EMAIL HIM

His Philosophy

show reviews
1. Immortal Lee County Killers, All Night, The Loners
Supersuckers Country Western Extravaganza, with Jessie Dayton

The drive from Las Vegas to Denver was long but after the sun came up and I came up there was some great panoramic scenery too enjoy. Utah was filled with mountains and rock formations sculpted by glacier. In the desert all was colorless and dry and mostly flat like death. It is death out there mostly, but still with survivors like cacti and that mysterious big cat we saw the night before. On the flip side, The Colorado Rockies provided some of the coolest scenery I’ve ever been inside with my eyes open. I wrote a long letter to Joann about it………..

We’re driving through Utah, getting closer to Grand Junction, Colo. It’s all deserty with little grassy spots and rock formations carved up by glacier that resemble the ones you see in pictures of the Grand Canyon. Liney rocks. The air is dry and dusty and it gets up in your nose and dries out your snots. I remember flying over areas like this on the way back from San Fransisco. Here we go Grand Junction 76, Denver 306. A truck just passed us, and another one and we’re being pelted by little stones. Meteor shower…. Grand Jct 34, Denver 288. Wow this is nice. I guess we’re coming up to Grand Junction – some mountains and actually some greenery. ….I think we’re in Fruita, Colo. now. There’s the “DINOSAUR MUSEAM” on the right. It’s a small building, shorter than our house. Must not have any big dinosaurs in there. Unless they’re all laying down. Holy shit big mountains. . . . . Fucking huge mountains. . . “Gusty Winds Likely”. We’re cutting through some big ones now. The roof of a pickup bed on the side of the road. I guess the wind blew it off. “Falling Rock Next 15 Miles”. That’s a little intimidating. I hope a boulder doesn’t fall on the van. There’s some wineries around here in the foothills. It’s all green. It’s majestic out here. The mountains appear to be almost touching the clouds but there are still trees on them – really little shrubs - so I guess they aren’t as big as some of the other ones out here. What do I know. The clouds are cumulous with blue sky all around. I remember when Doug was in third grade and I was in second and he said “Aren’t the clouds cumulous today?” and I didn’t know what the hell he meant because you didn’t learn it until third grade science but then he explained it to me. Very little civilization other than the Interstate and a little gas station/store here and there. It’s vast, panoramic. I like these kinds of places because there are no people around to fuck anything up. There’s some little log cabins, modern looking ones- the kind where they give you the life size Lincoln logs and you get somebody to build it for you and you make like you’re a real settler. And we’re coming up to a little village on the right. I wonder what the name of it is. Those people are lucky to live there with this place to look at and this air to breathe every morning and not so many people to fuck it up. Everyone gets sick of their hometown from time to time. I wonder if anybody could possibly get sick of it here. There’s a train to the right carrying coal. Union Pacific. And there’s three orange cars on the side track. And another line of gray ones. I wonder if the passenger trains used to come through here. It seems like a perfect spot. Spread out with spectacular mountains sitting there like buddhas meditating. I wonder if the old buddhas died and became mountains. If I was a mountain and people tried to ski on me, I’d barf out a volcano and disentigrate them. Or bury them in snow with an avalance. The bastards. There’s 4 houses atop a foothill. You look at them and wonder if they’re going to topple over. One is white with a red roof. It doesn’t want to blend into the back drop. There’s a small white shed all by itself, maybe a new coat of paint, with green mountain directly behind it. Why’d the guy paint his shed like that? I’d camo mine. Fuck being seen. That’s for pussies, and musicians. Um. We just passed a row of broken down cars, buses, and motor homes. Everything made by people is on the right. On the left there is too many mountains and not enough flat land to build. There are two small Mexican buildings perpendicular to each other. Churches. Pueblo churches with the sticks sticking out – you know what I mean. I have to set my watch to Mountain Time. 2:20p.m. I bought a watch at the Dollar Tree next to the club in Las Vegas. That “one of” joke is floating around too much, and then they don’t tell you what time it is after the joke. So I bought a $1 watch. The last watch I owned was $2.50. This is my record. It’s a better watch too. Next time I should steal a Rolex, that way I’ll keep improving the quality and lowering the price. Mountains all around and driving through a green valley. I wish I had no place to be. I’d stay here and live in that little white shed and wrestle grizzlies and milk goats. And maybe wrestle the goats too. And then die and become a mountain. There’s some black and brown cows in a green pasture on the left now. The mountains gave way to flat land on the left a little bit. Some craggy trees. Black and sand mountains. There’s a creek that ran under us. There’s a town called Silt. . . . Red mountains and a little creek running aside it. , , , , We’re IN the mountains now. Driving in and out of these tubes cut through with tons and tons of dynamite. All I can see is mountain all around us. There’s a little river down there along side the wall of mountain to the left. We saw two groups rafting through it. Boulders fallen everywhere. I don’t even see sky. Just rocks and pine. I’m gonna end this letter now and look around.

