My Closing Arguments In Th' Man Versus Bobby Lightfoot, Docket #1345-AB

Hey, man. Sometimes we all have to take th' Vazilein off the Linzertort and honest up, man. Especially those of us who make nothing of chucking rocks like Fedayim on crack and living in crystal palaces.

When I was in Cali it came to me very quickly that fuckin' Road Rage just wasn't the way to go. And I've always had little tricks to deflate myself if and when I ever get the urge to go up th' back of an Audi at 110. Recently I was taken with how they say "motherfucker" in th' Sopranos. It's like motttthhhaaahhh FUCKAHHHH. And whenever I get the urge to say "motherfucker" I make myself say it th' Sopranos way and it winds The Beast right down. Saltpeter for anger. Which we all know comes from somewhere else entirely.

Today this old dude in a AUDI gave me two long blasts of horn for not merging directly into a Peterbilt fucking semi. And I got out of the car looking really surprised and went and looked at my back tires. And then I gave myself over to a curious look and approached his window. Yes, cars are lining up behind us. And he rolled his window down and let loose with the usual invective.

People, the Man wants us fencing with baseball bats in intersections. It suits the Man. It's how the Man gets paid. The Fucking MAN makes th' fucking baseball bats and the surgical thread and th' pigs get paid and all of it. Hate the fucking towelheads. Hate the fucking South Koreans too, y'know? Hate the guy in the car in front of you. Y'all just keep hating and hating and not realizing you're getting less and less for your dollar and now all of a sudden all yer social services are privatized and deregulated and now people get arrested by people over th' phone in Bangladesh with "names" like "Britney" and "Joe".

So I'm all I'm sorry- I thought you were alerting me to a low tire or something.

And he's all RRARRRARRRRRRRGGGHHHH.

And I smiled and started walking back to th' truck and the fucking car behind him starts goin' off and shit. And I walk back and look at the old fucker's tires and shrug at the pissed off woman. I'm like no, his tires look O.K., ma'am.

And now like four of the assembled eight cars honk their horns so I'm just walkin' back, examining everybody's tires, shrugging my shoulders. Tires look O.K. Tires look O.K.


No, no, no- come on. Nobody's going to arrest you. Nobody's going to get out and kick someone's ass for acting like a grinning idiot.

Th' Soulfinger Diaries: 7.25.06: Jerkoffski Park, Bristol, CT

Hi, I'm Bobby Lightfoot's folding piano stool. I just want to be heard. I want everyone to know that having Bobby's ass in my face every god damn night is about the best I have it.

The fucking guy kicks me over into th' drum riser at least twice a show now. Twice he's set me on fire with lighter fluid. Yesterday he got his foot fouled up in me and I almost got my revenge in front of hundreds.

Instead, he drop-kicked me off the front of the stage. Then he told this retarded guy he'd give him six bucks if he brought me back. And he didn't pay the fucking guy.

I don't want to be Bobby's stool anymore. I wish I could turn myself upside-down right when he was about to sit on me and make him my bitch. He's a mean bastard. And a liar.

I just want to be at some nice family's card table. Or maybe in a dorm room with some coed's tight li'l rump carressing me as she does her poli sci paper. Life is fucking unfair. God damn Soulfinger.

Just A Couple O' Points.

1. DON'T DRIVE AN AUDI. YOU'LL TURN INTO A ASSHOLE. EVERY TIME I SEE A FUCKING AUDI I JUST PULL THE FUCK OVER. IT AIN'T WORTH IT, SAILOR. JESUS CHRIST W/ THE FUCKING AUDIS. IT'S ALWAYS THESE RICH OLD FUCKING DIVIDEND COLLECTORS THAT NEED TO BE INTRODUCED TO THE FUCKING GUILLOTINE. LIKE IN TH' ENLIGHTENMENT. THEY CALLED IT THAT FOR A FUCKING REASON.

