true story, i swear
Well, we got a lot done on the site today, as you can tell from the sidebar. Go ahead, click around. Things are moving pretty fast around here. And Kali made her sex goddess debut!
Sometimes you can tell what kind of day we had just by looking around here. Sometimes you have no idea. Turtle had a pretty rough day today and needed to step away from the computer for a while. Definitely not up to writing tonight. So I'm flying solo. But I've got a pretty decent story for you.
celebrity true stories: she who shall not be named
1995. Or 96. I was married (the 1st) at the time. It was the end of very odd summer. I spent a week or two of August with a blonde actress/celebrity who shall remain nameless here, but who is easily identifiable by the stature of her breasts and her hips and by the fortunes of her now dead, but then elderly and frail, husband and whom we shall call "A" so as not to end up with people Googling for naked pictures of this model/B-movie actress/celebrity. And no, I have none.
I was, through my first marriage, related to the person who directed A in several of her movies. This person came from California to visit his family on Long Island and brought the "A" along with him.
There are several stories I could tell you about the week or so the diva was here. The whole surreal day I spent with her when her husband died. The trip to the supermarket. Bu I won't tell those. Not now. You might not believe me anyhow. Because they are that bizarre. But I will tell you about when she returned for a visit in the fall. You should just keep in mind that during the August week she was here, nearly everyone who was kind of star-struck when she arrived loathed her by the time she left.
It was September, maybe two weeks after school started. My then husband's grandfather had gone missing and the next week his body turned up in a dumpster in the Bronx. It was, obviously, a difficult time for the family. A funeral service was planned. The relative in California was called. He was told to come for the funeral of his father. But. Don’t bring her. Do not bring "A". Please. Nobody needs her melodrama.
He arrives the next day. With "A" in tow. She wouldn't miss this for the world, she says. What? This isn’t a movie premiere, you twit. It’s a funeral. Well, she says, he was like a father to me. Yes, right. Because she knew him all of one month. And spent about 20 hours total in person with him during that time. Like a father to her. Whatever.
The day of the wake comes. Italian wakes are dramatic and overwrought enough without half-witted celebrities in attendance. Especially half-witted celebrities who seem to have taken a little too much of their medication. “A” struts into the funeral home, dressed up like she’s going to the Oscars. She's carrying on about something or other. Tears, drama, histrionics. My ex's parents ask her to please wait in the sitting area while the wake is going on. They don’t want her inside the room where the service is being held. You can’t blame them.
You gotta question the sanity of a person who plays attention whore at a wake. So she walks out of the room all petulant like and plops herself in a chair out in the hallway. She pouts and whines and waits for people to recognize her.
A little while later, I come out of the bathroom and see “A” still sitting there in the chair, pouting. And she’s....hmmm. What is she doing? I think she’s talking to herself? Yea, she is. Like she’s trying to calm herself down. And she's stroking her coat. What. The. Hell. I stare at her. You know how a cat looks at you when he thinks you are crazy? That tilt of the head? That’s how I look at her. She doesn’t seem to notice. I go back into the room and mention A's odd behavior to some family members. Everyone agrees that at least she's staying out there so we shouldn’t bother her. Let her alone.
As we agree on that, the doors to the room swing open. “A” walks in like she’s making a grand entrance at a ball. She does some weird gesture and stands there. Waits to be noticed and admired. When no one stands up to applaud her, or whatever the hell she’s waiting for, she works her way towards the coffin. She actually flips her hair as she walks. Holy hell. What class. Then she gets to the coffin and looks down at the man she barely knew yet whom was apparently a father figure to her. She turns her head. Makes sure she has the attention of everyone in the room. Oh, she knows how to play a room, even at a funeral. Everyone is staring at her. It’s dead quiet. We’re all waiting to see what she is gonna do.
She starts to wail. She's incoherent, crying, sobbing, and there is not a person in the room who doesn't know that it is all an act. We've seen her movies. We know bad acting when we see it. Suddenly she puts the back of her hand up to her forehead 1950's movie star style, and falls to the floor in a faint. I swear to you, I started to giggle. This was better than the Chuckles the Clown wake on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. We don’t know whether to laugh or go pick her up off the floor. No one moves to help her. She lays there, hand still on forehead, skirt hiked up, a spectacle on display. Finally, the California relative comes over, picks her up and walks her out to the chair in the hallway.
The service continues. We sit there quietly, talking in hushed tones to people who are offering their condolences. But every once in a while, when it becomes very, very quiet, we hear this squeaking sound. At first, I think it's a kid crying. Someone else thinks it's a person with new, squeaky shoes. Maybe a mouse? We can't figure it out, but it stops and starts and stops and starts until it gets irritating enough for us to go investigate. We follow the sound of the squeak out of the wake room, into the hallway, right to the .....chair. The chair where “A” is sitting. She's talking to herself again and ummm.....petting herself? What is with this chick? Then it hits me. The sound. It's not a squeak we’ve been hearing. It’s a yip. A fucking yip. And then we see it. Rising out of “A”'s coat like a beast coming forth from her breasts is the head of......a poodle. A tiny, toy poodle yipping away at us.
