Well, this is the last morning I have at home before I leave on tour. I’ve got some outstanding bills to pay and I’ve gotta take my car in to get the ignition coils replaced (whatever the fuck that means) and it seems quite a bit like my wife is sick. I’ve got a few ways of deducing this. Firstly, she’s still in bed and it’s almost 830. That’s a big sign. Second, she was really tossing and turning last night and finally, this morning when I got up to get the baby, my wife turned to me and said, “holy crap, I feel like shit. I think I’ve got food poisoning or something” which, to the unknowing may not seem like much of a clue, but I know this girl pretty well, and trust me…that’s evidence that she’s not feeling too well. It’s a bummer because I had a totally depraved evening planned out. Oh well, next time, right?
I’ve got some things that need to get done before I leave on this tour. One of the things I needed to do was record versions of all the new arrangements of all my new songs so I don’t forget them while I’m away. Now, living in a small apartment with a baby, a toddler and (currently) a sick convalescent makes recording anything difficult. Add to this that the space in the house that used to be set aside for me to record has now been repurposed as a toy zone and that I can’t get my ancient recording device out without my kid yanking all the knobs off it and well, you see my problem. Anyway, long story short, I used the voice memo thingy on my iphone to record some real bare bones acoustic versions but unfortunately for me every single one of them features my kid in the background (actually, not in the background at all…in the foreground, much louder than everything else) screaming “dad! I want Dora! Dad! I need Diego!” over and over and over again. You’d think there would be enough time for me to slip off and record about what, twelve minutes of music, wouldn’t you? But no. You’d be totally wrong about that, folks. Honestly though, it’s not a big deal. These demos are just like maps our outlines for me anyway, they don’t need to sound good. I mean, after all, Mike Park is gonna put ‘em out and I’m gonna call em “demos”. Heh. See what I did there? Pretty good one! Zing, wealthy and talented friend! Zing!
Another issue I’m having is that I’ve lost yet another ski cap (or beanie, depending on your regional dialect). I’m about to embark on a tour without a winter hat, which is not only stupid, it’s also fashion backwards, and lord knows I don’t want to be caught dead slipping, fashion wise. I need to go get a new hat, but unfortunately for me, I don’t really know where to get a decent winter hat and between these errands I have this morning and my mother in law showing up this afternoon and all the general madness that accompanies being a father of 2, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to pull it off before I leave
SO, here’s what I you to do, dogs of war: Help a brother out. Go to a store and get me a hat. I like earthy colors (olive, brown) and dark colors (black or navy) but I’m much more partial to something that’s kind of cool and interesting (think stripes, not graphics). A few things to keep in mind: 1) I’ve got a gigantic head. It’s bigger than mike park’s head. This is true. 2) It needs to be the kind of winter hat that flips up. Does that make sense? When you pull it on, the bottom lip has to fold up to make a new kind of double layer over the ears. I’m not into those hats that just slip down like a golf club cover. That shit’s for snowboarders. I’m more of a vagrant. Okay. Oh, and if you make stuff yourself, that’s far and away the best of all. Just saying.
Now, I know, asking you for clothes is kind of weird, but I’m kind of in a bind here. I need a hat, right? I mean, birds gotta chirp, fish gotta swim, all that. SO, yeah. Am I taking advantage of my position as internet overlord to ask people I don’t know to shower me with gifts? Short answer, totally (long answer, not really, but who ever reads the long answer these days?). Also, I want a cheese steak with cheese whiz in philly, a couple of coked up models in Brooklyn some wicked pissa pahties in Boston and in NH,um…hmmmm. New Hampshire, eh? What are you guys known for? A quick google search reveals that you guys are known for NASCAR and maple syrup. Unexpected. Kay. Well, um…I don’t really need any of that, unfortunately, so how bout you guys just come out to the show, eh? All the other shows are selling out or sold out. You syrup loving nascar freaks are slipping, man!
Yeah, in fact, that’s exactly what I want from NH. New Hampshire, you guys need to step it up if you would. Bring some people to the show. There are gonna be people who can’t get into all the other shows, due to the sold out nature of them, so shepherd them to your beautiful and picturesque tiny little state, home of ski vacations and the first primary elections, and we’ll be good.
Oh, and anyone coming up from Maryland should bring me a case of Natty Boh and I’ll put you on the list to all of the shows, sold out or not. That’s all.
Xoxoxoxo
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
ah, the old days...
Hey! It’s Monday. This week I’m headed out east to see the world, one pimply teenager at a time, accompanied by some of my best pals and a bunch of dudes I’ve never met before. It’s gonna be fun, right? Sure it is. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m in a band, and this week said band will be playing some shows out on the east coast. The shows are gonna be great, that’s for sure. What ever else is gonna happen, well, that’s kind of up in the air, eh? It’s a crazy world, folks.
When I first started touring, the entire experience was vastly different than it is now. The technological advances of the last ten years have made the process kind of idiot proof. Now any dildo can get a demo together on garage band, go on myspace, find out where clubs are, send emails to promoters and use a cel phone and GPS and show up at all the shows. When I first started touring however, it was way more chaotic. It sucked, frankly. It was more exciting, but less fun. Shall we examine? Okay, let’s begin:
Firstly, for all intents and purposes, there were no cel phones and there was no email. Both things technically existed, but using both of them only connected you to status hungry maniacs and epic nerds. SO, in trying to book a tour, you’d have a phone number. Usually, you’d start any tour booking process with ONE SINGLE phone number. It would be for, let’s say a guy named Will who books shows in Phoenix. You got Will’s phone number from a buddy who promises that Will’s a nice guy and does cool shows. So, you call Will and you say “hey dude, I play in a punk band and I want to go on tour. I got your number from big gay Chet. Any chance you’d be into doing a show for us?”
You bullshit for a long time. He finally relents and gives you a date. At that point you ask him if he knows anyone in any nearby towns that do shows and if you can get their numbers. Then you repeat this process with those numbers, but it’s harder, because now the person vouching for you isn’t your friend Big Gay Chet; it’s Will, who you actually don’t know beyond the one phone call, and now, because of your show in Phoenix, you’re looking for increasingly specific dates in increasingly specific towns.
