NEXT BLOG!!!

You know when you go eat Mexican food and you have two quarters left over so you go over to the put-quarters-in-and-turn-the-knob prize dispensers and there is a Homie prize dispenser, and the top part has really awesome Homies like the guy in the wheelchair or the big cholo-looking one who's restraining a pitbull and then you put quarters in and turn the knob and you don't get either of those but instead get the chick with a pink coat on, who looks pretty much like the other chicks with the pink coats (I went to high school with those chicks, by the way) who you got the last two times you purchased a Homie out of a Homie-dispenser? Well, that's how I feel when I hit the NEXT BLOG >> button on this thing. I want a funny or interesting blog, but what I get is one about how research shows that lizards cure cancer or how research shows that smoking makes your eyeballs fall out or some other such sponsored nonsense. So when one of those pops up, I push NEXT BLOG >>, and then this next one is in Spanish, and I don't read Spanish very well, and so I push NEXT BLOG >> and this one appears to be in Arabic, and I don't read Arabic at all. So of course, why not check out the NEXT BLOG >>? Because the NEXT BLOG >> looks like the layout desk in Juggs' editorial department, because it is haphazardly covered with pictures of amateur topless women with preposterously large breasts.

I gave it one more shot, and the NEXT BLOG >> did not make me laugh as much as it made me consider how I probably should get around to learning Norwegian, so I can learn how Alexander feels about David Cronenberg's Videodrome. I will admit that I am interested in learning Norwegian now, because of the proliferation of decorative diacritic marks on Norwegian letters. While the English alphabet is basically limited to the occasional breve and umlaut, the letters in the Norwegian alphabet look like you could hang them on a Christmas tree.

So anyway, when you click on that button, chances are you aren't going to get what you're after. Certainly not a cholo with a pitbull.

--The Robo-Pirate

The Skin-Thinning Properties of Bad-Day Projection

I found out this past week that my mom had a blog. Long story short, by taking a sentence out of context and framing it within the context of the bummer weekend I had and the crummy day I was having, I handily found hidden implications from which I took umbrage. The two emails I sent her in response were not directly unkind, but they were unwarranted and unecessarily indignant. The consequence of all this was that I hurt her feelings to the point that she took down her entire blog.

If you are interested in making yourself feel like a really awful person, make your mom sad. It works nearly every time.

So of course, I feel like a big jerk, and here is why: my mom is not particularly adept at using computers, and the fact that she was able to navigate Blogger (or Blooger, as I nearly typed a second ago, which I think is a hilarious word, incidentally), follow the instructions and successfully create a blog is wonderful and astounding. I say that with absolutely no sarcasm. Furthermore, I can imagine her sheer joy at having an outlet to write and relate sometimes hilarious, often frustrating stories about my dad, my brother and myself. The fact that I effectively squashed that joy by being a titty-baby makes me feel about an inch tall. I know I wasn't the one who deleted her blog, but shit. Seriously, this is me telling me, grow up, dude. It's not like it's the first time my mom has made light of something I've done. I did, after all go to high school in the early-to-mid '90s, so you can imagine the number of terrible haircuts and goofy clothes I had, most of which practically begged for informed mockery by sensible adults.

Anyway, I'm not trying to feel sorry for myself, but I am sorry for being a jerk. So mom, will you please put up another blog? Pretty please? I know people will read it (especially Wink), and they're fun, and therapeutic, and so are you gonna put it up now? Please?

--The Robo-Pirate

Now I feel cool!!!

Driving to work this morning, zoning out, appreciating the fact that it is not yet a thousand degrees in Fort Worth..... And some dude who I did not know was blaring my band's most recent CD out of his pickup. If everything falls apart today (don't know why it would), at least I have that moment of giddy joy. Sounds kind of gay, but it's a really cool feeling to know that a stranger is enjoying one's creative output.

--The Robo-Pirate

How to Make Sense of History When You've Watched a Lot of Television

Based upon this PBS show I watched last night that had to do with what a big deal 1968 and 1969 (and how they made the things that happened in '70-'74 happen) were, I arrived at two conclusions:

1. Vince Neil is the rock and roll equivalent of Ted Kennedy. Both are fat, bloated and the wrong person to ride in a car with.

