this may be the worst thing the bastard saw on saturday night

the bastard went to a wedding reception of some good friends who are truly happy together and i wish them all the luck in the world.

i say NONE of this in airquotes as a truly mean it.

it was a nice afternoon affair on the planet of brooklyn and good times were had by all. 

and that's where i should have left it. because i also wanted to see my friends band later that evening. and this is what opened.

sun ra is rolling in his grave. so will less claypool when i leave him face down in a ditch.

—the bastard

last night queens went to Brooklyn…

…and queens wrecked the joint




if queens had an advocate for her,

and if she really wanted one,

dean thrilla would be her man.

the bastard goes to shows once in a while,

but dean is the show. whenever I see his group he brings queens with him.

and the bastard isn't just talking about it in the spiritual sense

or the fact that he has a tattoo on his arm that says made in queens




but when his band plays, queens comes to him.

and that's what we did at the trash bar last night.

guys from the q borough came from as far as san francisco to see him.

well, he was visiting his mom in riverhead this week but, he did come from riverhead and that's like covering two coasts in one week just to go to Williamsburg.





he had joked after parking his ride that this wasn't his father's williamsburg but, the mayhem that followed made this into his father's Williamsburg for a couple hours

while spindly lady boys looked on from the sidelines.

it's nice to able to bring your house with you from place to place. i wonder if queens came to japan to tour with them last month.

—the bastard

holy crap!

malcolm mclaren died.

sodden bastard.

i wonder if john lydon will be dancing on his grave later this week.

—the bastard

two eyes from the east

tired.

so, as I mentioned earlier, the bastard mentioned meeting up with the past solely for the purposes of rocking.

it went down like this.

all comers were glad to be in each other's company musically after 20 years.

and we blew through our set list for the evening.

some of it was good and some of it went south for lack of knowing. I can safely say that it wasn't the bastard's best rendition of "over the mountain".

buy it was when we ran out of set list for the night.

and when we ran out of songs that we did together on a stage once upon a time on a spring night in 1987.

and we just

did shit

off of the top of our heads,

this was where the magic lies.

someone played a riff or a fill from our collective pasts and everyone else picked it up.

and we ran with it.

we fucking ran.

at some point in time we improvised our way through dio's "the last in line" and the bastard leaned his head against the microphone,

and held it back,

because I realized whose company I was in all those years ago and tonight and I was just so happy to be doing this again.

see how we shine.

—the bastard

I'm in the band lindy

so, needless to say

it isn't a good year.

well it depends on how you look at it

the bastard has the love of a good woman,

and a brand new baby girl,

and a job.

but, nothing but lint in the pockets.

so it's sort of a glacial existence.

what's a bastard to do?

yep, you guessed it.

get the band back together.

once upon a time, when I was a younger man, the bastard screamed into a microphone instead of at you.

and thanks to the virus that is facebook, I have reconnected with my bandmates from 1987ish?

the drummer wanted to get the band back together for the hell of it.

it made me think of the song, "common people"

you dance and drink and screw cause there's nothing else to do.

but this is something else to do.

so it'll be great fun i think.

—the bastard

...on stampedes

the bastard has seen the difference between mythology and reality today.

no i'm not talking about our president's cracked halo.

i'm talking about the simple shit.

made myth.

then made real ,

and not nearly as impressive as the myth.

you see, up until this morning, the bastard had an elephant living upstairs from me.

an elephant in high heel shoes.

KLOMP, KLOMP, KLOMP,

she stomps around her apartment as if she's doing jumping jacks in heels.

KLOMP, KLOMP, KLOMP,

as she does laps around her 455 square foot box.

