Best Intentions

I accidentally overheard a radio playing Shiny Happy People by R.E.M (and just typing the name brought the fucking tune back into my head) and got to thinking about songwriter’s intentions.

Surely Michael Stipe and the boys didn’t intend for people to go on a bloodlust rampage, destroying everything in sight and then committing hari-kari with a sharpened toilet plunger, but that’s what I want to do when I hear that song. I’m pretty positive that R.E.M. did not want me to take out everyone inside a Briaz like a retarded hunter in a chicken coop.

I remember listening to Revolution 9 on The Beatles’ White Album while driving a lonely stretch of California road late, late at night. There’s a brief burst of a voice that I swear sounded like, “You’re gonna die!” and that was followed by maniacal laughter. It spooked me in a heavy, heavy way. If I remember correctly, I pulled over to have a cigarette and chill out – as I might have been a little high at the time… I remember thinking, “surely The Beatles didn’t mean to freak my shit out.”

But they probably did. That John was a fucker.

And this made me remember sitting around a second hand kitchen table in Southern California, listening to the above mentioned White Album and feeling the come on of some blotter acid. Revolution 9 began playing when Dave asked, “what the hell is this?”

“This is the song that drove Charlie Manson over the edge,” I replied.

And with the perfect slump and ‘now I’m fucked’ look on his face, Dave simply said, “great!”

I laughed for like 15 minutes.

Chez Slappy, Friday Night

Tatiana the Pitiless sat at an intimate table, nervously pulling on her fingers. She was behaving like a school girl, and while that made her angry in normal work conditions, she was sort of reveling in the happy nervousness of a first date.

Zack the Crusher took another sip of wine. He seemed just as nervous as she felt and she thought it was adorable. Here was a guy who spent the better part of days removing heads with fairly blunt swords, and a little conversation over dinner was throwing him off.

“Um,” he started. “You look good all dressed up and outside of that metal Amazon outfit.”

“Thanks,” she said coquettishly. She loved the feel of her silky red dress that clung tightly to her body. Not so tightly that it gave away the steel spikes she had hidden in strategic places around her waist. “I gotta tell you, I’m really happy that Eric the Ugly set us up like this. I’ve been wanting to get to know you outside of the Arena.”

Zack nodded, smiling. “Tommy the Petty Guilt Tripper was going to ask you out I think, but that mountain lion attack at the show on Thursday pretty much put a stop to his dating for awhile.”

Tatiana laughed with that boisterous sound that was more often than not the signal for bloody death to her opponents. Then she took another dainty bite of her Chicken Caesar.

“Are you sure you don’t want a little something more to eat?” Zack asked.

“No,” Tatiana said with a sigh. “I sort of messed up my stomach when I ate that opponent’s ear this afternoon. What about you though? I figured a bold gladiator like you would eat more than a side of steamed asparagus.”

“The trainer said I’ve been looking a little fat, getting a little slow. He said I was breathing really hard after spearing that little bald weasel the other day. Remember him?”

“Yeah, that was a good hit.”

“Plus,” he looked down at his lap for a moment, blushing slightly. Tatiana loved it. “I sort of cheated and ate a little before we got here. I had a big shrimp cocktail and a Sparks.”

“A sparks?”

“Yeah, it’s like caffeinated sugar beer. The best of everything.”

Tatiana let loose another of her death laughs, but this time a chunk of parmesan encrusted grilled chicken was in her mouth. The meat got lodged in her throat and she began to choke. Zack, being confused, and frankly not all that bright, began to bellow madly; he threw his head to the ceiling and his arms straight out to his sides.

There was a group of 3 restaurant workers over to the right of the table. After a moment, a young man burst from the group and trotted to the table. Zack, in his confused state, turned towards the small young man and punched him quickly and efficiently in the throat, quickly and efficiently knocking the man out. Zack put his foot on the fallen waiter and bellowed once more. Tatiana once again began laughing wildly, forcing the stuck chicken out of her gullet.

The restaurant manager, standing off to the right of the table, turned to his sommelier with a sly smile.

“When gladiators date,” he said. “I always send in the rookie.”

A Quick One While He's Away

As an extra special Saturday edition… And because I realize I’ve been pretty verbose in these postings lately, I give you my three favorite punchlines:

1) Know it? Hell I wrote it!
2) Because she heard there was a guy in there, hung like this.
3) Ya got any duck food?

Hope you’re all having (had) a fantabulous weekend.

Shut Up & Play Your Guitar

Where I sit now at work, I’m surrounded by guitar geeks. 4 guys who have spent the better part of today discussing guitar makers and hardware and what brands were pieces of shit and which guitars turned into pieces of shit once they started being made in Korea. All sorts of technical, fanboy terms were being thrown around in a coffee fueled geek-off frenzy.

One of them actually said this: “I have no love for Strats post ‘64”.