But who cares, right? You’re off to a good start. Call those motherfuckers! The thing is, though, lots of times no one is home. Lots of times you can’t get any shows in the town you need because the club is booked or shut down or whatever. Lots of times you end up leaving six thousand messages on the answering machine of some guy in Bismarck because that’s simply the ONLY place that you can play between Minneapolis (where you’re playing in a living room) and Montana (where you’re playing in a shed six days later), even though it’s at a death metal club.
You wind up calling people who are nice (dumb) enough to put their numbers in the back of Maximum Rock N Roll or in Book Your Own Life as punk rock contacts (show bookers, places to stay, cool record stores) and then finally, once you’ve managed to cobble this insanely sketchy tour out of spit and paperclips, you pile into your massively shitty vehicle (that really shouldn’t be on the highway at all) and you set off.
So you arrive in your first town. Where do you go? There’s absolutely no way to know. There’s no internet, remember? You can’t just look up where some club or house or abandoned gas station that they’ve forgotten to turn the power off in is. There’s literally NO PLACE TO LOOK THAT KIND OF THING UP. The information doesn’t exist in any sort of organized form. SO, you pull off the highway about thirty minutes outside of town and you hunt down a payphone. Then you call the number you have and pray that there’s someone there to answer it (because remember, this is a land line you’re calling. Good chance no one’s there). Best case scenario, your contact picks up and you write down simple directions and get there. Next best case, some other weirdo picks up and gives you vague directions or an address, which someone in a gas station should probably be able to help you locate. But most often, no one is there, so you sit by the payphone and try back every half hour until you’re out of quarters or the show is about to start.
It was extremely common in these times to completely miss shows for reasons like this. Also, drives could be insanely miscalculated, so you could set out on what you think is a three hour drive only to find out once you’ve been going for a while that it’s actually a nine hour drive. The amount of completely unquantifiable variables made every minute very exciting, but, again, not very much fun.
Lots of shows were missed, and lots of times the shows you actually showed up to were kind of weird. Maybe the promoter had a really different idea about what “Punk” means than you did, and you’re playing with a bunch of metal bands or ska bands or a marching band (Petaluma, Ca 1996). Maybe there’s no PA system. Maybe the place is shut down, or burnt down. Maybe there’s no stage. Maybe you show up and the guy decides that he’s gonna make you PAY to play. Most likely you don’t get paid. Most likely you don’t get food, or beer or any place to stay. Most likely someone there is really creepy and won’t stop talking to you. Well, that still happens.
I dunno. It was real different then. Not better….in fact, really, I’d have to say it was worse, but it was so fucking DIFFERENT. I mean, I lived that shit and I can’t even imagine touring without cel phones or google maps. Fuck. I can’t even barely take a dump without surfing the internet now. It’s a crazy world, folks.
End transmission.
When I first started touring, the entire experience was vastly different than it is now. The technological advances of the last ten years have made the process kind of idiot proof. Now any dildo can get a demo together on garage band, go on myspace, find out where clubs are, send emails to promoters and use a cel phone and GPS and show up at all the shows. When I first started touring however, it was way more chaotic. It sucked, frankly. It was more exciting, but less fun. Shall we examine? Okay, let’s begin:
Firstly, for all intents and purposes, there were no cel phones and there was no email. Both things technically existed, but using both of them only connected you to status hungry maniacs and epic nerds. SO, in trying to book a tour, you’d have a phone number. Usually, you’d start any tour booking process with ONE SINGLE phone number. It would be for, let’s say a guy named Will who books shows in Phoenix. You got Will’s phone number from a buddy who promises that Will’s a nice guy and does cool shows. So, you call Will and you say “hey dude, I play in a punk band and I want to go on tour. I got your number from big gay Chet. Any chance you’d be into doing a show for us?”
You bullshit for a long time. He finally relents and gives you a date. At that point you ask him if he knows anyone in any nearby towns that do shows and if you can get their numbers. Then you repeat this process with those numbers, but it’s harder, because now the person vouching for you isn’t your friend Big Gay Chet; it’s Will, who you actually don’t know beyond the one phone call, and now, because of your show in Phoenix, you’re looking for increasingly specific dates in increasingly specific towns.
But who cares, right? You’re off to a good start. Call those motherfuckers! The thing is, though, lots of times no one is home. Lots of times you can’t get any shows in the town you need because the club is booked or shut down or whatever. Lots of times you end up leaving six thousand messages on the answering machine of some guy in Bismarck because that’s simply the ONLY place that you can play between Minneapolis (where you’re playing in a living room) and Montana (where you’re playing in a shed six days later), even though it’s at a death metal club.
You wind up calling people who are nice (dumb) enough to put their numbers in the back of Maximum Rock N Roll or in Book Your Own Life as punk rock contacts (show bookers, places to stay, cool record stores) and then finally, once you’ve managed to cobble this insanely sketchy tour out of spit and paperclips, you pile into your massively shitty vehicle (that really shouldn’t be on the highway at all) and you set off.
So you arrive in your first town. Where do you go? There’s absolutely no way to know. There’s no internet, remember? You can’t just look up where some club or house or abandoned gas station that they’ve forgotten to turn the power off in is. There’s literally NO PLACE TO LOOK THAT KIND OF THING UP. The information doesn’t exist in any sort of organized form. SO, you pull off the highway about thirty minutes outside of town and you hunt down a payphone. Then you call the number you have and pray that there’s someone there to answer it (because remember, this is a land line you’re calling. Good chance no one’s there). Best case scenario, your contact picks up and you write down simple directions and get there. Next best case, some other weirdo picks up and gives you vague directions or an address, which someone in a gas station should probably be able to help you locate. But most often, no one is there, so you sit by the payphone and try back every half hour until you’re out of quarters or the show is about to start.
It was extremely common in these times to completely miss shows for reasons like this. Also, drives could be insanely miscalculated, so you could set out on what you think is a three hour drive only to find out once you’ve been going for a while that it’s actually a nine hour drive. The amount of completely unquantifiable variables made every minute very exciting, but, again, not very much fun.