Jesus christ on a pogo stick. It’s a dog. She brought her fucking dog to a funeral. No one says anything. No one bothers to explain to her why we are mad. Just the fact that she doesn't understand our or bewilderment speaks volumes about her capacity to figure out why this is wrong on so many levels. We turn and go back into the service, leaving her there with her stupid little dog. That was the last I saw of “A”.
By the end of that year I was separated from my husband, and his family, and I never had to deal with her again.
Once in a while, a movie of hers will show up on cable at 3am and I'll get a good laugh out of her acting. I've seen her best piece of work and it’s not on film. -M
And that concludes this long, long day. Got a celebrity story to tell?
--michele
Those broad's tits were a little out of control and the jokes were really geared for an older crowd. Like what five year old knows who the hell some of these characters were? This was old time stuff. Sure, Popeye wasn't in there for legal reasons but everyone else was. The voices on some of the characters were changed cause the original voice overs were, well, dead, but they still pulled it off pretty good. I think.
But what I love most about Spirited Away is what it made me feel. 
Lots of lessons to be found within. Metaphors and allegories and symbolism and double meanings are everywhere. You might not even get some of it the first time around. I watched this last night for the sixth time and there were things going on I never caught before. Little snippets you uncover like hidden treasures when you know which corners to look in. 
That made a hell of an impression on me as a kid.
I watched games from the press box. Sometimes I helped keep the scorecard. Sometimes I just bullshitted with reporters or players who were on the injured list. I had it made. Lunchtime would find me in the third base seats, legs stretched out, Yankee Stadium almost to myself. I parked in the player’s lot, sometimes walking in with the players themselves. I was the George Fucking Costanza.
Selfish kind of guy, greedy, reminds me a bit of Daffy Duck in that “I’m a happy miser” episode. He’s also a bit like comic relief. And then there’s Blondie. The Good. Except, how good is he, really? Is he just good by comparison? Relatively speaking? He’s not a hero, not by a long shot. So calling him good is kind of like telling an ugly girl she has a great personality. Just because the guy has a great sense of honor doesn’t make him completely good. Not that I’m complaining. Like I said, I like my heroes a little rough around the edges. Blondie is all dirty faced and squinty eyed and cool as fucking ice. My kind of Good. 
This girl must have been special. We kissed and stroked each others hair and gazed into each others eyes. Walking hand in hand to find her car. 
The streets were flooded and the rain was pouring down. She was smiling as I built my little ship. So I did it. I walked outside and floated it down the mighty river to find its booty of gold. It didn't stay up too long but even Blackbeard had some ship issues every once in awhile.
I had dreaded taking the T into the city simply because of the duration of time it took to get through all the stops, but the traffic was light at this time of day, around 5:30 PM, and most of the people were coming out of the city not going in. 
I threw down my beer cup and jumped down to the floor.
for when you you just gotta go. When things are just going wrong and you have three blocks to hit the nearest alleyway. Just hit the accelerator and fire that canon down the patented PoopCannon(c) and keep on your your way to get the newest edition of Elvis Stamps at the Post Office! No time lost!
Then I look around. We had climbed INTO some asshole's fenced-in backyard.
There was a bad jazz four piece playing behind us, mostly college kids who’d just discovered Charlie Parker and Chet Baker. Normally, I’m a big fan of jazz, but not tonight. I’d had a few hours sleep here and there over the course of the week, mostly because I was working too many hours and playing way too hard at night. When I’d woken up that morning it felt like I had ground glass in my guts and someone had caved in the left sidde of my face with a ball peen hammer. My internals were thrashed from all the booze the night before and my face hurt because I’d passed out in front of my bed and landed that way. It was relatively early and I had had no intention of going home, but the night wasn’t calling to me to stay out like it normally did.
While I was playing against the bartender, she made comment about how she was doing some DJ work on the side. She and another girl had a couple of regular slots around town. Their next gig was Sunday night and she was wondering if I’d show…. She even offered to let me bring the kid. I didn’t like the way the conversation was going, so I sunk the eight-ball “by accident”, blaming the booze and the lateness of the night. I couldn’t tell if she was flirting with me or not, but I figured so. After losing several games, it was time for the bar to close it up. I was ready to go home, but the bartender and the kid talked me into heading to an after hours with them.
There were a couple of people sitting at the table behind me, a girl and a guy. I tossed the slip of paper on the table and turned back. I felt someone tap my shoulder, so I turned around… Right back into the prettiest green eyes I’ve ever seen. It was the girl from a few weeks ago. And she was so much prettier than I had remembered. Even in the dim light, I could see the freckles on her face and the glint in her eye. “Hi” was about all I could manage. “Hi, yourself” she replied.
There was beautiful weather. I can't remember what I was doing, but my brother comes up to me and says, "Carlton's mother has 4 tickets for the Yankees game and said we could have them." Of course we could. Who the hell wanted to see those losers? It was like giving away Royals tickets today. But it was the Yankees, the tix were free and I had nothing better to do.