2. Arlo Guthrie looks and sounds like he is being portrayed by Darrel Hammond in an SNL skit about a guy tailgating before a Jimmy Buffet concert.

--The Robo-Pirate

p.p.p.p.s.

So is Prince.

Y? Because I have two more minutes on my lunch.

A short list of famous musicians whose first names begin with the letter Y:

Yngwie Malmsteen
Ytzahk Perlman
Yesod from Pepper
Yellowman
Yuri from MxPx

oh Christ--I almost forgot.... YANNI

--The Robo-Pirate

p.s.
Can you believe I almost forgot Yanni? It would have been like leaving Skeletor off of a list of scary purple things.

p.p.s
Grimace is definitely on that list.

p.p.p.s.
So is the anthropomorphic onion on the new Eclipse gum commercial.

Hi. My name is America, and I'm a oilcoholic.

I recall a Calvin and Hobbes strip in which Calvin is bitching about the future not being very futuristic. "Where are the flying cars?" he gripes. "I mean, we still have weather?"

Yes, Calvin, we most certainly still have weather, and right now, our still-extant weather is further proving that America (and the rest of the world, if we are going to be honest with ourselves) will be forever hidebound by our addiction to oil, an addiction which mires us in costly mid-east wars, poisoned air, and stymied innovation.

Want to keep living in the twentieth century? Then let's keep the oil pumping. Throw more money at finding more oil, rather than spending money on retrofitting our infrastructure to accomodate hydrogen or other renewables.

I know I'm oversimplifying this, but seriously, how many more natural, energy-crippling disasters do we need to recover from to realize that pursuing an alternative is better for everyone and everything in the long run. How many more theocratic despots must we tolerate before we hit (bed)rock-bottom?

When will we have a clean-burning flying car?

--The Robo-Pirate

OHHH YEAHHHH!!! MY WAAAAR!!!!

The more I think about Henry Rollins, the more I get the impression that he would be partial to grape Kool Aid. And that he would also be likely to come smashing through a wall screaming "OHHH YEAHHH!!!!, resplendent in his little black shorts and with his huge carotid arteries bulging and pumping with furious, sugary purple punch, because he likes grape Kool Aid so much that he has completely supplanted his blood with it. And if you like grape Kool Aid that much, you know who to bite in the neck.

--The Robo-Pirate

p.s.
I thought this up with Kerry. He likes Kool Aid too, probably.

(a + b) 121/c = TRIANGLE?????

Really, launchcast radio? Shania Twain? You honestly thought, given all your algorhythms and research and ratings that I might like to listen to a Shania Twain song? I fail to see which variable, selection or rating might have even remotely suggested that I wanted to hear Shania Twain. Because I don't. Not even a little bit. Remember when you thought that I might want to hear some Aerosmith, maybe from the Big Ones album? And remember how you were wrong? Well this is like that time, only worse. Is it because I picked Jack Johnson, and you know that some people who like Jack Johnson like Shania Twain and that if you were to present a Ven diagram illustrating that overlap, my tastes might overlap there in the middle? Well, they don't. You're not listening to me, because I also have told you that in addition to Jack Johnson, I like Black Flag and Minor Threat, and I think it's a safe assumption that the average fan of either of those bands does not like Shania Twain. Moreover, I know for a fact that Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye definitely don't like Shania Twain, because when the three of us (along with Greg Graffin) got together to play Dungeons and Dragons last Saturday, I was about to make the scenario when Rollins goes, "You know who I'm sick of? That stupid Shania Twain!" And then Ian is like, "Yeah, bro, I totally know what you mean." So then I changed the campaign and made up this really easy-to-kill troll who was loaded in gold and called him Sh'naya T'weyne, and it was really funny, and we laughed and laughed and laughed some more, especially when Greg Graffin spilled Dr. Pepper on his pants.

--The Robo-Pirate

Dammit (I guess this is growi--BLAM BLAM BLAM!!!!!

So last night, I went downtown to the Flying Saucer to meet Jackie and her friends for a beer (which really turned into three or four given that they had Sierra Nevada IPA on tap). As I crossed Sundance square, I saw three people held hostage on a park bench by a busker badly performing "Just Like Heaven." Then, as I stepped into the crosswalk at Fourth and Main, some asshole in a Mercedes jerked out of his parking spot and through the red light. If not for the techno pumping out of his car, I probably would have been nailed. Of course he wouldn't have noticed, unless the impact had made him drop his cigarette or phone, which he was operating simultaneously. He was obviously commanding the car by the power of sheer concentration, so it's understandable that he didn't notice athe red light, let alone a human being stepping into the sanctioned walking area.

