Monday, October 6, 2008

No coke, Pepsi

So, Monday morning, huh? Anything happening out there? The baby is at baby school, the economy is still in the dumps and I woke up after only five hours of sleep because I thought (wrongly) we were going to have band practice. The real kick in the balls is that I had already made and consumed my first cup of coffee by the time I realized that I was entitled to go back to bed. Now I’m in the seventh level of hell, attempting to organize a rock show, write a blog entry, peruse some pornography, edit a movie script, contact my mother about picking up her grandchild, deal with travel plans, attempt to get food into my system and somehow work in a little bit of the perfect pushups. It’s one in the fucking afternoon! I’m stuck on a treadmill of precrastination. That’s like the build up before you start procrastinating, you know? Look it up, boorish masses.
I don’t even know where to begin. I want a cheeseburger. This summer started off and I was eating a cheeseburger for lunch and a steak for dinner every single day. It started to get gross and I was worried that I was gonna get gout, so I stopped and went back to my usual diet of chicken and fish and veggies, supplemented with fried shit and pizza whenever I’m drunk/hungover/busy/bored which is like eighty nine percent of the time. Anyway. It’s fall. I want a cheeseburger. Last time I had one it made me really ill. That was, you all may recall, my birthday. Fuck.
Look, I don’t need to explain myself to you people. I want a cheeseburger. It goes like this: Double cheese…no matter what you do, if you get the one patty or two, you MUST get two slices of cheese. It improves the whole thing so vastly. Not doing the double cheese is just half assing it. It’s like if OJ had left Ron Goldman alive and bleeding, or if Reagan had just talked a big game, but never actually built the strategic missile defense network of lasers that now protect us from Rogue regimes and their unlawfully acquired nukes. Right? Get the double cheese, people. It’s just good sense.
You know what I love? Those ads for old people that feature Wilford Brimley where he says DiaBEETus, and talks in a folksy no nonsense kind of way that grandpas can understand. It’s funny. Also sad. Cuz, you know, imminent death and all that.

When you’re a baby, you kind of like anything. My son gets super jazzed if I lift him up, put him down, hand him an orange peel, sing, rap, cover him with a blanket, whatever. It’s all fun. You get older and people get pissy and tell you not to be enthusiastic about things and call you names if you are. Calling someone a poser, ninety percent of the time is just the shittiest fucking thing you can do. You’re calling someone out for being enthusiastic about something that’s new to them, for embracing something. That’s so crappy. Anyhow, so, people call you poser and/or things wind up being less fun than you thought they’d be (God! Every day I’m burying a new hooker in this crawlspace! It’s really lost some of the luster, you know?) or other people keep improving and you stagnate and get frustrated and quit(like me with my passion for polo). By the time you’re old, almost everything has been ruined. The only thing left is the old Brimley/McCain style ‘straight talk express.’ Sitting around and vaguely reprimanding young people for not being prudent because you (the old person) suck at everything you don’t hate and hate everything you don’t suck at.
It’s a beautiful thing. I think that now, at thirty two, I’ve kind of crested the wave and maybe more things bug me than excite me. One of the few exceptions to this is enthusiasm. A kid who’s just getting excited about something new is really cool, be it dinosaurs, rock and roll, stand up comedy, basketball, textile manufacturing, whatever, is awesome and I love the vibe that comes with discovery, and genuine enthusiasm for learning/hearing stories. The jaded ‘I been there and seen that shit’ attitude bums me out quicker than almost anything. I can’t stand when I’m bullshitting with some bar patron and they, for example, mention that they love the Red Sox. (this very thing happens more than you’d expect) So I’ll say something like:
‘man, my friend is groundskeeper at Fenway and one time I was lucky enough to get this awesome tour of the park. I stood on the mound! I was in the batters box! I saw the clubhouse and sat in the bullpen and I even saw where ted Williams signed the inside of the scoreboard! It was awesome’ and they’ll look at me with this dismissive air and go ‘oh, right on, whatever.’
Dude! Fuck off. You JUST told me you like the redsox. Why is the fact that I’ve had this experience bumming you out? Because I don’t deserve it? Because it’s just not that interesting? Bullshit man, it’s because you’re a bitter, jaded dipshit who thinks that acting like an aloof douche somehow translates to ‘unflappable and confident.’ Well, here’s a fucking newsflash! Nothing in this world takes more confidence than being excited about something you’re not terribly familiar with. You know why? Because people are going to constantly piss down your throat for it as though it’s their god given right to do so simply because their own experience has left them bitter, pathetic fucks with nothing better to do than re-emphasize the exact same shitty hierarchical attitude that turned them into the cock trainers that they’ve become. Ugh. The worst (and most prevalent in my life) of these people are the ‘real punks’ who have ‘been there since the beginning’ and think that everyone owes them something just cuz they continue showing up. They hate the kids, they hate the new bands and they try to bond with me over this. “dude, what’s up with all these stupid kids and their crappy bands?” Um dude, I’ll tell you. They’re dancing and keeping this whole thing going by buying records and thanking us for coming to this town and starting projects that they think are cool simply because they have the energy and desire to do so. You’re pissing on that why? All you do is drink beer and attempt to get free shit, and smell like farts. I’d rather talk to someone with no idea and a ton of enthusiasm than anyone who feels like they run shit just cuz they showed up.
With that, I’m off to get a cheeseburger. Peace.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Michale Graves is playing in Dekalb in November. You there?

alex icon said...

