Sometimes my mind wanders and I get bored easily. It has been a problem my whole life. Unless I focus on something like a screw going through prison pussy, I tend to lose my train of thought. I know this. So I kinder figure everyone else around me knows the same thing, too. Having an idea is always a far cry for actually completing a project. So with that, I give you my five tips to finishing a project in the yard.

1. Dream big.

Gotta do that. You want a brick patio? No. No I do not. Patio. Patio. Say it with me. Patio. Kinda creepy sounding, right? The hell would I want one of those in my yard? I can barely stand the word "panties" so why would I want those on a girl? See where I am going with this? This goes with my theme that anything that just sounds wrong should be eliminated of the face of the earth. Anything that kinda makes you cringe to say should be illegal or eliminated like those little blind kids on Little House on the Prairie. Anyone who says "delicious" should be rounded up and shot just like those little cripples on Little House on the Prairie. That why I always admired Da House. Anything they didn't like in that town, then ran straight the fuck out. No coming back on the Prairie. This is how our world should be. No patios.

I want a brick BBQ that sweats speed and pisses turpentine.

Hail the new dawn.

2. Lower your expectations.

Well this one is too god damn easy to be even be repeated. I want a castle sized BBQ. I realize that the moat surrounding it might be a little excessive. Just maybe. So in the end, if the BBQ kinda burns meat? That's fantastic! As long as it somewhat does something it was kinda designed to do, God will look down on it and proclaim that it is good. Or it is right. Something like that. Those god guys get all wordy and shit when it comes to eating meat. I think. Last time I read the bible I was amazed at how much the paper burns exactly like ZigZags so don't be looking for me when you wonder who farted in church. It ain't me. I am home watchin' Bull Durham wondering why it is OK for Kevin Costner to wear a garter belt in public and why my neighbors just call me a fag when I do it.

Rose goes in front, indeed.

3. Burn everything you can.

Trees, shrubs, rocks, grass, and even dirt. Anything that can soak up gasoline needs to be, neigh, begs to be, burnt.

So burn it.

This comes in handy when your neighbors ask you why you are cursing so much. Either the fire is too hot or the "god damn government won't let you burn your stuff on your shit!" The more anti-government rants in neighborhoods tend to bring a more cohesive unit of love and tenderness between the households. People love fires. People love rants. Bring out a copy of the Turner Diaries and you got the makings of pure rock fury.

Plus, people like to burn things.

4. Blood means you did something right.

Isn't this true with just about anything?

5. Cement is life's greatest Band-Aid.

And when I say Band-Aid, I don't mean that damn thing that went on the 80's. Bob Geldof. Man, that name seems too god damn creepy to be real. It kinda sounds like some sort of weird STD. "I gots me a case of the Geldof's." I guess that's when your cock gets drunk a lot and builds car bombs for the IRA. Or I guess it could be a football team. "The Galloping Geldof's!!" I wonder if you would be more scared than sad if you heard you had to play "The Geldof's"

Hell, I'd be scared.

They might get my dick drunk.

Stay tuned for more handy tips and helpful ideas to get your yard looking as good as it can be with Turtle

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Posted by Turtle Jones at 6:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

I hate things that don't work out. I really hate when things just fall apart. Well, let me clarify that. I hate working on something for so long to get it to almost work out, almost perfect, then some stupid little thing ruins it all and crushes down what I were trying to accomplish. Like everything I have been trying to do all night was shot to shit cause some stupid insignificant detail! A god damn detail!!!!

Small details should not, NOT be held up to "The Big Picture". So what if I broke something? So what if I kicked his ass? The end was accomplished, right? Right? So what the high holy fuck are you doing pointing out some small mistake that happened along the way? Should that really be brought back into the picture after all was said and done? What kind of human being would do this? What kind of human being would I be if I took this??

This was not how America became the great country it is today. No sir god damn re-Bob. No one sweated the details. We just got the job done and asked the questions later.

If I can take something from nothing and get it almost perfect, shouldn't I get some little reward? Or should some small god damn detail bring my entire accomplishment down like a castle made of cards straight out god damn Hangtown?

I think America, and the world, for that matter, would be a better off place if we took a good look at our lives and what is going on around us before we actually fucked with anyone else about their little mistakes!!

My god!

I am never playing videogames again............

Turtle knows who designed this game and is kicking his ass next time he sees him.

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Posted by Turtle Jones at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Part 4 of a series.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

So this was the way it was. This is where you end up. Or so I thought at the time. These were the people who couldn't quite commit to killing themselves quickly or slowly. They were the inbetweens. The ones who would have rather just lived lived their life in the great gray rather then going black.

No one was in there cause they cared. They were all put there by family or friends. Maybe it was their last way out and they took it.

It wasn't that way for me. It was just a break. A drinking timeout. That's what I thought of it. I knew there was no way in my life I could live sober. It just wasn't in my cards to deal with things on the straight and narrow. My whole life up to this point was just one reason after another to drink or use drugs. There was always something wrong in my life. Some reason I wanted to feel numb. If it wasn't wanting to feel numb cause my life sucked so bad, it was wanting to feel numb because I always felt numb. That's an interesting concept. I got high and drunk because I was depressed I was always high and drunk. Self respect was a thing of the past.

This hospital was strange. It wasn't loud. People looked happy. It didn't smell. Clean beds were new to me. Nice people were new to me.

This was new to me.

This place scared me.

I never let my cigarettes leave my side. No one would see the pack and no one would get them. What's mine is mine and you better be blood to have any. A left eye on you and a right eye on what's mine. That's a hard concept to understand for some people. You wake up and the only thing that you have to get you through the day alive is who you can lie to and what you have in your pockets. That is the way I lived. Smokes never left my side. Slept with a lighter. Always a couple bucks for that first forty. Always a smile and forked tongue for that first line and a mind that will never forget your name if you do me wrong.

That way of thinking wouldn't leave me in 28 days. It is still with me today.

So going into this place and being expected to trust people was a lost concept. Sure, I'll talk with these people. I'll get what I can, even if I didn't really want anything, then I'll leave. I'll get high again.

One of the stupidest reasons I never quit using before was because I could not talk while sober. Words would not leave my mouth. When I was drinking, I could. I could talk anything out of anyone. Be your best friend and take your last dollar. But when I was sober, things were different. Words escaped me. Sitting in a blank without an answer. It wasn't right. I wasn't right. My mind would focus on the past and I would ask myself questions. Was I ever able to talk? Was it always the drugs fueling my humor? Was that the only reason why people liked me? Was there ever a point in my life where I could carry on a conversation without a beer in me?

I could not think of a sober fun time I had. I could not remember anytime sober.

The drugs and alcohol were putting in one last fight. One last pull on my mind and body to try and tell me that without them, I would not be me. If they were going to go, they sure as shit weren't going out easy. In those first days, my mind was telling me that I needed a drink to forget that my drinking put me here in the first place. Wouldn't a few drinks and some cocaine be great right now? A few shots of well vodka and pint of Pabst to get started. A few lines in the bathroom and I'm off to play Golden Tee. Maybe some speed if I was too slow and maybe some dope when I wanted to sleep.

A week long binge and I would be back here to get with the rest of the program.

Right?

There was something in my mind. Some voice. Something telling me to stay. Just a little whisper in the back of my head begging me to stay. Pleading with me. Telling me it would get better. I would come out of this shell. I would be able to talk again. I wouldn't be in a corner about to cry all day long. I wouldn't be hiding from people. Just give it a little more time. Please. One more day and things will get better. I would bargain with my brain and give it a few more hours. If it didn't get better by tomorrow, I was leaving. If I had to beg pills to get through another sleep, I was leaving. I didn't come in here to get hooked on another drug. If I hang my head down one god damn more time when a girl talks to me, I am leaving.

