Soooo, like, wow! I've totally me the love of my life and I'm only 23!
She was in a dream I had when I was seven and I touched a guitar for the first time. I touched it in my sleep by accident, or at least that's what I told Mom when she asked me what I was doing. We were at the outdoor market and I was sleepwalking, like I used to do before I discovered wakewalking, and as we passed the old Indian Guru's Cheap Genuine Antiques and Craft Stall my hand brushed against an old beat-up acoustic number that the old Indian Guru told me belonged to George Harrison McCallous, who was a guitar player in a British band in the late sixties that wasn't the Beatles, but had the Beatles open for them once in 1961. And when my hand touched the guitar, and then when I tripped and fell on it and smashed it to pieces, my eyes were closed even more and my sleep became deeper and a winged guitar, which was my CACGSG-ETK-01 (Custom Awful Cherry Gibson Sweetley Guitar-Extra Tone Knob-01) alit from heaven and appeared to me and opened its mouth and said that I was its destiny, and told me that its name was Cathy G. Etkoi and that one day we would meet and forge a future of legend together.
Well, if I hadn't been just standing in front of an eleven-foot tall amplifier with the volume all the way up and those twin-p90s nervously chain smoking, when she walked in, and if I hadn't been feeling a little dizzy from the noise vibrations and trying to keep the blood that was flowing out of my ears off of my chucks, because I've got them just like I want them and don't want to muck them up any more, when she walked in, I probably would have been absolutely stunned and fallen to a knee and asked her to marry me just right then and there. I'm glad I didn't, because I don't like to lose my cool in front of Leg's or Tommy, so I just babbled a few things and I might have drooled a bit, and I got some blood on my chucks anyway but it's okay because I've gotten used to it now and it makes me look a little more badass, even Tommy thinks so. She is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen at least a dozen, but even when we're the most famous and successful band in the world and of all time, and we've played shows to thousands of millions of screaming women, I know from the top to the bottom of my heart that I'll never meet or love anybody else except for her. And we've only just met! And it's meant to be! In my dream, my guitar told me that it's name was Cathy G. Etkoi, and this girl's name is Atalanta Q. Footrace, and while there's really nothering in common between the two Etkoi and Footrace both have the same number of syllables and a Q looks a little like a G.
So I've fallen in love with Atalanta at first sight, and I know in my heart that one day we'll be together forever, and I was about to tell her all of this as soon as I saw her and she walked into the coffee shop where I was writing and brainstorming (they don't like it when I bring my work with me, but I buy a coffee so they can't kick me out), And Tommy works there too, as a barista, but then she went up to Tommy and kissed him! Atalanta is Tommy's girlfriend! And then everything made sense, because before, when the band would be together, like if we're practicing, or stargazing, or taking cooking classes (that's where we met Evelyn & Daniel), I thought Tommy would be talking about Atlanta the city, and I thought he would be sharing deep and philosophical insights into the music of the Allman Brothers, which are from the panhandle of Florida, or maybe R.E.M. or the B-52s, which are both from Athens, in Georgia, and Atlanta is the predominate commercial hub for this rich and significant musical vein. Nope, turns out the entire time he would be talking about how much he loved his girlfriend! Who knew?