We came in to Denver on Santa Fe Street with all kinds of tiendas and restaurantes lining it. It’s a clean, cold city a mile above sea level and I didn’t have anything to keep warm with except my denim jacket with the sleeves cut off. We loaded into the 15th Street Tavern after some trouble finding it and Vee and I went to find a bar with Monday Night Football, Steelers first regular season game. After peering into the windows of a couple of places too classy for our dirty asses we found an Irish bar. It was five minutes into the game and Kordell Stewart had already thrown two interceptions, no doubt from being nervous because it was the first game of the season and it was Monday night. It was odd being without any Steeler fans around, but the Bronco crowd has no beef with us so it didn’t matter to them who I rooted for. We talked for a while with a kid, I don’t even think he was 21 because he was drinking Sprite, but he said he was in a hardcore band. He said they had to break up because the singer “went crazy and killed someone” and was doing time for it. Of course you take a story like this with a grain of salt but whether it was a lie or the truth sometimes doesn’t matter. I’ll never see him again so what do I care about the truth? Everything that comes out of the mouth of mankind is bullshit anyway. It’s the story that counts. Everyone has a story. What’s yours?

The game was a horrible, stinking pile of shit. Vee and I walked back and Nick and Matt weren’t there at the 15th St Tavern but they came back – they were watching the game at a billiards place down the street. So we went there, ordered some beer, watched Kordell try to eat his own shit or something like that – whatever he was trying to do it wasn’t football. We got another round and we were getting a buzz on which they say is aided by the elevation up in Denver. It must’ve been, because my tolerance was pretty goddamn high after 3 weeks out and normally a couple beers wouldn’t warrant a buzz. We drained the beer and jogged back to the Tavern in the rain.

We drank some more and watched the opening act which was a poppy kind of band with a cute chick singer. She was little with black hair and red lipstick and fishnet stockings. I forget the band’s name but sat there and watched her with my beer. I didn’t care. Sometimes when I see bands with chicks I act like I’m looking at what they’re playing or whatever to make like I like the music more than the chick. I do that with Nashville Pussy. Ruyder Suys is actually a good guitar player but truthfully I like tits better than I like rock n roll. This time I just looked at the chick. I was too tired and depressed about the Steelers and getting slowly drunk. Besides the music was bad. We were getting free drafts so that didn’t help either. Matt kept saying he was “butt wasted”. I thought he was kidding, and he did too, until we played. HAHAHA it was horrible. Almost as bad as the Steelers. I used to get mad about these kinds of things but I don’t anymore. Sometimes it’s funner when you play terribly.

Midnight Thunder Express showed in the middle of our set. They were late because the singer was in the hospital in whatever city they were in the night before with some weird illness. Last time we saw those dudes was when we met them as the Valentine Killers back in Chapel Hill when we did a show together about a year and a half before. We had a good time and drank the Jager. Those guys like the Jager. I think I wore one of my Jager shirts that night in tribute.

Anyway they rocked the fuck out. Glad somebody did that night.

I wish we could have hung out with those guys and drank somewhere but we had to be in Wichita and it was another long drive. Larry who used to be in Vee’s old band the Apostles lived in Denver and we met one of his friends at the bar. His friend dialed his number and I left a drunken message. Unfortunately we didn’t see Larry.

We took off from Denver, which is where the giant swells of mountain end and the calm water of the plains begins.

