Thursday, June 9, 2005

The day after...

Iced Ink's first show with Barry at the Triple Rock went very well last night! Was a blast to finally play that stage, although I was a bit shot by the time we hit the stage - roughly 1AM. Ouch. One thing that didn't help much were the free drinks the club offered to the bands. One gets thirsty while waiting so long to get onstage, and unlimited free beer drinks over the course of 6 hours can be a recipe for disaster for even the most anti-alcoholic individuals. Thankfully I was able to moderate thruout the evening. Kind of.

We played a lot of Ink classics as well as a few newer ones, and the few people whose opinions I value (i.e.- people that will tell me the truth and not just kiss my ass) told me it sounded different, but just as good as Iced Ink 1.0 and that we definitely chose the right guy. I knew this would be the case, of course, but it was nice to get such positive reception and get that first gig out of the way. Another good sign is when someone walks up to me after our sets shaking their head and just saying "Dude..." That happened at least a good half dozen or so times last night.

That is the only word I need to hear. "Dude" sums up a good set rather nicely. If you ever want to approach the stage after we play and are at a lack of words, "Dude" will definitely suffice. "Dude" is a way better one word review than something like "sucky"... or "limp".. or "hashbrowns".

Back to going on at 1am. Me = not a big fan of the 2am bar closing time in the cities. Those of you who don't live here: 2am closing just started last year - before that it was 1am. Perhaps if they voted for 2am closing on the weekends only I'd understand, but honestly - 2am on a weeknight? Maybe it works well for the lameass dance clubs, but for live music, you're gonna be hard pressed to get anyone to stay out that late on a weeknight to support your band no matter how much they love you or how much you pay them. When you're a musician, 2am closing means 1 extra hour of standing around like a dope waiting to play. Personally, it's sort of like I'm re-living the "Fall Back" day of daylight savings time every show I play, and you know how much that can screw a person up.

We had to load in at 7:30 last night which means standing around for roughly 6 hours. I can't think of anything I want to do for 6 hours. Well.. maybe a few things. But yeah... 6 hours. That's like running a f$%kin' marathon, but remaining stationary and yelling over loud music to talk to people instead of running.

Regardless, it's part of being in a band. I really need to bring a paddleball game, some fingercuffs, Barbie Dolls... something to keep myself busy. Like Paul Stanley once said, "If you're lucky enough to get what you wanted, then shut the fuck up!" It was great to get out and let loose the monster that is Iced Ink 2.0 with all of the other great bands. And I was surprised to see a lot of people (more than I expected, at least) stick around till the bitter end. You still had the energy to hoop, holler, and applaud! Kudos to you outstanding individuals - if you're reading this you know who you are. You deserve a free frozen turkey for your dedication. Or a nice 10% coupon off your next dry cleaning bill. I'll see what I can do should we ever have to play so late again on a weeknight - you should not go without proper reward.

And for those of you who chose to stay home in lieu of standing at a bar for 4 hours and getting up for work the next morning, I don't blame you one bit. Hell if you'd catch this fella at a bar that late on a weeknight if my band wasn't playing!

Very good things to come for all future paths Iced Ink shall travel. Or perhaps I should just say this:

"Dude..."

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

There's a Cat In Here

a.k.a. Hey Kids! It's time to play "Where's Frank?"

Study the pic below and see if you can spot him.


As you can plainly see, our dear little Francis is coming out of his shell and fearless as ever. Above he is shown hiding behind the microwave in fear.. er.. I mean.. helping me make dinner last night.

Alas, Chicken Little is actually doing a great job of adjusting in his new scary world. Each day he comes out a little bit further than the previous. After his hiding behind the microwave phase subsides, perhaps he'll graduate to standing in the doorway and watching us.

