CAVEMAN!

This is the story about the caveman.

As many of you know, I am ancient, I've been in seventeen thousand bands for over a million years, and I never exaggerate.

Experience has taught me that most musicians are idiots, but certainly no band I was ever in was more idiotic as the binge drinking Blue Fox Band.

In 1976 (yes, 1976) we were on the road playing at a place called Joe's Convention Lounge, on the American side of Niagara Falls. This was the Bi-Centennial year, so the aforementioned "Joe" painted everything in his Convention Lounge Red White and Blue to attract the American tourists who never showed up anyways.

Above the club was a slummy five room band house, complete with a roach infested kitchen, holes in the walls, and beds that made you feel like a hot dog in a moldy bun. We made communal meals usually involving Ragu and some sort of pasta. This way we had more money for beer and other idiot inducing substances.
After each night of playing, all nine of us went on a mission to entice females up the stairs to our swinging slum for some passionate road boinking. We were extremely particular about this selection.
In order to party with The Blue Fox Band, these girls MUST have arms and legs.

Since hardly anyone ever showed up to Joe's pathetic patriotic looking lounge, we began to consider girls with missing limbs and maybe sheep, but still we had no luck at all. The gig ended, and up the stairs we went to re-heat some Ragu ravioli and get blotto, 500 miles from home.
One night, Sitting around the kitchen table, the air filled with blue smoke, we began a fresh edition of "Burp-Olympics."
"Burp-Olympics" was an on-going beer drinking and belching competition involving nine guys, a thousand beers, and a small cassette recorder.
The idea was to suck down an entire beer as fast as possible, hit play and record on the cassette recorder, and then spork it back up as loudly as possible.

The burps would then be rated by "the judges" by their loudness, length, and originality. (I still have the tapes)
Somewhere around sunrise, I decided that because I was the leader of the band, I would set a good example and be the first one to go to bed.

I needed to go to the bathroom. Bolo had been in there for a long time, making ape-like noises and disgusting fart sounds. This was normal.
I knocked on the door. More gorilla sounds came from inside the bathroom.
When the door opened, I realized why Bolo had been in there so long.

He had been transforming into a cave man.

Wearing nothing but a shredded towel as a loin cloth, he had painted his face with some sort of war-paint, and frizzed his enormous afro straight out in all directions.

He also carried a baseball bat. (his club)
"ME CAVEMAN!" he yelled, and he proceeded to sit back down at the kitchen table to resume drinking.
I told him I was going to bed, and the soundman "Flathead," began interviewing the caveman, using the cassette recorder.

I staggered out of the bathroom towards my hotdog-bun bed. This did not meet with the caveman's approval.

"CAVEMAN SAY NO BED! CAVEMAN SAY STAY UP. DRINK! he slammed the bat against the table and everyone laughed.
I told him to cut the shit, and went to bed.
The door flew open, and the caveman entered my bedroom armed with a big pot of ravioli and a spatula, which had been on the stove. "CAVEMAN SAY NO BED!" he grunted.
Then he began using the spatula to catapult the ravioli at me as I tried to sleep.
I pulled the covers over my head and swore, as the caveman pelted me with more pasta. It's pretty hard to sleep while you're being pelted with ravioli.

The next thing I knew, there were other bandmates in the room, laughing, kicking the bed, telling me to get up and drink, all of this being tape recorded of course.

Someone took a plunger from the bathroom and fooped it onto the ceiling above my head.
My temper boiled over, and I jumped out of bed in my underwear, grabbed the plunger, and began killing people with it. They retreated back into the kitchen as I chased them swinging the plunger.

The caveman found this to be tremendously funny, so I focused my wrath on him.
He ran down the stairs, out the front door and onto the streets and sidewalks of Niagara Falls Boulevard, and I followed him, me in my underwear, wildly swinging the plunger, and the caveman in his shredded towel loincloth and warpaint, the rest of the band, hanging out the windows screaming with laughter.
The sun was coming up now, and people on their way to work couldn't believe what they were seeing ...me... (in my underwear) chasing the caveman around a car, when suddenly I heard the whoop of a siren.
"SHIT! THE COPS!" the caveman yelled, and I forgot about being mad and we both ran back into the slum.

The cops began pounding on the door. The band began hiding illegal things, and Bolo and I struggled to get into our clothes and clean up.

The cops kept pounding and we had to let them in.
They came in, looked around. Sniffed the air.
They were not happy with us.
One of them said something to the effect of this: "I don't know what the f*ck you guys think you were doing out there, but If I have to come back here again, you're all going to jail."

Then they asked whose van was parked on the sidewalk. It was mine. They gave me a ticket for parking on the sidewalk and left.
I still have the ticket in my scrap-book
(note the time)
I never did pay it.

Childhood

My earliest memory comes from when I was about three years old. I remember being in a playpen in my parent's bedroom. My mother was screaming and crying.

They had put me in there in my playpen, and I got my hands on my Mom's red lipstick. I rubbed it all over my face and hands and sucked on it.