I'd heard stories about how you stop maturing when you start using drugs. That all those years where normal people did their growing up were lost on people like me. That we had to do it again. Maybe it was true. Maybe I was one of those people. Maybe I was just like a 14 year old. Maybe worse. All of the evidence was there. I wasn't responsible. I moved around constantly. I was totally immature. Maybe I was just a kid. Maybe I was afraid of girls.

This kind of thinking scared me.

It terrified me.

That wasn't me. That was the drugs again. Telling me this. Telling me that. Over and over. But the evidence was there. I had lived in some strange places and been friends with all kinds of seedy people but I had always been on something. Maybe I was only able to handle the things I did because I was using.

Maybe the drug was me.

And without it, I was nothing.

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Part 3 of a series.

Part 1
Part 2

I guess the first few hours weren't that bad. Well, yes they were. I was detoxing off the alcohol. That was bad. I guess what makes it worse is that I knew if I was sober for more than a few hours, I would probably seize up and be in the hospital. So my paranoia was slipping in to my head. Any kind of excuse to get a drink in me. When my body starts to sober up, a really weird feeling takes over me. As each minute passes by, my front teeth start to feel as if they are pushing out of my skull. It used to get really painful. Usually, I would seize up before the pain got too unbearable, but it was always a nice alarm clock in my head. When the pain gets too bad, I knew I would seize.

That was one of the big reasons I had decided I wanted out of my life. When it seemed that I wasn't living my life on the edge anymore. Now I was over it. I guess I could compare my life right then to the last scene of Escape From New York. You remember that movie. Where Kurt Russell has a clock on his hand and if he doesn't get his fix before the timer hits zero a small explosion would happen inside of his brain killing him. That timer started about three hours after my last drink. Every time. Every day. That explosion was waiting in my brain.

That was the feeling right then. The pain was getting bad. I knew I had a few more hours in me before I hit the danger zone but from the look of the place I was in, I knew there was no vodka to be had. White walls and smiling faces. Fuck this. I was about to die and these assholes were asking me my name. Asking me if I was comfortable. If I needed to sit down. What would they say if I died right then? "You would never believe what happened to me today at work..."

Fuck that. They had seen it before. They had seen people like me before. Another face who tried to escape with the world's greatest eraser. Now they had to pick up the pieces. Albeit making a good profit, but I was nothing they hadn't seen before.

Then the questions came from them. What did I do. How much did I do. When was the last time I did. How long had I been doing it. All the while I was staring at the prohibition ads on the walls. From the 30's. I stared around the room. There had to be something around there to see other then to show the nurses my trembling hands. It was kind of like me showing off where I was at in withdrawing to them. A little proud, I guess. I needed to do something. Look around the walls some more. A picture of a beautiful girl with the words "Lips that taste wine will never touch mine" proudly displayed underneath her face. Geez. I needed out of there. I just needed a fucking gas station and a half hour alone. Then we can talk again. Just point me in the direction of the nearest town and we can talk later. I'll be back.

But, I wasn't there to leave. I wanted to stay.

I ran through my drug history to the doctors which is no big deal. Everyone lived like I did. I am still convinced of it. Well, not really. I know I went out of my way to do the things I did, but all of my friends did them too, so it never really felt strange. Didn't everyone start out their weeks like this? Getting high and staying high?

None of this admission crap would have been so bad if my mom wasn't there. That whole "we need you to be honest about your drug use" thing never really held much to me. Sure, I knew was an alcoholic and a drug addict. I really didn't care who knew it. Well, I did care about my mom knowing. Big ass bad motherfucker hanging his head down as I recited all of the drugs I used through out my life. What I still used and when I started this whole drug run.

I found out I really did care what others thought about me right at that moment. A single tear down my mom's face as I blurted out that I couldn't even take a shower earlier that morning without a bottle of vodka next to the sink.

That was low. Of all the words of hate that have been directed at me though out my years, nothing hurt as bad as the silence of a single tear.

A red wristband was affixed to my arm as I was searched. Not like jail searched or anything like that, but they did find the pack of smokes I had on me. Didn't matter. I had another carton in my bag. About twelve different samples of my blood were taken. My teeth were ready to jump out of my skull. I had to say something. Fuck whoever was around to hear it. I just had to say it.

"Do you guys have any Librium or Klonos?"

Silence.

Again.

It's pretty bad when you know detox drugs and have no shame in asking, or rather begging for them to give you what your body needs to stay around. Even in front of your mom.

"Yes we do."

"Could I get some?"

After that my teeth came back into my head and my breathing slowed down. Sure, I wasn't clean yet. Not by a long shot. But at least this was a start. Something at least.

And I had just gotten there.

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My story isn't unique....

Cigarettes weigh you down after awhile. You know you don't want to smoke but you just keep smoking because it is something to do with your fingers. I used to wake up in the morning hating this feeling. That feeling where your lungs felt as if someone kicked them because of a pack too many the night before. Now I enjoyed the pain. I was still foot deep in self destruction and self pity and maybe a good cancer scare was what I needed. Something other than feeling sorry myself. Anything other than that.

Here I was in a car hundreds of miles from home. My face pressed on the glass, savoring the coldness of it. There is no other way to describe the brutal reality of being driven away somewhere because you couldn't control yourself. Failure, maybe? You couldn't stop doing drugs and you couldn't stop drinking. You couldn't even live right and you had went so far as to believe that your life had actually ended about 10 years before. The rest of this was just some sort of cruel punishment. Someone's idea of a joke to watch you count change for a bottle of wine or a few lines of dope. Self respect was the first thing to go when you started shaking and you didn't want to be a victim of sobriety.

Now it had seemed like the joke stopped being so funny. It had stopped for me years ago, anyways. Now I felt like a shell of who I once was. I guess it is just an occupational hazard. Some die. Some disappear. Some get locked up. Some burn out. That was me. Burned out. Not yet enough of life to actually die but enough of it to just want to quit and fade away.

I was in a car. Listening to the highway pass under the wheels trying to get a few more hours of sleep. No sounds other than the street. Silence. The sad part about the whole thing was that I not only had to admit that I lost to myself, which was easy, but I had to do it to my mom and dad. Two people I had wrote off when I was still in my teens. They had no idea what I had become. I talked with them about twice a year. For all they knew I was successful and making money doing what I did. Unfortunately, they were just finding out that what I did was drugs and alcohol and they had to pick up the pieces.

"Hi mom. Remember me? I need to detox in your back room."

Doesn't really matter how I said it to her. I just remember saying it. When you have to look for your mother for the only hand of help, you know that you have lost all other routes of escape. Doesn't matter. She picked me up. Told me I stunk and let me try to detox at her house. By the second day, I think she realized that she couldn't handle it. She had friends. They took me in but they never left me alone to deal with myself. One thing my family or friends never understood about me was that when I want to get away and be alone, I really mean be alone. My dog is a rare exception of who can come along with me when I left for where ever the hell I used to go was. But now all the big houses I had hidden away at in the past were gone. All my hiding places had slipped away and I was left with one option. Mom's. Now she couldn't even handle me.

Detoxing is a pretty scary thing. The nights are your enemy. When normal people sleep. I lived in California where the liquor laws run til 2 AM so every night at 1:50, my body would violently fight my mind to get to the liquor store for that last fifth of vodka to get through the darkness. If it was past two, I would have to drive to Nevada. I didn't want to do that anymore. Sometimes those were parties unto themselves but not when you are detoxing. Or trying to anyways. Mumbles in your head move to voices then to screams ordering you to get that last drink before the last hour ends. But not tonight. Tonight is a sleep night. Not a drive to another state night.