Wichita, KS
9/10/02 @ Kirby’s

I slept a lot on this drive and caught up on the journal and read some Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I brought that, Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost along but I never finished one book. For some reason I don’t read too much on the road. Maybe I’m too busy with real life. I don’t know. I still haven’t finished the Joyce book because when I got home I took a bunch of Bukowski books out of the library and I’m still into his drunk, hemeroid-ridden, pussy-addicted ass.

Anyway there wasn’t much to look at with scenery especially after being in Utah and Colorado – all plain flatland and cornfields – calm waters. Which was OK because my senses were on overload anyway. I saw a cow licking another cow’s ass so that was pretty cool. I thought Kansas was only black and white in the Wizard of Oz, but it’s like that in real life too. I saw an old farm house that looked exactly like Auntie Em and Uncle Henry’s crib.

Kirby’s Beer Store was a tiny, tiny room in Wichita. Twelve people looked like a crowd there. I felt the stare as we walked in. The walls were littered in stickers and flyers. They gave us some drafts, free all night, and we sat down. After a while we were talking to a guy named Sprout who said he was sick of the attitude towards Kirby’s because of its size. That’s probably what the stare was all about: they’re probably used to bands and their stupid egos about the place. “It’s what you fuckin make it,” said Sprout. Well, shit - He was preaching to the choir. Our first home base was the Reegle Beagle in Bedford, PA. There’s a small place in a small town. Guess what’s more fun? A show at the Reegle Beagle in Bedford, Pa or a show in some hip bar in a booming metropolis full of jaded patrons?

The opening band was a local metal band which I dug a lot because it was real metal and not “nu” metal. I can’t believe I even know that term. I should stop reading so many magazines. Anyway, we went on and we rocked that night and the small audience really responded. I got up on one of the tables and danced and we encored with “I Wanna Rock” by Twisted Sister. It was a world away from the Vegas and Denver people. It was people who know how to have a good time. Every big city in the United States that I’ve been to seriously lacks in people that like to have fun. They’ll clap when you have a hit record or are signed to some well-known independent. Chapel Hill’s that way and it ain’t even a big city. But you get out in Wichita, KS and Frostburg, MD and people just don’t give a fuck, they ain’t got time to be all nervous and self-conscious – they just wanna fuckin party. And they do. More on why small towns are much better than big cities in further installments of YSY.

After we played we stood outside and had a smoke with Jeff – big guy we met at Gearfest who got thrown out of Emo’s because it was of the opinion of the staff that he was too intoxicated. I have no idea about these things. Never hire me to work at a bar. I don’t think things are out of hand unless somebody is getting raped or killed. That’s true though, isn’t it? Also having a smoke with us was this drunk little Indian guy (Indian from India)– I think his name was Toby. I kept calling him Tarbash like the Jerky Boys character. He was putting us in pain making us laugh. He had one of our stickers on his shirt and he kept yelling shit like “Yeah! Nort Caylina! Rock and Rolll! “ with the accent. He put his right arm up and say “Kirby’s!!!” and then cross it with the left arm and say “Nort Caylina!” and say “Rock and Roll!” with the both arms shaking in drunk-Indian triumph. I was litterally dizzy from laughing so hard.

We met this rockabilly chick there named Whiskey with a Betty Page ‘do and tattoos who invited us to stay at her house. “I got a fully stocked Tiki bar.” Well say no more! So we get to her pad and it was like there was a damn tornado and we were whisked from plain old Kansas into a rockabilly Oz. The house was huge and decked out in all kinds of shit she created. Her living room had flyer art on the walls and old tables and two old time radios and then the stocked Tiki bar. I felt like having a margarita or penia colada (sp) or some beachy drink but it was late and that would take skills and thinking so I made myself the old meat and potatoes: Jack and Coke.

It was like a mini-fuckin Graceland this place. And I use the word “mini” only because “Graceland” is in the same sentence. There was the Flamingo Room and the Jungle Room with zebra-skin blankets and Marilyn Monroe on the walls, and there was a damn swing in the basement. We all got our own rooms. We weren’t too too drunk that night, just chilled and digging all her flyer art and all kinds of shit she collected. Very creative shit. I told her this was inspiring me to put some more posters or some shit up in my house. I’ve been in the same place for a year and a half and all we have is a couple posters in the living room and Johnny Cash giving everyone the finger going up the stairs. I don’t care. For a living Whiskey customizes old cars and we had a look at a couple the next day, and listened to her talk about all kinds of car stuff that I had no idea what it meant. I slept in the Porn Room which wasn’t really a Porn Room except for the Guide to Oral Sex book on the night stand and I read something about pussy-eating before I fell asleep but forgot what I read because of the Jack and Cokes. I don’t need that shit anyway. Hahaha. If you love your work, the skills come naturally.