Lots of shows were missed, and lots of times the shows you actually showed up to were kind of weird. Maybe the promoter had a really different idea about what “Punk” means than you did, and you’re playing with a bunch of metal bands or ska bands or a marching band (Petaluma, Ca 1996). Maybe there’s no PA system. Maybe the place is shut down, or burnt down. Maybe there’s no stage. Maybe you show up and the guy decides that he’s gonna make you PAY to play. Most likely you don’t get paid. Most likely you don’t get food, or beer or any place to stay. Most likely someone there is really creepy and won’t stop talking to you. Well, that still happens.
I dunno. It was real different then. Not better….in fact, really, I’d have to say it was worse, but it was so fucking DIFFERENT. I mean, I lived that shit and I can’t even imagine touring without cel phones or google maps. Fuck. I can’t even barely take a dump without surfing the internet now. It’s a crazy world, folks.
End transmission.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Weekend pep talk
Sometimes things are kind of shitty all of a sudden, you know? Like, remember that episode of the real world that was set in Chicago when the girl that fucked Big Head Todd (the rocker, not just a guy named todd with a big head) was just sitting there and the gay dude came by and pinched her hip and suddenly she went into this shame spiral because she thought that implied that she was fat and she threw a vase and locked herself in a room? Remember that?
No? Really? It was in 2001. Well, it aired in 02, I guess, so you must have been like, what, 9? You have to remember that. It ruined her whole day, and then she had to deal with her fucked up body image and her subsequent casting down into the “fucked up roommate with an eating disorder” stigma right there on television. It was a bummer. For her. For the producers of the show, well, they were high fiving the shit out of each other. Nothing so wonderful as another person’s misery, right? Of course not. Here’s why:
We’ve all got it all figured out. We all know how to diet and raise kids and live life to the fullest and be careful and take chances and all that shit. When someone goes crazy or freaks out or fails it’s just a little bit of reassurance that we’re doing the right thing by not doing whatever that person did that fucked up.
This is true in music, for sure. Watch motherfuckers shit talk fall out boy or the alkaline trio or gaslight anthem and say it’s all bullshit and it’s lame. Then when their album underperforms, these critics say things like “see, knew that shit was no good,” which completely ignores that those bands are still more successful than your dumb dildo friend who washes cars and only listens to Tragedy (nothing against them) and still knew what was good to a greater degree than he knew what was bad. You follow? Good.
When your friends date people and break up, that’s always secretly great. When an aquaintence’s business fails, yay. When the gay guy pinches the chick with the big nose and the cock addiction, uh…wait. No, those people that were high fiving that move were just soulless human traffickers profiting off of insecure teenagers. That’s not the same thing at all. Let’s slow down, eh?
The point is, at some point in your life everything is gonna go to shit, and it may be because some dudes crash some planes into some buildings and your wife dies or it may be because someone touches your hair. And it’s all devastating. Life can really suck the dick off a dog, but there’s always something out there that’ll be coming along that will make up for it, right? Your kid’s gonna grow up, your best buddy is gonna come over with a beer. That one guard that’s been raping you is gonna get cancer. You’re gonna stop having those phantom limb pains after the surgery. You can always duck into the bathroom and fix your hairdo.
Just sayin. Sometimes things all go to shit for seemingly minute reasons. And the world isn’t always cool and sympathetic. Usually, in fact, they’re quite the opposite. But as a great man once said, everybody gets shit on in life. Everyone. The measure of greatness is not what someone can avoid, but how someone deals with what gets heaped on em.
Okay, it was me. I said it. BUT, I’m paraphrasing Daryl Jennifer. So yeah. Credit to him and almighty Jah. I and I survive, y’all.
Big party this weekend and then next week it’s off to the east coast! Get stoked turds.
No? Really? It was in 2001. Well, it aired in 02, I guess, so you must have been like, what, 9? You have to remember that. It ruined her whole day, and then she had to deal with her fucked up body image and her subsequent casting down into the “fucked up roommate with an eating disorder” stigma right there on television. It was a bummer. For her. For the producers of the show, well, they were high fiving the shit out of each other. Nothing so wonderful as another person’s misery, right? Of course not. Here’s why:
We’ve all got it all figured out. We all know how to diet and raise kids and live life to the fullest and be careful and take chances and all that shit. When someone goes crazy or freaks out or fails it’s just a little bit of reassurance that we’re doing the right thing by not doing whatever that person did that fucked up.
This is true in music, for sure. Watch motherfuckers shit talk fall out boy or the alkaline trio or gaslight anthem and say it’s all bullshit and it’s lame. Then when their album underperforms, these critics say things like “see, knew that shit was no good,” which completely ignores that those bands are still more successful than your dumb dildo friend who washes cars and only listens to Tragedy (nothing against them) and still knew what was good to a greater degree than he knew what was bad. You follow? Good.
When your friends date people and break up, that’s always secretly great. When an aquaintence’s business fails, yay. When the gay guy pinches the chick with the big nose and the cock addiction, uh…wait. No, those people that were high fiving that move were just soulless human traffickers profiting off of insecure teenagers. That’s not the same thing at all. Let’s slow down, eh?
The point is, at some point in your life everything is gonna go to shit, and it may be because some dudes crash some planes into some buildings and your wife dies or it may be because someone touches your hair. And it’s all devastating. Life can really suck the dick off a dog, but there’s always something out there that’ll be coming along that will make up for it, right? Your kid’s gonna grow up, your best buddy is gonna come over with a beer. That one guard that’s been raping you is gonna get cancer. You’re gonna stop having those phantom limb pains after the surgery. You can always duck into the bathroom and fix your hairdo.
Just sayin. Sometimes things all go to shit for seemingly minute reasons. And the world isn’t always cool and sympathetic. Usually, in fact, they’re quite the opposite. But as a great man once said, everybody gets shit on in life. Everyone. The measure of greatness is not what someone can avoid, but how someone deals with what gets heaped on em.
Okay, it was me. I said it. BUT, I’m paraphrasing Daryl Jennifer. So yeah. Credit to him and almighty Jah. I and I survive, y’all.