So now I don't know what I'm going to do, because fate and the space-alien-gods of all time have decreed that I'm supposed to be with her, with Atalanta, and I think this is clearly obvious. But, Tommy thinks it's him that's supposed to be with her, "or whatever." That's what he even said. Oh yeah! I almost forgot, when she heard me playing my guitar and I told her Tommy and I are in a band, she said she's always wanted to sing, and I told Tommy that I thought it was a bad idea, but of course he thinks it's a great idea because then he'd be able to concentrate on his guitar playing, and then we argued over it and I bought an herbal tea and didn't even tip him this time because I was too busy storming out. Chamomile is a fine herbal tea which has several healing properties, including stress reduction, and makes a fine digestive aid, although it can potentially make you sleepy. Atalanta must have the voice of an angel, the most elegant and glorious aria that any unsuspecting mortal has ever had the exclusive and divine privilege of ever hearing. She also likes the lyrics I was working on, she caught a glimpse of them as I was flinging my journal shut in frustration, to a song I wrote three years ago called, "Frogs Make Funny Friends and Always Return What They Borrow," and when she told me that I knew we'd click and that upset Tommy. What am I going to do? She's already tearing us apart, and I don't even know if she's a good singer! But she has to be, she's so perfect. I could go on and on about her, I really could, and my heart flutters in a weird way when I think that I'll be seeing her tomorrow at practice. It flutters in the same way that it does when I drink too much coffee, or when I have a sudden empathic connection to the guy with green glasses and he's in a speed trance. I want to write about her, I want the whole world to know how I feel about her! I want everybody to know excepts Tommy, of course. I want the whole world to know how glorious she is, except Tommy, of course. I don't want him to know how I feel, because it could severely damage our business relationship. I could go on and on about her though. On and on. And on, and on, and on. But the chamomile's made me tired so I'm going to go to bed early.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Like, woah cool all right!
So, I don't want to give you the wrong impression. MPIABF (not to be confused with CGRCSGETK, I added the ETK for 'Extra Tone Knob') is NOT just about sitting in a garage and drinking beer. It's going to be about so much more than that eventually! Leg's has been working on a drum solo and he really stunned us all yesterday with his knowledge of intimate songcraft. He said something about, what was it? I don't remember, but he had this great suggestion so I went out and bought a watch and he's right! Now I have time! He said if we all get time then our songs will sound a lot better. Like real songs! So Evelyn & Daniel is going to get a watch too and Tommy says he will, but Tommy doesn't really care because all he plays is guitar solos. He's pretty good, he can play three notes without even messing up yet. He's got a problem, though. Eddie told us that there's a middle school talent show coming up in a month and even though we're all a little too talented to compete fairly against middle schoolers, he wants to disguise us anyway as sixth graders and get us on to the bill. Our first gig!, all right! But Tommy's already caving under the pressure of choosing the right outfit to wear. I told him the green boa fits his stage persona better but he insists that the red boa makes a stronger artistic statement, and that the green boa links him metaphorically...or is it symbolically?-- with the guy with the green sunglasses' sunglasses. Tommy is afraid that his audience will assume that he is subtly confessing that his lyrics should be taken as interpretations of a world filtered detachedly, through tinted lenses. I can't really argue with that. I decided that Tommy will just figure it out. Yeah! I asked Tommy to write song lyrics for a song idea I had, a pretty nice acoustic number that needs encouraging lyrics to resonate with a message of optimism and good will, geared of course to the impressionable generation of the audience that we'll hopefully rouse to inspiration, and Tommy said yeah and he sat down and wrote "Your Mother's a Whore so let's Kill Everything," in about twenty minutes and it's almost perfect, he's actually pretty talented when he sets his mind to it, it's just about what I had in mind! So this gig should go over pretty well. Donnie's going to tear up some clothes for us and draw a cool logo and paint it on a flag that we'll hang up behind us, like I heard they used to do in Boston. If we really like the logo he says he'll paint it on the drum set, too, although we'd have to figure out how to fix the head on the bass drum because Topher accidentally put his head through it the other night. After that, all we need to do is practice, and figure out how to rig fireworks to the inside of the proscenium without being spotted so that the grande finale is a big surprise! Sweet!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Mercy Here!
ANNOUNCING THE ARRIVAL OF
MASS PRODUCED IN A BURRITO FACTORY: THE RISE (AND FALL?!) OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST BAND!
All right! So, this is Mercy here and I'm sorry it took so long to finally start telling you all about our great band! We are MASS PRODUCED IN A BURRITO FACTORY, and we also play in a band of the same name! All, cool, cool, so let me tell you a bit about myself. I'm 23, and I look and act about the same age, except when I'm onstage. Yeah, cool! I plays a Gibson SG (that's, 'Super-Great' in guitar-speak. Also, 'Super-Good' in Mercy G.), cherry finish even though its darker, like a cherry that's gone a little bad, so I guess my super-gawesome guitar is a bad cherry finish. Okay, so I play a BCSG. Custom, so it's really BCGSGC, if you add a 'G' for Gibson. Or should it be GBCSGC? It's a pretty standard model. GBCSGC might be a cool name for a song, it's really mysterious, it could mean anything. If it were a rotten cherry finish I'd play a RCSG, or GRCSGC, but I don't. I'm the ryhthym guitar, so I do a loto of the songo-writing, which is why I like to search for the deeper meanings in passing thoughts. 'Bad Cherry Finish' sounds like a good name for a song, too. Tommy doesn't think I do, but he's not a great lyricist, either, which he doesn't agree with, of course. But I haven't introduced Tommy yet, so just wait a sec.