The owner of this service station looked like he was 102 years old. Guys from around the area seemed to walk in off the street and just start doing things, which caused my brother's friend to quip, "What the hell kind of place is this? Do guys just walk in and start working? "I'm here Bubba. What do I do?"" This caused us to nickname the place 'Bubba's Backyard Garage.'
And speaking of volume, I didn't want the tiny, white, non-ear-fitting ear bud headphones so I could listen to my music by myself, I wanted the boom box with the dual 12′' subwoofers so as many neighbors as possible could hear the music I was listening to. If dogs weren't howling and neighbors weren't yelling then the music wasn't loud enough. I wanted a boom box loud enough to share my music with the world.
Yesterday was my birthday. And it was the best birthday ever. It wasn't just the beautiful flowers or the 12" talking Tick figure (which is a sentimental gift) or anything else material. Turtle knew the only thing I really wanted for my birthday was for him to be here, and he made that happen. I couldn't have asked for anything more, or for the day to be more perfect. Not even the tornado-like weather or the small flood in the house could put a dent in my birthday happiness. In fact, this whole week has been kind of blissful. But you'll hear more about that Monday when I'm sure we will both write a little "what I did on my summer vacation" thing. 
That’s the inherent problem with becoming friends with the people who serve you booze regularly…. You end up hanging out until four or five in the morning, hitting up every after hours joint in the city… Checking out strippers drinking themselves stupid after a hard night of shit tips and shittier customers (“You’re not so pretty when your forehead bounces off the table after your fifth tequila shot, kiddo”)…. Barbacks bitching about their tips and some sous-chef at some frou-frou joint up the street (“Ice… That motherfucker wants ice and I have three customers asking for me. Me!!”)… The same handful of young waitresses lined up to use the bathroom, over and over again ("Did you leave the mirror?") And my friends, the bartenders…. Well, shit man, they’re tired… They just wanna put their feet up for a little bit, have a beer and chill for a few minutes (“Take my shoes off and… ahhh.”)…. 
I call it quits around eleven, after some small talk about the previous night with the barback. The crowd is starting to head in. They’re getting loud and tonight, apparently I don’t feel like loud. I head back to the neighborhood, pick up a six and a bottle of whiskey for when I get home. Open the door to my little hovel with fumbling hands and say “Hi” to Guinness (the cat) who barely glances in my direction. Open a beer and turn on the TV….
Somehow I come across a group of orange parking cones surrounding a pothole in the street, so I do what any drunk bastard would do and pick one up.
When I was in my senior year of high school, I dated a girl named Laurie. She was exactly the opposite of everything I had ever dated before (blonde hair, blue eyes, slim and a cheerleader), but in a school that only has about 300 kids in it (that’s freshman to seniors, kids….) we took what we could get. She was also very jealous and suspicious (you know the sort) and I guess, maybe just a little insecure. We dated for about nine months and during most of that time she would grill me about looking at other women and ask me to tell her how pretty she was. Which I did, mainly because no one else in the school was looking at me the way I was looking at her….. 
First day back at school and the damn photocopies are EVERYWHERE. Apparently he got to school early and started stuffing lockers with the damn things…. Needless to say, Laurie was upset. She was convinced that the whole thing was my idea, that this was some game I was playing to humiliate her. So she dumped me. At the time, I didn't care that much. She was an attractive girl with nice legs and maybe in ten of fifteen years she’d look back and laugh. Besides, I was leaving country in thirty days and I would never see her again. So who cared if she thought I was a dick ?
They seem to have made a bit of a comeback in the last few years – Dawn Of The Dead remake, Land Of The Dead, Shaun Of, that crappy one based on a video game that I won’t even mention by name and so on.
Every now and then a horror movie that I hadn’t seen or heard of would show up. Before the days of IMDB it would always be a gamble, but that was always part of the fun. One day a movie with a simple and attractive title showed up – Zombie. On the cover was a simple and attractive picture of a zombie. Sold. What the hell, it’s nine bucks and it’s Saturday. Let’s make fun of a shitty horror movie tonight.
Yea, shallow. I know. I found out pretty quick that having the same name as one of the greastest centers ever is not quiet enough to sustain interest in a boy. I also found out pretty quick that Bobby was a bit...hmm...let's call it obsessive.
Her friends had to go on a cruise and they decided that it would be funny to take about 100 pictures of her naked and in lingerie and hide them over the house for me to find as the weekend went on. Little reminder of her for a nice memory while she was gone. It was really kinda cool, but it didn't matter. When she was gone, I scored a case of king cobra, an 8 ball of cocaine and a fifth of vodka. I locked the door and lost my mind. My mind was shot and I slowly took off my clothes as her cats stared at me looking angrier and angrier. They hated me. The drugs were taking affect. Anyone that had dope, I invited them over. Speed, smack. Junking John Belushi style.
