An Error Has Occurred!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I gave up on this project a while ago because I don't want any more surprises.

[Freeky]

I gave up because nothing was happening. Not that I'm surprised, but I would guess that day after day of "nothing to reprot" would get old.

[Doktor Howl]

Doesn't really matter.

This is LMNO's house now.

[Freeky]

Yup.

[Jasper]

ITT Eris surprises us with good content out of nowhere.

[LMNO]

Day 14:

So, I have a moustache.  It's fairly substantial, a full-on Selleck, and I have every intention of getting a handlebar out of that fucker.  It's getting there, but for now it's just one big bushy bastard.  It all started when my wife got a necklace with a small Lucite cutout of a handlebar moustache.  It's cute as hell, and we joked about how it emasculated me when she wears it, because, you know, moustache.  Over the next few months, we joked about it with our friends, and I would say, "What do you think, should I grow a handlebar?"  Well, I don't know if she realized it, but what it came down to is that she agreed to it on at least three separate occasions.  That's a green light in my book.

Reaction to this experiment has been largely one-sided.  Almost every guy I know really digs on the moustache.  They love what I'm doing.  On the other hand, only a few women are into it.  Most of them just giggle and roll their eyes.  However, the ones that like it really like it.  I'm not sure why it breaks down like that.  Are the guys seeing it as some prominent display of masculinity?  Maybe just a defiance of convention?  Perhaps I remind the guys of the Swedish Porn of their youth; a happier, simpler time when girls weren't made of silicone, and boys had never heard the word "manscape".  Maybe the women realized what it would feel like kissing that prickly caterpillar of hair (and maybe one or two got turned on by it).

Sad to say, the wife is not a fan.  She's sticking it out due to pride, and because she's got a good sense of humor and gets a kick seeing all her guy friends flipping out for it.  Plus, I sold her on the idea of going to the beach in a 1920's bathing suit, handlebar standing proud.  Anyway, the end result so far is that I look like either an undercover cop, or a cranky old Russian man.  It tends to dominate the face, drawing most of the attention away from the rest of my face.  Honestly, sometimes when I stumble into the bathroom just after waking up, I do a double-take in the mirror, thinking I'm wearing some sort of costume or disguise.  

It came in handy yesterday, too.  I was going to play a show that night, and I wanted to stop off at the local music store to pick up some sticks and a guitar stand for one of the other guys in the band.  The place was a one-stop-shop.  Guitars lined the wall on one side, drumsets were laid out across the floor, and there were separate rooms for keyboards and audio equipment.  I wandered over to the guitars, looking for a cheap stand, and this guy approached me.  He looked older than me, and was obviously the "faded rocker" type.  Black denim jeans, a white T-shirt, leather vest, and hair that had been bleached, fried, and slept-on.  I'm not sure if he thought he looked good, or if this was just the standard uniform for music store guitar salesmen.  He asked with the eagerness of someone who works on commission, "Hey there!  What can I help you get?"

I told him I was only there for a guitar stand, and he pointed one out which was cheap enough.  I made to grab it, and then he said, "You know, you look familiar.  You come in here a lot, don't you?"

There, right there, was when I knew something about this guy, thanks to the moustache.  For starters, I go to that store only a couple of times a year, and I've only had this thing for a couple of months now, so there was no way in hell he actually recognized me.  The guy was feeding me a line, trying to game me.  I shook my head, put down the stand, and said, "Nah, I'm not around that much.  Just, you know, picking up a few things."

"No, man, I know you.  Watchmaker."

"Excuse me?"

"Watchmaker.  Sealing wax."  His eyes didn't look ok.  They were a pale blue, but the whites around it had a dirty yellow tint, and were shot through with blood vessels.  He opened them wider. "Heavy.  Heavy water overload."

I stepped back and looked around, but it seemed that this part of the store was empty.  "Well, ok, I'm just gonna get this then..."

"Anthropoid!  Delta Delta!  With the anticipation and the damage."  His jaw was clenched tightly, grinding his teeth together.  Maybe he was on some weird coke binge, or something.  I tried to step around him, doing my "deferring monkey" dance, trying to avoid whatever kind of crazy he was living through.  "Murky!  Asphalt dreams for the new kingdom of paperclip," he leered, cutting me off.  His lips had drawn back tightly against his gums, and I could see his teeth in a stained grinding grin.

"Damn the man, damn the man, damn the man, damn the man, kill the king and swim away," he hissed.  His right hand tightened into a fist, and he started beating it against his thigh, in time with his words.  "Beasts of prey and feast to pray – and beatings to all who stay."  He took a step forward, and I heard a cracking sound.  One of his pre-molars had snapped under the strain of his jaw, leaving a jagged stump that oozed blood onto his lower lip, and out the corner of his mouth.