Uh, yeah. So my guitar may seem preety standard, but it's actually just a physical manifestation of my deep subconscious self, so it is most definitely not standard. It has twin custom p90 pickups, just like me, and a humbucker, too, except that the guy who glued it in didn't know how to wire the damned thing and I don't either, so right now it's just for show. There's an extra tone knob too that doesn't work either but someday, when it does, it will make fireworks go off, and not even all over me like they did when I tried to rig them to my old guitar. I don't like burning myself up on stage, it throws off my playing, and the chicks aren't really impressed. It doesn't smell good, either. The extra volume knob will change the color of these fireworks and it will be AWESOME. When the fireworks aren't exploding the extra volume knob will simply create extra volume. I have to install an extra volume knob, but I was thinking I'd just relabel the extra tone knob because I can't really tell the difference between them all, anyway, and the tone knob does seem to make everything louder. I don't really know what tone means, I think it has something to do with what color the music is. Our music is coloured awesome, whatever colour that is. I think it's green.
Ah, I started playing the guitar when I was seven, and I started playing piano when I was three, but don't tell anyone that because I want everyone to know I'm a badass guitar player in an awesome rock band where we play absolutely no sissy classical music whatsoever, even if we are all completely competent musicians who have been classically trained in a combination of styles that are keenly complementary. Hm, sometimes I alliterate a lot, my doctor says its a conditon called Sensational Sound Synonym Syncronicity Syndrome, but I don't know if I believe him, although. That's what was going on when I wrote, "Businessly Badgers Brandish Blueberry Bagels for Bashful Ben." That was a dark time in my life, but I'm sure you can tell if you listen to the lyrics. Uh, actually I wrote my first song when I was eight, I'm pretty sure it's considered a blues classic standard now, maybe you've heard of it, it's called, "Mommy Still Wets the Bed at Night." We play it every now and then at our shows, but I'm kind of tired of fans requesting it because I want to play our new most popular stuff all the time! At the rate we're going it won't take long to become the biggest thing on the face of the earth, bigger than the Great Wall of China and bigger than Leg's' nose, too, haha.
That reminds me, there are other guys in the band too! Leg's is the drummer and he's probably my best friend in the world. We started this band together when we were thirteen and I that's about the time I stopped listening to Metallica, and he didn't like Metallica either so we decided to become a famous band so we could tell the world all about what's really going on. I don't want to talk about it. Anyway, so Leg's and I are best friends and we hold the floor down, he plays a crappy little drum set he bought last week when we decided to start playing music and he can already hit more than one drum at a time, so I know we're on to something. So, Leg's is the drummer and Evelyn & Daniel is the bass player. That's her name, Evelyn & Daniel. That's the name her parents even gave her. They have posters of the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd all over their house, and those are pretty okay bands, I guess. Evelyn & Daniel always wears a Def Leppard shirt, I think it's the only shirt she has, she got from from his dad's friend who got it when he was a roadie during the Hysteria tour, which is a lame album and I don't really like Def Leppard anyway even though the shirt is pretty cool. Uh, so Evelyn & Daniel and Leg's are both pretty cool, and there's the guy with green sunglasses who sits in every now and then and bangs the keyboard, but we're a rock band so, like, piano is kind of not loud enough to hang with us all the time. Plus, sometimes I don't even think he realizes that we've unplugged it. But, he really gets into it and that looks great, Evelyn & Daniel's mom even said so, so we let the guy with the green sunglasses sit in, even though he has no clue how to play a piano, really.