During sex with my second wife, would my first wife be critical of my second wife? Would she be up in heaven shaking her head and saying, "Oh my, it looks like she could stand to lose a few pounds?" Would she slap her forehead when my second wife tried something new and say, "He never liked it when I tried that, honey, you better not…ooooooh…see…I told you so?" Would she come down to earth for some ghostly menage-a-trois and possess the body of my second wife, or, worse, would she have discovered in heaven that she was a lesbian and possess me during sex because she found my wife attractive?
Often on a backroad in the middle of nowhere, 50 miles from Here and There. Some of the best times i had were in a band out in Coos Bay. The drummer, we'll call him Djeef, and i were best buds, and still are, and we worked some painting jobs together and tried to get on this pipelining job together (another adventure in itself) and we were a formidable rhythm section. We were rock stars. "World famous locally", was our motto. 
He laid into his big ol' crash cymbal. Blood flew. The cymbal flew. Up. Up. Flip flip flip it went, right above his head. We stared, open mouthed. He'd broken the bolt that holds it down. I remember this in slow motion, it was so cool, and someone somewhere has it on video. It reached its apex at about 5 feet and started coming down. Djeef had been looking around himself for it, unsure about where it went. He looked up just in time to see it coming straight for his head. He leaned back in his throne and held his arms out in front of him...
So what’s real pizza? Real, New York pizza? Well.
So today is going to be light. We'll have something later this afternoon and our usual night time post, but this morning, we are both running around doing stuff and I know we said that on Fridays we would do a Question of the Day thing, but here it is Monday and we're gonna do one again. 
Another underground will come out soon and yes, I will finish the last Disneyland story soon, but in the last week, getting everything together with all of your stories has kinda been a bitch. Hopefully, all of this will run smoothly and you guys can still see the same schedule on FTTW and even more stories on some days. And maybe even more as we still have more to put in. You guys better not break this fucking site when we are gone. Or we will be angry.
And toward the end of the game when it was apparent that one person had this huge pile and was about to win, the other person would inevitably get pissy about it and accuse the other person of cheating and before you knew it fists would be flying and cards would be everywhere and you would end up with handful of your sister’s hair in your hand and a gash on your face. So that’s why they call it war...
Christmas came around and nestled under the tree was an Imperial Viper and a Cylon Raider, so I could re-enact those fabulous space battles that I had watched so often, tucked in between my parents on the couch…. And damn, they were cool…. They looked just like the ships on TV and fired real missiles…. Remember, this was 1978… We still had toys that would shoot things at you (pellets, missiles and small rubber bits that hurt like hell when you got one in the eye…..) and toys that could potentially kill you… And we liked them like that….. So for the rest of my Christmas vacation, I would run around the house, chasing the Viper with my Raider, shooting it down, over and again….. The pleading Battlestar pilots would scream in agony as my cold robotic precision blew out their engines and they crashed into the coffee table…… That is, until the news came on…..
I listened to it about five times before I got a feeling for it. See, Jane's Addiction albums all have something in common that I use here alot on FTTW and TF. All the albums start with him yelling "Here we go!" That feeling that you are getting into something bigger then you wanted but you have to keep going cause you started it. It's a powerful feeling and something that I take with me to this day when I know this might not be the right thing to do but I have to do it.
Old Dirty Bastard - 
A lot of metal balls, too. This whole game looks like some sort of weird gay sex toy that was used for some bdsm action. "Oh no! The mouse is coming for my anus!"
Which Witch
Perfection
All I know is that they kept my enemies at bay. That bastard kid across the street who used to throw bricks at me? He got within two feet of me I’d be swinging my klackers around my head like a god damn Ninja. I made contact more than once. The sound of klacker meeting head is immensely satisfying. 
Sometimes the question would get asked. What can we do besides sit here and get wasted? Sometimes the answer would be: North Shore. We’d pile into the car and drive, away from our middle class town and toward the place where the rich people live. Sometimes the answer would be more specific. Sweet Hollow Road. When someone said that, you knew what was coming. Because that wasn’t just a suggestion. It was a dare. 
Me. We’re gonna die. I know Mickey has lost control of the car. Everyone screaming. What the hell? Mickey is yelling above us. We just hit a rock, he says. Or maybe a boulder. I don’t know. I just know the next day the story was saying we hit a wall of pure concrete. Cause word gets around. 
Forgotten road that gave us a look down on the main road while being protected from eyes while we drank beer and flipped cigarettes onto the road. Sitting on the road talking about some dumb movie, someone came up with an idea. 
Some kid started crying. More tow truckers were pulling up. The whole field was lit up. There was only a matter of time now. We couldn't stay. I knew it. They all pulled out tire irons and instead of checking bushes, they would just whack them with an iron then step on them hard. Move to the next and keep the same theme going. I surveyed my options as I looked around.
The sounds of honking as I kept going thru the streets. Back alley here and there. A few more obscenties yelled. A little more dirt on my car. Dust, smog and nicotine had formed a mighty bond on my windshield. I tried to clean it to see, but it really didn't matter. All I could do was look forward. Look into the future. What is coming up next. My hair was blowing and the night wind was sucked into my lungs. Stopped at a store and walked out to get something to eat. Prostitutes and gangsters sat around as I talked to a few of them. Just a basic "fuck you" talk as I pushed by them. This is California. This was good. My mind wandered. "So what will happen in seven days?" I got my cheap ass Del Taco and my mind went again. Light a cigar and pet the dog. Push down the accelerator and wonder how fast I could sell my car. Who would take my dog till I get settled and what the fuck was going to happen. I mean I've been everywhere, but never went to a place that I knew I was going to live for the rest of my life. 