2. TWO COMMENTS ON MY LAST POST? HUH? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT???? HUH? I GUESS YOU SEE THAT SORT OF BITTERSWEET HONESTY EVERY FUCKING DAY, HUH? "OH, IT'S JUST MORE BITTERSWEET BEAUTIFUL HONESTY. IT'S JUST SOME POOR FUCK CONFRONTING MIDLIFE WITH TEAR-INDUCING PATHOS. FUCK IT- I WANT TO READ SOMEONE'S TOP TEN LIST OF FAVORITE CELEBRITY GENITAL PIERCINGS".

THERE WILL BE TEN COMMENTS TO THAT POST TOMORROW AT NOON WHEN I GET UP OR I WILL PULL THIS FUCKING BLOG OFF THE FUCKING WEB. I DON'T FUCKING NEED IT. WHAT, YOU WANT MY FAVE IPOD DESIGN? MY FAVE DAVE MATTHEWS FUCKIN' BOOTLEG LIST? MY MOST HATED CELEBRITY FACIAL WARTS???? FUCK YOU. WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM????????????????

3. I wonder if they'll refill my Oxycodone script.

4. OH, ALSO- STOP USING MY BLOG FOR THE BIG GRAND FUNK FAN REUNION SITE. I WAS NICE ABOUT IT BEFORE. GRAND FUNK SUCKS. I DID THAT POST BECAUSE THEY WERE THE SUCKIEST BAND I COULD THINK OF TO MAKE A POINT. I'M FUCKING UP TO HERE WITH GETTING EMAILS ABOUT "MEETING MEL SCHACHER IN SHEBOYGEN IN 1972". JESUS CHRIST. FUCK OFF. I MEAN IT. YOUR GRASP OF IRONY IS TRULY SYMPTOMATIC. GO TO SOME OTHER ASSHOLE'S BLOG. YOU IDIOTS.

FUCKING MEL SCHACHER. GIVE ME A BREAK. WELCOME TO THE FUCKING 70'S YOU IDIOTS.

Not THIS fucking crap again.

Every day it's just the same. It doesn't matter what angle I pour that fucking coffee from. The same polesmokin' problems in th' world. EVery day worse, like we've been cruising along with HIV on meds forever and SUDDENLY WE'RE FULL FUCKIN' BLOWN. Bang. The fucking sores. Th' Cramps.

And I always think to myself not THIS fucking crap again. And it gets well-niGH exhausting. You know what I mean. That feeling that maybe th' way to think is well I've only really got another twennty figh years of this fucking crap.

The angle of th' java maketh not an itoa of diff'rence. Not an itoa. Every day it's the same go d dingth thing. I'm fucking TELLING you. And I get in that goddamn car again, my back and left leg sobbing from deep, deep insults dealt to them by a dumb, uncaring routine. And I've got that god damn cupholder thing that's round and my polesmoking coffee cup has a handle and it doesn't make NO diff'ence what fucking leg that hot, deliscious brew descends upon. It's still them fucking rockets.

And now they name them on th' nooze like they're products, you know? What's the name of that missile those kookie Hoozbillies is using? Why, it's the Katyusha, my friend. The Katyusha registered trademark. And now we have a Special this week only on the Katyusha Rocket reg. tm.:

Look- I've invented Internet Braille:

:::..: ... :.:::...::.. :. :...:

A Special on the Katyusha reg tm.: Any third-world country willing to starve another 25% of their population to death gets TWO POLESMOKING KATYOOSHA ROKKTS REGISTERED TRADEMARK FOR TEH PRICE OF ONE!!!!!!!!

Like us. Feel like I'm being watched now. South on th' 95 to New Haven now. And I'm like not THIS fucking crap again. Like my polesmoking stereo is sending my choice of cheez-o call letters to some big box that turns them into right fuckin' wing votes. And shitty t-shirts on ebay. Christ. And th' same motherfucking computer voice is blasting in my ears, right in the 2-5 Khz range where I'm a little sore in my olden days. And you know what happens next- an ad comes on and you're half-listening because you're thinking about old Christy Finklestoon in 11th grade and th' disgusting, degrading, deprived things you'd do to her now if you had the chance againe.