CRASH, JANGLE, JANGLE,

as she lifts her entire closet off the ground and empties it onto the floor spreading what only sounds like a metric ton of wire hangers jangling all along the ground.

or broken glass

or a jar of loose change.

night after night, i hear her over my headphones while i watch tv on my laptop at 1 in the morning.

even when she takes off her shoes, she sounds like she's hammering nails into the floor.

she must have been enormous, or had concrete shoes, or just plain had heavy feet.

as the bastard walked out of his apartment this morning, upon closing the door, after hearing the tell tale galoomping out the door and the sound of a fire door being slammed 1 floor above as my door closed 1 floor down, i rushed to the elevator to see if i could fit into the car with this behemoth only to find a little girl standing there listening to her iphone before she goes to work.

i must have been mistaken.

ground floor, i do the right thing and let her leave the car first

and

CLACK, CLACK, CLACK,

she stomps right out of the building, leaving potholes all along 24th street, as if you leave a trail for her to get home by later.

it was kind of disappointing and it made sense in a way. i think i might have to leave a note asking her to take off her shoes after 11pm as she stomps like a wooly mammoth but, she sounds just as lound sans footwear.

oh well, that's apartment living for you.

—the bastard

...on descriptions

...special mine's bigger'n yours edition


"wow, this bathroom is less maintained than a truck stop"

"huh huh huh. yeah"

"nah, this bathroom is maintained like a philips 66 somewhere in northern pennsyvania"

"huh huh huh. yeah"

"yeah, and like you gotta go and get the key from some guy to get in"

"huh huh huh. yeah. and it's just a trough"

"yeah"

"huh huh huh. yeah"

ok guys, shut the hell up with your over describing. i'm trying to take a crap here. shut up. we don't need you to peripherally describe the group grope you were involved in while face down in a trough in a philips 66 station in northern pennsylvania. i'm sure it was a real dark period in your career as a journalism major in north bumblefuck university but, shut up. some of us like a little piece and quiet.

that is all.

—the bastard

...on the roar of the machine...the hat trick

this afternoon the bastard died a little inside.

red beard is getting his motorcycle license this summer and he has a little more

how you say,

liquidity.

so we went down the triumph dealership downtown and did some pricing and discussion.

and then i saw it.


right there.

you know, a day doesn't go by where i don't miss the scrambler. i wish i had the scratch to buy another one.

but you know, the day'll come.

funny thing is, the dealer and i spent most of the time talking about the merits of triumphs and bike accidents and the bastard finds that he doesn't worry about the hit, he worries about the next time the rubber meets the road.

soon motherfucker.

soon.

—the bastard

...on open roads

so the bastard is hitting the open road and the mofo has signed on as co-pilot.

19 hours

39 minutes

open road to kansas city.

for ribs and hostage exchanges.

we're picking up the boy in a most economical move which may add up to as little as 120 dollars in gasoline. and 120 dollars in hotel fees.

and murders.

lots of murders.

well maybe not. but there will be ribs.

lots of ribs.

—the bastard


P.S. don't worry, i'll still be blogging because that's what i do jerks!!!

more things the bastard saw at the hardcore show

the bastard doesn't get out often enough to see dean thrilla's band but, this show was in the making for close to a year i think.

i mean i haven't been down to this bar in a while, and the last time i was, another local act was getting back together.

let me back up a little bit: alot of the bastard's friends from the old hood have been in bands from time to time and while all of them have day jobs, some of them get together from time to time to play it again, at least one more time. the bastard never did but then again, he sucked at being in a band. that and baseball. but dean's band, no redeeming social value play quite regularly. in fact, they do well enough to sustain the band. yeah they won't get rich but, they generate enough cash to do the occasional tour of the netherlands or the eastern sea board. never very long. some of these guys have families that they want to be near.

so anyway, a while back, i was at fuzzy's (the bar where this all goes down), dean had been trying to get a show together with some of the local hardcore acts and the other band, well they were kind of holding out. but then they gave in and this show happened.

i haven't thought about it but they've been at this for 20 years. 20 years since this band was thought up in a former friend's basement. 20 years of some of the most ridiculous stage antics, i've ever seen this side of gwar. it was good times. and the bastard got to speak with some folks he hasn't seen in a great while.

—the bastard

my ears, MY EARS!!!!!

hey lady from the baby magazine people...

1: pay attention to where you are swinging that bag. you would be totally indignant if the same thing happened to you. it's an office, not a fucking roller derby arena.

2: stop yelling on your phone in the elevator.

3: why are you so goddam intense about buying your kid a tennis racket?

4: shut up!

5: go directly to hell.

thank you for playing. it's too bloody early for this. i know it isn't really, but it is.

—the bastard