Lip lady drums her pen on the desk. She puckers again. Anna thinks it could be a nervous habit.
The fish would be squirming and wriggling. I’d cry harder. Well, what do you want from me? I was about eight. Maybe nine. Ok, it could have happened when I was 14, too. But a flopping fish in the face? And knowing I was staring eye to eye with my dinner? I’d look at the hook stuck in the corner of the fishie’s mouth. The look of abject terror on its face. Cry some more. This is why I can’t watch that Faith No More video. The flopping fish. It’s a post traumatic thing. Brings back memories of being on Lake Muskoday with a smelly, dying trout staring at me, pleading with me to save it, send it back to its family in the lake.
One cousin says to me that he knows where my parents hide my Christmas presents. No shit? Now, I’m a pretty impatient person when it comes to stuff like that. Just ask Turtle. He keeps dropping hints about my birthday present and I keep yelling at him that I need to know NOW. I don’t really like surprises. I’m all about instant gratification. So when my cousin says he knows where the presents are, I get curious. I just want to feel a few boxes. Shake a few. Figure out how many boxes are clothes as opposed to toys. This way I know how much fake joy I have to put out on Christmas morning. Oh. Yay. A pair of bellbottoms. You shouldn’t have. Really. So, my cousin tells me: Presents. In the garage. He points to the door right behind him. Well, it kind of makes sense. They’ve stored stuff in Grandma’s garage before. This wasn’t so out there. He says we should go look. Just for a few minutes. Someone else would play lookout. Ok. Fine. Let’s do this. He turns the knob slowly. It’s completely dark out now, and pitch black in the garage. I fumble for the light. Flick it on. 
Gross foods I would never eat.
Mom’s special dinner: Mom actually made this for dinner one night. She told dad it was a special treat. When she put it down on the table in front of him he just blinked. The rest of us dug in. Hot dogs, wrapped in bacon and cheese and deep fried, served over a bed baked beans, with sauerkraut on the side. Dad just kept staring at mom like she lost her mind. He wasn’t eating? More for us! Dad went out to eat and me and my sisters spent the rest of the night having a farting contest. -M
Or cavatelli. That was always home made. Lasagna, that was for holidays. Easter, Christmas. Oh, and penne. And rotelli - the curly pasta. 
For conspiring with him and his peaches and apples, knowing full well that this kind of stuff makes Grandma have a cow. I think about switching sides. Grandpa is mellow. He won’t care if I bail on him. But Grandma, she can call down the wrath of God. She’ll make him hit me with lightning or something. I could turn on Grandpa easy. Just tell Grandma she is right. Save myself some Catholic punishment. 
Cept for Little Miss Vegan. She was getting all healthy on us. The fire was heating and there was fun to be had. But, we needed something to do. What did we have? hm. 
She decided we needed to go to the ER fast. I was dragged out to the car by an armada of girls shoving me in some Ford Bronco. Pushed some more balls into my pocket to keep going. Taken to a hospital with a concussion and open wounds, drunk off my ass. Bunch of chicks in the back wrapping me up and getting me dressed.
Brand New - 
And that’s what today’s all about…. Things that were there… Something that played a large role in who you eventually became that just isn’t there anymore…. Whether it be through time, or death… A parting of the ways or simple decay…. It just isn’t there….
But when the Thirty was good, goddamn it was good…. Ministry gave me three cracked ribs, a really quick pan in their “In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up” video and ringing in the ears for two days….Psychic TV played for 3 hours and actually made me dance (of course, the drugs really helped with that)…. Ride blew my left ear out for over a week, but was eminently worth it… The Jesus and Mary Chain made me retarded and G.G. Allin never fucking showed, but the parties held because of his absence were legendary…..
I woke up in the morning. Awwww crap. I thought this was it. Dammit. I lit a smoke and wandered around. The dog was gone and my life was gone. I flicked the cigarette and put another one in my mouth. Looked around for the doggie. I heard sounds from around the pond that sounded like her. Meh. She's around. She will find me. I have no issues here.
The Kinks – When I was about fourteen, nothing in my life was stable…. I'd just started living with my father again and more often than not, whenever we'd go somewhere in the car, there was more awkward silence than conversation.... We would continue this way for a few minutes, just looking at each other and then away again, and eventually the old man would turn the radio on…. Something came on the radio on a bright July day and my father proceeded to wax poetically on the first time he’d heard “Where Have All The Good Times Gone” and how much he loved the Kinks when he was younger…. Intrigued by a band that would make my father discuss any aspect of his closely guarded younger days, I went to the PX the next day and picked up a copy of “Face To Face”. It was the only Kinks album they had and it stayed in my walkman for a week as I listened to it over and again…. “Sunny Afternoon”, “Little Miss Queen of Darkness”, “Session Man”…. Simple chord progressions, simple lyrics and catchy as hell…. All the while, in the back of my head, thinking that I’d finally have something to talk to the old man about….. I love “She’s Got Everything”… Whenever I hear it, regardless of where it is, I get taken back to that one summer where my father and I learned how to talk to each other….