But now it was over. Well, I thought it was over. I had made it through the night. By the time the sun was rising, I was heading to a rehab that is on late night TV ads. St. Helena. Seemed good and I had an in at the place that got me a bed. In all reality it was my mom who convinced me to go in. There were some other reasons, too. Maybe it was a girl who would give me once last chance if I just stopped this or that or maybe a friend who wouldn't stop thinking of me as an embarrassment and start talking to me again or maybe it would be my brain who let me forgive myself of all the things I had done in the past and all the people I hurt just living my life on my terms.

There had to be something. Obviously my body didn't want to die yet. If I really wanted to die, I am convinced I would have used a gun. I had enough of them stacked around my room. So it became clear to me later that I didn't really want out. Maybe just one more "poor me" bullshit to get everyone to forget what I did on a daily basis and to let them get some solace in the fact that "he had issues. That's why he drinks."

Doesn't matter why I was there. All that mattered is that there I was. Plastic bag in my hands with a couple cartons of smokes and some old clothes. Rehab. Great. Just great.

I was pretty happy about the fact that I had finally detoxed off most of the drugs I was on a day or so ago. Still had the alcohol running around in me but the worst was over for the harder drugs.

Now I just had to spend away 28 days.

28 sober days.

Like that would ever happen.

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Posted by Turtle Jones at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Jesus.

How did it get like this?

I mean, I know how it got like this, but not really. Somewhere in there I missed a chapter in the book but that didn't surprise me. For the last ten years I had lived my life in a fog, so why would this be any different? Nothing I did surprised me anymore. Nothing anyone told me was a shock. What I did and what I saw seemed normal to me. Living like I did was what I did. Hell, for all I knew, it was what everyone did. All my friends did it. The ones that weren't upstate or all dead did anyways. This was the way it is and it was the way it always was.

Why was this different then?

The water poured down my back as I hung my head low. The steam fogged up the windows as I pissed down the drain of the shower. I tried to shake out the fog in my head but it wasn't leaving. The fog had found a home there. A friendly place that would try to get out of it. Embracing my brain so much that my last defense of talking my way out of things was left with mumbles and weak "ummmmsss....". Even the hot water couldn't stop me from shaking now. I knew I wasn't cold. I knew what was going on. Now I just had to hold on and hope for the best. I could manage to stand up straight in the water but anything after that, it was up in the air.

I gazed at all the sharp things in the bathroom. The razors, the edges of tables, broken mirrors and sharp glass. Everything in that bathroom could stop my pain. Anything if used the right way could end this. Why the hell should I go on anyways? I really had nothing in front of me. My life had pretty much run it course. For all I cared, that was it. My life had ended a few days ago. For some reason, doctors had pulled me back. I couldn't even kill myself right.

What had happened a few days ago? I was in a Buick trying to OD underneath an overpass. When I thought that wasn't good enough, I slashed open my wrists and pounded some more sleeping pills chased by a bottle of gin. Christ. Gin. I hated Gin, but I made myself buy it to punish myself in my last few hours. I needed to be alone for this. Too many cars. I wanted to be forgotten. I hid behind a dumpster in a seedy part of town and watched the blood turn my Levi jacket red. Not red. More like brown. Dripping down my arm making my arms wet like water. Drips. Sleep. Then cops. Then peace. This was it. They were too late. I had got out.

I thought I did.

Now I was just watching the steam from the shower. My left leg was the only sturdy one I had, so it had to do the walking. I picked my left leg up to move it out of the water. I remember it was my left leg. I thanked my leg for helping me while cursing at the other one for failing me. It was always my left leg that kept strong during the shit. The pins holding it together told me it had seen a lot and wanted more. My gaze peered over the tattoos on my leg as my mind remembered when and why I got them. What was the reason I have these on me. Nothing really made much sense to me. Just running my finger over my skin brought back thoughts of the last years of my life. Funny how tattoos can do that to you. A lifetime memory of one drunk night. Another memory of waking up in the street. That one was done somewhere in LA. Just more stories. Memories of which I wanted to go away.

I was sick of the self pity my brain was feeding me and alcohol did nothing but make it worse. It had been doing that for the last few years so why should it stop now? It didn't stop me from reaching for the bottle of vodka sitting near the sink. Nothing could stop me from that.

Even knowing where it would put me in my head didn't seem to phase me at all. The toothbrush on my tongue made me gag each time it ran up and down of it. Christ. How long had it been since I had eaten? It must have been up to four days now. If I looked straight up into the air while drinking, my mind would wander to another place and I could calm the gag reflex. Sometimes it would work. Sometimes it wouldn't. I just remembered that if I did throw up, my body would stop heaving enough to get two or three big gulps of vodka down. I could sneak the vodka in without my body knowing it. My stomach would stop hurting and I could go back into my room.

But this wasn't my room I was looking at. It was somewhere else. Back in the somewhat normal life, I guess. Things were clean and bright. I guess I got away somewhere. But where? I was used to getting away when things got this bad, but this was different. Where was my dog? Where was my wallet? This wasn't my get away spot. This was mom's house. Totally naked, covered in blood and stitches, a wave of shame hit me. I don't feel shame, usually. Never really have, but this time it had hit me bad. I was sitting at my mother's house reeking like booze and chemicals. Detoxing with stitches hanging out of my wrists, I remembered being picked up behind a dumpster by the police. Something about me being a danger to myself. Librium and shaking off heads and hands. Then mom's house. Having a few pills left and a half bottle of vodka stuffed in my bag before I left my own home for the very last time.

"Just need to get away..."

Something happened in those last days. I still can only put together a few pieces and maybe it is really better that I forget what happened.

"How did this happen..."

My only thought.

"How..."

No one was around me anymore. None of my friends. I picked though all the people I lost in my life and tried to put a blame on someone. Something had to do this to me. It couldn't be me. Not me. I was just having fun. I always had fun. Cause I always did.

Another heave hit me as I lost another gulp of vodka. It splashed on my leg as I stared at it drip into the carpet.

The bottle was almost empty.

This was it.

It was all over now.

The last of the vodka dripped down my throat. The last of the pills followed them down. I pulled up a bandage to cover my wrists. Put on my Levi jacket. Lighter shaking in my hand as I fired up another butt and walked out the door to never look back.

"Fucking crazy life...."

Part of me had died the other day in the alleyway. Behind that dumpster, some part of me did die.

I just had to figure out what part it was.

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Building building building building.

I am in building mode now. I go through different phases in my life and right now, I seem to be in a building mode. Give me a few hours and a TV and pretty soon I will get bored and find something new to do. I mean, I guess it was inevitable that this time would come. I work night shifts doing network shit so during the day, I am pretty blah. Reminds me some of my old days when I would sit around all day trying to stay as sober as possible before the show. Cept now I don't really try to stay sober. It is just there. The sobriety thing, that is.

So since I don't spend away my days drunk and high, what to do to kill the hours before work starts? The History Channel is great and all, but if I see one god damn more Alaskan King Crabbing show I am going to fucking kill the Gorton's Fisherman and go after his kids next. So I need something to do. Easy. I build. It's what I do. Give me five minutes and I will think of a way to build anything that looks cool and works. See, that's the difference between me and a tweaker. I can put things together. They just pull things apart. But what to build? And how many things have I built in the past?

Michele is good at remembering things like this for me. She listens to me talk in my sleep and quizzes me on shit I did ten years ago every morning. Sometimes I think she knows more about me than I do. So since I am coming to the end of my latest project, more on that later, I thought it would be a good time to go through some of the cool things I have built for bands. Cause let's face it. Bands are broke by nature and anything you can get for free is well...free. So what the fuck. Some of these are legal and some not so legal and I will shorten this list to things that worked after I built them. To make this list even shorter, Michele will remind me of things I have built. Cause lord knows, I can't even remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday.