Coming soon to Meat Smoothie Dot Blogspot Dot Com: Adoption of a Grandparent Grocery-Getter, Volume II

Monday, June 6, 2005

Meet Frank

Frank Version 3.0 (i.e. - not Frank 1 or 2 whom I was unable to take home as mentioned in a previous journal entry) came home with me on Friday from the Golden Valley Humane Society:

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Awww... whoosha widdo baby kiddy kiddy wow wow meow meow kiddy. He feels rather threatened by his new roommate Beans, a big scary dog that has been known to play with her squeaky toys and eat food - something any cat or human would see and be paralyzed in fear. I reckon it will be another couple of days before Frank realizes she's harmless and will feel safe leaving his comfort bubble (the closet), but he's doing better every day. I think.

He's approx. 1.5 years old and in his old home, his name was "Spreewell". So far I can tell you that he has a funny voice, eats and shits like it's going out of style, and is an incredibly friendly, affectionate little feller. He was given up because the daughter in his old home developed allergies by being around him. Their loss, our gain. When Kimb informed me that "Spreewell" is the name of a troublemaking athlete, I felt that if worse comes to worse and he never leaves the closet, at least I saved him from going through life being named after a basketball player. Now he's named after Mr. Zappa, not to mention when both pets are able to mingle, we'll have Frank and Beans. If you've seen Something About Mary, you know that's what the mentally retarded brother kept repeating over and over when Ben Stiller zipped his junk in his prom pants. I'm all about the high-brow movie references like that.

In this day and age of technology, almost all animal shelters perform a procedure to all of their orphans referred to as "chipping". No, it's not accidentally breaking a small piece of the animal off or throwing potato chips at them. It's implanting a teeny microchip in the animal so they can be tracked down should they get lost. I fear that this might carry some side effects such as Frank blacking out whenever I use the microwave, my cell phone signal weakening when he's by me, and him making a rainbow pattern on the TV screen when he walks past it.

I also worry, what if there was a mixup with the microchips and he's carrying top secret government information around in his little 11 pound body? That would suck, but I guess at least they couldn't track him down.

But the important thing is he's found a good home and I found a great cat. I have a feeling he's going to rule once he gets over this stage fright with the dawg and inspire many future blog entries... as I like to say: "There's no bad cats, only really stupid neurotic ones that little kids pick out just because they're cute and furry." (It's just a joke, people... just a joke.)

Hopefully I won't have to do anything to that chip like update its firmware or BIOS. 'Cause there's only 1 place I can find wheres the USB cord would plug into him, and I don't think he'd really want anything plugged into that area, if you know what I'm sayin.

Friday, June 3, 2005

My Mother's car is possessed by the Demons of Safety

My Mommy has been kind enough to loan me her red Toyota until I adopt my 2nd station wagon - this one from Grandma, ex-wife of the dude whose Pinto I was driving until the clutch went kaput.

I have discovered a strange occurrence in this car every so often and am not sure why it happens, so I'll do what any other paranoid schizophrenic would do and blame it on the paranormal.

When I go to get out of the car sometimes, my door is locked. The thing is, I don't lock it. "Oh, it's just an electronic safety feature of the car," you say. Sorry to doubt your suggestion, but this car is about 10 years old and I seriously doubt it was sold with that extra. I remember my Dad saying once that when you buy cars, don't go with too many fancy bells and whistles because it's just more stuff that will potentially fuck up and need to be fixed. 10 years ago, auto-locking cars were a pretty pimpy thing to have and I doubt that he dropped the extra Benjamins to have doors that lock themselves.

So why does this happen?! When I hit a bump does the lock somehow develop its own laws of physics and decide it needs to engage? Is Mom in the back seat hiding and locking it while I'm driving so I don't get carjacked? Strange.

Thanks though, Mom and Dad for letting me use the car until I get Gram's station wagon of death. The lock thing is starting to give me the creeps - you might want to have a man of holiness who knows how to fix cars take a look at it and maybe perform an exorcism.

Don't Be Sad... 2 Out of 133 Ain't Bad

Did I just refer to a Meat Loaf song? The end of civilization as we know it is near..

Off to the animal shelters I went this week to find me a new kitty, because Devo isn't around anymore to make me stand while I eat my dinner in lieu of sitting and having him dodge at it and piss me off (although I still miss the little guy like crazy, I must say!)