Thee Headcoatees – All jangly guitars and girl group goodness… Say what you will about Billy Childish, I think the man’s a genius…. First time I heard “Ca Plane Pour Moi”, I was really digging on this little California expat DJ chick who, I believed, had done the impossible…. She had grabbed a hold of my attention and would not let go…. And I was more than willing to let her keep it….. She was hot, surly and loved this song…. Dancing around her darkened living room, a little bit loaded, the sign from the piercing place downstairs providing the only illumination…. Mentally I kept running the same thoughts in my head, “Fuck Annette Funicello…. This is what surf girls should be… Surly, bent and just a little bit sad….. Damn that’d make the beach a lot more fun….” Okay, so I have an interesting imagination…. But she was and I loved this song just as much as she did…. And still does….
The English Beat – I don’t remember the first time I heard the Beat… It seems like they’ve been in my head forever, like “I’m a Little Teapot” and …. I do know that after a long day, I jump in the car, put the windows down and put on “Click, Click”… and suddenly, the heat and the humidity and everything else just melts away in that damn bass line. Frenetic, moving and grooving and goddamn, I can’t stop skanking when it’s over (just a side note…. I have never been able to play the song once…. immediately after it’s over, I have to rewind it and play it again)… And it’s nice to know that at the end of a crappy, hot day, “I Just Can’t Stop It” is there and waiting for me…..
Hopefully on Monday, we will have it all and be able to set something out to where anyone who contributed can see when they are up. thefinn will have all control of the site in these few days and hopefully we will get a few more stories in from you to keep up our three a day rountine. This will work. I am confident in you guys and we will get this ship sailing again. The USS FTTW will sail even though we are gone. This will be the 22nd thru the 26nd. This ship will sail with you guys in command. The USS FTTW will never go down.
This is one of my favorite Sesame Street tunes, too (ten eggplants over easy
thefinn will be the one who is running this ship called FTTW and he will set everything out. 
But if you didn't have them, a pure panic would run thru your mind. You needed them sitting there. For no other reason for having them. In case you needed them. Don't ask me why. They just had to be there. Like a pack of cigarettes that you had to have even though you know you wouldn't smoke them, beer had to be there.
It was easy when you were sober, but as any pool player knows, there is a line you cross. You come to a place where everything just doesn't work. My limit was usually a six pack. Man, you are on then. Six beers and you are rolling. Everything is going in. You own that table. But, then you pass the point of no return. You keep going and just can't hit anything. 15 minutes roll by and you are wondering where the 4 ball went. Well, that got sunk on the break. Oh. Fuck. I think I would be better at the color ball game. I'm not really good at this counting like thing. Can I get another beer? 
We played dodgeball without sissy rules. I’d be standing there like a deer in a headlight, too small and too slow to really get out of the way and I’d hear the gym teacher say “Open season on the short kid!” and the balls would come flying at me. Well, fuck. Pelted with dodgeballs and laughter. Suck it up, hit the bleachers and plot revenge. They don’t even play dodgeball in most schools today. They play some pussy game where they learn to teamwork and cooperation. Why? Like those things ever happen in real life? I thought we were supposed to prepare kids for the future.
The school nurse would wipe up our blood, throw some Bactine on us and send us back outside for more. Today's kids get a piece of wood chip dust in their eye and they're carried to the nurse's office on a stretcher where they're handed ten different accident and liability forms to give their parents and forced to sit through a video taped lecture on playground safety, presented by a singing, dancing, man in an elephant costume.
The Rogers. Loafers. Cool sweaters. A little train that takes him to some drug induced land with puppies and cats and owls and shit like that living in trees. Plus there is a ghastly looking Prince who is too retarded to figure out why no one likes him much less run a kingdom.
A sad look in her eyes as I flicked my cigarette away and got ready for something. Anything. She doesn't pull this kind of shit. Never. Something was wrong. She knew it. I knew it.
They try to prepare us for this. I mean, I’m on an island. A fierce hurricane, a tidal wave, a tsunami (yea, I know, what are the chances of a tsunami in NY, but this is the way my mind works), anything that’s going to make the ocean take leave of its bed and pour itself onto the island? That’s where I panic. Not a big fan of water as is. I certainly don’t want the Atlantic Ocean suddenly pouring into my house. 
Lagwagon - Mr Coffee
S.N.F.U. - Welcome To My Humble Life Of Disarray
My first real exposure to the hell that is called the roach coach. Fast food my ass. I have dealt with these before but not in such desperation. Starving and always hungry. I had to eat these. This. Food. I had fifteen minutes to get back to my station and shove food back so I wouldn't get rolled up and taken to back to county. 
