Dungeons and Dragons!

I’d like to think I can be funny. Nah, that’s just false modesty. I’m funny. To me, at least. And to my friends. In certain circles, I’m pretty funny. This kind of spills over to the (ahem) stage sometimes. During the very best shows, the banter is as good as the music. That’s always the goal, though sometimes the banter blows the music away (usually due to drunkenness) and sometimes there’s almost no banter, as we just came to rock. I personally like a nice balance when I see a band. Keep it moving, but stop and get your personalities out a little too. Some would say that I almost always talk too much, but there’s no scorn like the scorn of one of our fans who comes to see one of our shows where I don’t talk at all. People get pissed. They have actually gone so far as to get in my face after a show to ask me what the fuck was going on…why didn’t I talk more? Hey brosephine, I just came to rock today. I’m not a comedian. I wasn’t billed as a comedian, so just relax with the spitting and the bad breath and the jack and coke (disgusting, by the way).
Hecklers are a funny little wrench in the whole mix of talking/playing, because, well, it’s your job to deal with hecklers. In stand up, it’s the test of your mettle. A good stand up is a professional joke teller, and if he can’t shame and quiet down a heckler, he’s exposing his lack of proficiency with his craft. We’re a band, though. We have the ability to drown out a heckler with a ton of feedback or noise or whatever, but we’re technically not really supposed to have to be able to put them in their place. I don’t like hecklers. It’s part of the job, for sure and it’s something you have to deal with, but it’s not my favorite thing, by any means. On a good night, a heckler really won’t stand a chance against me, though. And on a bad night, we can just keep playing and drown out his “you sucks” or “NOFX! NOFX! Chant or whatever. One time, however, this heckler totally stole the show, and I gotta tell you, it was downright brilliant.
We were playing in the old Creepy Crawl in St. Louis, which was a shitty, shitty little place in the middle of the sort of quasi abandoned downtown area. This was uh…maybe 2003 or 2004. I was, as per the style of the era, attempting to fill up the dead space between songs while chris tuned his guitar. When I ran out of extemporaneous shit to say, I fell back on a joke. I almost never do this, but I had just heard the joke in question and I thought it was pretty funny. Here’s the joke:
Q: What’s the difference between Michael Jackson and a grocery bag?
A: One’s made of white plastic and dangerous for kids to play with and you put your groceries in the other one.

Ha. Yes, yes, it’s an old joke, and Michael Jackson is dead now, off moonwalking around in heaven and all that, and every single Michael Jackson joke has come out of retirement for one last reunion tour and as such, this joke is no longer funny. Hey, whatever. That’s what made me think of this story in the first place, assholes. Anyhow….
This was right before his big 2005 trial, so then, like now, he was all over the news. So, back to St. Louis: It’s been a little while, the crowd is getting a bit antsy. I bust out with the first line.
“What’s the difference between Michael Jackson and a grocery bag?”
And this kid in the crowd shouts out
“You’ve already condemned him!”
and I kind of lost it. That’s just too funny, man. That’s one of the greatest pieces of heckling ever. EVER. So I’m laughing, but I quickly recover and deliver the punchline.
“One’s made of white plastic and dangerous for kids to play with and you put your groceries in the other one.”
And the same kid shouts out
“Why are you putting your groceries in Michael Jackson?”

Hey, like I said, I’m funny, but I know when I’m beat. That kid was on target that night, man. Fuuuck. I don’t know if this story is as funny in print as it was to live through, but man, me and all the guys in my band and crew from that day still laugh about that shit. So, there you go. That’s the last time I’m gonna talk about Michael Jackson in this space. On to bigger and better topics:
My friends got married this weekend in northern Wisconsin in a beautiful and picturesque little town inhabited by mongaloids. The ceremony was catholic (stiff and never ending), but thankfully, the drinks were also catholic, so that made up for it. I had fun, but I thought about you guys a lot. I imagined what you must have gone through without this dumb blog to tether you to reality, lost, like a bunch of Chevy Chases wandering through the desert after jumping the wagon off the closed road during that short cut through Arizona. No words of wisdom to live by/second guess, no place to congregate and all that. Oh, poor thirsty little dogs of war. Sorry to leave you for so long.
Hey, look, I’m back now, right? And to show you that I’m totally dedicated to the pursuit of outstanding achievements in the field of excellence, I’m gonna tell the girl who wrote in for advice because she no longer loves her pets what to do.
Kill your pets. Yup. Kill ‘em. Not only will it solve the problem of you having to see them, but it will also force you to really weigh how much you hate them. Maybe it’ll warm the cockles of your cold, callus heart and you’ll decide, in your grief, to get some new, more dynamic pets that you WILL love, at least for a while. Right? How’s that advice?
What? You never heard of the prodigal son? Fucking heathens. Look, you don’t like your pets. Tough shit, man. Pets are a pain in the ass, but they like you and they’re, you know, compassionate little things and you, like it or not, are their mommy. You can give em to a friend for 2 weeks (if you have a friend who’s actually willing to do this) and see how it makes you feel. If you start to miss them, hey, nice one! You’ve rekindled that flame. If not, well, then pretty much your option is giving them away to some family or something that wants pets (if they’re the kind of pets that would be nice to kids) or you know, animal control (which is, as outlined in the last paragraph, killing them). Those are your options. Or fuck, talk to the drawer, maybe one of these perverts that comments here wants some barfing, irritating pets. Everyone wins there. But in answer to your question, yes. You are now a heartless old crone incapable of ever loving or doing something sweet for the rest of your black little life.
Nah, kidding. Pets get annoying. Pancho bugs the shit out of me. But I put up with it, because he’s a sweetie deep down (even though his breath smells like disembodied assholes). That’s life, man. Can’t just bail on shit when it gets irritating. If you could, I’d be single and without a band or any parents or anything. So would my kid. So would you. Mmmhmmm.
Finally, keep those nudes coming people. It’s july. Nothing says “get out your dick and/or vagina and send it in an email” like America’s birthday. That’s what we fought the Germans in Pearl Harbor for, man. That’s practically what the star spangled banner lays out as our reward for defeating them and creating America! Don’t you know anything about history? Sheesh. I’m waiting.