Big party this weekend and then next week it’s off to the east coast! Get stoked turds.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
How to get famous!
Not too long ago I heard a famous model/musician/actress type talking about when they first came to New York to make it in the world of whatever it is that they do (this story is kind of light on details as I’ve since forgotten who the person was) and she said that one of the big things that she and her roommate would do was buy a couple of ham sandwiches and put them on the window sill. They would leave them there for weeks until they were literally crawling with maggots and then they’d eat them.
They did this with the intention of getting food poisoning so that they could quickly shed multiple pounds. Apparently they always had a ham sandwich or two going, and this was a regular thing. Pretty radical, eh?
Now, it’s been said over and over again that Hollywood promotes a body image that’s just unattainable and blah blah blah, but obviously it’s not. I mean, look at the evidence here, folks. You don’t have to starve yourself. You just need to eat food that almost kills you on a regular basis and you’re there. Take that, hippy dipshits and your fat, tubby ungroomed vulvae!
I thought about this ham sandwich diet several times in the night two nights ago as I was barfing and shitting simultaneously and it kind of blew my mind. I mean, food poisoning, the real kind that has you shitting and barfing and with the sweats and shit, is no joke. It’s one of the absolute worst feelings that you can ever have. Every description I’ve read of heroin junkies going through withdrawals indicates that the symptoms are identical to those that I was experiencing due to the results of my little brief love affair with grocery store sushi. Violent and unexpected shitting and barfing? check. Shooting pains into the nuts? Check. Neck and back pain? Check. Sweats? Cold and hot flashes? Dizziness? Complete disorientation? Oh yeah. Check on all of those.
That whole deal was a bad time. And there’s no doubt about it. I can SEE the difference that night made on my body. I’ve visibly lost weight. And I guess if I did it again tomorrow, I’d really be in fighting shape (although, last night I was so weak that I couldn’t even hold my kid with both arms. He’s only about thirty five pounds, folks), and I gotta say good for this girl and her roommate for going through all that to get skinny. It’s more drive than I have. Maybe that’s why my “fame” will peter out on the internet in the form of a highly engaging blog for people with nothing to do and firewalls up that prevent them from looking at porn, and her fame will (presumably…I can’t remember who she was) you know, continue to thrive, like maggots on a ham sandwich in the sun.
If you think about it, the Ham Sandwich Diet is pretty great. It’s quicker than starving, it’s more of a ‘go get em’ move than bulimia and it’s less life damaging than heroin. After all, it’s not illegal and it’s not gonna make you suddenly like Lou Reed or just sit there with drool hanging off your face (there’s no way you could be hydrated enough to drool while grappling with food poisoning). It probably doesn’t give you all the bad skin that meth does. No…whoever this vapid idiot was had it exactly right…Eating rotten food is the absolute BEST way to get famous. You heard it here first folks.
Ah, but the thing is, if we’re really being honest, with heroin, you at least get to get high. You presumably can enjoy a few parts of your life, like that moment after you get high, for example. With this food poisoning, you’re miserable 100% of the time. You could, at any moment, shit your pants. That’s gonna kill a modeling gig quicker than you can say Howard K Stern, Attorney at Law (not to be confused with the king of all media). And with heroin, at least you can sleep and you can zone out and you can probably get laid a little bit when all the other disgusting dregs of society that want a little of your heroin come by to say hi.
With food poisoning, there’s no getting laid. There’s no getting off the shitter, honestly. Well, I guess in that recovery day you could get laid and zone out and even get high if you wanted to.
Huh…this is a hard call folks. What’s the best way into showbiz? Heroin or food poisoning? Both seem like good choices. What say you?
They did this with the intention of getting food poisoning so that they could quickly shed multiple pounds. Apparently they always had a ham sandwich or two going, and this was a regular thing. Pretty radical, eh?
Now, it’s been said over and over again that Hollywood promotes a body image that’s just unattainable and blah blah blah, but obviously it’s not. I mean, look at the evidence here, folks. You don’t have to starve yourself. You just need to eat food that almost kills you on a regular basis and you’re there. Take that, hippy dipshits and your fat, tubby ungroomed vulvae!
I thought about this ham sandwich diet several times in the night two nights ago as I was barfing and shitting simultaneously and it kind of blew my mind. I mean, food poisoning, the real kind that has you shitting and barfing and with the sweats and shit, is no joke. It’s one of the absolute worst feelings that you can ever have. Every description I’ve read of heroin junkies going through withdrawals indicates that the symptoms are identical to those that I was experiencing due to the results of my little brief love affair with grocery store sushi. Violent and unexpected shitting and barfing? check. Shooting pains into the nuts? Check. Neck and back pain? Check. Sweats? Cold and hot flashes? Dizziness? Complete disorientation? Oh yeah. Check on all of those.
That whole deal was a bad time. And there’s no doubt about it. I can SEE the difference that night made on my body. I’ve visibly lost weight. And I guess if I did it again tomorrow, I’d really be in fighting shape (although, last night I was so weak that I couldn’t even hold my kid with both arms. He’s only about thirty five pounds, folks), and I gotta say good for this girl and her roommate for going through all that to get skinny. It’s more drive than I have. Maybe that’s why my “fame” will peter out on the internet in the form of a highly engaging blog for people with nothing to do and firewalls up that prevent them from looking at porn, and her fame will (presumably…I can’t remember who she was) you know, continue to thrive, like maggots on a ham sandwich in the sun.
If you think about it, the Ham Sandwich Diet is pretty great. It’s quicker than starving, it’s more of a ‘go get em’ move than bulimia and it’s less life damaging than heroin. After all, it’s not illegal and it’s not gonna make you suddenly like Lou Reed or just sit there with drool hanging off your face (there’s no way you could be hydrated enough to drool while grappling with food poisoning). It probably doesn’t give you all the bad skin that meth does. No…whoever this vapid idiot was had it exactly right…Eating rotten food is the absolute BEST way to get famous. You heard it here first folks.