Don't flood my bed and everything is ok. I could sleep on a marble floor. Hell, I even started wearing a sweatshirt just to use as a pillow.![bk[1].jpg](http://fasterthantheworld.com/bk%5B1%5D.jpg)
One for all and all for one! And then the CEOs went their separate ways and ordered their product and development teams to come up with a better salad than their competitors.
But I’ll tell you, it takes only one time for an adult to press their face against the window and mouth the words "I will eat you and your little sister for dinner if you don't stop throwing those god dman balls right now" for a kid to really get it. The balls stop coming at us and we make the attempt to get comfortable, which is hard because it’s about 40 below zero under that vent and I had to keep putting my arms across my chest because apparently the town workers that were standing on line thought they could determine the temperature in the room by staring at my tits. Well, that might be true. Ask turtle. We have talked about this. 
I search the mess of BK foodstuffs on our table but, no croutons. I send the daughter to the counter to ask Louie Anderson for croutons. She reports back that they do not have any. What? Are you kidding me? Many style points taken off. Many.
As most of you readers know, I am leaving to meet Michele for a few days pretty damn quick here and that's gonna fuck FTTW all up. We have a new writer, thefinn and he will hopefully pick up some of our slack. Cause we will be having sex. A lot of sex. But for five days we need some of you to fill in for us to keep this going. A lot of sex. 
If you want to see your name up in lights as some others have been, type something about it and you might become a FTTW writer. Lucky you. That was sarcasm. No really, impress us. I know we started out asking for a few lines about your ideas, but someone took it all the way and now he is a permanent writer here. So you never know what you are going to get when you submit something to us.
So you find someone that you really love. You adore them. Worship them. Die a little when you aren’t with them. You’ve let yourself do it again. But this time it’s different. Because at least if you’re going to have your heart broken in the end, it will be at the hands of someone cool.
That first feeling of when you hear she is back. That knock on the door. While everyone is groaning that she is here again, you can't stop the feeling of adrenaline rising up into. She is back. Sure, she might be over every night and sure your roomates are sick of her, but she brings pizza! A fast fun song about being in love with someone. I don't think the song has anything really to do with pizza. 
Two words. Norwegian Wood. That music. That story. That voice. Forgotten and left in the past. That was a song about just laughing a day away with a lover while looking at everything but understanding nothing. Sleeping in a bathtub while she sleeps in the bed. Just waking up with sand of something that could have been slipping thru your fingers as you looked at the clock. 
Jesus. 1966? This album is almost as old as me. I remember listening to this on my parent’s stereo, one of those huge cabinet deals that look like a piece of furniture. This had to be the early 70's, I guess. I ask my mother - is this the same Beatles that sang "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"? Yes? Really? Wow. 
your home town again. 
Sure, you aren't shit compared to what you were two days ago. Sure, you aren't shit compared to what you were a week ago. Fuck, you can feel it in your head but you can't let the audience feel it. You are there for them. And you have to die trying because they have no idea where you are, where you were or where you are going. All they know is right now. This very moment when the lights dim. That's all they have. So you have to get focused on right now. You could have a one night stand or a one hundred night tour, but you have to remember, they won't know. They won't be with you. So you have to play for them as best you can for that one night and then go back and fall asleep. And the next day you do it again.
Stitches rolling up my side from some dumb ass home stitching I did. Let's figure this out. I'm in some weird ass place, trying to sleep, not taking the drugs they gave me, running on three cigarretes. No car. Can't move. Body in so much pain even the baby jesus couldn't help me now. Wallet. Crap! No wallet. It was somewhere else. I had nothing. I couldn't move. All I could do was not sleep and work on the computer. FTTW wasn't around then. In fact, this was the birth of FTTW. This is when the bird and turtle first met. Everyone on another website knew I was going down hard. My parents knew I was going down hard. My fingers were cringing up.
Three days and I could move again and the first thing I wanted was a smoke. Addictive type guy. I asked her to help me out and she said "no".
Took one long drag and that was it. Three days later I was back to a pack a day. The next month, two packs a day. It was a tough time in my life. I was living on cigarettes and coffee and mini snickers bars and Surge flavored slurpees mixed with tequila. Smoke, drink, coffee, candy. Smoke, drink, coffee candy. It’s quite the lifestyle, I’ll tell you. You know what depression smells like? It smells like smoke, tequila, coffee and snickers bars. 
When the person closest to you is smoking a pack a day still and lighting up in the car with you and blowing smoke your way and telling you’ll never make it, well fuck. That makes it kind of hard to keep going. It’s dejecting. But I stick. 
A speed metal band that watches Little House but hates god while they do it. There first song can be "Half pint in Hell "
MonkeyBalls
Cool and calm. He runs this show. He has had his ass beat many times and just keeps getting a bigger gun. Harry had no real enemies, he just hated everyone but loved the underdog. He played no favorites and stood up to everyone.
