total blast: me and my school friends following the cute girls from the neighborhood around. In sixth grade I went as Mr. Bill from Saturday Night Live which I thought was cool as hell because that meant I had stayed up late enough to watch SNL and therefore knew who Mr. Bill was. In all fairness, I'd probably only made it a handful of times but who the fuck was counting? Plus, as a sixth grader on the parish's A league basketball team coached by Whitey Barry, you were deemed doubly cool. Coach Barry was also the guy who ran the catered events at St. Judes, so by default this meant you qualified to work for him. My first shift ever was doing the coat check at the New Year's Eve dance at the church.
We used to fill pillow cases up full of candy. One year, probably fourth grade, some local thug "traded" me a bar of soap for my bag of candy. I was totally bummed. I saw my older brother Mike, then an eighth grade stud and neighborhood hoodlum himself. He asked me to described the guy, told me to go home and not worry about it. He came home about an hour later with a bag full of candy for me.
Freshman year in high school was a total bust. That year a rapist had been terrorizing Aspen Hill, the neighborhood I lived in, and not a soul went out. By tenth grade I was doubling as a jock and punker. I had a football game that night and then caught shit from my friend Jeff's girlfriend for being more "jock" then "punk."
The next two years of high school saw me spending many a night partying in the cemetary by Rockville High School with my friends drinking beer and listening to the Misfits. So when Halloween came, it wasn't about walking around the neighborhood trick or treating, it was about going down to mix it up with the hordes of ghouls walking around the Georgetown area of Washington, DC. One year, my friend Mr. T and I missed the Metro and spent the better part of the night walking up Wisconsin Avenue drinking a found bottle of schnapps trying to stay warm and stave off the cold until his sister woke up around 5am and came and picked us up.
I remember being scared shitless as a kindergardener going into a neighborhood haunted house with vienna sauges and ketchup representing the home owner's cut off fingers. Or the time the one neighbor was on the roof and would throw down this rubber jack o' lantern in front of your face and then have it spring back up on its little bungie cord.
By elementary school, Halloween was a total blast: me and my school friends following the cute girls from the neighborhood around. In sixth grade I went as Mr. Bill from Saturday Night Live which I thought was cool as hell because that meant I had stayed up late enough to watch SNL and therefore knew who Mr. Bill was. In all fairness, I'd probably only made it a handful of times but who the fuck was counting? Plus, as a sixth grader on the parish's A league basketball team coached by Whitey Barry, you were deemed doubly cool. Coach Barry was also the guy who ran the catered events at St. Judes, so by default this meant you qualified to work for him. My first shift ever was doing the coat check at the New Year's Eve dance at the church.
We used to fill pillow cases up full of candy. One year, probably fourth grade, some local thug "traded" me a bar of soap for my bag of candy. I was totally bummed. I saw my older brother Mike, then an eighth grade stud and neighborhood hoodlum himself. He asked me to described the guy, told me to go home and not worry about it. He came home about an hour later with a bag full of candy for me.
Freshman year in high school was a total bust. That year a rapist had been terrorizing Aspen Hill, the neighborhood I lived in, and not a soul went out. By tenth grade I was doubling as a jock and punker. I had a football game that night and then caught shit from my friend Jeff's girlfriend for being more "jock" then "punk."
The next two years of high school saw me spending many a night partying in the cemetary by Rockville High School with my friends drinking beer and listening to the Misfits. So when Halloween came, it wasn't about walking around the neighborhood trick or treating, it was about going down to mix it up with the hordes of ghouls walking around the Georgetown area of Washington, DC. One year, my friend Mr. T and I missed the Metro and spent the better part of the night walking up Wisconsin Avenue drinking a found bottle of schnapps trying to stay warm and stave off the cold until his sister woke up around 5am and came and picked us up.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Comments
- This just heard while dropping my two-and-a-half year old off at his playschool:
"Where did you get that Hong Kong Phooey lunchbox?" says a mom to my son.
"It was mine when I was a kid," I reply.
"Figures."
-Yesterday at soccer practice this New Zealand woman was asking about what kind of things I get my boys involved in during the winter months. She just relocated to Carolina this summer because her husband is going to divinity school at Duke. "Many men I know," she says in her thick Kiwi accent, "always wish they learned to play guitar.
"So I'm thinking of starting the boys on violin lessons because it seems similar, ya know?" she says.
"That's not a bad idea. But why not just start on the guitar?" I say.
"I have musical instruments in the house - a bass, a guitar and drums - all available for them to use whenever they want," I say.
Another mother askes if I am in a band. "Yes," I say.
"Do you play out?" she asks.
"Yes, we just did the night before. And we play again Friday."
Kiwi mom joins in again, "I guess that's what you do to blow off steam?"
"Yep," I reply. "That and read books."
Mom Number Three joins in now. "I have a book club. We meet today."
Mom Number Two. "I was in a book club once but all we ever did was sit around and drink wine," she says with a giggle.
I tell them about the local library book sales. But add the comment that my wife thinks I already have too many books.
"You can never have too many books," says Kiwi Mom.
"And I'm told I have too many CDs," I say.
"Oh, you can never have too much music or too many books," she says.
She then turns to me and asks: "So you stay at home with your boys, do you?"
"Yeah," I say. "Have been doing it for over four years."
"You're like a hero," she says patting me on the back.
"Where did you get that Hong Kong Phooey lunchbox?" says a mom to my son.
"It was mine when I was a kid," I reply.
"Figures."
-Yesterday at soccer practice this New Zealand woman was asking about what kind of things I get my boys involved in during the winter months. She just relocated to Carolina this summer because her husband is going to divinity school at Duke. "Many men I know," she says in her thick Kiwi accent, "always wish they learned to play guitar.
"So I'm thinking of starting the boys on violin lessons because it seems similar, ya know?" she says.
"That's not a bad idea. But why not just start on the guitar?" I say.
"I have musical instruments in the house - a bass, a guitar and drums - all available for them to use whenever they want," I say.
Another mother askes if I am in a band. "Yes," I say.
"Do you play out?" she asks.
"Yes, we just did the night before. And we play again Friday."
Kiwi mom joins in again, "I guess that's what you do to blow off steam?"
"Yep," I reply. "That and read books."
Mom Number Three joins in now. "I have a book club. We meet today."
Mom Number Two. "I was in a book club once but all we ever did was sit around and drink wine," she says with a giggle.
I tell them about the local library book sales. But add the comment that my wife thinks I already have too many books.
"You can never have too many books," says Kiwi Mom.
"And I'm told I have too many CDs," I say.
"Oh, you can never have too much music or too many books," she says.
She then turns to me and asks: "So you stay at home with your boys, do you?"
"Yeah," I say. "Have been doing it for over four years."
"You're like a hero," she says patting me on the back.
This Just In...
