Viva Las Vegas

Heading out to Las Vegas this Halloween weekend with my buddy (who is also the drummer from my band). A boy's weekend of debauchery as the Caterwaul Of Sound rhythm section invades Sin City for the very first time. Additionally, we will be heading to the Fangoria Trinity Of Terrors convention. Why? Because, aside from whoring our band and the movie we just did the theme song to; we're gonna meet John Waters, George Romero (plus they are screening his new movie- Survival Of The Dead, Roger Corman, Bruce Campbell and a coffin load of Vampire-Stripper wannabees!

As I have never ventured to Lost Wages (the land of the silicon enhanced single mom's) before, the last couple of weeks have involved planning last seen during the Allied storming of Normandy during D-Day.

Because the success of this venture revolves around the 4 P's:
Planning
Preparation
Passion
and, of course...
Perversion!

And, as we don't gamble, our money can be spent in far more interesting ways. Like Big Elvis... a 300 lb Elvis impersonator.

Planning on a Hunter Thompson-esque expedition.... only without the grapefruit. I hate grapefruit!

Of course, my lovely bride has completely approved of the voyage... circumventing any potential disasters by granting me full access for the weekend. She knows, that since I am such a douchebag contrarian, that by telling me that I can do anything; that I will do nothing!
Had she warned me that she would John Wayne Bobbit me if I came home with even a strip club matchbook; than I would have went hog wild.

By telling me that I can do anything I want, I won't do anything!

She is MUCH smarter than me.

Toonage:
Dead Kennedy's - Viva Las Vegas
ZZ Top - Viva Las Vegas
Elvis Presley - Viva Las Vegas



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Now playing: George Harrison - Beware Of Darkness
via FoxyTunes

Bartleby Was Right!

I am currently writing in agony due to the stupid hubris that entailed me playing in a company softball game that has re-injured my back. I should have known better, as I have herniated disks and I was sore during warm-ups. But instead of course, I figured it would loosen up and proceeded to play extremely hard for the full game, diving and sliding on several occasions.

So, the past three days have been a steady procession of severe agony followed by pain pills which have left me somewhere orbiting the planet "head-nod".

I hate taking pharmaceutical drugs for medicinal purposes. Vicodins are supposed to be for recreation, not curative reasons!

The lesson of course is, when asked to play, I should have said "I prefer not to".

Meanwhile, Nazz Junior finished up his Little League season kicking ass and taking names.

On the rock n roll front, Nazz Junior decided that he would do a Bartleby The Scrivener trip on his teacher. He's graduating grade school next week and has decided that he would prefer not to sing the graduation theme song with his class because "It's lame and it sucks". The teacher is not thrilled about this; as he is the only kid in the graduation class exercising his rights. We have reached a compromise in which he has promised to lip-sync and fake it.

That's cool. I'm so proud.

Even cooler is that he is not going to the graduation dance party; since he decided that his graduation present should be to go see Aerosmith and ZZ Top that nite.

5th grade, and he's already the coolest kid in school!

Toonage:

Aerosmith - Toys In The Attic (live NYC 8-29-75)

ZZ Top - I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide

Cat Stevens - Father And Son

Die Toten Hosen - If The Kids Are United (Sham 69 cover)

My Beard of Shame

“We have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male such as the beard disagreeable to nearly all the females

- and there is more in that than you might suppose"
... C.S. Lewis

I've worn a goatee (or whatever you call that 'stashe and chin hair thang) for the past few years. It seemed that all the cool kids were doing it (or something like that) back in the halcyon days of the early aughts and I kept it. As an added bonus, it's a real pleasure watchin' the grey replacing the black as the years progress.

A month or so ago I got lazy and decided to grow the whole thing out, much to the distaste of the missus as well as my corporate overlords. Which, of course are two good reasons to keep it growin'.

It's never really gotten much past that nice "dirty" looking phase... the stage where it just looks like I forgot about personal hygiene. That, along with the hoodie that I don whilst riding the rails generally ensures that people leave me the f&ck alone on my commute and tend to be unwilling to sit next to me unless they have no other recourse. It also helps that most of the time I am glaring at my fellow cattle.

I think I'm gonna keep it for a while, the missus thinks it makes me look older, but others have said it makes me looks younger.

On a related note, I have recently noticed that I no longer get carded when entering bars. It used to be such a pain in the ass since I thought I was being singled out and hassled. Now I kinda miss it. That and being offered help to cross the street by those pesky boy scouts is really bugging me.

So, in light of this totally self indulgent post (as if there are any other kinds!), I present the following toonage:


Toonage:

Lagwagon - Razor Burn
The Pixies - Ain't That Pretty At All
ZZ Top - Squank
Sham 69 - Angels With Dirty Faces
Pansy Division - The Summer You Let Your Hair Grow Out