Now hey, I like guitars. I LOVE guitars. I think they’re hyper sexy machines. I myself have one of these:

It’s one of the sexiest freaking things going. Seriously, look at it! But the gearhead, way-too-much-useless-information, “look at me and how much more I know than you” mentality drives me fucking apeshit!

These same guys would use their college degree vocabulary to mock car freaks for doing the same thing. I don’t know why this pisses me off so much, but it does.

Okay, here it is.

Some of the best, most amazing music I’ve ever heard has come from beater, pawn shop guitars. And yeah, a more expensive, better designed guitar will sound better in anybody’s hands; but a true artist can take the limitations and make something amazing and completely new. Or they can skate right on over those limitations like they never existed.

And I have come to terms with the fact I will never be a stellar guitar player, I can manage a few notes but I just don’t have that thing that makes some people geniuses. But for all of the hardware specifications, and odd numbered stringed guitars, and the fact that they know what year a guitar was made by what kind of dots are on the fret board… 40 Year Old Fanboy is still playing in lame bar bands and talking about when he hung out with Mudhoney.

Yeah and shut up, I know – if they had been talking surreal film makers I would have sprained something jumping into that conversation.

Mad Leo Love and Curse of the Dad

I’m feeling the guilt of fulfilling the prophecy of the absentee husband that my father was. My dad was rarely around when we were kids, he traveled a lot for work. And even when he wasn’t traveling he spent a huge amount of time at the office. I told myself that was not the life I wanted for myself, I would not want to put my wife or kids through that.

Well, today is Biff’s Birthday and I’m going to miss it. I’ve got another killer Thursday where I’m pulling an 11 hour day at work, going straight from work to rehearsal for show #2, and then going straight from rehearsal to a performance of show #1.

I’ve been spending a lot of time away from home doing the whole play thing. Biff’s been really supportive, but there’s my dad’s voice in the background saying, “see, you can’t hide from it! Hahahaha!”

Actually, dad doesn’t laugh like that, so I’m not sure who is hacking in there and cackling.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Biffy! I love you a lot. If any of you see a hot little number cruising the streets of Seattle today tell her to have a good one, she deserves it – she’s a super lady.

And be sure to spank her a little too – she likes it.

The Dating Wars

I was listening to Rachel talk about getting back into the Thunderdome that is dating. She mentioned that she got really comfortable just wearing jeans and drinking beers

– this is a completely unnecessary break, but typing that sentence just above started this déjà vu type, misfired memory connection thing. It was like I had had the same conversation before. Crazy. Anyway, we rejoin Billy Cleans His Plate, uninterrupted –

at the bar and stuff, and now she was a little concerned with having to be all girly. I mentioned that since I had moved here to Seattle, I was shocked at how done up women got when they went out. A lot of makeup, a lot.

It reminds me of flying into Dallas and upon the captain announcing that we would be landing momentarily, all of the women with big hair began breaking out their compacts and make up, just to add to the 2 inches of cosmetic skin already there.

I told Rachel that I’ve never really been into women wearing so much freaking makeup, that it freaks me out a little bit. She said:

“Yeah, but your from the Bay Area. Guys here say the same thing, but the women they stare at? The ones with all the makeup. The ones they ask out for dates? The ones with all the makeup.”

I wish I could stand up for my fellow sex, but I have to admit that generally speaking, guys are dumb. I began to realize that guys are just as easily duped into what society deems is beautiful as girls are into forcing themselves into unhealthy body images. I began to realize that for the most part, guys date ladies that will make them seem more impressive because they bagged the girls that look most like the ones on TV and in Maxim.

And who are these guys trying to impress? Other guys.

Lightning Bolts Shooting In and Out of My Lumbar

I’m cranky. I managed to throw out my back and it hurts like a bitch. I’m not sure what I did exactly, only I went in to Saturday night’s show thrilled with the anticipation of performing – thrilled more with the coming opportunity to drink myself silly with Jenny and Michael – and I left with a throbbing pain in my lower back.

Why does this suck? Well aside from the blinding pain whenever I move a certain way, it makes me feel stupid and old. And I’ve been trying to fight off that useless ‘I’m feeling old’ voice that sings in a raspy falsetto in that cabaret of the mind where all my fears sit and drink fancy and expensive cocktails, in fancy and expensive cocktail glasses, until they’re feeling bold enough to attack. It also sucks that I couldn’t give my all on Sunday during the Panda Girl visit, which would normally involve a choreographed dance routine and lots of deep knee bends.

I did get to spend a lot of time drinking and talking with Jenny, which is always good no matter what sort of crippling bodily pain is going on. We had one of those sort of frightening moments when I realized that I could see the sun coming up with the dawn and quickly skidaddled off to bed like semi-drunken vampires.

While the pain area is getting smaller, my back still freaking hurts. I’m spending a lot of time on the phone today grunting and moaning. It’s a sexy ass Tuesday for Billy’s customers. Oh yeah…