I also got my hands on my mother's perfume, and drank the whole bottle of purfume and passed out.

My Mom came in to check on me and saw me out cold, all that red drooling out of my mouth and she thought I was bleeding internally. She tried to wake me, but I was out like a light. She called the doctor, who was a close friend of our family, and he came right over.

He explained that the perfume was mostly alcohol, not poisonous, and that I hadn't drank enought to worry about. "Let him sleep it off," he said. "he might have a hangover, but he'll be fine."

Three years old and I was already drunk!

My mother used to sing around the house. She sang while she cooked. She sang while she hung clothes on the line. She sang in a subconcious way. It was a habit. To me it was like having the radio on. Always the same top ten songs too.

She'd bake you a batch of toll house cookies and sing to you witha beautiful voice at the same time.

What would I give to hear that voice again?

...with a cold glass of milk and some hot toll house cookies?


Anything!

The Stupidest Bastard On Earth- (a gig story) [2005]

I am the stupidest bastard on earth.

Tonight I got ready for my gig, with the usual rituals, except I could not find my watch.
When I play I depend on my old Velcro watch.It's cheap. I've had it for about ten years. It keeps perfect time.
It's comfortable. I wear it backwards on the inside of my wrist, and when I get to the last chorus of a song, I always look to see where I am time-wise,in the set, already trying to think of what song to play next. Thirty years of conditioning has done this to me.

Only tonight after my ritual shower etc... I could not find my trusty cheap Velcro piece of shit watch. So I went and grabbed a nice old expensive watch out of my drawer and slapped it on my wrist. I never wear it, cause it does an epilady hair tearing thing to my arm every time I wear it.

It looks nice, but the metal Twist-O-Flex watchband feels like an expensive hamster is chewing your wrist.

Solo gig. First set, I went an hour and ten minutes, and took a break. Had a drink, played another set. took a break, looked at my watch, man, this night was FLYING!

Did another set, things went well, lots of requests, somebody sent a drink up, sang happy birthday to a big ugly broad who looked like Julia Child, looked at my watch, played two more songs, said good night.
Some guy asked for one more. I played one more. Started right into tearing the shit down. Packing the guitars etc... while the programmed music played. Shut down the PA, my sore arm was killing me and I started putting stuff on my rolling cart.

The waitress comes up. "Are you done?" Yes I was. "It's only 11:30!" I look at my expensive watch, the one I never wear. It says 12:40. Then it finally hits me. I am the stupidest bastard on earth.

Stupidest bastard on earth!
The watch is an hour ahead.

What are ya gonna do? Set all back up again and play another set? I go up to the manager.
Me...The stupidest bastard on earth. I show him my watch. I apologize.
He calls me a stupid bastard and laughs. (luckily)
I ask him, "Am I the stupidest bastard on earth?" He nods, with a big smile on his face. "Relax Kenny. If I was mad, I'd tell ya. See ya next week, you stupid bastard!"

I went home, an hour early, my wife was surprised.

I made a good stiff drink, took off my expensive watch, and wrote this. I looked at my arm.

There's no hair where the expensive hamster chewed it off.

West Coast Trip 2006

I just got back from another trip last night. This time it was Anaheim California for a week

Texas before that, and I'm going back again to Texas in a few weeks. Also scheduled is Chicago, Florida, South Carolina, New York...

You can keep the west coast. It's hot, it smells and nobody speaks friggin' English. It sounds like they're gargling when they talk.

Everything costs an arm and a leg.
They all carry around these giant wallets full of arms and legs.
The cash registers are huge and bloody.

I ate at Starbucks all the time.

"I'll have a Grande Chai Latte, with soy milk, and a roast beef on focaccia bread." I'd say

Then some runty little bastard would gargle at me:

""GargleGargleGargle Dat wull be two legs GargleGargle und vun armGargleGargle and a peenkie sir GargleGargleGargleGargle"

I almost missed my flight back, but I met one of the actors from LOST in LAX Airport. I don't know his name but he's that Iranian looking mid eastern guy on the show. Good looking guy. Probably a little lite in the loafers though, judging by the leather he was wearing.

I was standing in line sweating my ass off, hoping I wouldn't miss the flight, which was boarding while I waited in this unbelievably L O N G security line,

Meanwhile, to my left there was another much shorter line. Mr.Moviestar turns to me and complains (with some kind of British poofy accent), "They are herding us like cattle."

I sez, "Yah, tell me about it! I hope I don't miss my flight. I'm late. Are they gonna make us take off our shoes?"

He says, "Of course! They treat us like cattle!"

Then he decides to complain to one of the security people.

"Why can't we go into THAT line? It is much shorter! This does not make sense."

The security runt shrugged with a bored look and said "GargleGargleGargleGargle!"

"Don't expect any kind of logic out of him!" I said (removing my sneakers)

"Like cattle!" he says, "It makes no sense!"

Then some broad from the line next to us lets out a howl "OH MY GOD! IT'S YOU!!! The Guy from LOST! ARE YOU FROM LOST?"

