Monday, May 3, 2010

getcher asses out here!

Okay, hi. Good morning. My wife is still pregnant and still at work. She’s due to burst oh, nowish, but she can’t stay off those conference calls, boy. Wow. Just saying, if I have to suddenly go this morning, that’s why. There’s a baby a’ comin. Okay, so quickly, on to business:

As you may recall, on Friday I wrote about the two girls who got beaten up with baseball bats while walking home from a bar. The one girl is from Ireland and she’s still in a coma last I heard. The other girl is awake, but she’s pretty fucked up. Broken skull and stuff.

Well, that sucks. It makes me feel bad that we’ve suddenly got this “Visit Chicago! We’ll beat you within an inch of your life!” kind of city slogan right now. I mean, we’re good folks here. Or, I should say there are tons and tons of good folks here and just a few baddies. I mean, I can only speak for myself and my friends, but none of us have EVER beaten anyone with a baseball bat. Not for money, not for fun, not even out of frustration. Okay, one time I was hitting baseballs and I accidentally knocked my brother’s tooth out with a bat on my follow through, but first of all I was maybe nine. Second of all, who sneaks up and stands right behind someone who’s hitting baseballs? I maintain that one was an accident and should not go on my ‘hitting folks with bats’ record, which is otherwise, not to belabor the point, spotless.

Okay, we’re getting off topic, and today’s topic is really quite good if I say so myself. It involves two girls that are in the hospital with broken headbones because some horrible shithead came upon them when they happened to be stumbling home from doing one of my favorite things (boozing with friends) in my favorite city.

As someone who’s stumbled home from my share of bars at 330 in the morning, I feel a deep connection to this plight.

I’ve been speaking with my co-conspirators and we all feel terrible. SO, here’s what we’re gonna do: Me and my friend Chris and my friend Neil (both fellow stumbling-home-in-Chicago enthusiasts) are going to get together one night and play some songs that we’ve written for anyone who wants to pay to come see us do it. We’ll be calling ourselves the Lawrence Arms, we’ll be performing at the Subterranean on Wednesday the 19th of May. The show will be 17+ and every single dime of the money will go to these girls to help them with their bills and their rehab and…fuck, honestly, I don’t even care what they do with the money. If they need some hot fudge sundaes, fine. Go for it, get the biggest fucking hot fudge sundaes you can get. It’s the least we can do as a city, right? Of course it is. Okay, I’m off topic again.


The point is, Lawrence Arms is doing a benefit for the girls that got hit with bats and you all should come. You all should tell all your friends about it and you should tell them to come. We’d really like to get as many people out as possible and this is pretty short notice, so spread the word. I promise great times. There’s gonna be dj’s and raffles and shit downstairs and we’re gonna be playing upstairs. I’m putting my head together with Toby and Chris and Neil to come up with some suh-weet openers. The thing’s gonna be off the proverbial chain. AND it’s all for a very good cause.

Come on Chicago! Let’s come together and change our new city slogan to “Chicago! Yeah, we’ll beat you within an inch of your life, but we’ll also help you get fixed up afterwards!” That’s at least a start. Maybe then we can move on to something like “Chicago! You didn’t get beaten at all last time you were here!” and eventually “Chicago! It’s cold as shit most of the time!”

That’s gonna be sweet, people. Know what else is gonna be sweet? This show at SubT in two Wednesdays. Get your tix early, as that’s a small room and it’s gonna be a sweaty mess of mofos in there just getting awesome. You don’t want to miss it because you snoozed and the tickets all got sold, right? Of course not.

I mean, ask the brits, we’re fresh off our UK tour and we’re playing pretty well. We got five K’s in kerrang for fucks sake! And with the exchange rate, that’s like eight American K’s, so we must be kicking a lot of ass right now.

Also, it bears mentioning that since I’m about to have a baby, this show will feature me at my most sleep deprived and hilarious, AND it’s definitely gonna be the only chance to see us for a while, anywhere. SO, come on people. Fly in from Japan and all that. I know it’s short notice! It’s for a great cause.

Finally, no. We don’t know these girls. We’ve never met them, I don’t think we have any mutual friends or anything like that. Just practicing a little something called ‘good citizenship.’ Hopefully, this will make up for the time I peed in the construction site cooler when I was 17.

Ah, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

52 comments:

bombadepanico said...

Brendan, would you blog about the time you broke your knee?

some guy said...

He's not lying. The UK tour was kickass, I was thinking about how good it was just today.

Donnie said...

That's awesome. I wish I could fly up there for it...If you set up a pay pal or something i'd help out.

planespotting said...

That's awesome guys - I'll do my best to make it out of the suburbs to come down to Wicker Park!

Mark said...

SO EXCITED.

Hoffa said...

There's a PayPal you can donate to over here:

http://store02.prostores.com/servlet/butchmcguire/the-75/Donations-for-Natasha-McShane/Detail

The girl who got the worse end of this mugging worked part time at the bar whose site that is.

Dave

Mark said...

When do tickets go on sale?

Garfield Roscoe said...

Please, for the love of all things sacred and holy, give me some Slapstick and/or Broadways. Sweet nostalgia.

KyleLM said...

You should probably have a benefit show for yourself so you're not broke as fuck when that baby pops out.

Eric said...

Hilarious Kyle...

I will see you kids at this show.