So let's start this out.

Rule of thumb. You need a band house. A band house needs a big backyard free of any kind of pool like stuff in it. Maybe a broken grill. Some of those red 16 ounce cups floating around in the stomped down grass. Kiddie pools are only to be used inside the house to cool beer, so no kiddie pools outside. Get the picture?

So you need to build a stage there. Lumber is cheap as free is you go into any construction site. And it is also a fun family outing for the kids. Steal some wood and put that together in the backyard. Now your band house is almost complete. I always wondered what the neighbors thought when we started a project like this. Banging away at like three in the morning. At least we weren't selling drugs. I am getting off topic. Band houses also need a name. Something along the lines of what the house would be called if it was alive. One of my houses was an old whore house from the 60's so hence the name. The Whore House. Build a stage in that sucker and you got it rolling like JJ on Good Times.

Now I am way off track.

After you play on the stage for a little bit, some people in the band, read drummers, might notice that their stuff begins to slide when they hit the bass drum too hard. Slip slip slip. You need something that holds that back. Carpet is for pussies so you have to move up to something mean and made of concrete. Steal a local parking curb you say? No. Too long. But what if you cut one in half? And how do you do that, you ask?

As with all major remodeling and reconstruction sites, you need about two eight balls of dope and some tweaks. Much like Bob Vila needs Norm Abram, I need my tweakers and speed. Better than nails. Give them some dope and a hammer and soon enough, you have a small piece of curb that hold back the drums nicely while not busting your balls to lift. You need to give this curb a name also. Mine was called the Eradicator! a la KITH, but that is a different story.

So now all you need is medical tape and you have yourself a cool backyard with some cheap as free new things to break!

I've also built a lot of pieces for silk screening shirts and fliers, but I have to wait till Michele reminds me of how I did that to explain it more to you.

As for my new projects, which are almost done, I decided my room was too boring and needed some Go-Go dancers in cages hanging above my bed. So I went out and got a bunch of chicken wire and $0.99 Mexican made Barbies. These girls light up my life. Dancing away the nights while scaring anyone who looks at them.

Also, I needed some room for my CDs so I built a new CD rack. The first idea was a CD rack that was made up of entirly of Carlos Rossi wine jugs which would have been fucking cool. But, after much deliberation with Michele about how to get the empty wine jugs (yes there was a thought of asking FTTW to drink wine for Turtle and send the jugs to me.) I decided to go with naked dolls with their heads cut off.

Sure, it is a different look than what I was going for but what the hell. - T

(you can see the rest of the photos of the new projects as soon as michele's computer is fixed)

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I am starting to get in a rut. I can feel it. I don't like routines. I think that is why I like taking off once in awhile and just checking out new places. Maybe just to break the routine and get away. I would say it is because I have a short attention span and I get bored easily but I think America as a whole likes to say anyone who is a little different has a short attention span and is all too quick to give them some sort of psychotropic and brand them with a "cured" label. So I won't do that. I just get bored.

Maybe that is why when I used to go on the road a lot, I needed to get away at the end. Well, maybe there were some other reasons for getting away but I think one of the main reasons was because I was bored. Maybe tired and bored. I will be the first to say that there is nothing like the feeling of seeing home after you have been away for a few months. I mean really, seeing that crest of your hometown after hours upon hours of just driving on unknown roads to get to godforsaken clubs takes a toll on you after awhile. I had a friend who used to say that the road was 23 hours of hell. I never thought of it as hell. It was more like 23 hours of blah. But what else can you do? You have to do those other hours in the day just for the one hour of heaven. Sounds cheesy. Really it does. Sit and waste away a day in a van playing gin rummy and seeing how many rest stops you can pass before someone needs to piss or you run out of beer. It gets old really fast. You can be on the road with your best friend but at the end, no matter who they are, you need to get away from them.

Well, I did.

Kind of like I am feeling right now. Not getting away from Michele but getting away from this routine for a few weeks with her and just going on vacation. Maybe Tahoe. In the old days, it was never any issue. I would get back home and toss my gear in a studio and I was off for a vacation. Stop at the liquor store to load up on driving beer, stop at my house and grab my dog and pay my rent. After that, I was off.

It was always the same place. I would always drive to one of my friends houses in Tahoe and just be alone. Well, not alone. I would have a dog. And my beer. But after that I was pretty much alone. Oh. I would have my golf clubs too. Usually. But I would never get around to playing. I had good intentions but playing golf would involve me talking to people and since I was barely above the level of making grunting noises to my dog, human interaction was a definite no no. Besides, this was off time. Golf is not an off time game. Watching "Cops" on TV is an off time game. Not golf.

One of my best memories of getting away was about 10 years ago. I had just driven across a lot of the country. Nothing incredible really happened on that trip but I was sick of everything. Sick of the bullshit that goes along with seeing the same people everyday. It is kind of strange. You see many different people everyday but after awhile, the only ones who register in your mind are the same ones you see everyday. Everyone else is just a blur or some detail that was either helping you or hindering you in whatever you were trying to get done. That is a really hard concept to explain. All I know is that when you get to that point, you need to get out and put yourself in some sort of isolation chamber just to slow down the fucking world and get everything right again. Be it a few cases of beer and an alcoholic coma for a few weeks or standing naked outside BBQing some fish, you just need to get away.

I was lucky when I ran away. Coming from where I did, going back to my real home was kind of out of the question. I was lucky enough to have a few friends with places hidden up in Tahoe so going there to escape was really a blessing. No one around for a mile or so my nudity and love of BBQ came out as I taught those fish a lesson on what it means to be cooked. Maybe it was the solitude or being surrounded by nothing but trees for miles around that did something to me. The trees weren't asking me for gas money or my last drink tickets so they were cool. The dog just wanted whatever kind of fish I was eating that night so she was cool and my beer just wanted to be in my tummy so they were cool. Everything was pretty mellow and the only time I had to talk was when the TV was talking shit to me or I ran out of cigarettes or beer. Everything else was just a detail. I know it was weird but it was what I did. After a few weeks of the house phone ringing and people trying to find me, I would get bored of the silence and come back home. Back to the routine of what I did before I made the great escape. The dog would go back to sleep on my bed and I would resume socializing again. Get my pool game back up to speed and settle back into another routine.

So in this rambling post I just want to get the point across that humans need a little break every once in awhile but too much of a break starts too suck cause there are only so many times you can watch your friends get arrested on "Cops" before it stops being funny.

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Car week, eh?

What can I say about car week. Cars are cool. I've worked on them a lot in my life. Not like "Joe Mechanic" type of working. More like "let's get drunk and see if this works" type of car repair. See, if you have about four people who kinda know what they are doing it almost equals one person who really knows what they are doing. This is of course just my theory but it seems to have been true in all of the situations I have been in.

Take last week. I was getting some transmission fluid with Michele for her car. I had been told that brake fluid works just as well as actual transmission fluid and it is a lot cheaper. This is where my "what the hell" attitude comes in. I grabbed a can of it. If it were my car, I would have bought it cause I swear I have done it before. I have used it. I know I have. I mean I really, really remember putting brake fluid in before as transmission fluid. I can still see myself doing it all those years before. But, since it wasn't my car, I did the responsible (read "pussy") thing and made a few text messages to try and get the real answer.

As usual, no one answered my texts so we went ahead and bought the transmission fluid. Turns out you can't use brake fluid as transmission fluid. Hell if I knew. I thought I saw that in some movie, too. A lot of things I do on my car I get from movies. I still remember using urine as a radiator coolant cause Mr. Patrick Swayze did it in Red Dawn. I think I even know how to hot wire a car cause Ice T said something about it in "6 In The Morning". Something like black wire touches red, the car is mine. So I am pretty sure I could boost a car if I have too.