Kansas City, MO
9/11/02 @ The Brick w/ The Throttlers

The next day we clicked our heels three times and we went from Rockabilly Oz back into plain old Kansas again. It was September 11, 2002 and I guess a lot of people stayed home to watch the memorials and the companies trying to cash in on it. “It sucks people died…. Why not drown your sorrows in Budweiser?”

The Brick in Kansas City on the MO side was formerly the Pub and good thing I knew this fact prior because they didn’t get around to changing the sign. I wore my red, white and blue Breezewood, Pa VFW shirt Matt gave me in tribute. We got there and a guy from the Throttlers was there and we talked with him for a while. We met Bone the bartender – a funny guy who’s been around and knows many of the old touring musicians, he mentioned the SCOTS from here, and then he told me he was going to spit on my Cobb sandwich which we got for nothin. HA HA HA I hope he was kidding. It was good anyway. Damn good pub food.

I’m not sure why but the Throttlers played first. We lost about five people because of that but it was a good crowd for 9/11 – whatever that means. I didn’t know whether people would want to stay in their homes or drink that day. My mind, of course, was already made up. Celebrate America by getting legally drunk.

Throttlers were a real tight and kickass hard rock quartet hailing from the premises. Buncha cool guys and we dug doing a show with them. We played good – I missed a few chords because I was working on some new dance moves, but shit, I was dancing for America, whatever the fuck that means.

After the thing Bone gave us shots and a few beers all night even after our drink tickets ran out. For some reason we started to impersonate Tony Clifton, and Bone caught wind of that and let us on that he was the chef on the set of Man on the Moon. He said he never met Jim Carrey – it was either Andy Kaufmann or Tony Clifton, he was into the character and whatnot. Damn. If I had the chance to act like Tony Clifton 24/7 I would too. Shit why don’t I?

Anyway Bone told us Tony Clifton who was really Jim Carrey would come back to where all the actors ate and yell at Bone and say “I want pasta!” so Bone’d bring him some pasta. Then Clifton would throw the pasta on the ground and say “I changed my mind! I want steak!” He’d bring out some steak and Clifton would tell him it was too small so he’d bring out a bigger steak. “That’s good. Now put whiskey on it!”

“What?”

“Whiskey!!!! I want WHISKEY ON MY STEAK!!!”

“Mellow out!”

“Don’t tell me to mellow out! Don’t you know who I am!?! I’m Tony Clifton – world famous superstar! And I want WHISKEY! ON! MY! STEAK!”

Clifton yelled that about 15 times: “Whiskey on my steak!” So Bone had to wear this big railroad glove or something because when he poured the whiskey on there the flames would go crazy and shoot up all over the place.

Tony Clifton, the man, the myth. Yeah we all know the guy who yelled at Bone to put whiskey on his steak was Jim Carrey, and the guy who originally dressed as Clifton was Andy Kaufmann, but Tony’s just as real as them and you and me. Damn I’d like to create a fuckin character that goes out and gets drunk and is an asshole to everyone. That way I wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences.

It’s all about perception anyway. You realize the amount of people in this world that are led on by total bullshit? And who’s got the power in the world? The Bullshitters. Not that you need power. Not that power is the only end to the bullshit means. Humans only have to eat, and drink, and shit, and sleep, and fuck and breathe like every other damn animal. And the rest is bullshit. I think being able to bullshit superbly is the key to the universe. The Truth: eating, sleeping, breathing, fucking. The Rest: Bullshit. Key to life: Have a good time all the time, by learning how to bullshit.

“There’s no moral. I just like the story.” – Burgess Meredith’s character in Grumpier Old Men, right before he croaks

We stayed in an apartment with huge Parthenon-like pillars holding it all up. We made up our minds that Kansas was good bullshit. Vee got laid.