Ah, but the thing is, if we’re really being honest, with heroin, you at least get to get high. You presumably can enjoy a few parts of your life, like that moment after you get high, for example. With this food poisoning, you’re miserable 100% of the time. You could, at any moment, shit your pants. That’s gonna kill a modeling gig quicker than you can say Howard K Stern, Attorney at Law (not to be confused with the king of all media). And with heroin, at least you can sleep and you can zone out and you can probably get laid a little bit when all the other disgusting dregs of society that want a little of your heroin come by to say hi.
With food poisoning, there’s no getting laid. There’s no getting off the shitter, honestly. Well, I guess in that recovery day you could get laid and zone out and even get high if you wanted to.
Huh…this is a hard call folks. What’s the best way into showbiz? Heroin or food poisoning? Both seem like good choices. What say you?
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The beast with two founts
Holy shit folks, and I mean that literally. Yesterday evening I had a late meeting so I grabbed some sushi from the grocery store and ate it in my car. During my meeting, I had a stout or two and by the time I got home I wasn't feeling so well. By the time my babysitting parents left, I was queasy. By the time I lay down in bed, I had already put a garbage can in the bathroom because I knew the ride that was ahead.
My wife was out of town. My kids were asleep, and I was about to embark on the grossest roller coaster ride that you can take right there in your body: the double headed food poisoning all night battle.
Firstly, you're cold. You're so cold and you can't get warm, but you also can't move because that makes your nausea flare up. You're clenching your butthole like it had the world's last copy of the plans to dismantle the nuclear device inside and you're generally in bed for about fifteen minutes before it's back to the crapper and the garbage can. Awesome night, especially when you have to get up at 6 with a toddler and an infant all day.
Now, I didn't barf up the sushi (thank god, because I don't know that I could have handled seeing/tasting it again, as it was kind of weird looking/tasting to begin with) but I did barf up the two stouts and some pretzels and absolutely every single mouthful of water that I tried to swallow during the night. This last bit was almost instantaneous. Drink, fifteen seconds, barf. that was great too. The end results were that my barf never stopped being black even for a moment. That's a nice little touch in the great "so you feel like you're dying" paradigm. It was uh...thorough in it's cohesiveness if nothing else.
I'd sent my wife a text that said something like "Uh oh! Food poisoning over here" and she called me after a glamorous night of rubbing elbows with industry mavens in manhattan only to find out about my own glamorous little evening back here in the midwest. that was about 2 am.
She said (and I'm paraphrasing) "Oh, sweetie! I wish I was there" to which I replied "oh my god. No. How gross. No way. I'm SO glad you're not here right now." I mean, I understand the desire to take care of someone you care about that's not feeling well, but short of putting me in some kind of warm tub full of magical liquid that just made my various violent expulsions evaporate instantly, there was nothing to be done.
Anyway, long story short: I feel sick, so no blog today.
My wife was out of town. My kids were asleep, and I was about to embark on the grossest roller coaster ride that you can take right there in your body: the double headed food poisoning all night battle.
Firstly, you're cold. You're so cold and you can't get warm, but you also can't move because that makes your nausea flare up. You're clenching your butthole like it had the world's last copy of the plans to dismantle the nuclear device inside and you're generally in bed for about fifteen minutes before it's back to the crapper and the garbage can. Awesome night, especially when you have to get up at 6 with a toddler and an infant all day.
Now, I didn't barf up the sushi (thank god, because I don't know that I could have handled seeing/tasting it again, as it was kind of weird looking/tasting to begin with) but I did barf up the two stouts and some pretzels and absolutely every single mouthful of water that I tried to swallow during the night. This last bit was almost instantaneous. Drink, fifteen seconds, barf. that was great too. The end results were that my barf never stopped being black even for a moment. That's a nice little touch in the great "so you feel like you're dying" paradigm. It was uh...thorough in it's cohesiveness if nothing else.
I'd sent my wife a text that said something like "Uh oh! Food poisoning over here" and she called me after a glamorous night of rubbing elbows with industry mavens in manhattan only to find out about my own glamorous little evening back here in the midwest. that was about 2 am.
She said (and I'm paraphrasing) "Oh, sweetie! I wish I was there" to which I replied "oh my god. No. How gross. No way. I'm SO glad you're not here right now." I mean, I understand the desire to take care of someone you care about that's not feeling well, but short of putting me in some kind of warm tub full of magical liquid that just made my various violent expulsions evaporate instantly, there was nothing to be done.
Anyway, long story short: I feel sick, so no blog today.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Let me tell you the FUNNIEST THING!!!! HA heh, heh, ha...um...oh.
Tonight there’s a good band playing at Reggies Rock Club in the bar at 630. They’re kind of unannounced and they’re opening a hippy show, but you should go check em out. I’m going to check em out. Red Scare honcho Tobias Jeg will be there. It’s kind of a big awesome deal, but I can’t really offer any details here. Let’s just say that if you like bearded rabble playing good songs, this isn’t to be missed. Plus, it’s early. You can still get to your various dinner plans and shit, or you can stay and laugh at hippies. It’s really up to you. Don’t say I never let you in on anything awesome, kay?
Kay.
On to business. You know what’s one of the worst types of people in this world? Those who confuse being ‘talkative’ with being ‘interesting.’ There are lots of different ways an individual can do this and it’s also a nebulous thing; as in: someone can be very interesting in one situation and a total loudmouth dipshit in another. It’s an epidemic, really. Hell, I’m doing it now! Don’t believe me? Read on.
Probably the most common version of this horrendous trope is the boorish woman who’s out at the bar and not as interesting or good looking (which basically means interesting, doesn’t it?) as her friend and just won’t shut the fuck up about whatever the fuck she’s babbling on about incessantly. She’s more than just a cockblocker. She’s a conversation hijacker and she’s always talking about her dumb “awesome” job or her cool friends who (spoiler alert) can’t possibly be cool if they’re her friends and can’t possibly actually be her friends if they’re really as cool as she says.