But if I’m gonna have someone saving my ass, I’d rather it be a guy who had full confidence in himself and his abilities than a guy full of self doubt an self pity. I need to be protected by a guy who believed in nothing but himself and his weapon. Who could look at a Jedi and say “Magic tricks and hokey religions ain't no match for a blaster at your side, kid.” Fucking Jedi. Always thinking with their feelings. Han thought with his head and his blaster. Ok, sometimes with his dick but eh, he’s a guy. It’s gonna happen. 
Coffee and cigarettes and beer and cigarettes.... But the beer is a story for another day.....
Ahhhh, yes.... If this it what it means to be alive, this isn't a bad way to start the day.....
This was a man who was just pissed and had a moral that couldn't be beat. Don't touch his family. Don't touch his friends. He could take anything on alone but if you hurt his own, then you would feel Tony. The movie really has an appeal to me because of his loyalties to everyone who was around him and his hatred, sheer animal hatred if you took advantage of them. Or him. He was someone, believe it or not, I admired alot. He tried everything he could to make everything right but he always kept getting deeper into the mess that was called his life. Nothing was ever good enough for him to feel accepted. Sure, he was a criminal, but he had the broads, guns and dope. See dude. That's cool. Plus, he got to kill a bunch of people.
And some after school specials where people jumped out of windows because they were on the dope. But this movie telling us to get high. I swear, it was. So we did. This was when I was hmm...the person who procured the illicit materials for others in exchange for a specified amount of currency. Yea, that. So we were fully stocked every night. Sitting in the Jerry Lewis theater laughing at Cheech and Chong and smoking joint after joint like this was an interactive movie. Ushers? They might have kicked other people out. But we were smart enough to share. Puff puff pass. 
Just to clarify for you guys, I was getting on my shoes when this was asked. 
Imagine me sticking my middle finger out at you. That’s a pre emptive strike for all you that are thinking about mocking me. Go ahead. Mock. I fucking love this song. Love it. It’s cheesy, it’s bad, it’s everything that was wrong with 80's metal. But. it’s Sister Christian. 
That lone Stooge was Ash. One of the greatest movie characters of all time. Faced with danger or death, Ash could handle it. He was ready. If he couldn’t use his The 12-gauge double-barreled Remington chainsaw, then he’d use a one liner. His boomstick or his smarmy humor. Either one would get him out of a jam.
Hillbillies and crazy trees. Like "Deliverance" on acid, this movie gave you everything. And yes, yes dear readers, someone got fucked by a tree in this movie. See dude. Just like "Deliverance" but not so gay. At least the trees were straight. They didn't play the "Squeal" game. They went for the hot women. Not some fat fisherman. Jeez, the trees could find that if they went to a local gay bar.
Don’t leave me all alone here in loserville. 
Jeff Spicoli. He’s what made me love this movie. Well, Mr. Hand was pretty cool, too. But honestly, the rest of the characters? A bunch of whiny, petulant kids. Meh. Ok, the movie was fun as a whole. But Spicoli? He was this movie. Wouldn’t have been half as funny without him. 
Yea, there’s some intricate morality things going on here and Verhoeven kind of turns it into a gore and sex fest, as he is prone to do, and maybe at some point you do root for the bugs or wish for Jake Busey to just die already but god damn this is a fun flick. 
This was it. This was something to behold.
Decline of the Western Civilization
This was the one you looked at the ground after you heard what a character said and thought "I don't believe he said that" but still kept laughing. I guess in my mind the movie was always fine with all the racial insults, as long as Mel Brooks covered all the bases. No one was safe. He took them all on. We were all fair game in his book. And if you don't think your race was insulted, you aren't looking hard enough. It's in there somewhere. 
Point is, I can throw Young Frankenstein in the DVD player today and still laugh as hard as I did the first time, the 50th time, the 100th time I’ve seen it. And yea, it’s been that many. I still watch it occasionally with my parents, and I’ve watched it with my kids (who love it). It says something about a movie when you know what’s coming, know every line and every joke and it still makes you laugh like it’s the first time you are hearing it.
Ok. By now you guys all know I am a rabid turbojugend. This was the band that coined the phrase deathpunk. They came out of Norways black metal scene with something new. They talked about drug addiction, alcoholism and nutrition all on one tape. This was it for them. The road had beat them up. You could see in all the interviews that they just wanted to stay numb. From the start of the tour till the end. You follow it. And you can watch them. Look in their eyes, mein readers, this is a look of the end staring at you. This was a band that was over. As the crowds grew bigger they just grew number. It wasn't surprising to me that after this tour, it was all over. It is interesting to see something like this from the outside. Something that you know is going down but you had to keep going to the end. They had talent. They had guts. But they lost it all on the road to darkness.
Well, maybe I did. That's neither here nor there. But yes, I had friends like this. I had a hatred of anyone from anywhere else but the USA. And yes, if you touched any of my friends, I would hurt you. But I would drink a beer afterward with you. Pretty much the feeling at the time. Hatred of the old school punk rockers for dropping the ball. Hatred of any UK band who said The Clash was the only band that mattered. Any soundtrack that I have every song from is going to be cool. I think the only UK band on there is The Exploited and having "Sex and Violence" open up any movie is kinda cool. 