From my friend trey on the west coast:
We live in an information society. Virtually anything you want to know about anybody is readily available with a few keystrokes and a simple web search. And because I'm a generally observant (AKA nosy) person... I am often entertained by seeing just how much information I can gather about people I don't know. It's pathetic, obtrusive, and probably unlawful, I realize... but still fun.
Yet sometimes... I'm entertained... even inspired... far more than I could possibly imagine.Case in point.This morning, while waiting at the post office to pick up a package... I saw a guy in his mid thirties enter and join the line. He looked like a rock and roller about twenty years past his prime. Long permed eighties hair. Leather duster. Ostrich skin boots. But what really caught my attention was the way he spontaneously kissed his hand and reached up to a postal service banner which had the American flag printed in the background behind various stamp prices.
At first I thought he might have just stuck his unwanted gum up there, or something. Then I started concocting elaborate stories in my head about how his late father may have once been a mail carrier who bravely fought rain, snow, sleet, and hail for half his life - only to one day suddenly go postal over the permanent replacement of lickable stamps with self-adhesive varieties.But ignorance is anything but blissful.
For little did I know-- I was actually standing in the presence of greatness. And not just greatness... but All American, Flag-Waving, Red White and Blue, Patriotic greatness.He set down a package on the counter beside me. And naturally, I couldn't help stealing a glance at the return address - quickly memorizing the name.Dennis Madalone.Curious to know more about this oddly reverent rocker... I immediately returned to my office and typed his name into Google.And all I can really say is... GOD BLESS THE INTERNET and GOD BLESS AMERICA.
I highly recommend you visit the following links at your earliest opportunity.
Do it for yourself.
Do it for your country.
And above all else, do it for Dennis Madalone.
http://www.americawestandasone.com/video.html
http://www.americawestandasone.com/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/ 2005/04/29/notes042905.DTL
We live in an information society. Virtually anything you want to know about anybody is readily available with a few keystrokes and a simple web search. And because I'm a generally observant (AKA nosy) person... I am often entertained by seeing just how much information I can gather about people I don't know. It's pathetic, obtrusive, and probably unlawful, I realize... but still fun.
Yet sometimes... I'm entertained... even inspired... far more than I could possibly imagine.Case in point.This morning, while waiting at the post office to pick up a package... I saw a guy in his mid thirties enter and join the line. He looked like a rock and roller about twenty years past his prime. Long permed eighties hair. Leather duster. Ostrich skin boots. But what really caught my attention was the way he spontaneously kissed his hand and reached up to a postal service banner which had the American flag printed in the background behind various stamp prices.
At first I thought he might have just stuck his unwanted gum up there, or something. Then I started concocting elaborate stories in my head about how his late father may have once been a mail carrier who bravely fought rain, snow, sleet, and hail for half his life - only to one day suddenly go postal over the permanent replacement of lickable stamps with self-adhesive varieties.But ignorance is anything but blissful.
For little did I know-- I was actually standing in the presence of greatness. And not just greatness... but All American, Flag-Waving, Red White and Blue, Patriotic greatness.He set down a package on the counter beside me. And naturally, I couldn't help stealing a glance at the return address - quickly memorizing the name.Dennis Madalone.Curious to know more about this oddly reverent rocker... I immediately returned to my office and typed his name into Google.And all I can really say is... GOD BLESS THE INTERNET and GOD BLESS AMERICA.
I highly recommend you visit the following links at your earliest opportunity.
Do it for yourself.
Do it for your country.
And above all else, do it for Dennis Madalone.
http://www.americawestandasone.com/video.html
http://www.americawestandasone.com/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/ 2005/04/29/notes042905.DTL
The Goddamn Itch
Got the damn zrytec withdrawal itch again.
I'm too broke to cough up the $30 for my monthly supply (and my wife gives me shit that I just keep taking it to avoid the itch).
So here I sit and itch.
And scratch.
Day three.
Mind over matter.
I'm too broke to cough up the $30 for my monthly supply (and my wife gives me shit that I just keep taking it to avoid the itch).
So here I sit and itch.
And scratch.
Day three.
Mind over matter.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Ride The Lightning
That's the title of the Metallica album that "For Whom The Bell Tolls" is on.
Had that song in my head all weekend.
Yet I couldn't find the CD at our house. I was a bit surprised at first because my wife is a huge Metallica fan (although) she stopped buying their CDs at And Justice For All. I'm not sure why. Probably because the influx of promos at the time in our house was enough to discourage from adding to the mess of CDs.
Anyway, I looked everywhere for it, finally finding it in the car. And why not? It makes an excellent soundtrack to long rode trips.
So last night I slipped on the headphone after the boys went to sleep and blasted the song til my ears bled. What a great fucking song... what a great fucking album.
I remember the first time I heard it. It was shortly after it came out in 1984. I was on the way to see G.B.H. at Sanctuary Theater in DC, when we stopped by one of his friends' houses. It was Tommy Carr the drummer for Black Market Baby. I'm nut sure if BMB was still a band or whether or not he was still in it at the time but that's how I'm placing him in my world.
So we arrive and meet him and his girlfriend. A full-on metal slut with teased hair. lots of jewerly, and very little clothes. She had just finished getting high and was still trying to doll herself up. She picked up an album and I'll I could see was a dark blue cover with lightening on it. She put on side one. "Fight Fire With Fire" came on. I instantly recognized it as a song from a mix tape my friend Tim had made me. Tim was the bass player in my thrash punk band Youth Terrorists but was the biggest metalhead I knew. I turned him on to Agnostic Front, Black Flag, Fear, Government Issue and the Bad Brains. And in turn he exposed me to Iron Maiden, Accept, Metallica, Dio and Megadeth.
So I was familiar with the band but only had three cuts of the album on my tape. I sat and listened to the album, looking at the cover was alternately peaking over it at Tommy's hot girlfriend. A few years later, in college, I would meet my wife and shortly there after Metallica became a permenant fixture in my life.
One last thing: bassist Cliff Burton is the fucking man. Rest in peace you maniac motherfucker.
Had that song in my head all weekend.
Yet I couldn't find the CD at our house. I was a bit surprised at first because my wife is a huge Metallica fan (although) she stopped buying their CDs at And Justice For All. I'm not sure why. Probably because the influx of promos at the time in our house was enough to discourage from adding to the mess of CDs.
Anyway, I looked everywhere for it, finally finding it in the car. And why not? It makes an excellent soundtrack to long rode trips.
So last night I slipped on the headphone after the boys went to sleep and blasted the song til my ears bled. What a great fucking song... what a great fucking album.
I remember the first time I heard it. It was shortly after it came out in 1984. I was on the way to see G.B.H. at Sanctuary Theater in DC, when we stopped by one of his friends' houses. It was Tommy Carr the drummer for Black Market Baby. I'm nut sure if BMB was still a band or whether or not he was still in it at the time but that's how I'm placing him in my world.