Close on her heels in terms of being ‘the worst’ are the loud guy who was maybe the wackiest, most off the wall guy in his tiny rural town but who has yet to be introduced to people who don’t remember (or otherwise give a fuck about) the totally subversive way he repainted that billboard to be about giraffes, or made the high school production of “Our Town” into a scathing indictment of the school board (especially that tyrant Mr. Greenwood!) by using rogue audiovisual material or whatever. These two deesh top my list, as far as high levels of social irritation go, but there are more. Oh, there are plenty more.
But today, our focus will be the desperate-to-add-something guy or girl who should probably just shut up and listen to the things going on around them, but who instead hijacks the whole conversation, making it uninteresting and kind of torturous and generally forces everyone else to abandon said conversation and disband early.
This person is one of the worst because they often interrupt with irrelevant details or long winded, only tangentially related stories and completely make the natural flow of the once interesting conversation herk and jerk and they make people who probably don’t just usually sit there waiting for someone to finish talking (because this is the sign of a bad conversationalist. It’s the sign of a bad interviewer too…Conversation is built around give and take, and if some detail sets you off and you’re just waiting for this person to shut up so you can launch into the story about the time you purposely shit your pants out in Nantucket that one time, you’re a dildosaurus and chances are, the other people you’re talking to are noticing what a bad-at-conversation-person you are. This is ALWAYS true, with the only exception being if you’re talking to someone who’s absolutely hanging on your every word, which is rare unless you’re like, say, Dave Chappelle or Howard Stern or Glen Beck or something) to just sit there and wait for you to finish talking. That sucks, and here’s why it sucks the most:
This is a very, very negative character trait that is interesting because it’s A) usually brought about by enthusiasm, which should in most cases be nourished and rewarded, but in this case should be stifled and redirected as listening, but rarely is, and B) something that we’ve ALL done. I know that I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat there listening to people that I thought were fascinating/cool/smart/funny/whatever and just longed to be part of the conversation so badly that I desperately just launched myself in with all the grace of a freshly stabbed Mexican cowboy flying through a tavern’s front window. It’s a sucky feeling, and it’s just as sucky to watch someone else do it, and it’s REALLY sucky if it’s your buddy and you’re standing there and you want to say something like “Hey, dude…you gotta shut up.” But you can’t, because they’re so excited and they’re just trying their best.
But they’re also irritating the shit out of everyone. That’s what I hate. I hate it with empathy and rage in equal portions. That’s all.
I’m in a diner and it smells like dog shampoo in here. It’s gross. I gotta go.
See you tonight at Reggies.
xoxoxoxoxo
Kay.
On to business. You know what’s one of the worst types of people in this world? Those who confuse being ‘talkative’ with being ‘interesting.’ There are lots of different ways an individual can do this and it’s also a nebulous thing; as in: someone can be very interesting in one situation and a total loudmouth dipshit in another. It’s an epidemic, really. Hell, I’m doing it now! Don’t believe me? Read on.
Probably the most common version of this horrendous trope is the boorish woman who’s out at the bar and not as interesting or good looking (which basically means interesting, doesn’t it?) as her friend and just won’t shut the fuck up about whatever the fuck she’s babbling on about incessantly. She’s more than just a cockblocker. She’s a conversation hijacker and she’s always talking about her dumb “awesome” job or her cool friends who (spoiler alert) can’t possibly be cool if they’re her friends and can’t possibly actually be her friends if they’re really as cool as she says.
Close on her heels in terms of being ‘the worst’ are the loud guy who was maybe the wackiest, most off the wall guy in his tiny rural town but who has yet to be introduced to people who don’t remember (or otherwise give a fuck about) the totally subversive way he repainted that billboard to be about giraffes, or made the high school production of “Our Town” into a scathing indictment of the school board (especially that tyrant Mr. Greenwood!) by using rogue audiovisual material or whatever. These two deesh top my list, as far as high levels of social irritation go, but there are more. Oh, there are plenty more.
But today, our focus will be the desperate-to-add-something guy or girl who should probably just shut up and listen to the things going on around them, but who instead hijacks the whole conversation, making it uninteresting and kind of torturous and generally forces everyone else to abandon said conversation and disband early.
This person is one of the worst because they often interrupt with irrelevant details or long winded, only tangentially related stories and completely make the natural flow of the once interesting conversation herk and jerk and they make people who probably don’t just usually sit there waiting for someone to finish talking (because this is the sign of a bad conversationalist. It’s the sign of a bad interviewer too…Conversation is built around give and take, and if some detail sets you off and you’re just waiting for this person to shut up so you can launch into the story about the time you purposely shit your pants out in Nantucket that one time, you’re a dildosaurus and chances are, the other people you’re talking to are noticing what a bad-at-conversation-person you are. This is ALWAYS true, with the only exception being if you’re talking to someone who’s absolutely hanging on your every word, which is rare unless you’re like, say, Dave Chappelle or Howard Stern or Glen Beck or something) to just sit there and wait for you to finish talking. That sucks, and here’s why it sucks the most:
This is a very, very negative character trait that is interesting because it’s A) usually brought about by enthusiasm, which should in most cases be nourished and rewarded, but in this case should be stifled and redirected as listening, but rarely is, and B) something that we’ve ALL done. I know that I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat there listening to people that I thought were fascinating/cool/smart/funny/whatever and just longed to be part of the conversation so badly that I desperately just launched myself in with all the grace of a freshly stabbed Mexican cowboy flying through a tavern’s front window. It’s a sucky feeling, and it’s just as sucky to watch someone else do it, and it’s REALLY sucky if it’s your buddy and you’re standing there and you want to say something like “Hey, dude…you gotta shut up.” But you can’t, because they’re so excited and they’re just trying their best.
But they’re also irritating the shit out of everyone. That’s what I hate. I hate it with empathy and rage in equal portions. That’s all.
I’m in a diner and it smells like dog shampoo in here. It’s gross. I gotta go.
See you tonight at Reggies.
xoxoxoxoxo
Monday, November 1, 2010
who's winning? The bears.
Sooooo, this weekend was Halloween, right? My one kid was a dinosaur and the other one was a chili pepper. They were both pretty cute and we did family oriented stuff like trick or treat and go to a Halloween party where there were a bunch of kids in costumes and kids movies and treats and shit like that. It was pretty sweet, overall. However, this weekend also marked my introduction to a new breed of person that I’ve heard whispers of, but never met before (at least not since I’ve been a grown up): The really, really creepy guy.
