Wherein I Attempt to Minimize Sucking.

When I was doing IT teching in Calerfegnia I went on vacation and left a message on my phone of Butthead saying, "uhhh...we're like, closed or something. Go away."
When I got back my boss hauled me upstairs and told me that I had "an uncanny ability to prioritize my own amusement."

I couldn't decide whether to be mortified or strangely touched that someone had said the most incredibly true and insightful thing about me.

I liked that a lot and I made an impossible pledge to myself to stop sucking. Or to at least suck a bit more philanthropically.

What a disaster. I used to have an exorcism kit with holy water and a Wafer floppy that I would bring when I fixed particularly demonic computers.

What the fuck is wrong with me. That is so funny. Jesus. I used to pull the network connection in the cute girl's office so she'd have to call me. Jesus. Over and over.

I used to take cabling detail and say I was in the walls and I'd blaze home down the 5 to Pacific Beach and make phone calls to radio stations for two hours and then blast back in and do a bunch of hackneyed ethernet connections and drop routers out of ceilings. What an absolute disgrace. And did I not once but thrice use that two hours to instead get into some patrone sours and hit the beach? Days from rock iconhood. Mere days. Did I cash out my 401K and hit the road the instant we kissed the lower reaches of the charts? Paid up the taxes on it, yeah? Right? Out of college money spent see no? Gracious, was that me rocking and rolling in every podunk town from Twaine Hart California to Waterloo Iowa to Jackson Tennessee to dig this- Sylacauga, Alabama- that had a reporting AM station that would play us for payola we could afford? Doing radio shows at seven AM where the DJ is in a shitty mood and you're givin' as good as you're gettin' because you have to do SOMETHING to get people to a gig be it drunken headstands in the town square or having Tourettes on the air. That always helps. Douglas Georgia- we get into town late and of course armed to the gills with fireworks discharge said out of the vehicle all the way into town like IDIOTS.

so we do the radio and we joke about it and shu-nuuf the sheriff calls and dresses us down and we get it on air.

that. that is canny showmanship right there. the beatless got nothing on that.

I went off on the guy in Loch Haven PA because he kept insisting I loved Culture Club and it was 7 AM. If it had been 7 PM I could have rolled with it, helped it into a realm that insulted him subtle-like, but it's tough, you know? As long as you get it on air. You can't have this "what are your influences" shit. You have to steer them away from that. That doesn't do anyone any good. If you want people to listen to your record you have to inspire confidence in them. You can't be stupid and you can't let the dillweed radio weenie control the thing. It has to be in your hands, because you have to be worth listening to. Every now and then there's a DJ that you can lean on, a pro, like Greg Sims at Q102 in Jackson TN. Guy like Greg, you can put yourself in his hands. You can't throw him a curve. You want to do call-ins? Give-aways? Hasidic trivia? Greg put on a demo we gave him of a new song of ours and he played it on drivetime and played it up like an "exclusive" and all that. This guy? Always sewing, sewing. Silk purses out of sow's ears, sugar. He's the Maytag Sewing DJ. the guy in Bowling Green, KY? What a criminal. Oh, my god- it's not that they show every outward appearance of being in a hurry to reach the 27th Circle of Hell, it's that they do it for so little. Dollars. Paper. Paper. They just never give a thought to the unfavorability of the exchange rate in Circle 27.

ha. that's a lungful right there. that's an airborne car. that's fort meade. that's like threading a needle in a pigs eye. that's firewalking. that's a technocratic oath. that's a visit from a flaming sword. that's the red sea unparting on you ass. that's a hard cover edition of Roger's Thisarius.

that's ornette coleman's years with Blood Sweat and Tears. that's what a and looks like. the wild and. finally a picture; indisputable truth. that's the count of monte shristo. The count. The viscount of vismonte viccristo. The viscount visof vismonviste viccrisvisto.

there is a term for this literary conceit. It is: stream of selfconsciousness.

Why is there a picture of Van Morrison on this post? Seriously, I have no idea. I don't even like the guy. He was hell to work for back in Them in '66 when I was one. Guy'd sooner chase skirt than make sure I had a clean diaper for my organ overdubs.

Jesus, The Malarians on the radio. Goodness gracious, the violence we'd get up to. Such excitable boys. There is a tape circulating of us circa 1988, all of us kids, getting into an on-air punchup at WMUA Amherst. Sweent. Mal Thursday three-stooges play-slapped Johnny Tomorrow who dove onto him over the console. Right in the middle of a song. You can't buy that kind of publicity.

In California you need to live near the beach and you need to have a cool pad. You have to be at the beach, playing a gig or in your cool pad, 'cause the rest of it is a Steadmanesque nightmare.

Oh my fucking stars and garters, where is it all going to end? This thing?