Ah, but you forgot, Brendan, a crucial part of acting jaded and brutishly non-commital: you're automatically safe if the douchebag getting all excited turns out to be just putting you on. If you get all happy along with him and then he's all, "Not! You're dumb!" you are super-fucked. Put up a facade of I-Don't-Give-a-Fuck, though, and you're set from the get-go. So, personally, I blame liars for all of this mess.

Sam Tie Blogger said...

Michale Graves has an awesome voice, Republican or not. He's also one of the nicest guys I've ever played with!

But yeah, hes nuts.

Unknown said...

That whole last part was the best...so good.

Unknown said...

My friend (soon to be my guitarist) is a punk rocker voting for McCain, so I make fun of him a lot for that. But I really wanted to post saying that when you need a cheeseburger and you don't have the ingredients, its just best to eat your losses and go to McDonald's or Burger King. Hell, these places should do delivery.

martin* said...

Now I am craving Wendy's

Some Young Guy said...

you're taking a controversial stance being anti-jaded douchebags in a scene that thrives on jaded douchebags.

just kidding. fuck those guys. i work at a youth center/all ages club and meeting kids who are just discovering bands is really awesome.

a poser, though, is someone who's 23 who gets a hot water music tattoo because she heard her friend's copy of till the wheels fall off last month and she really liked it.

Anonymous said...

The next time I see you play, I'm going to come up to after the show, super stoked, and called you "Brandon". I think, while I agree with you, people need to make an effort to know enough to not say really stupid shit like referring to songs by the name they had on Limewire or some shit.

stranger than fistin said...

So true. Half the people I see at shows don't look like they're having a good time, and it's because of that attitude.

Paintboy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eek said...

The Graves comment reminded me of a question I wanted to ask. How often do you get recognized for that Daily Show bit? And I mean SOLELY for the bit, as in people who had/have never heard of you or your bands prior to seeing the show. I'd imagine you might still get that even now, since the video still reaches audiences on YouTube.

Paintboy said...

Gout sucks. I take drugs for it, now I can eat what ever I want.

AOVM said...

american cheerburgers taste like ass mostly especially ones in gainesville from that checkers place. its like eatin lard. nasty ass shizz il tell thee.

LaurenSmash said...

you are the coolest. come back to san francisco and have some in and out burger.

lastrayoflight said...

Weird. I was thinking about the possibility of the word 'precrastination' as I was walking home from work yesterday.

sheila said...

paintboy, i hope your comment was intended sarcasm and not at all serious...

if you are really taking drugs so that you can eat whatever you want, you have got to stop. unless, of course, you want to slowly kill youself. (well, maybe i'm exaggerating a little, but seriously, you will be long-term fucking your shit up...)you see, the gout is your body's way of telling you that whatever you are eating that is causing the disorder is BAD for you. duh. it's really simple. the drugs are only masking the symptoms, they aren't getting at the root of your problem. besides, that prescription that you get filled every month or whatever is supporting one of our nation's most evil establishments: the pharmaceutical industry.

Jake said...

word

nancy said...

I thought the word "poser" went out in the late 90's... along with JNCO's.

These Seans said...

I love the red sox, and when I saw that picture of you on the mound my reaction was "No fucking way! That lucky Bastard!"

Sorry to see the Cubs go so quick, now that my team has overcome it's curse, I root Cubs whenever possible.

Anonymous said...

whats gout mean?

Paintboy said...

sheila I appreciate your concern.

Anonymous said...

I hear you on the "completely lacking in enthusiasm" thing. My friend told me a tale of how she met a chick with a tattoo of the logo for a band-who-shall-not-be-named-but-are-amazing-and-give-me-a-boner and apparently she tried to talk to this chick and you know, be friendly, and the girl was totally dull and uninterested in anything my friend had to say about said band. I hate people like that. YOU HAVE THEIR LOGO ON YOUR SKIN, YOU MUST LOVE THEM. I LOVE THEM TOO. PLEASE TALK TO ME! I dunno, maybe people just don't want to be friends with other people anymore. If this is true, I am sad for the human race.