So we arrive and meet him and his girlfriend. A full-on metal slut with teased hair. lots of jewerly, and very little clothes. She had just finished getting high and was still trying to doll herself up. She picked up an album and I'll I could see was a dark blue cover with lightening on it. She put on side one. "Fight Fire With Fire" came on. I instantly recognized it as a song from a mix tape my friend Tim had made me. Tim was the bass player in my thrash punk band Youth Terrorists but was the biggest metalhead I knew. I turned him on to Agnostic Front, Black Flag, Fear, Government Issue and the Bad Brains. And in turn he exposed me to Iron Maiden, Accept, Metallica, Dio and Megadeth.
So I was familiar with the band but only had three cuts of the album on my tape. I sat and listened to the album, looking at the cover was alternately peaking over it at Tommy's hot girlfriend. A few years later, in college, I would meet my wife and shortly there after Metallica became a permenant fixture in my life.
One last thing: bassist Cliff Burton is the fucking man. Rest in peace you maniac motherfucker.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
UNC vs. Duke
Okay, so this past weekend I worked two catered gigs: one at UNC and one at Duke.
The UNC gig was a pregame party held under some tents that were set up by the Bell Tower on campus located right in front of Kenan Stadium.
I got there at 9am for set-up. My co-worker Tim showed up shortly there after and we got to talking about music and art and literature as we normally do. Tim said he worked the opening of the Kerouac exhibit.
The we heard the Bell Tower go off. Or at least that's what we thought. And soon after Tim's launched into the air guitar intro for AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" verbalizing the classic rock guitar riffs. Soon after I joined in with my best Brian Johnson impersonation: "Rollin' thunder across the sky..."
We started laughing.
And then, loud as all get out, we hear Johnson's vocals come screeching out of the stadium PA system.
"Oh shit," said Tim.
I short time later, the stadium PA played "For Whom The Bell Tolls" by Metallica. I made a mental note to myself that I needed to go home and play that track as loud as possible.
The crowd slowly showed up, the wine & cheese type, alumni dressed in Carolina blue eager to chow down on duck gumbo and blood marys. Shortly before game time a crowd gathered by the sidewalk.
The the football team walked a path from the Old Well on campus, down past the Bell Tower and into the stadium as fans lined either side of them cheering and hooting and hollering. They were followed by the cheerleaders and the marching band. I got to say it was pretty cool.
We broke down and I headed home for a brief rest.
The next gig was for Duke's homecoming, a prom-like fest of food, beer, wine and live band.
For 2,000 people.
They consume 20 cases of wine in an hour.
The crowd swells and moves like a paramecium: devouring everything in its way; everything in its path.
I'm bartending and all I can do is try to maintain sanity as drunken co-eds stumble around me, expecting everything ("We're Duke students! We're rich!"). By 1am the event staff bouncers are corralling the drunken horde out the door. Breakdown is a mess. There is shit everywhere. At the buffet tables, the students didn't even bother to use the plastic plates, rather they stood over the chaffing dishes like they were bowls of salsa, just picking meatballs out with their fingers and gulping them down right over it. The floor was covered in stale beer and stained with wine. Fortunately, the party planners had the foresight to lay a tarp down - now it was primed for one giant round of alcohol-infused slip n' slide.
I went to pee. The men's room was trash. A inch layer of boozey grim covering the floor and causing a major health risk. I watched one drunk guy tag his head on the brick wall on the way in, then stumble into the handicap stall to puke.
Like army ants they were. Fucking spoon fed richies who want it all and give nothing in return.
Entitlement. That about sums it up.
One of the decor guys looked over at me as we were folding chair.
"They're a whole different beast," he said shaking his head. "A whole different beast."
The UNC gig was a pregame party held under some tents that were set up by the Bell Tower on campus located right in front of Kenan Stadium.
I got there at 9am for set-up. My co-worker Tim showed up shortly there after and we got to talking about music and art and literature as we normally do. Tim said he worked the opening of the Kerouac exhibit.
The we heard the Bell Tower go off. Or at least that's what we thought. And soon after Tim's launched into the air guitar intro for AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" verbalizing the classic rock guitar riffs. Soon after I joined in with my best Brian Johnson impersonation: "Rollin' thunder across the sky..."
We started laughing.
And then, loud as all get out, we hear Johnson's vocals come screeching out of the stadium PA system.
"Oh shit," said Tim.
I short time later, the stadium PA played "For Whom The Bell Tolls" by Metallica. I made a mental note to myself that I needed to go home and play that track as loud as possible.
The crowd slowly showed up, the wine & cheese type, alumni dressed in Carolina blue eager to chow down on duck gumbo and blood marys. Shortly before game time a crowd gathered by the sidewalk.
The the football team walked a path from the Old Well on campus, down past the Bell Tower and into the stadium as fans lined either side of them cheering and hooting and hollering. They were followed by the cheerleaders and the marching band. I got to say it was pretty cool.
We broke down and I headed home for a brief rest.
The next gig was for Duke's homecoming, a prom-like fest of food, beer, wine and live band.
For 2,000 people.
They consume 20 cases of wine in an hour.
The crowd swells and moves like a paramecium: devouring everything in its way; everything in its path.
I'm bartending and all I can do is try to maintain sanity as drunken co-eds stumble around me, expecting everything ("We're Duke students! We're rich!"). By 1am the event staff bouncers are corralling the drunken horde out the door. Breakdown is a mess. There is shit everywhere. At the buffet tables, the students didn't even bother to use the plastic plates, rather they stood over the chaffing dishes like they were bowls of salsa, just picking meatballs out with their fingers and gulping them down right over it. The floor was covered in stale beer and stained with wine. Fortunately, the party planners had the foresight to lay a tarp down - now it was primed for one giant round of alcohol-infused slip n' slide.
I went to pee. The men's room was trash. A inch layer of boozey grim covering the floor and causing a major health risk. I watched one drunk guy tag his head on the brick wall on the way in, then stumble into the handicap stall to puke.
Like army ants they were. Fucking spoon fed richies who want it all and give nothing in return.
Entitlement. That about sums it up.
One of the decor guys looked over at me as we were folding chair.
"They're a whole different beast," he said shaking his head. "A whole different beast."
Literature
Finished Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers. Written in '75, it's very much in the same vein as Apocalypse Now and that flick's association with the themes addressed in Hearts Of Darkness.
Needless to say, I really dug it and plan on digging in to some more of his work.
Two weekends ago I was drinking beer with my friend Ron and telling him about Stone's book. Also mentioned to him how I finally scored a copy of Robert Bingham's anthology of short stories, Pure Slaughter Value - I'd been on the search for this one for years.
Ron laid Barry Hannah's Ray on me before I left that night.
Fuck me was that a great book.
All this reading has got me jazzed. I'm been deligently working on another short story; juiced man I am.
So today, to capitalize on my gas'ed up newfound inspiration, I went to the Wilson library on the campus of UNC where they currently have an exhibit on Jack Kerouac's On The Road. UNC has a real fucking awesome collection of Beat Lit. City Lights Books proprietor Lawrence Ferlinghetti went to UNC back in the '40s. Of course he was just Larry Ferling back then.