The other thing that happened was that when I got to the bar, I saw this girl I graduated with. I don't think I have ever spoken to her, but with characteristic creepiness, I know that she was a Chi-O, an Ad/PR major, and from Overland Park, KS. Anyway, she was sitting at this table with this dude, and the dude looked like he was in his early-to-mid 30s, and when I saw him, I thought, "Whoa, that dude she's with is old. He must be like, 32 or 33!" and then I realized that 32 or 33 isn't really that much older than someone who is 27 or 28. I never thought I'd feel old until I had kids. The fact that going to the Flying Saucer and buying expensive craft beers was something I did when I was 21 and 22 didn't help anything either.

This is why I shouldn't go out on Sundays.

--The Robo-Pirate

p.s.
I had a beer called Old Scrimshaw, brewed in Fort Bragg, CA. It tasted like your grocers freezer, like licking a Lean Cuisine package.

Fun Fact #1

According to the Internet Movie Database, Robert "Freddy Kreuger" Englund's father designed the U-2 spy plane.

Bonus fun fact: He auditioned for the part of Luke Skywalker. My guess is that he couldn't get the whole petulant space-teenager thing down.

--The Robo-Pirate

Angry Lesbian Breasts Part II

Oh man, that sounds like a new John Waters movie, if he eschewed the subtlety of his other films. Anyway, I forgot to mention that I read an article about Antigone Rising in Spin or EW or Here's Some Label Money to Promote Some New, Terrible Band a day or two after posting about them. It turns out they are a female JAM BAND, which means that not only is their sound the musical equivalent of a menstrual cramp, it is a cramp that lasts the entire month.

--The Robo-Pirate

p.s.
I should probably mention that Angry Lesbian Breasts is a referrence to a line Stephen King used to describe inappropriate modifiers (and bad slam poetry) in his On Writing book. If you like to write and haven't read this book, you need to pick it up.

p.p.s.
Also, I gathered from Antigone Rising's interview comments that my eye-rolling and criticism is not original at all and that they hear that sort of thing all the time; in that case, let me say that I have never been ashamed of pointing out the obvious. If you have shit on your shoe and everyone can smell it, expect to hear about it until you scrape it off.

Angry Lesbian Breasts

My girlfriend works at Starbucks. I went up to visit her yesterday while she was at work, and while I was waiting for her to return to our little table with a container of expired fruit, I perused the Starbucks music section, which is usually full of historical pop albums rebranded to remind people that they should buy overpriced coffee and peculiarly named, grown-ups-at-a-party, shout-a-lot type of games. It's also a great place to have the latest and hippest piano-based R&B/jazz fusion/singer-songerwriter/reimagined blues compilation foisted upon you.

This one album I saw was by a band comprised of five woman, who look like Jewel or Joan Osbourne as envisioned by the GAP's ad agency. They look like the kind of women who regularly annoy people with acoustic guitars. Their band's name was Antigone Rising. I can only guess that their sound is the musical equivalent of a menstrual cramp.

I mean, seriously. Antigone Rising? This is what happens when you never make it out of the junior-college theater department.

--The Robo-Pirate

By the Way #1

By the way, three cop cars came to break up the party we played at last night. A bit of overkill? Nah. Overkill would be threatening to arrest Eric for jaywalking. Oh wait. Eric did get threatened with arrest for jaywalking. Thanks for showing me how you spend everyone's money, FWPD. You guys are doing a bang-up job.

--The Robo-Pirate

Belt Accessories

People love to hear themselves talk. And since everyone has a cell phone now, they can hear themselves talk all the time.

I don't like cell phones, but I succumbed to their convenience about five years ago. Prior to that, I thought they were an accoutrement of the upper class and their children; this assumption stemmed mostly from my disgust with the phones suddenly materializing in the free hand of every girl at TCU "steering" a high-end SUV or luxury sedan circa '96.

Now they are inescapable.