Poof-boy says "Yes." nervously. Suddenly I recognize him too. He's the terrorist guy from lost. Suddenly he's not just a greasy looking poofter who hates cattle.

The broad runs up and reaches across the ribbon divider thing, and hugs the little terrorist movie star, and the next thing you know he's signing autographs for people.

Then I get to security.

Some guy gargles something about my laptop, and GargleGargle "Do I have any GargleGargleGargleGargle or gels, or anything that would stick him as he fished through my back pack?"

"No."

I walk through the metal detector.
It goes off.
Some big ugly bastard pulls me aside:

"GargleGargle?"

"What?"

"Remove a you belt GargleGargleGargleGargle cell-phone, GargleGargle!"

I take my belt off throw it on the conveyor belt with my phone and walk through.

Suddenly everyone is gargling all around me, I'm trying to collect my shit and put my laptop back in the bag, and put my shoes on at the same time, and I'm dropping shit and stumbling around and my pants are falling down, and I'm late, and the movie star is waving goodbye and the guys with the ties are gargling at me to hurry up, and I'm sweating and looking at my watch which I put back on upside down, and I look at my ticket and it says gate C 23. So I go up to some asshole with a white shirt on.

"Where's gate C23?"

"WAAAYYY over there! (pointing) Then take a right and go upstairs by the Gargle!"

I have no f*cking idea what the last part was but I start running like a water buffalo in that direction.

The I hear them announce "Last call for flight 222 to Phoenix Now Boarding! All passengers MUST GargleGargle at this time!"

I'm running and puffing and sweating with the pack on my back and my pant's falling down, because I never had time to put my belt back on. I shit you not, it was about a quarter of a mile. I thought I was gonna have a friggin' heart attack and drop dead right there, but I made it!

I was the last guy to board the plane, and everyone was glaring at me. I must have smelled farging fragrant too after that run. They announced that they would not be serving any drinks because of the horrible turbulence that was expected and we had to remain seated.
I dry swallowed two valiums, and when the plane landed I didn't give shit about it any more.

HOOKED! A fishing story.

I used to live on a lake up in New Hampshire. One day in late May, my good friend, The Emperor Bolo came up from Mass for a visit. We got a cooler full of beer and set out in the rowboat for some fishing on the northern end of the lake.

Now The Emperor Bolo was no fisherman, so I was trying to teach him how to cast. We were using floating Rapala lures, basically wooden minnows with three sets of treble hooks on them.
We were fishing between lily pads, getting snagged, getting unsnagged, drinking a lot of beer in the hot sun. We took our shirts off because we were roasting.

He cast, there was a snapping noise, and suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my back, right between the shoulder blades. Seeing no lure at the end of his line he said, Where the hell did my lure go?"

"You assh*le!" I yelled, "IT'S IN MY BACK!" I then launched into a string of obscenities that could be heard echoing through the hills, and I told him to pull it out of my back.
"I don't know if I can," he said, examining it more closely, "It's really in there! Man, I got ya with all three hooks."

I said, "Well, get it really OUT of there!"

So he yanked and twisted the hooks around until I couldn't hack the pain any more, and I told him to stop.
I called him every conceivable name I ever heard and we both started laughing like hell.

"I don't know," he said between laughs, "Maybe you should go to a doctor."
I said, "You can't take a hook out of a damned fish, let alone me. Let's find some real fishermen who can help us. If I had a mirror, maybe I could take it out myself."

We were laughing again when I noticed he had some of those mirrored sunglasses on!
I made him position his face close to my back and angle his head so I could see the lure in my back. I tried to contort myself and pull the hooks out and I must have looked stupider than hell because he was crackin' up all over the place.
"Really man, I'm sorry, " he said, "I don't mean to laugh, but I can't help it!" I tried to row back to my cottage, but the pain was too much. The hooks were right in the muscles needed to row.
Numb-nuts tried rowing but kept popping the oars out of the oar-locks and laughing. Meanwhile I was bleeding like a stuck pig, and attracting flies.
We spotted some grubby looking dudes in a bass boat, and they must have heard me swearing, because they came over and offered to help. The guy reached into his fishing box and pulled out a pair of pliers that were orange from rust. "Boy, he really gotcha good. Maybe I can snip off the ends!"

His partner just stared at me like a moron at a magic show. I didn't like the idea of some gooney hick ripping up my back with a pair of rusty pliers, so I asked them to tow us back to shore.
When we finally got there, we took pictures of Bolo's big catch. (shown above)
Bolo drove me to the Lakes Region Hospital, warning me all the way not to sit back and get blood on his seats.
The nurses at the emergency room cracked up when they saw this green minnow hanging off of my back.

The doctor walks in, looks at it and asks, "Catch anything?"
He gave me a tetanus shot and pushed all three hooks through and cut off the ends.
Then he gave me my lure back. I held it up to Bolo and said, "Do you know where I should stuff this?"

So that's the fishing story for today. I have a lot more.