So one of the things they have on display is the scroll that Kerouac wrote On The Road on; it is a sight to behold - one long run-on sentence. Now I've never been a huge fan of the Beats, never got obsessive about them (save for my desire to possess every chapbook in the Pocket Poetry Series), but seeing this really put the whole Beat scene into perspective. Much like burgeoning music scenes over the years (Seattle, Minneapolis, Chapel Hill etc.), you can see how the whole thing got momentum and soon became the shell of its former shelf.
But along the way, thanks in part to Ginsberg's foresight to archive much of it through photographs, you get to discover what fueled this small group of authors who would drastically change the course of contemporary American literature. They all seemed to feed off each other; collaborating with each other; acting as another's agent; helping one type. Really, these guys were like family and the collective mindset helped them forge this new world of literature.
Man, I gotta go write!
Needless to say, I really dug it and plan on digging in to some more of his work.
Two weekends ago I was drinking beer with my friend Ron and telling him about Stone's book. Also mentioned to him how I finally scored a copy of Robert Bingham's anthology of short stories, Pure Slaughter Value - I'd been on the search for this one for years.
Ron laid Barry Hannah's Ray on me before I left that night.
Fuck me was that a great book.
All this reading has got me jazzed. I'm been deligently working on another short story; juiced man I am.
So today, to capitalize on my gas'ed up newfound inspiration, I went to the Wilson library on the campus of UNC where they currently have an exhibit on Jack Kerouac's On The Road. UNC has a real fucking awesome collection of Beat Lit. City Lights Books proprietor Lawrence Ferlinghetti went to UNC back in the '40s. Of course he was just Larry Ferling back then.
So one of the things they have on display is the scroll that Kerouac wrote On The Road on; it is a sight to behold - one long run-on sentence. Now I've never been a huge fan of the Beats, never got obsessive about them (save for my desire to possess every chapbook in the Pocket Poetry Series), but seeing this really put the whole Beat scene into perspective. Much like burgeoning music scenes over the years (Seattle, Minneapolis, Chapel Hill etc.), you can see how the whole thing got momentum and soon became the shell of its former shelf.
But along the way, thanks in part to Ginsberg's foresight to archive much of it through photographs, you get to discover what fueled this small group of authors who would drastically change the course of contemporary American literature. They all seemed to feed off each other; collaborating with each other; acting as another's agent; helping one type. Really, these guys were like family and the collective mindset helped them forge this new world of literature.
Man, I gotta go write!
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Good Spot
So my boys and I, we've got this game we play when we are in the car called Good Spot.
What you need to spot is a Volkswagen beetle aka the bug car.
It goes something like this:
"Bug car!" hollers Spencer.
"Good spot," I say.
We have since added motorcycles and motor homes.
And convertible.
The granddaddy of them all being a convertible bug car.
Which gets the double good spot.
Like, "Bug car. Montezuma."
Now I don't know how convertible started getting called Montezumas but I assure you it had something to do w/ Spencer and his growing Hot Wheels collection.
Anyway. "Bug car. Montezuma," gets the double reply: "Good spot, good spot."
Also worthy of the double reply are blue or green bug cars.
"Bug car!" Spencer will holler. "Blue."
"Good spot," I'll say.
"Dad, it was blue. That's 'good spot, good spot'," he'll remind me.
This has been going on for about two years or so.
Which means that younger brother Cole is starting to get in on that act.
Although he often just yells out "bug car" or "good sport" at the most random times.
Until yesterday. At Spencer's soccer practice.
We all got out of the car, and parked across from us was a blue VW bug car.
"Bug car," said Cole as he pointed to it.
Spencer looked at me, said aw man and then, "Good spot, good spot," to his brother.
What you need to spot is a Volkswagen beetle aka the bug car.
It goes something like this:
"Bug car!" hollers Spencer.
"Good spot," I say.
We have since added motorcycles and motor homes.
And convertible.
The granddaddy of them all being a convertible bug car.
Which gets the double good spot.
Like, "Bug car. Montezuma."
Now I don't know how convertible started getting called Montezumas but I assure you it had something to do w/ Spencer and his growing Hot Wheels collection.
Anyway. "Bug car. Montezuma," gets the double reply: "Good spot, good spot."
Also worthy of the double reply are blue or green bug cars.
"Bug car!" Spencer will holler. "Blue."
"Good spot," I'll say.
"Dad, it was blue. That's 'good spot, good spot'," he'll remind me.
This has been going on for about two years or so.
Which means that younger brother Cole is starting to get in on that act.
Although he often just yells out "bug car" or "good sport" at the most random times.
Until yesterday. At Spencer's soccer practice.
We all got out of the car, and parked across from us was a blue VW bug car.
"Bug car," said Cole as he pointed to it.
Spencer looked at me, said aw man and then, "Good spot, good spot," to his brother.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Through The Pores
I am sick.
Stuffy nose. Congested head. Fever. Cough.
And when I am sick, I get a junkie's sweet tooth.
I want salt and sugar; I want potato chips and starburts; twix bars and kalamata olives.
Junk food. Just give me junk food.
I once worked with this ex-junkie. She was a courier with me in DC back in the late '80s. She told me she could smell a junkie a mile away; could smell the cut oozing through their pores. The body's way to extract the poison ebbing through it's system.
I can smell myself today. I could shower twice a day during times like this and still smell the infection, seeping from my skin. I burn incense. Make potpourri. Spray air freshener. Nothing covers the smell. I change my dampened shirts several times a night. My pillow cases as well.
I had a coughing attack last night. Coughed so hard that I fell into a dry heave jag - I'd do anything just to catch my breath before the next wave hit. Made some lemon tea with honey and laid on the couch. Watched late night television.
Was duly impressed by Bryan Adams concert piped in from Ireland. Yes. That Bryan Adams. Mr. Cut's Like A Knife. The band played as a three-piece w/ Adams mostly handling the bass duties. His guitar player was a real scorcher. Fuck. I kept going back to it. I flicked between that and rock start-like illusionist Criss Angel. Now that guy is out there, man. Out there.
I came to the conclusion that late night tv is so much better then daytime tv. But late night tv is best enjoyed under the storm of sickness, when you are too tired to care about it all. Or hopped up on a handful of your favorite street drugs.
Either way, it's the pores you'll be smelling.
Stuffy nose. Congested head. Fever. Cough.
And when I am sick, I get a junkie's sweet tooth.
I want salt and sugar; I want potato chips and starburts; twix bars and kalamata olives.
Junk food. Just give me junk food.
I once worked with this ex-junkie. She was a courier with me in DC back in the late '80s. She told me she could smell a junkie a mile away; could smell the cut oozing through their pores. The body's way to extract the poison ebbing through it's system.
I can smell myself today. I could shower twice a day during times like this and still smell the infection, seeping from my skin. I burn incense. Make potpourri. Spray air freshener. Nothing covers the smell. I change my dampened shirts several times a night. My pillow cases as well.