Like most other consumer electronics, the democratization of the cell phone occurred when the handsets became affordable enough for the average schlub or annoying teenager to buy one, which brings us to the present, in which there is no respite from idiots yammering away with their hands resting at their temples, apparently beaming harmful radiation directly into their brains.

I don't know about radiation thing, but cell phones definitely bring out the absolute worst in people. They are inherently disruptive. They contribute to automobile accidents by causing drivers to become dangerously aloof. They make quiet people louder, and loud people insufferable. They hold innocents hostage to their user's conversations. They ruin movies. They hold up dinners, disturb fellow diners, and perturb waiters. They infuse people with an undue sense of self-importance. They are the electronic embodiment of passive-aggressive behavior.

But I have one, and the periods during which I have gone without have demonstrated that my life was better off with mobile connectivity. But I have a code of personal cell phone ethics, that I do my utmost not to violate. I think if everyone were to follow my code, people would be less inclined to take offensive phones and shove them in the ass of their offensive operators.

1. Never, under any circumstances, are you to answer the phone during a movie. Don't text message either. That's nearly as bad. If you don't intend to give a film your full attention, then why did you even bother entering the theater? That sounds like a waste of your money, and when you fuck around with your phone, or God expressedly forbid, answer it, then you have wasted mine, and I reserve the right to remove the phone from your hand and propell it with maximum force against the hardest surface I can find, even if that means walking out into the parking lot.

2. Don't answer your phone during any kind of monetary transaction. Simply put, it's rude to have a conversation when you're interacting with a cashier, waiter, hooker, mugger, etc. They are people too, and you should treat them with the dignity you would want if you were on the other side of the counter or the curb. Not only that, but by not focusing on the task at hand, you are holding up lines. And lines don't need to be held up any more than they already are. That lady with the discount t-shirts without pricetags and the four whiny children circling around her shins has already got it covered. She doesn't need any line-blocking help from you.

3. Stop shouting! If your party can't hear you, then one of you needs a new phone. You may think you are making your voice clearer to your listener, but the only one who can hear you better is the rest of us. And we don't want to.

4. You may have to answer your phone while driving, but that doesn't mean you need to engage in lengthy pillow talk or sermons. The longer somebody talks on the phone while driving, the more they forget that they are directing heavy blocks of metal at harmful velocities.

5. Don't have conversations on the phone when you're in the car with a bunch of people. Have you ever been in the car with that guy who has to call his friend and tell him how to get to the party? Why is he so fucking loud, and why does he think he's so funny? And why don't we drop him off on curb?

6. Don't wear your phone on a belt. What, are you Batman? You don't put your keys or your wallet on your belt; why would put your phone? It's only okay to clip things to your belt if you are the type of person who builds things, fixes things or fights crime. Otherwise, stick it in your pockets.

I guess these rules are mostly a means for me to let go of a personal indignation. A long time ago, I ascribed a certain class-conflict to cell phone use, and to my credit, the only people I saw using them were people in higher tax bracket. I still get irritated when I see some woman obliviously plowing down the road in her Escalade, blathering into her V3 Razr. And that guy in the boarding queue on my flight, shouting into the weird earpiece mic thing about sales reports and verticals, who is so important and busy that he has to utilize every moment he can conducting business? Well he needs a foot up his ass too. A lot of people are just jerks; I just wish they'd extend some courtesy to the rest of us, but I've come to accept that everyone has a cell phone now, and I should probably shut up about it.

Too bad I love to hear myself talk.

--The Robo-Pirate

Thanks, Mom.

Thanks, mom. I had a good weekend.

The Robo-Pirate

Self-Aggrandizement in the form of a "Klassic Kolumn"

During a bout of vanity last night, I searched my own name in Google. It took four or five pages of results, but I ran across a column I wrote over five years ago for the TCU paper. It was one of my favorites, so I am posting it here in its entirety, mostly because I never tire of making myself laugh or patting myself on the back for making myself laugh. So, without further introduction....

Some things are best left to men
Mustaches, tobacco are less than feminine

I'm not a misogynist, nor am I a belligerent male chauvinist. I support women, and I agree that their fight against glass ceilings, societal expectations of demure behavior and a host of male-propagated double standards is far from over.