No, it wouldn't be holding hands and lite frotage to The Carpenters. No, my friend. And then I think about it and I want a shower and I'm all not THIS fucking crap again. Because basically I want to be good and I tire of the thoughts that are bad. The bad thoughts are fine at first but then they always have to end up in sour, floating ashes that get in your hair and you're wearing a white t. ::... :..stop

So I'm thinking and half-listening and in th' ad there's something mildly funny and before I can fucking STOP MYSELF I CHUCKLE. AND THAT, THAT, THAT, THAT, IS AN ABOMINATION. NOW I'M CUPPED IN THE HANDS OF FUCKING EXXON INDEED. JUST A HAPPY, CHUCKLING, GAS-DRUNK, PETROTAINED, FOOD-IN-SHIT-OUT GENTLY JIGGLING PILE OF UNCTOUS CANCER. AND I'M ALL NOT THIS FUCKING CRAP AGAIN.

And then I kan't recall or re evaluate the complex trapezes and sick, singleminded ruttings that were torturing my consciousness before. And I punch in some more chhezzy call letters and there's some fuckin' guy talking really fast like that legal shit in ads and I have to jump to turn it off before my brain fucking crawls out my ears from sheer, aching humiliation. And I look at all my tapes and I'm all not THIS fucking crap again.

And now I'm on th' 2 and I'm thinking about that time in high school when I spent weeks plotting the perfect robbery of th' TEen Center. Hacksaws, security drive-by schedules, till estimates, everything. But then I was only wanting money to get a lot of records and I figured fuck it I'll just shoplift them and skip a step. All my fave early records: Blondie, Eat To The Beat: shoplifted: Frankfurt, 1980. Roxy Music, Flesh And Blood: spirited out 'neath a long coat in Kaiserslautern.

So then the fucking robot consumer voice tells my arm to turn on th' fucking news and I'm still so ashamed from actually inadvertently chuckling at a commercial (fuck) that my arm does it and the Katyusha Rocket reg. tm. sales pitch is in full fuckin' swing like it always is. ANd all over the world little tinpot dickheads are sitting at their abominable furniture deciding that the economy could survive a diminution of 25% of th' population just polesmokingly fine. You know that fucking furniture they have: the Arabs have all that crappy glass and china and little graven images and the fuckin' African dudes all have that shitty Papa Doc fucking IKEA crap that's dipped in gold. And Bush has all those liquor cabinets everwhere and that big wire going into the back of his head from Cheney's anus.

yeah, I know it's a great band name. It's almost the perfect band name. It makes me wish I was 22 again and didn't ever have to play in another band with a name like Protege or Charisma or The Katyusha Rockets ever again.

So I'm rolling into this park in Bristol to do the show and it's fucking packed and the fucking gear has to be loaded through a roiling, stinking mass of brain-infected, fat humanity because the coordinators are on th' fucking take and didn't do venue plannning. And you KNOW I'm like not THIS fucking crap again. And it's 93 christing degrees and it's so polesmoking hot you could just melt into Kristy Finklestoon's little plad wool skirt like a little trail of cool lemonade escaping from her full, half-open lips in slow motion. And you know if you were sixteen again knowing what you know now you would have laid your head in her lap and savored every cool drop of sweet delicious lemonade and you would have wept. Wept at the soft sting of her wool skirt. At the sunlight through the little hairs on her forearm. And you would have willed every second to pass like an hour in her room, with the wool and the lemonade, the rough and the silky, silky sweet. And above and beyond everything you'd weep like a forlorn kitten at the memory of the scent, a morphine mix of woman and little girl. And that makes you feel a little guilty. And that feels good. Guilty means it's wrong and wrong is the new right don't you know? But still you feel a little curdled inside, like there's a date stamped on your ass and you're fuckin' past it. And you feel the worst feeling- the feeling like you're sort of like Rabbit Angstrom. Yeah, you're like an Updike character but you're not even cool enough to be Rabbit so you're more like a peripheral character, like someone his wife fucks and it starts all this crap and the baby fucking drowns in the tub. But you're already out of the story by then. yeah, you're a fucking Deus Ex Machina in a fucking marriage drama. Your purpose revealed. And all these feelings- you're like a songwriter finally realizing they'll never say anything new and you KNOW how THAT feels, incidentally. you'll feel all the same old crap all the same crap because you're just Another One OF Them and people seeee you out of the corner of their eye and then you're gone. Mr. Deus Ex MAchina. Mr. Finklestoon Defiler. Mr. Fuckin' Updike Brainfart Havin'-Used-Feelings Dude.