And then there's Eddie, and Donnie, and Topher. Eddie's our manager. He started the band first and it was going to be his band, he was going to play lead guitar and sing lead vocals, and be lead frontman and lead us all around, but he can't play guitar or sing, and he doesn't really look too good, anyway. We asked him to just manage us and he pouted but he knows what he's doing. I think. He convinced Tommy's dad to let us practice in the garage, and Tommy's dad is a tough old codger so Eddie never really told us his secret, how he got Tommy's dad to let us use the garage. But he's really good. Tommy is his twin brother, so I guess Tommy's dad is Eddie's dad, too. Tommy wants to be called Roal Exit Only, he wants that to be his eccentric stage name and he wants us all to call him Roal and I don't really give a damn, because his name is Tommy. But he can sing okay and all the other guys like him, so I guess I can go with it. Leg's wanted to change his name to Linens of the Week, because Tommy has an eccentric stage name that adds mystery to his personality, and I told Leg's it's a much better name for a song, or another band, so he said if he ever went solo that's what his band name would be, Linens of the Week. The idea for our band name came from Donnie, that's Eddie and Tommy's other brother, he's a twin too, but actually he was just talking about how he really likes burritos and how he likes to take them to work, and how he plans on making a whole bunch of them so he doesn't have to make them every day, because it takes time to cook the rice and beans and roll it all up. Topher likes Donnie's burritos too but they taste like shit. Topher just likes to sit around, and he usually talks too much and yesterday he set an amp on fire when he was lighting a bowl, but he works down at the distributor so he brings a free case around some times and he's okay. He says when we're big he'll help us carry our instruments around and we can even borrow his truck, so that's cool too.
All in all, I must say that since the band begun, this has been the busiest week of my life!
MASS PRODUCED IN A BURRITO FACTORY: THE RISE (AND FALL?!) OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST BAND!
All right! So, this is Mercy here and I'm sorry it took so long to finally start telling you all about our great band! We are MASS PRODUCED IN A BURRITO FACTORY, and we also play in a band of the same name! All, cool, cool, so let me tell you a bit about myself. I'm 23, and I look and act about the same age, except when I'm onstage. Yeah, cool! I plays a Gibson SG (that's, 'Super-Great' in guitar-speak. Also, 'Super-Good' in Mercy G.), cherry finish even though its darker, like a cherry that's gone a little bad, so I guess my super-gawesome guitar is a bad cherry finish. Okay, so I play a BCSG. Custom, so it's really BCGSGC, if you add a 'G' for Gibson. Or should it be GBCSGC? It's a pretty standard model. GBCSGC might be a cool name for a song, it's really mysterious, it could mean anything. If it were a rotten cherry finish I'd play a RCSG, or GRCSGC, but I don't. I'm the ryhthym guitar, so I do a loto of the songo-writing, which is why I like to search for the deeper meanings in passing thoughts. 'Bad Cherry Finish' sounds like a good name for a song, too. Tommy doesn't think I do, but he's not a great lyricist, either, which he doesn't agree with, of course. But I haven't introduced Tommy yet, so just wait a sec.
Uh, yeah. So my guitar may seem preety standard, but it's actually just a physical manifestation of my deep subconscious self, so it is most definitely not standard. It has twin custom p90 pickups, just like me, and a humbucker, too, except that the guy who glued it in didn't know how to wire the damned thing and I don't either, so right now it's just for show. There's an extra tone knob too that doesn't work either but someday, when it does, it will make fireworks go off, and not even all over me like they did when I tried to rig them to my old guitar. I don't like burning myself up on stage, it throws off my playing, and the chicks aren't really impressed. It doesn't smell good, either. The extra volume knob will change the color of these fireworks and it will be AWESOME. When the fireworks aren't exploding the extra volume knob will simply create extra volume. I have to install an extra volume knob, but I was thinking I'd just relabel the extra tone knob because I can't really tell the difference between them all, anyway, and the tone knob does seem to make everything louder. I don't really know what tone means, I think it has something to do with what color the music is. Our music is coloured awesome, whatever colour that is. I think it's green.