However, I do have a few shreds of conservative sensibilities left which, unfortunately, lend to my reactionary preference for a few of these hypocritical fetters. I'm sorry ladies, or whatever it is I'm supposed to call you, but there are a handful of things men do that should stay that way.
Recently, I witnessed a girl chewing tobacco. Before I delve further into my tirade, I would like to point out that anyone loping around with that telltale lump protruding from his or her lower lip grosses me out. If I had my druthers, no one would chew tobacco. However, seeing women dip is especially revolting.

There are several reasons for this, the most salient being that I am attracted solely to the opposite sex. When women mash a chaw into their mouths, their attractiveness diminishes exponentially. One might infer from this that chewing tobacco is a surefire way for women to express masculinity without those annoying trappings of feminism. I can deal with women smoking, and I've humored women who think they like cigars, but as far as I'm concerned, Skoal and estrogen don't mix.

Some men, like Tom Selleck, Snidely Whiplash and my dad, like to wear mustaches. To my dismay, some women prefer to wear mustaches as well.

I agree that beauty is more than skin deep. I know that facial fuzz has no bearing on one's ability to function in society (unless one works in the Swedish porn industry), and I also acknowledge that men have no business telling women how to look any more than women have telling men how to drive. But women, if you are sporting a caterpillar under your nose, do yourself a favor, and WAX IT! If you want to have hairy legs, or, God help me, hairy armpits, fine, but the mustache is decidedly not key. I can see how hairy legs or pits might make some sort of political statement, but blatant fur on the upper lip won't score any points with the phallacracy.

Of course, women don't want to score points with the phallacracy, nor should they have to. Rather, they should focus on beating us into submission. Or so it seems, and I am sick of this. Contrary to what one might glean from Maxim, men are not all obnoxious louts driven by their genitals. Certainly, this is hard to swallow if you're female and have ever been to a bar, but it's true.

We are not out to screw women over, just as women are not out to diabolically ruin men and then brag about it in Cosmo. I am a nice guy, and I expect to be treated according to my own merits, not on the basis of some ego-starved cretin whose self-worth is tied up in how many skirts he can pull.

It's a bit of a stretch, but I believe that the gender wars would conclude much sooner if both armies would let bygones be bygones, stop struggling to have the last word and treat each other as equals.

In my book, which has yet to be read by anyone but me, mutual respect goes a long way toward solving any conflict. Holding onto past injustices, however, extends the conflict indefinitely.
I guess it's a good thing that I am graduating in five weeks because I have now made myself a pariah. Next week, I will return to the role as sensitive, opinionless opinion columnist. So while you wait for next Thursday, please look for the intended hyperbole scattered throughout this week's read, and re-read that part about my being a nice guy. Meanwhile, I have to go wax my lip.

Steve Steward is a senior political science major from Lodi, Calif., and knows nothing about women. Tell him what a creep he is at (haoledubstyle@hotmail.com).

Hahahahahahaha! See how cute and equality-minded I used to be? Sometimes I think I feel obligated to put a little moral at the end of everything I write, like Jerry Springer does with his final thought at the end of the show, which always boils down to a plea to base human beings to exhibit a little bit of the ol' golden rule. It's an effort to absolve himself of the previous forty-five minutes spent coaxing out the lowest common denominator of human behavior. I put a moral at the end of every story because tying up loose ends is a compositional habit as ingrained as taking a wizz after waking up in the morning, but not this time. Today, I am simply amoral, in a very literal sense.

--The Robo-Pirate

p.s.
There is a funny story about how this column came to be and how it almost didn't make it to print. I'll get around to that later.

The Christmas Pageant at My Desk and a bit of Warm non-Holiday Wishes

Before I get into this little thing, I should remark that I have not washed my hair since Tuesday the 5th. I have a buzz, so I don't look greazy, if that's what you're wondering. But this morning, while watching an MSN video (about a big huge fat guy who is walking from San Diego to New York), I was absent-mindedly scratching my head, and when I looked down, my desk looked like someone had smashed a snow-globe on it.