The really, really creepy guy was just kind of standing there having a cocktail when we arrived. He seemed normal enough at first. He and I and a friend of mine got some drinks while discussing the way that nowadays, with kids and everything, it’s really hard to know when to cut off your wife, booze wise if you still want to get laid. Here’s what I mean:
Every dude that’s been laid more than a few times has gone through the amazing experience of suddenly, after a long night of just casually boozing with your girlfriend or friend, found her at three in the morning with an insatiable craving for your wang. It’s surprising the first time you see this phenomenon unfold, mostly because it really comes out of nowhere, and just moments before seemed like you guys were both gonna just pass out or something.
But no, one brush of a hand on the thigh (or whatever) and you’re experiencing all sorts of unnatural, god-enraging pleasures of the flesh that you thought only happened to pizza guys and plumbers in Penthouse Forum. This awesomeness becomes the basis of a lot of behaviors, some acceptable, some terrible. I will enumerate a few of them here:
1) Offering to buy drinks for ladies that are attractive/in your league, even if you don’t really know them.
2) throwing caution to the wind and drinking to excess yourself when you find yourself in a sexually charged party atmosphere.
3) hitting on extremely drunk women
4) attempting to get women excessively drunk in hopes they’ll make bad decisions
and in some extreme cases
5) groping passed out chicks.
Now, obviously these go from 1) acceptable to 5) completely unacceptable, and my point is not that these are all natural behaviors or anything. They’re not. And 4) 5) and lots of times 3) are unequivocally shitty moves. My point is that the ideas for these “techniques” all spring forth from experiencing the garden of delights that a pretty drunk woman that already finds you attractive will provide for you if you happen to be in the right place at the right time. That’s all.
So, here you are, married and the law of averages will dictate that you’ve probably gotten pretty loaded with your wife and ended up having some pretty good times (that is, if you’re the kinds of people who drink, and/or if you’re the kinds of people that bang), and at first, it’s easy. You go out to the bar. You stay there a while. You come home wasted. You bang. You wake up the next day and the sheets are everywhere. BUT, then you have kids and the whole game changes a little.
Everyone’s tired. Especially her. She’s also gone through this nine month period where she didn’t drink at all (unless she’s totally awesome in her disregard for, uh…well, everything [please note that ‘awesome’ in this context means crazy]) and she’s (most likely) not currently sitting there drinking all night with the one specific goal of getting laid at the end of the night like you are.
I mean, fuck. You’ve already tortured her by pestering her to bang all day long AND she’s had to go through the horrors of childbirth as a result of your past pestering. No, to her, once you have kids, your dick will take on more of a ‘hot stove’ kind of position in her mind: something slightly fascinating every once in a while that will most certainly hurt and disfigure you if you touch it the wrong way.
Anyway, long story short: it used to be that you kept your old lady out as long as she wanted to stay out and that was it. Now, with kids, if you want to not have to carry her up the stairs and put her into bed, much less get laid, you know, while she’s awake, it’s your job to watch her and note the moment where she’s decided that she’s gonna speed up, because that’s the moment to get her out of there.
Once she says, “yeah, I’ll do a shot with you” to her one friend who’s never had kids and still does shots all night, it’s time to bolt. At that point, it’s not like she’s doing one big shot with a group and that’s all. She’s with her girls again, living like the days when 545 was a bedtime, not breakfast time, and mark my words, she’s gonna be passed out faster than you can say “hey sweetie, want to watch some nice, non threatening erotica geared towards women?” or even “uh, can you call me a taxi”. You get the idea: what was once an ‘end of the night’ thing, now has to be carefully monitored. And your wife ain’t monitoring it.
So that’s what we were talking about, me, my buddy and the Really, Really Creepy Guy. That’s when really really creepy guy started complimenting me on how cute my kids were. Now, my kids are actually super cute (some kids are not, some kids are. I’m not trying to be a braggy dad or suggesting that they’re gonna grow up to be gorgeous or anything, as cute kids often don’t grow up to be cute adults) so I didn’t really think much of it. People are often pretty taken with our kids, and when they’re dressed up as peppers and dinosaurs, well, shit, folks. It’s pretty outrageous. So, again: whatever. This dude is having what I perceive to be a normal reaction to cute kids.
Buuuuuut, then he takes out his camera and asks me if he can take a picture of my daughter. “Uh, sure.” Whatever. He’s got a kid there. My kid’s in a costume. He’s just documenting the cute little party that he brought his own daughter to, right? Uh, well…he took like five or six pictures of her. Just her. And the whole time he’s just saying things like “oh my god. She’s so incredibly beautiful” and shit like that. She’s five months old, mind you. She doesn’t really do much. I’m her DAD and I can hardly find a reason to snap five consecutive pictures of her while she’s sitting still.
Slightly odd, no?
Anyway, I bail to just kind of reset the evening a little bit and hang out with some friends and generally mingle and when I next see this guy, he’s still in the kitchen with my wife and my kids, still talking about how cute they are and asking them for kisses and shit. Now, I guess I can dig kissing a baby on the head if you’re already holding ‘em or whatever, but what the fuck is this dude doing asking my two and a half year old for a kiss? And on the lips? It was fucking. Weird.
Well, my kid sensed it was pretty weird too and he ran over to me and gave me a hug and a kiss and hid behind me at which point the guy says “oh, so it’s not that he doesn’t like kisses” all broken hearted like, which was pretty much the weirdest possible thing he could have said at that point short of uh…”Hey, I’m actually the living spirit of Chaing Hai Shek and I’d like to take you all to a new, clean planet on my mind-spaceship if you’d all just like to join me in the darkened basement for a meditation session. We’ll start a whole new civilization free from these filthy hordes. Take this pill and meet me downstairs.”
Nah, that’s still less weird. Anyway, we gathered our kids and left. Really creepy guy decided to stay when his wife and daughter went home. I have no idea what he got up to but uh…I dunno. This is grossing me out just typing about it. I think I should go take one of those fetal position showers now.