Ah, I started playing the guitar when I was seven, and I started playing piano when I was three, but don't tell anyone that because I want everyone to know I'm a badass guitar player in an awesome rock band where we play absolutely no sissy classical music whatsoever, even if we are all completely competent musicians who have been classically trained in a combination of styles that are keenly complementary. Hm, sometimes I alliterate a lot, my doctor says its a conditon called Sensational Sound Synonym Syncronicity Syndrome, but I don't know if I believe him, although. That's what was going on when I wrote, "Businessly Badgers Brandish Blueberry Bagels for Bashful Ben." That was a dark time in my life, but I'm sure you can tell if you listen to the lyrics. Uh, actually I wrote my first song when I was eight, I'm pretty sure it's considered a blues classic standard now, maybe you've heard of it, it's called, "Mommy Still Wets the Bed at Night." We play it every now and then at our shows, but I'm kind of tired of fans requesting it because I want to play our new most popular stuff all the time! At the rate we're going it won't take long to become the biggest thing on the face of the earth, bigger than the Great Wall of China and bigger than Leg's' nose, too, haha.
That reminds me, there are other guys in the band too! Leg's is the drummer and he's probably my best friend in the world. We started this band together when we were thirteen and I that's about the time I stopped listening to Metallica, and he didn't like Metallica either so we decided to become a famous band so we could tell the world all about what's really going on. I don't want to talk about it. Anyway, so Leg's and I are best friends and we hold the floor down, he plays a crappy little drum set he bought last week when we decided to start playing music and he can already hit more than one drum at a time, so I know we're on to something. So, Leg's is the drummer and Evelyn & Daniel is the bass player. That's her name, Evelyn & Daniel. That's the name her parents even gave her. They have posters of the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd all over their house, and those are pretty okay bands, I guess. Evelyn & Daniel always wears a Def Leppard shirt, I think it's the only shirt she has, she got from from his dad's friend who got it when he was a roadie during the Hysteria tour, which is a lame album and I don't really like Def Leppard anyway even though the shirt is pretty cool. Uh, so Evelyn & Daniel and Leg's are both pretty cool, and there's the guy with green sunglasses who sits in every now and then and bangs the keyboard, but we're a rock band so, like, piano is kind of not loud enough to hang with us all the time. Plus, sometimes I don't even think he realizes that we've unplugged it. But, he really gets into it and that looks great, Evelyn & Daniel's mom even said so, so we let the guy with the green sunglasses sit in, even though he has no clue how to play a piano, really.
And then there's Eddie, and Donnie, and Topher. Eddie's our manager. He started the band first and it was going to be his band, he was going to play lead guitar and sing lead vocals, and be lead frontman and lead us all around, but he can't play guitar or sing, and he doesn't really look too good, anyway. We asked him to just manage us and he pouted but he knows what he's doing. I think. He convinced Tommy's dad to let us practice in the garage, and Tommy's dad is a tough old codger so Eddie never really told us his secret, how he got Tommy's dad to let us use the garage. But he's really good. Tommy is his twin brother, so I guess Tommy's dad is Eddie's dad, too. Tommy wants to be called Roal Exit Only, he wants that to be his eccentric stage name and he wants us all to call him Roal and I don't really give a damn, because his name is Tommy. But he can sing okay and all the other guys like him, so I guess I can go with it. Leg's wanted to change his name to Linens of the Week, because Tommy has an eccentric stage name that adds mystery to his personality, and I told Leg's it's a much better name for a song, or another band, so he said if he ever went solo that's what his band name would be, Linens of the Week. The idea for our band name came from Donnie, that's Eddie and Tommy's other brother, he's a twin too, but actually he was just talking about how he really likes burritos and how he likes to take them to work, and how he plans on making a whole bunch of them so he doesn't have to make them every day, because it takes time to cook the rice and beans and roll it all up. Topher likes Donnie's burritos too but they taste like shit. Topher just likes to sit around, and he usually talks too much and yesterday he set an amp on fire when he was lighting a bowl, but he works down at the distributor so he brings a free case around some times and he's okay. He says when we're big he'll help us carry our instruments around and we can even borrow his truck, so that's cool too.
All in all, I must say that since the band begun, this has been the busiest week of my life!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)