So apparently, I have dandruff. I don't know why--you'd think that not washing one's hair in a week would keep things nice and oiled, rather than dry and flaky (and knowing that catchphrase is what happens when you watch Guiding Light with your mom when you're a little kid--if only G.I. JOE had come on earlier and stayed on until dinner!), but evidently it doesn't. I don't really care. It turns out that in the grand scheme of things, dandruff is really not that big a deal. Neither are bands, bills, beer guts, jobs or anything else except for the people you care about (who are often in your band, sometimes pay your bills, encourage your beer gut, or help you get a job). For the people I care about, I love you and I keep you in my thoughts and prayers. You are a big deal.

--The Robo-Pirate

Memory of a Texas Stopsign

For whatever reason, I get my best ideas while in the shower or on the toilet. Regarding this latter, you might be tempted to think that I assume the same pose as Rodin's The Thinker. But you'd be wrong. That's my dad. Just so you know, I didn't happen upon any other revelations in the shower this morning, though I politely asked a German cockroach to remain on the wall opposite the shower head until after I had finished. He compromised by heading up to the ceiling.

While I seem to do a lot of thinking in the bathroom, I tend to reminisce while eating. I'm not sure why this is; though I love food, I don't have a ton of memories about spectacular dining experiences. This is not to say that I haven't had memorable meals, but given that I'll eat saltines and mustard just as readily as I'll eat something small, sculpted and expensive from a five star hotel, I guess I'm not so much a gourmet as I am a bipedal carp.

But anyway, I ate a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon from the Perk (the rarely-open cafe in my office building), and for whatever reason, it made me think of Dairy Queen, which is another name for a Texas Stop Sign, except for when the Dairy Queen is in another state, in which case it's just another place to poop.

I don't eat at Dairy Queens very often. Usually, it's only on the way home from something, and the ones I've eaten at seem to be deliberately decorated with straws all over the floor and pee on their toilet seats. One of these stops occurred in '98 or '99, when I was on my way from some corny fraternity thing at Texas Tech. I was riding with my friends John Lea, Matt Singer, and Royce Carvallo, and John insisted on having a blizzard. We were tired and hungover, and frankly, a Dairy Queen blizzard is not a good solution to a hangover, especially if you are consistently lactose intolerant, which I am, with regimental frequency. A dairy shit brewed with a beer shit seems like a recipe for Armageddon, but whatever--I had to sit in the back seat, and my rights and opinions were null and void.

So we pulled into some Dairy Queen (who, if she marries Burger King, presumably gives birth to Carl's Jr., according to the joke, which isn't all that funny, unless you are this guy I went to high school with, and then it's a riot). Of course the floor was covered in pink straws and napkins and dirt clods and auto salvage, and I was relieved to find that the toilet seat was covered in a thousand layers of dried pee. The thing about a peed-on toilet seat is that you really can't do anything about it (like say, for example, lifting it), and thus the shimmery lacquer of crystalized urine gets increasingly thicker. When in Rome, I guess.

At least I washed my hands.

When I re-entered the "dining room," which actually had a lot more in common with a bus station than you'd want to imagine, I found John in one of those irritable poses--arms crossed, bedhead standing tall, mouth pursed, steam misting from his ears. The thing about John is that his volume and vulgarity level is directly proportional to his BAC and the number of hours he has been up; needless to say, both of these were big numbers, and what I found was that he and the other guys were the only ones in line, and none of the people behind the counter were helping them.

As I perused the menu, I heard John grumbling to the right of me, and finally he lost it.

"JESUS!!!! WHOSE DICK DO I HAVE TO SUCK TO GET A GODDAMN BLIZZARD AROUND HERE?"

I ended up waiting in the car.

The Robo-Pirate

I Might As Well Be Honest

So my band, Darth Vato, is nominated for Best Live Band in the local alt-paper's annual music awards. We won it last year, and at the time, I suspected the whole thing was rigged, largely because there were better and tighter bands with big attendance draws who were in the running with us. In the event that we win again, I will be convinced that the awards are indeed arbitrary, in light of our performance (or gong show, if you prefer) on Saturday. We've played worse, but just barely. At least nobody threw up.

I have a number of reservations about my presence in the band. In my own opinion, I am a mediocre bass player, but since our songs are more or less rooted in reggae, I don't have to do anything really difficult. This is not to say that reggae bass is unchallenging or beneath the skill of good bass players; on the contrary, playing reggae bass well requires one to make choices, rather than runs. A good reggae bass player is judicious with his or her notes. There isn't room in the groove for hot licks or jerk-off slapping bullshit. Which is probably why I like to play it, because it is within my capacity to be good at it.