Same thing goes with stilling grain alcohol. While not directly related to cars, I still think it is a pretty good thing to know how to do. I've seen Mr. Edwards do it so many damn times on Little House on thePrairie you could call me Mr Fucking Turtle Daniels. I could be that big. All with the help of my TV friends.

What most people miss is that TV and movies have so much to teach those average everyday destructo bots called humanity that it is just shocking. Fuck the Anarchists Cookbook and give me a couple episodes of the A-Team. Me and B.A. will make a tank out of a couple rusty cans and still find a way to get high off of earwigs by the end of the night. All within one hour. And we would have a cool soundtrack, too.

Maybe there should be an auto class called something like "MacGyver 101." That's when the teacher gives you a broken down car and some chewing gum and tells you to get it working by the end of the semester. See, I would be good at that. I would take the car battery out, a couple of wires and a headlight. Make a connection and I would have a light working! The teacher didn't tell us what we had to get working. Just "it". See. Right there. Thinking outside the box. Easy "A" in that class. Plus I would still have the stick of gum for later.

Siphoning gas tanks is also, in my opinion, just a way to laugh at people who have never done it. In the days of yore, I was in an oldCadillac one night in the backwoods of some California road. Late night with more than a few chemicals running through me. Just a few friends and no gas No gas station in site. But we did see an old farm house in the distance. Like a Charles Manson type of farmhouse. I walked up to the door and banged on it demanding "fuel so I too could experience the American Dream". God knows what I said but it was something like that. An old guy answered the door and looked us over real slow and gave that kind of high pitched slow "I am going to kill you" giggle. Pointing at his lawn mower, he told us that was all he had.

We had a hose and an idea. I was going to get that gas out of the tank of mower. Cause I saw Cheech and Chong do it. So I know how to. I proceeded to put the tube in the tank and give that lawn mover the mightiest blow job it had ever had. Suck. Spit. Suck. Spit. I mean really, it looks funny when you are actually sucking off an engine. All it needs is some little metal balls to massage while I deep throat the Lil' Snapper and we have the workings for some kind of engine fetish video. Doesn't help to have three drunks behind you making jokes relating to money shots.

Well we got the gas out and I got sick. Gas has an awful taste. Spitting bits of saliva out of my mouth the rest of the night while hearing dick jokes is nothing Mr. T or Mr. Patrick Swayze would have tolerated.

Me?

I just drank another beer.

So anyways.

I like cars.

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Local music newspapers are so naive. Or maybe they are so much fun. Or maybe they don't care. Whatever the cause may be, I love me some local newspapers. They can be your biggest friends.Just get a few people on the staff who love you and watch what happens.

The only reason I bring this up is cause of all the voting on FTTW lately reminded me of a thing that happened a few years ago in a different town that had to do with voting. And me. And a local paper. Funny how FTTW reminds me of a lot of things I once thought forgotten.

Anyways, in was a rebuilding time in the town. Bands were rediscovering fans and in most cases drugs as well. Hm. Let me explain this a little better. After some bands got big, they decided to change the rules and bands broke up. It happens. So there were a lot of unstable bands around just filling time with gigs before they found something new they liked. So "super groups" formed.. Fans knew who these people in these side projects were and some of those side projects became big. Well sometimes.

Here is where the newspapers come in. The town I was in knew about a few of the bands and decided that they would hold a yearly contest. The best bands of allgenres type of thing. Just really a popularity contest. Best rock, best punk, best metal, etc. You guys can get the rest. So the guys at the paper decided to put some of these bands on the ballot. The thing was that this paper modeled the awards after a real big California award show for local bands. They tried to use this other award shows format and by this I mean a free newspaper with a ballot inside of them. You fill the ballot out and that was it.

Problem was, when it came to alternative bands on the list, there were one or two on there that pretty much were signed and rich and really not living in the same state anymore. I mean these guys were still cool and still hung around but they pretty much had made it big and only came to hang around every so often. They kinda made big.

Soooo this is where the paper story comes in. We knew that the best punk category was going to be a wash. Best alternative band was gone, too. Two bands that are still huge today had those slots and no one was going to take them away. But the thing is that this award show was a joke. Most people knew that almost everyone on the ballots didn't even live around locally anymore so what the fuck? The bands didn't need the press. They didn't care.

So some of the bands that was just a small side project made it on the vote. No one knew who they were except for people who knew them from the music scene. So we formed a plan.

Now when I say no one cared, you have to remember that yes, some people cared about who won this thing. So maybe I should change that. Some people cared about who won, but it sure as fuck wasn't us. We just wanted to fuck things up. So with the help of our newspaper friends, we got about 2,500 pre-filled ballots and handed them out in stacks to some of our weirdest friends. See, we had them all filled out for one of these bands. The ones no one had heard of.

So off everyone went. To bars, coffee shops, restaurants, bingo halls, churches, anywhere and everywhere people gathered. Just to get these things signed. It was a shitload of fun. The 2,500 were signed in under a week.

We needed more. Cause this was just too much fun. Drunk people wandering into malls harassing people for their names on a piece of paper to "support your local music scene, god dammit." We had them filled out for the write in bands. The spot were you could write in your own bands were filled in. Christian bands were written in for the Death Metal category. Best vocalis tnominees were written in for best Industrial band.

And off another stack went to be signed.

Basically we just fucked the whole thing up.

A common theme for us.

So award night came around and off course everyone who had done this ended up in a bar rather than go to the ceremony. I mean fuck it. Most people just were happy with reading about what was going to happen in tomorrows paper. But not me. In my infinite wisdom, I decided to go pick up the award. Well, whichever one we had one. Who knew at this point. So shitfaced drunk in a Cadillac with three strippers, I cruised down to the theater to get the awards. Some of the other bands nominated were on tour and therefore not around, so I designated myself and the girls as their official awardreceiver . So we had it made. The paper had made the ballots. The fans had got the ballots signed and really, no one cared. I just wanted to see what would happen.

I stumbled out of the theater after we lost each and every one we had cheated for.

What the hell happened? We had so many votes. We cheated for two weeks straight to get this award, any award "no one cared about" and we fucking lost. It just blew my mind.

I walked back out to the Cadillac car and hoped in the back with the last of my vodka. We all headed back to the bar to give everyone the bad news.

A few days later, I ran into one of the bands that did win an award. I really don't know what category they won for and really I don't remember caring about it that much anymore. I did want to know one thing though. How the hell did they win? We had fucking everyone signing our ballots. I know I signed at least 200 hundred myself so how did they do it?

"We sent the drummer to Kinko's with about 50 signed ballots and he photocopied about 10,000."

10,000???

That must of cost a shitload of money.

"Well, we wanted to win, dude."

See.

Some people did care.

Fucking weirdos.

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The 80's.

This was the decade I grew up in. The West Coast was the place to be for punk rock. Second generation punk rock? I guess if you have to give it a name, that would be the closest you could get. All the bands like X, Black Flag, and FEAR were fading out. Darby Crash was dead. That scene had kinda been in the sun to long and it was just waiting for someone new to take it back. And we did.

Well that is my take on how it happened. But fuck, as it has been said before, I do have a strong bias to California punk rock. What's funny is that my favorite band at the time came out of Texas and transplanted to San Francisco but I forgave them for that.

So here they came. Band after band every night of the week. There were so many bands, LA was broken up into cities. Which was weird cause I was just used to "from LA" or "from OC" on fliers but now I had to get used to all of the subdivisions of LA. Fuck that. And don't even ask me how Nardcore fit into all that cause that was just confusing.

Well anyways. That's another story.