I had a coughing attack last night. Coughed so hard that I fell into a dry heave jag - I'd do anything just to catch my breath before the next wave hit. Made some lemon tea with honey and laid on the couch. Watched late night television.
Was duly impressed by Bryan Adams concert piped in from Ireland. Yes. That Bryan Adams. Mr. Cut's Like A Knife. The band played as a three-piece w/ Adams mostly handling the bass duties. His guitar player was a real scorcher. Fuck. I kept going back to it. I flicked between that and rock start-like illusionist Criss Angel. Now that guy is out there, man. Out there.
I came to the conclusion that late night tv is so much better then daytime tv. But late night tv is best enjoyed under the storm of sickness, when you are too tired to care about it all. Or hopped up on a handful of your favorite street drugs.
Either way, it's the pores you'll be smelling.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Post Nasal Ping Pong
You know what I'm talking about.
When you got that congested head and stuffy nose.
Decide to hit the sack. And then it starts: first it flows to the right side of your head. You have to wait a moment or two to breathe during the transition. Then it's time to blow.
After a while you switch sides, lay on the left side of your head. And the sinus migration begins. Your tongue starts to taste like the underside of a college dorm room rug. And then you surface, can breathe again. Blow.
I did this for several hours last night. I'd say I didn't sleep but then again I did have some twisted dream about getting a job as a custodian at one of the local middle schools. Had to learn how to use the tile buffer on my own. "You'll figure it out sooner or later," he said. "You're a smart guy. You went to college," said my wisened supervisor.
The weird thing was that I had to diagram on a school map where I found stuff. Like broken glass by gynasium, soilded diaper under sliding board, lost sweatshirt near the monkey bars. I had to draw these little icons of the stuff I found on this map.
This is what you get when you send your kids to school and live off of a steady diet of pulp fiction and detective shows.
When you got that congested head and stuffy nose.
Decide to hit the sack. And then it starts: first it flows to the right side of your head. You have to wait a moment or two to breathe during the transition. Then it's time to blow.
After a while you switch sides, lay on the left side of your head. And the sinus migration begins. Your tongue starts to taste like the underside of a college dorm room rug. And then you surface, can breathe again. Blow.
I did this for several hours last night. I'd say I didn't sleep but then again I did have some twisted dream about getting a job as a custodian at one of the local middle schools. Had to learn how to use the tile buffer on my own. "You'll figure it out sooner or later," he said. "You're a smart guy. You went to college," said my wisened supervisor.
The weird thing was that I had to diagram on a school map where I found stuff. Like broken glass by gynasium, soilded diaper under sliding board, lost sweatshirt near the monkey bars. I had to draw these little icons of the stuff I found on this map.
This is what you get when you send your kids to school and live off of a steady diet of pulp fiction and detective shows.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Froggy Went A-Courtin'
Froggy must have the hots for my wife - because she found him in the shower last night with her.
Lord knows how a frog got into my house, much less nestled up in the corner of our tiled shower.
According to this site - http://www.herpsofnc.org/herps_of_NC/anurans/Hyl_chr.html - I believe he was either a gray treefog or a green one. He definitley looked like a rock. And I had just found a treefog on sunday in - where else of all places - the treehouse.
And I was reminded of the turtle my neighbor JB found earlier in the summer.
"Greg," he said over the phone. "I found a turtle in the road and I don't know what to do with it."
"Let him go," I said.
"You've got to see him," he said.
Fucking thing was as big as a hubcap.
I shit you not.
It was either a yellowbelly slider or river cooter.
http://www.herpsofnc.org/herps_of_NC/turtles/trascr.html
Whatever it was, he was big and most likely older than all bloody get-out.
At first I figured we'd keep him as a pet and the boys could hand him down to their kids because surely this guy was going to outlive everyone. So I put him in the fenced part of my yard and went to bed. Next day I woke and a couldn't find him. How do you lose a turtle as a big as a hubcap I thought. The wife figured he'd crawled under the deck and was going to die a slow death, one that would bring lots and flies and other critters who like to feast on the dead.
Then I saw some brush move one day from the kitchen window. The fucker was huffing down the fence line obviously looking for a way to get out.
Then the wife calls and said that some girl she works with has pet turtles. "She let's them sleep in her bed," she said. My wife will believe anything. So this girl and her husband came over to rescue the turtle. I asked them basic questions I'd think turtle lovin' folk would know like how old do you think he is and what kind of turtle is it. Of course they know nothing. Real turtle lovers these people are. So smart guy husband picked up the beast and his lady sticks a blade of grass in front of his mouth. He does nothing. "Well, he's not a snapping turtle," she said. Fuckin' crikey mate! I could have told you that. And if it even crossed your mind he might be a snapper would you put your finger anywhere near his mouth?
I wonder if that turtle soup was good?
Lord knows how a frog got into my house, much less nestled up in the corner of our tiled shower.
According to this site - http://www.herpsofnc.org/herps_of_NC/anurans/Hyl_chr.html - I believe he was either a gray treefog or a green one. He definitley looked like a rock. And I had just found a treefog on sunday in - where else of all places - the treehouse.
And I was reminded of the turtle my neighbor JB found earlier in the summer.
"Greg," he said over the phone. "I found a turtle in the road and I don't know what to do with it."
"Let him go," I said.
"You've got to see him," he said.
Fucking thing was as big as a hubcap.
I shit you not.
It was either a yellowbelly slider or river cooter.
http://www.herpsofnc.org/herps_of_NC/turtles/trascr.html
Whatever it was, he was big and most likely older than all bloody get-out.
At first I figured we'd keep him as a pet and the boys could hand him down to their kids because surely this guy was going to outlive everyone. So I put him in the fenced part of my yard and went to bed. Next day I woke and a couldn't find him. How do you lose a turtle as a big as a hubcap I thought. The wife figured he'd crawled under the deck and was going to die a slow death, one that would bring lots and flies and other critters who like to feast on the dead.
Then I saw some brush move one day from the kitchen window. The fucker was huffing down the fence line obviously looking for a way to get out.
Then the wife calls and said that some girl she works with has pet turtles. "She let's them sleep in her bed," she said. My wife will believe anything. So this girl and her husband came over to rescue the turtle. I asked them basic questions I'd think turtle lovin' folk would know like how old do you think he is and what kind of turtle is it. Of course they know nothing. Real turtle lovers these people are. So smart guy husband picked up the beast and his lady sticks a blade of grass in front of his mouth. He does nothing. "Well, he's not a snapping turtle," she said. Fuckin' crikey mate! I could have told you that. And if it even crossed your mind he might be a snapper would you put your finger anywhere near his mouth?
I wonder if that turtle soup was good?
The List
Books I want to read.
Memoirs: from James Frey and Augustus Burroughs.
Bio: Nick Tosches penned tome on Dean Martin
Housebroken by David Eddie. The fucker who beat me to the stay-at-home-dad published punch
and I just picked up Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers...