"New" kitty is not really the right way to say it now that I think about it, because all of the ones I've been looking at are used. That is all you find at animal shelters - used pets. Gently used, as many consignment shops like to say. "Cat-Go-Round - we sell recycled cats!"

I took that big first step and walked into an Animal Humane Society the other day for the first time since before the turn of the century. After mining through a vast sea of bad candidates I fell for a feisty little monkey named "George". George was really cool and I felt a little bad for him because it looked as if whomever the vet was that performed his de-balling surgery might have forgotten his corrective lenses at home that day. George trotted around with that tail of his pointed straight up exposing his deformity for all to see... now I don't know about you, but I ain't got no blind spot for cat butts, much less a Frankenstein-looking alteration beneath them. George was a darling little feller though, and I was minutes away from filling out an adoption form when the fire alarm went off. Everyone had to evacuate the premises and I figured heck, I should really take a day to think about this, so home I went.

The next day I visited a few more before ending up at the Animal Ark (where Devo was from) where I met The Cat. I'll call him Frank because his lame shelter-assigned name escapes me at this moment. Although Frank was de-balled, he didn't have much of a show going on back there like George did. I filled out the papers and alls they needed was the landlord's verbal consent. The landlord granted verbal consent so long as the cat was fixed and declawed. Turns out Frank still has his meathooks on his front end driver and passenger side as well as the back end, so no dice on him either. Why? Declawing is a rather inhumane thing to do to a cat and it's an Animal Ark Commandment that any cats leaving the Ark with claws need to keep 'em. Cheers to them for that because I agree. Negatory cheers for landlord because of the declawing request.

So I went back to where I found George thinking I'd grab him like I should have in the first place. George had found a home in the 24 hours since I'd been there last. CRIPES!

This evening we stopped at Feline Rescue and a different Humane Society, but nothing really jumped out at me (other than about 75 more cats which just didn't make the cut and a former co-worker of mine). I calmed my nerves with some chocolate and an A&W root beer on the way home not too incredibly bummed out, knowing that I'll bump into the right one eventually.

But I just want a cat, ladies and gentlemen. Out of the literally hundred-plus felines I've peeked at the past few days, I've connected with two of them and neither one is obtainable to me for aforementioned circumstances.

With that in mind, I have learned an important lesson when filling out cat adoption forms as far as telling them whether you rent or own your home: LIE.

Back to the shelters I go over the next few days. I'm sure if I have any luck you'll hear about it whether you like it or not. If you don't want to read blog entries about cats, go get your own damn blog and don't write about cats in it. Write about tennis or magazines or something... it's a free country!

If I open with a Meat Loaf reference, I certainly have to close with one: I'm outta here like a Bat Out Of Hell Part II.

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Nose Harmonica

As I was on my way to band practice cranking Billy Joel's "Piano Man" to drown out the neighboring vehicle's earth shattering hippety hop, I was listening to Mr. Joel inhaling and exhaling through his harmonica. I then started thinking about playing harmonica myself.

I've got to get me a harp and learn how to play it sometime, but I'm not gonna play the thing the way it's supposed to be played. Nope. Instead of playing it with my mouth, I'm gonna git me one of those hands-free harmonica neck braces and adjust it about an inch higher so I can blow it with my nose. That way my mouth will be available for other activities such as playing a kazoo or singing. Or better yet, grabbing a lit cigarette from an audience member, taking a puff, and blowing the smoke out of my nose and into the harmonica so people would think it was on fire. That would be hella cool, I must say! I could even install a small lightbulb inside of the harmonica so when the smoke started coming out it would look like there was a flame inside of it. Sort of like Ace Frehley's smoking pickup in his Les Paul, only way more lame.

It will be a little tricky at first, but I'm guessing the muscles in my nostrils will build up over time and be able to "hug" the harp to get the right notes out of it. I've got some pretty big nostrils (I can fit 1 peanut M&M in each one... 2 on a good day) and can move them on command. I believe these are all of the prerequisites one needs to meet in order to play nose harmonica.