This was an innocent time of LSD and speed. Back when we were just seen as a waste of time and we were rebelling against anything you had. Skateboarding was a crime and Tony Hawk was a homo for wearing pads as he skated. Mile High ramp was the place to be in Tahoe and small clubs were picking up on every other block only to be closed down two weeks later. A new warehouse was opened to the public called the Gilman and MRR wasn't packed with a bunch of dickhead writers yet. It was kind of cool.

So being in a band at that time was like owning a skateboard. You had to do it.

The reason I started playing bass was simple. It was there. In a garage. No, I didn't play it cause I like the sound or cause it was the backbone of the band and no, I didn't play it cause all the chicks dug bass players. It was just there. I started out singing but I got tired of that when I figured out I would actually have to memorize lyrics. Screw that. I mean, I love the way my voice sounds miced out over the neighborhood but I hated that "write something fast" thing singers have to deal with. So I grabbed the bass. Ran it through one of the guitar amps sitting around and I was good.

Well, we ran everything through guitar amps back then.

It was a white Squire. I think they still make those. And really, it was crappy. But, it worked back then. A perfect cheap bass with plenty of places for stickers. So I took it home. After a few hours of playing it, the blisters came a knockin'. My brother told me to just keep playing cause "it was a punk rock thing to do." So I did. The clear plasma dripped off of my fingers for a few days but it slowly stopped and came back as hard as nails fingertips.

I was a bass player. Not a very good one but one none the less.

As those days went on, more people in bands joined the audience side of the stage and the players thinned out. Rooms with equipment became garages full of equipment and weekday jams turned into late night shows.

So I like the 80's.

They taught me how to make choices when there was no good decision.

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I've been trying to pick up an old instrument lately but it seems there is some weird force that keeps stopping me from learning how to play clarinet. Something missing or broken or whatever. Who knew these things needed reeds? And ligatures? Fuck me, looks like I am heading back to the music store. Hey, I found an instrument in the garage and decided it was time to learn a new thing. So this year will be my learning to play the woodwinds year. What the hell. I think it would be a cool thing. Electric Clarinet.

Think about it.

While I was looking for parts and cords to get this thing amped, I thought back on something. Anyone who plays anything, especially miked, knows what a pain in the ass it is to have all this equipment lying around your house. So today, I thought I will rate the main instruments in a band and how well they stack up against my rating scale. Meaning, if I can watch TV while they are in the same house. More specifically, on my sofa.

It is a 1 to 5 scale.

1 being that I can sit on a sofa with them and still hear the TV.

5 being that I can't sit in the same house and hear the TV.

Feel free to add any or tell me I am wrong.

Drummers

Drummers don't have much of a problem with leaving shit around. When a stand or cymbal is broken it is usually in the garbage in a few days. Or being creatively used for some kind of TV stand. Every once in awhile you will step on a screw with your bare feet, but as a whole, they aren't that bad. Just kiss off a small corner of your house and everything else is cool. Plus, when drummers practice in front of your TV, all you can hear is them hitting pillows. Much better for my TV watching purposes. And what else can you buy for a drum set? You aren't going in to the music store every other day to get some picks or strings. Maybe you will get a UPS package every once in awhile with a cymbal in it. So no big deal. The hardest thing I have ever had to snag for a drummer was a parking curb to stop his drum from sliding. The only reason I helped him with this is cause we got to skate on it in the house when he wasn't using it. Usually drummers are on the same note as you, too. When a good show comes on, they can figure it out and shut up.

I give them a 3.

Singers

I don't think singers practice and really, if a singer started bellowing out something in the middle of my living room, it would look a little weird. Singers only have egos that they toss around and I'm not going to trip over that as I walk to fridge in the middle of the night. So while they don't scream during shows, they tend to have big mouths and because of said mouth, they sometimes interrupt important dialogue of "Little House." And that’s a bad thing cause someone may go blind and you might fucking miss it. Pretty simple. No microphone, no sound.

I give them a 2.

If "Little House" is on, I change my rating to a 4.

Bass

Bass players are perfect. No one else can get your shit running tight and fast, keep a cool head and hold the band together. Except drummers. Most of the drummers I have known can build almost anything you want with anything they have. Bass players are the exact same. Give me a few 2x4's and I'll build you a castle as long as you shut up and keep out of my way. Besides, bass players won't sit in front of your couch and play for hours while watching "24". This is a big plus in their corner. Most of the times, bass players are focused on what we need to do right fucking now to get through this situation so if they happen to be trying to get through an episode of "Andy Griffith" you know damn well they will be focused on that TV till Otis passes out or Barney is dead. They will get through the next half hour. What breaks next, meh, deal with it when it happens.

I give them a 1. My best rating.

Guitarists

I've saved the best for last.

The worst offenders of this are guitarists. Christ, they have junk everywhere. Maybe I was blessed with the things I play, but Jesus, can you guys at least throw away broken strings? And you might want to figure if you know how to replace a pickup before you rip your guitar apart because I am sure as shit not going to help you replace that. Guitarists buy shit and leave it around. They don't get rid of old shit. Rather, you get new beer coasters on your table every time they go to a music store. And, as god as my witness, I can't stand someone unplugged, sitting on my couch, playing some never ending solo while I am watching TV. Listen asshole, the headphones don't work. I still hear it. And yes. Yes I did hear you nail that. No. No you don't have to play it again for me. I heard it the first 15 or so times. Besides, "24" is coming on. Shut up.

I give them a 5. My worst rating.

So in the end, I think it is pretty obvious to all that guitarists are a pain in the ass when it comes to watching TV and fixing things they broke.

Stay tuned for my woodwind rating scale that will be posted when I learn how to play my new clarinet. - T

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I got a new job. Yay me. Unfortunately it is a 3rd shift type of job. That basically means I'll be working 4 PM til 1 AM. Not that big of a deal, but it will take some getting used to. For the last few years, I have pulled the normal daytime shift at jobs, but because of the new move and new job opportunities, I have to do what I do at a different time. No big deal. But, this time flip did remind me of a few things. The way I used to be. This change won't be that hard because I have done it most of my life. But the big question remains. That question that I used to live with everyday for year long stretches.

What the hell do I do during the day?

It is the same question that plagued me when I was playing every night. What do you do? You have to realize that most people do work normal jobs, so they won't want to sit around all day and get fucked up or watch "The Price Is Right" with you, so what do you do?

Back when I played in a band, it was easy. Wake up and drink a few beers then go back to bed. Just sleep until about three then start drinking again. Find some drugs then get ready for the show. Kind of a formula. It was pretty easy as long as you didn't mind being in a perpetual haze from the moment you wake up until the moment you fall down. Which I really didn't really mind at the time. Play the show and then get to where you had to be for the next show. Crash out then wake up and drink a few beers then do it again. One plus one equals type of shit. Really easy. .

Obviously, in that kind of job, your sobriety isn't really a big issue. I could stumble onto the stage and everything would be OK. Maybe I would get a little shit from the rest of the band but most of the time they were as fucked up as myself. As long as I showed up, I would get paid. Maybe not paid well, but enough to get me through the next day

Now, I am sober. Been that way for a long time. So the "sleep all day in a perpetual alcohol coma" thing is over. I really don't think my new boss would take too kindly for me showing up to an IT position barely coherent. It just doesn't seem like that type of a job. I am pretty sure I won't get laid at the end of the shift, either. There will probably be no after work parties. So I guess it is good I don't drink anymore. Well, it is really good I don't drink or do drugs anymore or I wouldn't be sitting here with you guys but the time question remains.

What to do during the day?