And then backstage I have a moment of peace at the center of the Hurricane Of Retards. And I don't want to do it I don't want to but then I do and I'm instantly glad. Glad in my soul as the liquor races hot 'n' cold down my gullet into my superior deltoid processes, bypassing the Isles Of Langerhans thanks to a harmless procedure. And I take th' stage and I play a big A on th' Rhodesey, with my head down to the thing, all in black with half-inch long bleached hair and a cig behind the ear and I'm like sweet- THIS fucking crap again. BE the Katyusha. Be the polesmoking Katyusha REg. t.m. MAYBE YOU can be a nice little product too. Maybe someday we'll all copyright ourselves so that we can get the maximum return on our SOULS. We'll all be like Bobby Lightfoot TM and Kristy Finklestoon TM and that. Oh, Jesus fuckin' wept me a polesmoking river. Not THIS fucking crap again.

Anatomy Of A Song #15: I Could Try

There came to me this morning the faintest little tickle of discomfort as I finished my eight mile run and my first eightball. Not necessarily in that order.

What was it? It stood there on the precipice of my consciousness, swaying, waving its arms until it toppled into my tanned, athletic brain:

What of the Unfinished Series? What came of it? Was there ever a greater disgrace in all of blogdom?

Was it to be my Ishtar? A huge beacon of shame? A monument to ego and folly? Was it to be The Orchestra's Symphony Of Ignominy?

And then I was like- no, no- that's not what's up. If I were you I would actually arrived at the conclusion that th' song actually ended up kind of sucking and couldn't possibly live up to the hype surrounding its inception and recording. And so I buried it in a blizzard of the usual invective.

And I would have thought that I, Bobby Lightfoot, had stumbled. That's what I would have thought. And I rekkin' I'da thought that it would actually take a lot of stones to carry through and post the song. You'd have to be really confident in the thing and you'd have to have a totally bloated ego to splash your wank up there after a couple of weeks of glorious foreplay.

Yeah. Here's "I Could Try". But here's the thing- there isn't anything so Rimbaudian about the whole fuckin' thing. I really, really swear to god that it's because i just haven't been able to be bothered with horn sessions. I'm a fuckin' busy dude and I'm still stretched into horrible pretzel shapes by my hideous and debilitating sciatica. Motherfucker, it hurts. I did two Oxycodones yesterday and didn't know if I was going to puke or talk to god first.

So the only suspension of disbelief that I will require of my audience on this still work-in-progress is that they pretend that the awful, cheesy fake horns that I put as guides in the instrumental section are real, Alpert-esque and delicious. I would have taken them out for the rough mix but I was in a swoon or some crap.

So after very much ado indeed, I present at last the almost-done version of "I Could Try" in all its unashamedly sunny Ocean Way pre-ironic pop basket-weavery. And pave the way for the final version with th' trumpet section that I'll finish this very god damn summer.

For any of my more recent readers I refer you back to blog entries "????, ??, ????" through "????, ??, ????" for the painstaking studio diary I kept on all phases of the production of "I Could Try" and then abandoned like so much balled-up music paper on the stage floor.

It gives me great pleasure to present:

I Could Try

Walking along
Trying not to get it wrong
Trying to make it seem like
Something I do every day

Hoping that you feel the same
Hoping that it ain't the same old little game-
Boy meets girl and boy gets crucified

But I could try
To love you just a little
Let a touch go by the side
Because I'm older now
And I just can't take the ride...

And I could try
To give you just a piece of my heart
And let it slide...
Well, I ain't got much left inside
But I guess that I could try...

Take you to the show
Trying not to let you know
Listen to the radio
Like we did yesterday

That's when you take me down
That's when you say hey baby I'll see you 'round
But I can take it, man- I'm good that way...

But I could try
To love you just a little
Let a touch go by the side
Because I'm older now
And I just can't take the ride...

Ain't nobody ever too far gone, baby...