Memoirs: from James Frey and Augustus Burroughs.
Bio: Nick Tosches penned tome on Dean Martin
Housebroken by David Eddie. The fucker who beat me to the stay-at-home-dad published punch
and I just picked up Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers...
Reading
I've taken - in my newfound free time - up reading again (yeah, mike i'll read that fucking screenplay soon).
I tackled The Comedy Writer by Peter Farrelly. One of the Farrelly brothers most noted for movies like Dumb And Dumber and Something About Mary. I had read the book years ago when it first came out. Friggin' hilarious. So I sent it to my brother Mike who is the funniest person I know and he's not even a comic. Anyway, I spotted it at the library book sale and figured it was time to revisit it. And I cracked up all over again.
I just finished Laura Lippman's Baltimore Blues. An awesome crime novel set in Baltimore. She's like a female verson of one of my favorite crime writers George Pelicanos, whose novels all take place in DC.
I tackled The Comedy Writer by Peter Farrelly. One of the Farrelly brothers most noted for movies like Dumb And Dumber and Something About Mary. I had read the book years ago when it first came out. Friggin' hilarious. So I sent it to my brother Mike who is the funniest person I know and he's not even a comic. Anyway, I spotted it at the library book sale and figured it was time to revisit it. And I cracked up all over again.
I just finished Laura Lippman's Baltimore Blues. An awesome crime novel set in Baltimore. She's like a female verson of one of my favorite crime writers George Pelicanos, whose novels all take place in DC.
Back To School
It hasn't been easy for the boys. Neither has warmed up to the idea of school.
My 5 yr. old Spencer has broken down into tears just about every day that I've dropped him off at kindergarten.
I'm not quite sure what this is all about as he had been going to a playschool several days a week for almost three years. Best I can guess is that going from a hippie co-op w/ young girls as teachers to public school where Mrs. Doubtfire is his homeroom teacher has been the most traumatic.
Cole, whom I thought would be digging the interaction w/ other kids (he often seemed bored by me over the summer) has gone the route of his older brother and cries like he's in need of an exorcism every time I drop him off.
These are the joys of parenting my friends.
My 5 yr. old Spencer has broken down into tears just about every day that I've dropped him off at kindergarten.
I'm not quite sure what this is all about as he had been going to a playschool several days a week for almost three years. Best I can guess is that going from a hippie co-op w/ young girls as teachers to public school where Mrs. Doubtfire is his homeroom teacher has been the most traumatic.
Cole, whom I thought would be digging the interaction w/ other kids (he often seemed bored by me over the summer) has gone the route of his older brother and cries like he's in need of an exorcism every time I drop him off.
These are the joys of parenting my friends.
ReCap
The summer went something like this:
a. spencer learned to swim, and when i mean swim i mean cannon balls into the 4 ft. deep end w/o me or the lifeguard having to worry about him drowning.
b. he also learned to open his eyes under water
c. he also taught his younger brother cole how to do the heavy metal rock sign
d. my band - chest pains - played out severla times. live footage can be seen at: www.soundsreelgood.blogspot.com
e. i taught a class on how to make a zine at the Duke Young Writers' Camp (http://www.learnmore.duke.edu/youth/ywc/ywcofferings.htm). i had two classes. one comprised of six middle school girls and another comprised of 13 high schoolers (10 girls, 3 boys). i learned that technology has greatly altered the course of adolescence. i took the middle schoolers to a dance performance by the ADF (http://www.americandancefestival.org/) where one girl text messaged her friend during the entire 20 minute performance. in the high school class, i watched a young crush develop between two students - who shared iPod earpieces in class everyday. one day, while taking a field trip to 9th Street - the main drag of stores by Duke - i said to them as they walked earpiece-to-earpiece, "back in my day, when we liked someone we held hands." of course all i got was blank stares. fucking old man that i am.
f. i had a piece published at www.wordriot.org. ironically, after all these years of writing, it represents my first piece of fiction published. and it's a fucking doozey.
a. spencer learned to swim, and when i mean swim i mean cannon balls into the 4 ft. deep end w/o me or the lifeguard having to worry about him drowning.
b. he also learned to open his eyes under water
c. he also taught his younger brother cole how to do the heavy metal rock sign
d. my band - chest pains - played out severla times. live footage can be seen at: www.soundsreelgood.blogspot.com
e. i taught a class on how to make a zine at the Duke Young Writers' Camp (http://www.learnmore.duke.edu/youth/ywc/ywcofferings.htm). i had two classes. one comprised of six middle school girls and another comprised of 13 high schoolers (10 girls, 3 boys). i learned that technology has greatly altered the course of adolescence. i took the middle schoolers to a dance performance by the ADF (http://www.americandancefestival.org/) where one girl text messaged her friend during the entire 20 minute performance. in the high school class, i watched a young crush develop between two students - who shared iPod earpieces in class everyday. one day, while taking a field trip to 9th Street - the main drag of stores by Duke - i said to them as they walked earpiece-to-earpiece, "back in my day, when we liked someone we held hands." of course all i got was blank stares. fucking old man that i am.
f. i had a piece published at www.wordriot.org. ironically, after all these years of writing, it represents my first piece of fiction published. and it's a fucking doozey.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Coming Up For Air
Yep.
Taking a a gulp of warm, sticky, humid air.
Two more weeks and summer officially ends which means they boys go to school: Spencer will make his kindergarten debut and Cole will make his playschool debut and punk rock daddy will finally get some quality time to himself twice a week from 9am -1pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Blog updates will be more frequent I promise.
Stay tuned.
until then, waste what idle time you have over here: www.mickogrady.blogspot.com
Taking a a gulp of warm, sticky, humid air.
Two more weeks and summer officially ends which means they boys go to school: Spencer will make his kindergarten debut and Cole will make his playschool debut and punk rock daddy will finally get some quality time to himself twice a week from 9am -1pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Blog updates will be more frequent I promise.
Stay tuned.
until then, waste what idle time you have over here: www.mickogrady.blogspot.com
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Sanity Slowly Slipping
And it's only the first week of summer vacation.
The boys are maddening.
Cole always wants something to drink. "Juice," he'll say. Or "Milk." So I've taken the necessary precautions and bring along some juice in the car everytime I go somewhere like the grocery store or the park. Of course, he either drinks it all immediately and then asks for more juice in ten minutes or you give him juice and he wants milk.
Add to this an unhealthy obsession with Thomas The Train and the mental state of my brain takes some heavy hits.
Then Spencer adds his two cents in. I promise to take him to the pool on a play date but forgot it was the day the flooring guys came to replace the kitchen floor. Boy has meltdown when he finds out we're stuck at the house for the majority of the day. Quite honestly, I felt for him. I wanted to go to the pool as well.
Of course, I didn't whine about for the next two days like he did.