I don't really feel like doing the daytime AA thing. Those usually turn into all day coffee shop things and really, I don't like people enough to sit and play chess with them all day with my hand shaking from too much caffeine. And I can only masturbate so many times before I start to get kinda sore and I can only work on FTTW a few hours before I start to fall apart. One good thing, well the thing that will save me during this transitional period is the that the new place I am moving into has a pool and a pool table and a bunch of musical instruments. That will kill a few hours. Not sure if my new roommate knows about my tattoos but what the hell, he looks cool. Looks like I'll have to tell him about my nudist thing, too....

So what does this all mean?

Well it just hit me last night.

Right now it seems like everything is the same as it was 15 years ago minus the drugs and alcohol. I fuck around all day on a pool table waiting to go to work.

It really is weird because I am supposed to be stable now. No late nights and sleepless days killing time trying to make the big hand go faster. If this is the way all of the IT guys work around here, maybe the way I used to live wasn't so different after all.

Who knows.

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Moving sucks. There is no other way to put it. You have to do it sometimes if you want to get where you want to go. And even then it is really where you think you want to go. Moving is pretty easy for me. The first few times of moving to a different city are a little scary. Things are not going to work out in the way you want them to but they will work out anyways. That is a hard concept to get but once you do get it, it makes everything easier

A few things came up this weekend about where I have lived and why I moved and all that kind of stuff so I thought I would break down the types of individuals I have found in the world that are in bands.

To put it simply, there are people who are full time musicians and people who have day jobs. Everyone knows that. The hard part about being either one is that day. That one day where you have to decide which one you are. It's easy to make the decision if you have no strings or anything like that, but let's face it, a lot of the time you have to give up a whole lot to get where you want to be. And if that "where you want to be" is just another possibility, it makes it that much harder. What if you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend and you are going to have to move 700 miles away to keep going in this band? What if you have an OK job and by moving, you have to start working in a warehouse again? To start over? What if you have nowhere to go? What if you really start hating each other?

I guess it really comes down to if you believe in something or not. It would be great if everyone lived in a town that already had a music scene that was big and was your type of music. But in reality, it doesn't happen that much. You have to go to that scene. Some scenes got lucky and for some reason or another got noticed on a large scale, but really, you have to go where it is happening. All I know is that where I came from, moving wasn't really an option. It was a reality that we would have to face someday.

This is where it sucks to be the "safe man." The man who needs his security and needs to know what is going to happen the next day. Having a place to stay is nice, but hell, we all have lived on sofas before. So what if you do move? What if nothing works out? What if in six months you come back as a failure with nothing to show but a few more addictions and some huge debt that your ex girlfriend ran up cause you forgot to cancel the credit cards that you had been living off of for the last two months?

That reality faces everyone when they move. There is no way around it. Getting a job before hand usually helps but really, by moving you are putting yourself at survival level for the love of your music before the comforts of, well, things like eating. Tell me how many bands haven't done the soup kitchen celebrity or happy hour bar hopping just to eat for the day.

It is really lame when you get something like a good guitarist who won't move with the band because he or she is making a decent living at their day job. Or has a girlfriend. Or whatever. Really splits the band up when you want to take it to the next level. It's hard to practice everyday when you live five hours away from each other. Or even two. So you have to decide.

It is in that moment when you can define who wants to just be in a band after work and who wants to be the band everyday.

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This is the last New Years story and since everyone, well most everyone, is hungover and not reading this today, I might as well go out with a bang. First of all, there have been some great New Years stories over the past few weeks on FTTW. Some funny, some amazing and some sad but they have all been great. If you haven't read them, I would take a few a few minutes and go back over them. There are some amazing people here with a lot of great stories.

But enough about that. Let's get back to getting fucked up at shows and almost getting killed! The fun stuff. This one goes back to those crazy dot com years in San Francisco. Paper millionaires and stupidity. Where everyone knew it wouldn't last but really didn't care.

You remember those days.

For weeks I'd been seeing my friends get jobs. Not just jobs, good jobs. I really didn't understand it. Well, I understood it enough to know that something was going on. No one would ever want these people to work for them unless something was going on, right? They were alcoholics and drug addicts but for some reason they were all being hired at tech places for reasonable money. When I say reasonable, I mean above minimum wage. Sure, we were all still broke, but these jobs put them in contact with the top people in the industry. Top people in the industry means more opportunities for us. And we all know that computer dorks always wanted to be cool and hang out with the band guys.*

* That theory might not be true, but it's my story and I have to rationalize it somehow.

We used to go into these "new" buildings where they worked late at night and see all this stuff. Stuff. It was weird. What was once an abandoned warehouse was now a huge office complex filled with those computer like things and little offices. What was once rats and homeless people was now servers and workstations. The stench of urine was now masked by the exhaust of brand new SUV's.

Very strange times.

But, as usual, we had to get in on it.

Private parties, and not so private parties, pretty much were an every night thing. If some company went IPO, booze was passed around and a party was started. And these things happened weekly.

One night we had played some show and were invited to three or four after parties to keep going. More music. Different people in the band. Really stopped mattering at that time. This was a weekend party that ended on New Years Day or sometime that week. Don't ask me cause back then, the party really never stopped. Just slowed down to mind numbing speeds until we hit the pass out stage. Then the party kinda died for us.

But back to the party I was talking about. We walked in to this huge house. Champagne everywhere with piles of cocaine in the back room. Bottles hard alcohol were set up everywhere. Pills being passed around. Don't ask me if I imbibed. I did.

Someone noticed that my friend was stealing things from the bar and we were thrown out. Packed full of stolen booze and loaded with drugs, we hit a MUNI and just drove around until we found another party. It was somewhere downtown. Some renovated area. That's all I remember about the location. Somewhere I had never been. I knew that at least. I walked up the stairs to where we supposed to be going when a raindrop hit me. But we were inside. More rain. Someone must be spitting on me. We were inside. I looked up. The entire roof had a huge hole in it. It's hard to describe the way it looked. The actual apartments circled the building with a garden in the middle and a hole so the sun could get in cut out of the roof. Fuck if I know. I had never seen anything like that before.

Well, we got into the building and it was huge and all that. More drugs and more booze. We were thrown out within a few minutes. Duh.

I do know we took the party in a big samba line up to the top of the roof to throw bottles at all of the people way down on the streets below. Yes, we were kinda of dicks back then. Shit was going crazy on the streets and the roofs were getting filled with people. So many people that cop helicopters were circling a row of buildings we were all on. So we did the rational thing and started jumping rooftop to rooftop to check out the other parties. It was about five or so stories up and we just went cruising along. All I really remember was the "whoosh" of air as I cleared alleyways. Then the "thud" when I hit the next roof and landed in the tiny pebbles that covered each of them. By the time I was running out of breath, my face looked like a pin cousin from all the rock scrapes on my face.

I turned around and went the other way. Back to the original party. See, I had really had enough. This was fun, but I could tell my body was giving out and I needed to be on the street before I went down. Back down there. To relative safety.

I cleared about three buildings. Not all at one time, but you know what I mean. The original party was still going strong. My friend was chasing me. Almost racing. I hit the last wall and looked back at him. He was running harder. Laughing at him, I accelerated and cleared the final wall. One look back at him with a laugh. Suddenly. my neck tightened. My legs pulled out from underneath me.

I was tackled.

I looked up to see what happened. He tackled me from a full sprint. My body dragged about three feet in the tiny pebbles before I came to a standstill on the ground. Behind me was him, holding my legs and yelling at me. In front of me was the open roof. Five floors down to the garden. I was running right for it and he tackled me. Didn't even see it.

So that pretty much ended the night.

Of course, a few months later the stock market crashed and everyone became unemployed again, but hey hell, it was fun while it lasted.

Happy New Year everyone.

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Posted by Turtle Jones at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

It's the end of the year. I am sure everyone else in here has already said merry whatever to you guys. And if they haven't yet, they will tomorrow and probably all this week so I better get in on it.