Eric said...

lol word verification

"trani"

Kyle said...

This show is a really good idea. I'll be there.

Is anyone else going to Dead to Me this afternoon?

Scott said...

i just looked, tix not up yet nor is the show listed.

i am going to take off of work

Angiepants said...

Awww lookit you guys being nice. I'll hafta find a way down there.

Candice said...

Fuck! Wish I could go. You should totally auction off a date with Neil. I'll pay top dollar.

For real.

laurabm said...

Candice, you're the best.

Maggie said...

hooray benefits! This is awesome. I am not even remotely connected to this incident in any way, but thanks... those girls are really going to appreciate it. And the fudge sundaes will be tasty too. :P

Katie said...

What a great idea, I wanna get tickets the second they go on sale!!!! Hope that is soon

Heave said...

Damn...going w/ wife for ultrasound that day to find out the gender of our baby.

Sean said...

HELL YEA!

I'll be back from college, so me and my friends will be there in our drunken glory!

Sean said...

can you guys cover Irish Handcuffs by Smoke or Fire?

I think that would be pretttttttty sick.

Matt said...

haha, I'm flying to Japan in August for an entire year and I thought I wouldn't get another chance to see my favorite band before I leave. This is just the best news and more importantly its going to a great cause. I'll definitely be there.

kylewagoner said...

Anyone from West Virginia wanna take me out to Chicago on the 19th?

I saw Against Me! and Dead to Me last night in Pittsburgh anddd I saw Stephen Lynch the night before here in Frostburg, Maryland! I've lived a good life...

Candice said...

laura! it was so great to meet you. glad i didn't make a horrible drunk first impression. i tried sending you an email this morning but my computer was being lame so check your mail in a bit for a treat.

also, you wanna go halfsies with me on neil? are you any good at the harmonica?

Joe said...

Why does this have to be the same day as the Conan show?

Anonymous said...

You're all such sweet, little dudes. <3

Robb said...

"Local punk demigods 'quincentuple the money' for two fellow citizens" cont. on p 26C...

Unknown said...

I don't really comment here much anymore, but:

This is a seriously good thing you guys are doing.
Kudos.


WV: obwmouth

Jake Regier said...

I wish I, uh, didn't have to work the next day or play a show the same day as that show, otherwise I would book my ass out to Chi-town, as all those cute Habbos used to call it in my hotel days.

Oh well. Let me know if you guys ever head east again, but not so far east that you end up across the ocean.

Unknown said...

I'm sure we can all agree that those of us who are too far from Chicago to make that show would happily toss down a few bucks for the cause if you could make a live recording and offer it as downloadable. Who's with me?

Bridgett said...

Bonus: sell live telecasts of the show for a few bucks a piece on the internet. For people like me, who work for a group of fucktards who decided that my disability requires me to work until 10 PM every night even though they don't need me to. Maybe something miraculous will happen and I'll be able to go, but I'm not putting money on that.

Owner Operator said...

whens the dvd of the 10th ani show comin out? put a buck from each sale to them?

good luck with the spawning big fella.

Lindsay said...

Man this is very cool of you, you Larry Armses. Wish I could be there!

Johnson said...

You know they caught the fuckers, right? On camera, trying to use the girls' cards to buy gas for strangers, then get cash for the fuel. Fucked up. Dude's been in and out of jail 17 times. You all should form a posse at the show. I suggest pitchforks, torches, a cauldron of boiling oil and a sack of feathers.

Brendan, you are an excellent human being. Sending my support from Nevada!

Karen Kitten Cupcake Sweet said...

i dont think ice cream is really the treat for some girls who have their heads smashed in.
can you imagine what brain freeze would feel like in that state?

i yiii-yiiii!

on a slightly different, but still crimey note, my bank account and pin info has been theifed. along with my hard earned paycheck that i JUST got. the bank assures me that they will reimburse me, once they investigate and confirm it was a scam, but until then im out $1500 boners.

Can the larry armses come up to "its colder than chicago here" edmonton, alberta? [ no shit, its supposed to snow tmrw :( ] Maybe wrassle us up some money to loan me till they find the thiefers?

laurabm said...

Candice- are you talking about playing the skin flute? 'Yikes!'

Candice said...

hahaha me? nooooo. that doesn't sound like something i would do.

Daniel Thorson said...

Got tickets. woop

James said...

Completely awesome of you kids... wish i could go. as such, I second a webcast or audio download of show...

Come back to Cali

Turkey Sandwich. said...

Love this idea. Awesome dude, hopefully when I move there in July I can catch something similar to this in the future.

James said...

This makes me proud to have a mancrush on you.

Unknown said...

This should be played.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgP0QEbxULc

Anonymous said...

Woop Woop.
See you guys there.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nico said...

Skipped a day. This can only mean he became a father today.

Unknown said...

Baby day!

Anonymous said...

or he got attacked while stumbling on his way home last night...




what?

too soon? ahhhh horses#!t!

Mark said...

That's what I was thinking. We can't be too mad at him, can we?

Ted Yang said...

I'm mad at him for not waiting the extra day and having a Cinco De Mayo baby.

Robb said...

I'm baffled at Js self censoring of horseshit and agree with Banana. But yeah I think you guys are right

Anonymous said...

Someone's eventually gonna do it so it might as well be me!!!

Robb said...

truth