Then he wanted to go to this park that has a lined baseball field. Baseball being his current sports obsession. But the field was off limits because it was freshly lined. And just like his little brother, he managed to drink all his juice before we even got to the field. It's 90 fucking degrees here in Carolina folks and humid as a motherfucker. I know in two short steps the two will be sweating and thirsty.
Today it worked out for the best because when they started to lay into me with their demands for their thirst to be cured, a stormed loomed on the horizon and we got home just in time to miss the downpour...
And just in time to hear the moans for food, the requests for Thomas videos, and the need to pester me, dad, incessantly about anything.
Xanax anyone?
The boys are maddening.
Cole always wants something to drink. "Juice," he'll say. Or "Milk." So I've taken the necessary precautions and bring along some juice in the car everytime I go somewhere like the grocery store or the park. Of course, he either drinks it all immediately and then asks for more juice in ten minutes or you give him juice and he wants milk.
Add to this an unhealthy obsession with Thomas The Train and the mental state of my brain takes some heavy hits.
Then Spencer adds his two cents in. I promise to take him to the pool on a play date but forgot it was the day the flooring guys came to replace the kitchen floor. Boy has meltdown when he finds out we're stuck at the house for the majority of the day. Quite honestly, I felt for him. I wanted to go to the pool as well.
Of course, I didn't whine about for the next two days like he did.
Then he wanted to go to this park that has a lined baseball field. Baseball being his current sports obsession. But the field was off limits because it was freshly lined. And just like his little brother, he managed to drink all his juice before we even got to the field. It's 90 fucking degrees here in Carolina folks and humid as a motherfucker. I know in two short steps the two will be sweating and thirsty.
Today it worked out for the best because when they started to lay into me with their demands for their thirst to be cured, a stormed loomed on the horizon and we got home just in time to miss the downpour...
And just in time to hear the moans for food, the requests for Thomas videos, and the need to pester me, dad, incessantly about anything.
Xanax anyone?
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Sanity
Trying to enjoy what little I have left.
Come tomorrow, summer vacation officially starts.
Which means tending to two boys, 5 and 2, from 6am to 6pm.
You can only go the the zoo, the pool or the museum so many times before it boys the fucking hell out of you.
Looking forward to the first few times though.
Tomorrow we're going to do the family picnic thing after Spencer graduates from playschool.
Maybe do som fishing.
Come tomorrow, summer vacation officially starts.
Which means tending to two boys, 5 and 2, from 6am to 6pm.
You can only go the the zoo, the pool or the museum so many times before it boys the fucking hell out of you.
Looking forward to the first few times though.
Tomorrow we're going to do the family picnic thing after Spencer graduates from playschool.
Maybe do som fishing.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Caught Up On Catching Up?
Shit.
Two weeks just fly by.
Chest Pains played our second gig.
Masotodon blew the roof off the Cat's Cradle.
Had life affirming experience at band practice when my guitar player's Mexican neighbors invited us into their practice space, played a 30 minute set of whatever it is that they play (country? sung falsetto and backed by a polka beat), the asked us to step up and play. We played one song. The Tim left and returned with his amp and Fender guitar. Played two more songs. Got greeted by chants of "uno mas! uno mas!" and "my first time hearing American heavy metal!" Then retired and let the Mexican guitar player and his brother on drums take us through a Stones-like romp of Mexican rock & roll. Epic. More on this later.
Father-in-law got menigitis. He's okay now.
Son Cole turned two.
Saw the most fucked up movie: The Saddest Music In The World.
I'm sure more happened.
Enjoy the abridged for now.
Two weeks just fly by.
Chest Pains played our second gig.
Masotodon blew the roof off the Cat's Cradle.
Had life affirming experience at band practice when my guitar player's Mexican neighbors invited us into their practice space, played a 30 minute set of whatever it is that they play (country? sung falsetto and backed by a polka beat), the asked us to step up and play. We played one song. The Tim left and returned with his amp and Fender guitar. Played two more songs. Got greeted by chants of "uno mas! uno mas!" and "my first time hearing American heavy metal!" Then retired and let the Mexican guitar player and his brother on drums take us through a Stones-like romp of Mexican rock & roll. Epic. More on this later.
Father-in-law got menigitis. He's okay now.
Son Cole turned two.
Saw the most fucked up movie: The Saddest Music In The World.
I'm sure more happened.
Enjoy the abridged for now.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Shit, While I'm At It...
here's another gem of a poem.
inspired by the *first* Gulf War.
nothing has changed my friends:
This Ain’t Alaska
Smell of a thousand
oil changes lingers in the air.
Incessant eye sting
brings tear trail,
cutting and carving the face their way - down.
Sand clings like Bay mud
to boots, hands, lizard, and the like.
Darkness at noon
here to sway metabolism
cheating lives - away.
Soupy skin of disaster
looks straight out of hell.
This ain’t Alaska
rather modern day Mesopotamia
burning from the inside.
Eden seems some far away - now.
inspired by the *first* Gulf War.
nothing has changed my friends:
This Ain’t Alaska
Smell of a thousand
oil changes lingers in the air.
Incessant eye sting
brings tear trail,
cutting and carving the face their way - down.
Sand clings like Bay mud
to boots, hands, lizard, and the like.
Darkness at noon
here to sway metabolism
cheating lives - away.
Soupy skin of disaster
looks straight out of hell.
This ain’t Alaska
rather modern day Mesopotamia
burning from the inside.
Eden seems some far away - now.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Laundry, Fucking Laundry
I feel like I'm always doing laundry.
Always a load or two to do.
Always a bundle of clothes to be folded.
Fucking laundry.
I hate laundry... almost as bad as I hate VH1 Movies That Rock.
But, in honor of my buddy and fellow archivilist Mike Daily,
I bring you this gem from 1988:
The Church Of For Best Results
It wasn’t gray out
but rather hot - too hot.
The gray skies seem synonymous
with doing laundry; maybe it’s all those
sunshiny-fresh detergent commercials.
Heavy air of heat was beginning
to crush down on my chest
and the faint tingle of listlessness poked his head out.
Laundry isn’t terrible only
full of inconveniences: humming dryers,
dust of detergent to tickle the nose; bleach to burn it.
And the radio, just loud enough to not be ignored,
dancing between dryer and washing machine.
Becomes religious to some; apostolic.
Same day, same time, same machine.
Alcleaning, washing souls mixing
the darks with the whites.
The Church of for Best Results
and its congregation
going soul-searching with the Tide.
Always a load or two to do.
Always a bundle of clothes to be folded.
Fucking laundry.
I hate laundry... almost as bad as I hate VH1 Movies That Rock.
But, in honor of my buddy and fellow archivilist Mike Daily,
I bring you this gem from 1988:
The Church Of For Best Results
It wasn’t gray out
but rather hot - too hot.
The gray skies seem synonymous
with doing laundry; maybe it’s all those
sunshiny-fresh detergent commercials.
Heavy air of heat was beginning
to crush down on my chest
and the faint tingle of listlessness poked his head out.