Merry Christmas or whatever else you celebrate.

But, let's move on.

The end of the year has always made me kinda think of things like, well, the end of things. Even though it really isn't the end it seems like it. Just another day on the calendar.

I've been trying to pick up an old instrument lately but it seems there is some weird force that keeps stopping me from learning how to play clarinet. Something missing or broken or whatever. Who knew these things needed reeds? And ligatures? Fuck me, looks like I am heading back to the music store. Hey, I found an instrument in the garage and decided it was time to learn a new thing. So this year will be my learning to play the woodwinds year. What the hell. I think it would be a cool thing. Electric Clarinet.

Think about it.

While I was looking for parts and cords to get this thing amped, I thought back on something. Anyone who plays anything, especially miked, knows what a pain in the ass it is to have all this equipment lying around your house. So today, I thought I will rate the main instruments in a band and how well they stack up against my rating scale. Meaning, if I can watch TV while they are in the same house. More specifically, on my sofa.

It is a 1 to 5 scale.

1 being that I can sit on a sofa with them and still hear the TV.

5 being that I can't sit in the same house and hear the TV.

Feel free to add any or tell me I am wrong.

Drummers

Drummers don't have much of a problem with leaving shit around. When a stand or cymbal is broken it is usually in the garbage in a few days. Or being creatively used for some kind of TV stand. Every once in awhile you will step on a screw with your bare feet, but as a whole, they aren't that bad. Just kiss off a small corner of your house and everything else is cool. Plus, when drummers practice in front of your TV, all you can hear is them hitting pillows. Much better for my TV watching purposes. And what else can you buy for a drum set? You aren't going in to the music store every other day to get some picks or strings. Maybe you will get a UPS package every once in awhile with a cymbal in it. So no big deal. The hardest thing I have ever had to snag for a drummer was a parking curb to stop his drum from sliding. The only reason I helped him with this is cause we got to skate on it in the house when he wasn't using it. Usually drummers are on the same note as you, too. When a good show comes on, they can figure it out and shut up.

I give them a 3.

Singers

I don't think singers practice and really, if a singer started bellowing out something in the middle of my living room, it would look a little weird. Singers only have egos that they toss around and I'm not going to trip over that as I walk to fridge in the middle of the night. So while they don't scream during shows, they tend to have big mouths and because of said mouth, they sometimes interrupt important dialogue of "Little House." And that’s a bad thing cause someone may go blind and you might fucking miss it. Pretty simple. No microphone, no sound.

I give them a 2.

If "Little House" is on, I change my rating to a 4.

Bass

Bass players are perfect. No one else can get your shit running tight and fast, keep a cool head and hold the band together. Except drummers. Most of the drummers I have known can build almost anything you want with anything they have. Bass players are the exact same. Give me a few 2x4's and I'll build you a castle as long as you shut up and keep out of my way. Besides, bass players won't sit in front of your couch and play for hours while watching "24". This is a big plus in their corner. Most of the times, bass players are focused on what we need to do right fucking now to get through this situation so if they happen to be trying to get through an episode of "Andy Griffith" you know damn well they will be focused on that TV till Otis passes out or Barney is dead. They will get through the next half hour. What breaks next, meh, deal with it when it happens.

I give them a 1. My best rating.

Guitarists

I've saved the best for last.

The worst offenders of this are guitarists. Christ, they have junk everywhere. Maybe I was blessed with the things I play, but Jesus, can you guys at least throw away broken strings? And you might want to figure if you know how to replace a pickup before you rip your guitar apart because I am sure as shit not going to help you replace that. Guitarists buy shit and leave it around. They don't get rid of old shit. Rather, you get new beer coasters on your table every time they go to a music store. And, as god as my witness, I can't stand someone unplugged, sitting on my couch, playing some never ending solo while I am watching TV. Listen asshole, the headphones don't work. I still hear it. And yes. Yes I did hear you nail that. No. No you don't have to play it again for me. I heard it the first 15 or so times. Besides, "24" is coming on. Shut up.

I give them a 5. My worst rating.

So in the end, I think it is pretty obvious to all that guitarists are a pain in the ass when it comes to watching TV and fixing things they broke.

Stay tuned for my woodwind rating scale that will be posted when I learn how to play my new clarinet. - T

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I'm from California. That's pretty much there is to say about how I feel about the weather. Anytime anyone around here asks me if I am cold, the only answer I usually give is "I'm from California."

That means "Why yes, I think this place is cold."

The reason I bring this up is because I don't live in California anymore. And I have come up with a theory. Everywhere else in the world is too fucking cold. That's all I have to say about this one. The shitty part is that bands have to tour in any kind of weather. Like fucking mailman, we must go through. I remember looking at these press pics from bands on the East Coast. They all were wearing Levi's and short sleeved shirts. Well, I am here to say that is bullshit. This place is cold. I think all those shots were to fool people like me into touring the East Coast. It is just a theory thou.

I was talking to a friend last night about New York. He told me that now I know the difference between touring through a state and living there. How I have lost all of my ability to put on a jacket and move to a warmer town the next night. I am stuck. In the old days, I would be cold for four or five months but at the end of the road, it is wife beater and shorts time. But, that is over now.

That was my personal bitch about the cold. I don't know if I was extremely lucky passing through all your states and countries in the past to have just not hit any real cold times or if I was just too high to care, but man, now that I am here, all I can say is this sucks. Even my Converse are cold. And that is not cool.

I mean really, what do you guys do before a show when it is snowing or raining? I know I am inside half asleep or drunk, but you guys are outside. Right? At least that is the way it goes in warmer places. People sit out in the cars or in the line drinking beer to get in. I've sat in a line to get into a movie around here and it only took like ten minutes before I wanted to go home.

Am I a pussy? Maybe.

Am I a Californian? Yes.

I used to be so bad that if I rolled into your town and it was raining, I automatically thought the show was going to suck. Automatic response. Standing outside in the back when a raindrop hits me? No one will be there. The show will suck. No one will come out in the cold to see us. But when the place packs out, you really have to think to yourself that these people are in this weather everyday. They always come to shows stinking like wet dogs and when you complain about the very thing that they live in everyday, you kind of sound like a pussy. Well, you do sound like a pussy. Don't go in Oregon or Washington and complain about the rain. They have seen it for the past few weeks straight.

I have always wondered about those bands who are used to playing leaky clubs and snowy places. What happens when they play San Diego or god forbid, Tijuana? Do they like swell up and explode? Too much warmth? When I got too cold on tour, I just went into hibernation mode. Pulled up a blanket and hid out in some corner of the club.

But what would they do when it is too hot?

I've played shows with wet gear and I've heard all the stories about people getting electrocuted and really, it has never bothered me to hear about so and so dying back in '72 because someone tossed a bottle of water on him when he was playing his guitar solo.

Tell me that and the first thing I think is "That's pretty cool, man." But then again, it would probably suck. But it would be kinda funny. Well, just a little.

Snow really makes you not want to come back to a town. Nothing good ever comes from snow. If you ever think snow is pretty, try unloading a shitload of equipment at 4;30 in the night with a fading whisky buzz on. You will remember that night and it won't be because the snow was god damn pretty.

Snow is evil and hateful. Snow hates all of us.

For some strange reason, people from sunny climates turn into some kind of stunt drivers when the snow hits. I don't know why. Words spring forth from their mouths. Words like "let's spin this fucker!" or "I'm going to pull the e-brake!" come out of their mouths.

It is truly a sight to behold.

One thing I have learned from snowy towns is that people who see snow everyday don't think it is that funny to get hit with a snow ball.

Myself, on the other hand, think it is hilarious.

But I still hate snow. - T

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