Lung capacity is probably an important thing to factor in, too. If you've ever played a harmonica through your nose, you know it takes a lot more air to move those reeds than with your mouth. But I've got that covered, too. I used to play tuba in the school band and could hold a B flat until the cows came home.

I've actually played a harmonica with my nose before back when I was a youngen but never really considered it as a serious vehicle for my music until last night. I assume it's going to be a bit of a struggle to find the right harp... I'm going to want to try them all out to see which one I like best, but can't imagine music store workers being all too happy with me rubbing my nose all over their merchandise.

I guess a Kleenex is thin enough to where's I could just wrap one over the mouth area to keep it sanitary, sort of like a harmonica condom. I'm gonna spend a lot of time out in a dusty, windy area before I do that. Why? Because then when I played through the Kleenex, it would make a cool little line of dusty squares from the dirt in my nostrils being filtered out while blowing.

This could get a little messy during allergy season or when I have a stuffy nose.. maybe I should stop while I'm ahead of myself and let your imaginations run with that one.

Look out Bob Dylan fans, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

GREETING IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

I received the following email today. Gee, I really hope things work out for her - maybe if she lands this cash, she could take some spelling lessons and maybe even buy a keyboard that can do lowercase letters as well as caps.

Feel free to drop her an email at her private address she mentions to let her know that everything happens for a reason... Such as me receiving this email to post on my blog and poke fun at.

GREETING IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

I AM MRS MABEL NORA , A WIDOW TO LATE SHEIK MADU. I AM 61 YEARS OLD, I AM NOW A NEW CHRISTAIN CONVERT, SUFFERING FROM LONG TIME CANCER OF THE BREAST, FROM ALL INDICATION MY CONDITIONS IS REALLY DETERIORATING AND IT IS QUITE OBVIOUS THAT I WON’T LIVE MORE THAN SIX MONTHS, ACCORDING TO MY DOCTORS, THIS IS BECAUSE THE CANER STAGE HAS GOTTEN TO A VERY BAD STAGE. MY LATE HUSBAND KILLED DURING THE U.S. RAID AGAINST TERRORISM IN AFGHANISTAN, AND DURING THE PERIOD OF OUR MARRIAGE WE CULD’NT PRODUCE ANY CHILD.

MY LATE HUSBAND WAS VERY WEALTHY AND AFTER HIS DEATH, I INHERITED ALL HIS BUSINESS AND WEALTH. THE DOCTORS HAS ADVISED ME THAT I MAY NOT LIVE FOR MORE THAN SIX MONTHS, SO I NOW DECIDED TO DEVIDE THE PART OF THIS WEALTH, TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH IN AFRICA, AMERICA ASIA, AND EUROPE. I PRAYED OVER IT,. I AM WILLING TO DONATE THE SUM OF $5,000.000.00 MD U.S DOLLARS, TO THE LESS PRIVILEGED. PLEASE I WANT YOU TO NOTE THAT FUND IS LYING IN A SECURITY COMPANY AND UPON MY INSTRUCTION, MY ATTORNEY, WHO PRESENTLY IS IN AFRICA DISTRIBUTING RELIEF MATERIALS TO OF BOMBLAST IN SLERRA-LEONE, WILL FILE IN AN APPLICATION FOR THE TRANSFER OF THE MONEY IN YOUR NAME.

LASTLY, I HONESTLY PRAY THAT THIS MONEY WHEN TRANSFERRED WILL BE SURE FOR THE SAID PURPOSE, BECAUSE I HAVE COME TO FIND OUT THAT WEALTH ACQUISITION WITHOUT CHRIST IS VANITY. MAY THE GRACE OF OUR LORD JESUS THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE FELLOWSHIP OF GOD BE WITH YOU AND YOUR FAMILY I AWAIT URGENT REPLY.
YOURS IN CHRIST.
MRS MABEL NORA
REPLY ME WITH MY PRIVATE EMAIL:mothermabelnora003@yahoo.it