However, I'm still pretty sloppy, and that's before I start drinking beer. And given the way things went on Saturday, I started drinking beer pretty darn early. Suffice to say that I lost another favorite hat by the end of the night, and given the trouble I went to to get that particular hat, I'm pretty pissed at myself.

Anyway, Saturday was a fun show. It was pretty crowded in the bar. There were new faces. We inspired a mosh pit. A fight broke out in front of us. We sold a bunch of CDs, in spite of the fact that we really didn't bring the "A" game. In fact, one of our biggest proponents and best friends remarked, "Wow! They sound BAD!" And to ice this particular cake, the entertainment editor of the beneficient Weekly got to see us turn the buffoonery knob to 11. On our collective amp, the buffoonery knob is next to the suck/not suck switch. Guess what position that was in.

On a couple levels, I'm okay with the way we played. Not proud mind you, but okay. First of all, it wasn't like we have a reputation for perfect execution, and Saturday was not the last time we will play like crap. Secondly, everyone I saw seemed to be having a good time and didn't seem to care a whole lot about wrong notes or cracked voices. I'm not terribly pleased that we likely embarrassed ourselves in front of people who had never seen us before (which probably includes the aforementioned editor), but what are you gonna do? I guess part of our appeal is that we provide a guessing game as to whether or not we will be dressing to impress, so to speak, or proverbially showing up in the clothes we mow the lawn in.

Along those lines, I tend to think of my band as a punk band of sorts, not because we play punk (we try, with limited success), but because that is how we think. If someone doesn't like us, we don't really care. We run our mouths. A lot. Maybe even about your band. Especially if your band is better or more popular than ours. Having a party? Better watch your beer, because we will definitely try to walk out with it. And whatever snacks are in your cupboard--we'll take those too. We suck at shows that are supposed to be big deals (and by we, I mostly mean I--see above). Moreover, we revel in all that is puerile. I make no claim to inventing jackassery (otherwise I'd be a millionaire and nailing Jessica Simpson like Bam Margera and Johnny Knoxville--now those guys are jackasses! They should make a TV show), but I do feel that in our town, which is what it is, there aren't too many bands that do the same sort of lame crap that we do. Maybe the other bands in our town are a running loop of gag reels when they are off-stage, but our antics typically spill over to the times in which we are plugged in. I can't help it--I just love punching Kerry in the nuts.

Sometimes I think that being an ass clown is a way for me to sabotage my own success. By fucking off all the time, I don't ever set anyone's expectations higher than what is easy for me to reach. If someone doesn't like us, I can just say, "well, we were so wasted, I'm not surprised." Perhaps I want to hear someone say that we're a good band when we're sober, or, better yet, "Steve is good when he isn't shitfaced." That would be terrific, because then I'd have an excuse to duck under whenever the spotlight of my insecurities glares down on me.

I've been pulling this crap my whole life. My fear of failure keeps me from attempting a lot of things, and when I do attempt something, the fear keeps me from excelling. Sure, I get things done, but they are usually accomplished in a half-assed sort of way, because if I can't make it perfect, well, I wasn't really trying anyway. My own potential is hamstrung by the possibility that I might fuck something up or that someone will be better or brighter at it than I am. And thus, I play sloppy bass, sabotage relationships, alienate friends, pain my family, pay bills late, and worst of all, refuse to challenge myself.

You might wonder why I don't ever seem to learn from my mistakes. The fact is that I do learn; I just don't really apply the lessons. The post is a good example of knowledge without application, and I just now realized that my self-analysis is largely a broken record. Moreso, it is a security blanket. I can cycle through life giving lackluster performances, feeling sorry for myself, and then rationalizing why I do the things I do without ever making steps to alter my behavior. It's a pretty shitty way to live, especially when I know there are a lot of people who believe in me and in what I am capable of. For that I am sorry. I am trying, or at least trying to try (sometimes, anyway).

Everyone has their hangups and personality flaws. Mine have, most recently, cost me a cool hat. I guess I have to remember that I only get to be here once. Better late than never doesn't mean a whole lot after you are gone, and if woulda shoulda coulda is the refrain from the theme song to my life, then I need to change the tune.