Kay. Bye.
The really, really creepy guy was just kind of standing there having a cocktail when we arrived. He seemed normal enough at first. He and I and a friend of mine got some drinks while discussing the way that nowadays, with kids and everything, it’s really hard to know when to cut off your wife, booze wise if you still want to get laid. Here’s what I mean:
Every dude that’s been laid more than a few times has gone through the amazing experience of suddenly, after a long night of just casually boozing with your girlfriend or friend, found her at three in the morning with an insatiable craving for your wang. It’s surprising the first time you see this phenomenon unfold, mostly because it really comes out of nowhere, and just moments before seemed like you guys were both gonna just pass out or something.
But no, one brush of a hand on the thigh (or whatever) and you’re experiencing all sorts of unnatural, god-enraging pleasures of the flesh that you thought only happened to pizza guys and plumbers in Penthouse Forum. This awesomeness becomes the basis of a lot of behaviors, some acceptable, some terrible. I will enumerate a few of them here:
1) Offering to buy drinks for ladies that are attractive/in your league, even if you don’t really know them.
2) throwing caution to the wind and drinking to excess yourself when you find yourself in a sexually charged party atmosphere.
3) hitting on extremely drunk women
4) attempting to get women excessively drunk in hopes they’ll make bad decisions
and in some extreme cases
5) groping passed out chicks.
Now, obviously these go from 1) acceptable to 5) completely unacceptable, and my point is not that these are all natural behaviors or anything. They’re not. And 4) 5) and lots of times 3) are unequivocally shitty moves. My point is that the ideas for these “techniques” all spring forth from experiencing the garden of delights that a pretty drunk woman that already finds you attractive will provide for you if you happen to be in the right place at the right time. That’s all.
So, here you are, married and the law of averages will dictate that you’ve probably gotten pretty loaded with your wife and ended up having some pretty good times (that is, if you’re the kinds of people who drink, and/or if you’re the kinds of people that bang), and at first, it’s easy. You go out to the bar. You stay there a while. You come home wasted. You bang. You wake up the next day and the sheets are everywhere. BUT, then you have kids and the whole game changes a little.
Everyone’s tired. Especially her. She’s also gone through this nine month period where she didn’t drink at all (unless she’s totally awesome in her disregard for, uh…well, everything [please note that ‘awesome’ in this context means crazy]) and she’s (most likely) not currently sitting there drinking all night with the one specific goal of getting laid at the end of the night like you are.
I mean, fuck. You’ve already tortured her by pestering her to bang all day long AND she’s had to go through the horrors of childbirth as a result of your past pestering. No, to her, once you have kids, your dick will take on more of a ‘hot stove’ kind of position in her mind: something slightly fascinating every once in a while that will most certainly hurt and disfigure you if you touch it the wrong way.
Anyway, long story short: it used to be that you kept your old lady out as long as she wanted to stay out and that was it. Now, with kids, if you want to not have to carry her up the stairs and put her into bed, much less get laid, you know, while she’s awake, it’s your job to watch her and note the moment where she’s decided that she’s gonna speed up, because that’s the moment to get her out of there.
Once she says, “yeah, I’ll do a shot with you” to her one friend who’s never had kids and still does shots all night, it’s time to bolt. At that point, it’s not like she’s doing one big shot with a group and that’s all. She’s with her girls again, living like the days when 545 was a bedtime, not breakfast time, and mark my words, she’s gonna be passed out faster than you can say “hey sweetie, want to watch some nice, non threatening erotica geared towards women?” or even “uh, can you call me a taxi”. You get the idea: what was once an ‘end of the night’ thing, now has to be carefully monitored. And your wife ain’t monitoring it.
So that’s what we were talking about, me, my buddy and the Really, Really Creepy Guy. That’s when really really creepy guy started complimenting me on how cute my kids were. Now, my kids are actually super cute (some kids are not, some kids are. I’m not trying to be a braggy dad or suggesting that they’re gonna grow up to be gorgeous or anything, as cute kids often don’t grow up to be cute adults) so I didn’t really think much of it. People are often pretty taken with our kids, and when they’re dressed up as peppers and dinosaurs, well, shit, folks. It’s pretty outrageous. So, again: whatever. This dude is having what I perceive to be a normal reaction to cute kids.
Buuuuuut, then he takes out his camera and asks me if he can take a picture of my daughter. “Uh, sure.” Whatever. He’s got a kid there. My kid’s in a costume. He’s just documenting the cute little party that he brought his own daughter to, right? Uh, well…he took like five or six pictures of her. Just her. And the whole time he’s just saying things like “oh my god. She’s so incredibly beautiful” and shit like that. She’s five months old, mind you. She doesn’t really do much. I’m her DAD and I can hardly find a reason to snap five consecutive pictures of her while she’s sitting still.
Slightly odd, no?
Anyway, I bail to just kind of reset the evening a little bit and hang out with some friends and generally mingle and when I next see this guy, he’s still in the kitchen with my wife and my kids, still talking about how cute they are and asking them for kisses and shit. Now, I guess I can dig kissing a baby on the head if you’re already holding ‘em or whatever, but what the fuck is this dude doing asking my two and a half year old for a kiss? And on the lips? It was fucking. Weird.
Well, my kid sensed it was pretty weird too and he ran over to me and gave me a hug and a kiss and hid behind me at which point the guy says “oh, so it’s not that he doesn’t like kisses” all broken hearted like, which was pretty much the weirdest possible thing he could have said at that point short of uh…”Hey, I’m actually the living spirit of Chaing Hai Shek and I’d like to take you all to a new, clean planet on my mind-spaceship if you’d all just like to join me in the darkened basement for a meditation session. We’ll start a whole new civilization free from these filthy hordes. Take this pill and meet me downstairs.”
Nah, that’s still less weird. Anyway, we gathered our kids and left. Really creepy guy decided to stay when his wife and daughter went home. I have no idea what he got up to but uh…I dunno. This is grossing me out just typing about it. I think I should go take one of those fetal position showers now.
Kay. Bye.
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