Laundry isn’t terrible only
full of inconveniences: humming dryers,
dust of detergent to tickle the nose; bleach to burn it.
And the radio, just loud enough to not be ignored,
dancing between dryer and washing machine.
Becomes religious to some; apostolic.
Same day, same time, same machine.
Alcleaning, washing souls mixing
the darks with the whites.
The Church of for Best Results
and its congregation
going soul-searching with the Tide.
Chest Pains in Chapel Hill
So the Ron Liberti flyer is for my band's second show ever at some new club in Chapel Hill called Wetlands.
Last night I was drinking and spinning records getting juiced up for the show, working off some nervous energy and generally just inspired to be making music again - punk rock no less - after a 20 year absence.
I got to thinking about how to describe the band because people aske me what we sound like and hell I've been in the business of telling people what bands sound like for many moons as a music journalist/rock critic.
Yet I find it oddly incomprehensible to describe my own band.
Last night I looked at the pile of vinyl records next to my turntable, the ones currently in rotation, and I thought that might be a good place to start for inquiring minds as to getting to the bottom of what my band may sound like from my perspective.
Here's the list:
Sacchraine Trust Paganicons
Reigning Sound Time Bomb High School
Flipper Album
The Dehumanizers End Of Time
Minor Threat Out Of Step
Mentors You Axed For It!
ZZ Top Tres Hombres
Sheer Terror Just Can't Hate Enough
Rites Of Spring self-titled debut
Die Kreuzen self-titled debut
FEAR The Record
Venom Black Metal
Thee Headcoats Elementary Headcoats
Fang Landshark!
Laughing Hyenas You Can't Pray A Lie
Last night I was drinking and spinning records getting juiced up for the show, working off some nervous energy and generally just inspired to be making music again - punk rock no less - after a 20 year absence.
I got to thinking about how to describe the band because people aske me what we sound like and hell I've been in the business of telling people what bands sound like for many moons as a music journalist/rock critic.
Yet I find it oddly incomprehensible to describe my own band.
Last night I looked at the pile of vinyl records next to my turntable, the ones currently in rotation, and I thought that might be a good place to start for inquiring minds as to getting to the bottom of what my band may sound like from my perspective.
Here's the list:
Sacchraine Trust Paganicons
Reigning Sound Time Bomb High School
Flipper Album
The Dehumanizers End Of Time
Minor Threat Out Of Step
Mentors You Axed For It!
ZZ Top Tres Hombres
Sheer Terror Just Can't Hate Enough
Rites Of Spring self-titled debut
Die Kreuzen self-titled debut
FEAR The Record
Venom Black Metal
Thee Headcoats Elementary Headcoats
Fang Landshark!
Laughing Hyenas You Can't Pray A Lie
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
Punk Rock For Life
So my band - the Chest Pains - played our first show this past weekend.
It was a four-band bill in Raleigh at a place called Kings (www.kingsbarcade.com).
I was nervous as all get out come the day of the show.
But we came, saw and conquered.
Nobody could have fingered us as a new band. Most folks thought we were tight.
Which is good.
I fucked up the verse on the first song but we figured out how to fuck up and keep playing weeks
ago, so it was all good. By the second song, I was channeling my inner rock god and going full bore.
The club owner said my vocals reminded him of Dez Cadena-era Black Flag, my friend Daniel over at www.dfbpunk.com thought we had some Minutemen-esque moments. Another friend said we sound like Gwar. Nothing to complain about there; our 8 songs in 20 minutes won over many, as we were asked to be the opener for shows next month with The Ghost Of Rock and the Chrome Plated Apostles. Also Kings c-owner (and Cherry Valence bassist) Paul Siler said he was happy to see something that punk at his club.
Nice.
Keeping the flame alive.
Punk rock for life.
www.thechestpains.com
It was a four-band bill in Raleigh at a place called Kings (www.kingsbarcade.com).
I was nervous as all get out come the day of the show.
But we came, saw and conquered.
Nobody could have fingered us as a new band. Most folks thought we were tight.
Which is good.
I fucked up the verse on the first song but we figured out how to fuck up and keep playing weeks
ago, so it was all good. By the second song, I was channeling my inner rock god and going full bore.
The club owner said my vocals reminded him of Dez Cadena-era Black Flag, my friend Daniel over at www.dfbpunk.com thought we had some Minutemen-esque moments. Another friend said we sound like Gwar. Nothing to complain about there; our 8 songs in 20 minutes won over many, as we were asked to be the opener for shows next month with The Ghost Of Rock and the Chrome Plated Apostles. Also Kings c-owner (and Cherry Valence bassist) Paul Siler said he was happy to see something that punk at his club.
Nice.
Keeping the flame alive.
Punk rock for life.
www.thechestpains.com
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
The Lecture
Okay, so I got the lecture again today.
From my wife.
The "you are so fucked up I can't trust you" lecture.
It was almost comical. Comical in the sense of context: Saturday I'm set to play the first show with my new band - first band in 20 years I might add - and my wife thinks it's going to turn into a drunken intervention of the collgiate kind. I think her exact words were: "you will be puking in the alley way behind the club."
I heard Homer Simpson in my head... "It's funny cuz it's true!"
I mean you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I have no agenda set out to get totally fucked up that night but then again there are few nights I've set out to do that yet most nights it can happen. So I'm not aggrevivated by such a comment as smirking delusional on her part - it is what it is.
Egged on even more by the prospect of going to a rugby reunion at my old college the following weekend. "You'll be drunk then too!" Fuck, I'm drunk now! Shut up. And what's so wrong about living a little. "Your pushing 40, have kids, you can't be passing out in the gutter."
But I like the gutter. Me and the gutter are old friends. And sometimes you like to get in touch with your old friends. I guess that's what the lecture was about. Old friends. Gutters. Vomit. Conspiracies. Booze. Brass rings and broken mopeds.
I fucking hate lectures.
From my wife.
The "you are so fucked up I can't trust you" lecture.
It was almost comical. Comical in the sense of context: Saturday I'm set to play the first show with my new band - first band in 20 years I might add - and my wife thinks it's going to turn into a drunken intervention of the collgiate kind. I think her exact words were: "you will be puking in the alley way behind the club."
I heard Homer Simpson in my head... "It's funny cuz it's true!"
I mean you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I have no agenda set out to get totally fucked up that night but then again there are few nights I've set out to do that yet most nights it can happen. So I'm not aggrevivated by such a comment as smirking delusional on her part - it is what it is.
Egged on even more by the prospect of going to a rugby reunion at my old college the following weekend. "You'll be drunk then too!" Fuck, I'm drunk now! Shut up. And what's so wrong about living a little. "Your pushing 40, have kids, you can't be passing out in the gutter."
But I like the gutter. Me and the gutter are old friends. And sometimes you like to get in touch with your old friends. I guess that's what the lecture was about. Old friends. Gutters. Vomit. Conspiracies. Booze. Brass rings and broken mopeds.
I fucking hate lectures.
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