Wednesday, September 13, 2006

This whole not-shaving thing has gotten rather
enjoyable. You wake up every morning, push in your
contact lenses, and voila: you look slightly
different than the day before. And not in that
"Holy shit, my cowlick defies all laws of physics"
sort of way. More in a "I'm looking slightly more
lumberjack" sort of way. And really, who doesn't
like lumberjacks? Nobody. Except trees. But trees
hate everyone.

There, of course, is a problem: grooming. For
example, there's all this neck hair and there's that
part that's sort of climbing up my nose and, well, I
haven't figured out what the geometry of this
thing should be. So I've let it roam free. It's like a
very happy labrador. I think I'll name it "Jorge." Or
"Captain Gusto." Yeah. Captain Gusto's far
superior.

The other thing is that you've really got to wash
a beard. You notice this when you lick your lips, get
a little mustache, and it tastes like the Cheetos
you forgot you ate last night. In retrospect, I
should have seen this coming.

So, last post I forgot to mention that, upon
reaching New York, we had to say goodbye to the
Sammies between Manhattan and Union Hall. We
all have serious platonic manlove for those boys
who, when the going got tough, whooped the
going's ass. Purple, swollen, crushed hand? Fine.
They'll play bass with it. Missing guitar player?
Shit, son. They got back-ups living in their trailer.
Flat tire? Tie some sweatshirts around it and roll.
We miss those boys.

And, as is completely innevitable, I'm sick. Every
tour has it's feverish, ear-achey, phlegm rattling
week and that week is now. Ricola, I put my faith
in you and your yodeling Swedish chemists.

But let's not allow me to whine about that. You
can't spend countless nights drinking in loud
dungeons, getting to bed when HBO turns PG again
and not expect a bit of brain pain. Instead, let's
turn to Rochester.

We spent an extra night in upstate New York since
the Canadians crapped on our Toronto dreams, and,
beyond the endless, labrinthine search for a motel
that didn't remind us of Guantanamo Bay, we had a
grand ol' time. Well, expect for taking our free
afternoon to watch You, Me & Dupree at a second
-rate, second-run movie theatre. Let me put it this
way: we spent a dollar each to se it and we got
ripped off. I can count the times I laughed on my
middle finger.

In stark contrast to the abovementioned trashola,
the venue we played was really interesting. Called
the Bug Jar, this place had circling paper-mache
insects affixed to a ceiling fan, obviously stressed
from the weight of a three foot mosquito. It's
apparently the only place in Rochester where you
can watch anything but metal, meaning, among
other things, there will be far less bands purposely
misspelling their names at the Bug Jar than
anywhere else in town. Less strings on basses too.
And far less angry white man screaming. What
happened to metal, anyway? In the days of Black
Sabbath and Led Zep, metal was more interested
in melody, hallucinagens, and Tolkien. Then there
was that 80's well-conditioned hair, smiley metal
thing, followed by, well, basically what we've got
now. I miss Iron Maiden. Who doesn't?

Oh wait, they're still around? I'm going to slink
into this here hole and eat some grubs.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey, i'm also growing a beard. i'm past the itchy stage, the really itchy stage, the irritating stage, and on to the "wow i actually need to start shampooing this thing" stage.

anyway, we all miss you guys, and can't wait for the show on sep 29. beeatches.

-david pilz

birdmonster said...

Pilz,
Let our beards do battle. Mine is several different colors, not unlike a clown beard. Can yours handle the rainbow scruff?