"Have you come to end the game and wind the watch to say the name to-which-we-will-all-play and play and play and pay and pay to stay –"  

He lunged at me and I jumped back, right into the wall full of guitars.  I turned, grabbing a Les Paul sunburst by the neck, and swung around, the gorgeous Bigsby tailpiece catching him square on the side of the head with a crunch.  Two more of his teeth shattered, and his lacerated scalp sprayed blood across the wall. He dropped to the floor, limbs twitching.  His tongue snaked out to lick his bloody lips, and his teeth clamped down again, severing it cleanly as a butcher.  Blood welled from his mouth as he ranted incoherently, his right eye becoming completely red from the burst veins.  I dropped the guitar and leapt over the body, wiping my hands on my jeans and heading for the door.  Next time, I'm going to Guitar Center.  Fuck the additional cost.

[Doktor Howl]

Shit yeah.

LMNO, I want to use this stuff in the Audio Book of the Dead later, if you're interested.

[LMNO]

Sure thing.  Once my 30 days are up, I'm going to write an intro, and give it a proper setting.

[Reginald Ret]

LMNO, I would like for your 30 days to go into The Audio Book of the Dead, as an independent chapter.

Shit yeah.

LMNO, I want to use this stuff in the Audio Book of the Dead later, if you're interested.

Forgetful or just trying to make sure the message got through?

[Doktor Howl]

LMNO, I would like for your 30 days to go into The Audio Book of the Dead, as an independent chapter.

Shit yeah.

LMNO, I want to use this stuff in the Audio Book of the Dead later, if you're interested.

Forgetful or just trying to make sure the message got through?

Senile.

[Reginald Ret]

LMNO, I would like for your 30 days to go into The Audio Book of the Dead, as an independent chapter.

Shit yeah.

LMNO, I want to use this stuff in the Audio Book of the Dead later, if you're interested.

Forgetful or just trying to make sure the message got through?

Senile.

ok
I find it fascinating that people under 30 say they are forgetful or had too much to drink in the meantime, but people over 30 say they are getting old or senile :P
In reality it is more a matter of focus and interest in 99.9% of the cases.


back on topic:
i got sexytime about two weeks ago, and recently found out she gave me an STD.
It's cured now, but damn you eris!



Regret,
educated on the importance of protection.

[LMNO]

Day 15:

I was a little nervous the night of our show.  I usually am, whenever I'm gonna do something extroverted in public.  The excitement always drowns it out, but it's been there for as long as I can remember.  It may be trite to say that it's a fear of rejection, but that feels right to me.  You're going in front of strangers, even a bunch of friends, and you're going to offer your talent to them.  You want them to love what you do as much as you do, but there's a greater fear that they will mock you, judge you, and abandon you.

Some have said that Punk was a way of turning the tables, of giving the audience the finger, making the relationship adversarial, that it created a situation where audience approval wasn't needed.  I disagree.  Punk merely had a different target, and the people receiving the abuse were part of the show, not the audience.  Punk still had a fan base, and it soon became clear (even as far back as '78) that the original fear of rejection dynamic still existed between the bands and the fans.

Coming up through the years, I came to the conclusion early on that people may not like what I did, but I was the one up there doing it.  I was certainly aware that I wasn't even close to the best drummer in the world; hell, I usually wasn't even the best drummer in the club that night.  But if people didn't like what I was playing, they were more than able to start their own band.  I was never embarrassed with what I was performing, so I was always confident that this is what I wanted to do, whether it was art-punk, shoegazer electro-pop, free noise, tribal goth, fetish industrial, or indie rock. 

(As an exception to the rule, there was one performance where I was embarrassed by the material, and turned out to be a mortifying disaster; but it wasn't musically related, and besides, that's another story entirely.)

We were pretty psyched to play this club.  It wasn't that big a show, but it was the first time the band as a whole got a decent sound system, and a guy behind the board who knew what he was doing.  Our shows to that point had consisted of smaller bars that had a PA for vocals, and that was it.  They were noisy, messy affairs, with feedback and level issues that robbed us of a really good sound.  I could say that it helped us, though, as we had to pull back and listen to each other more, tighten up, and (believe it or not), learn to play softer.  It's harder than it sounds, and counterintuitive to The Rawk.  But if everyone keeps turning the volume knobs higher, it becomes a huge fucking mess – which is great if that's the sound you're going for.  But sometimes intensity is measured in the interplay between the instruments, and in the dynamic and song arc.  Having a soundman who could hear what things sounded like on the other side of the mics can be fairly important in that way.

We're all pretty laid-back people, so sound check was easy enough. No one was trying to pull "more me" ego-wanking games with the monitors, or complicating matters by tweaking their sound for half an hour while everyone waits around until the exact distortion frequency is reached.  There wasn't much more to do except wait until showtime.  So, we had a couple of beers, it being a bar and all.  The place slowly started to fill up, and some of our friends made their appearances, which was nice.  If we drew a big enough crowd, the booker for the club wouldn't be wary of asking us back.  It was getting near time to play, so I headed towards the back to take a piss.  It sucks to be playing a show with a full bladder.  Distracting, you know?

The bathroom was typical rock club:  A urinal, a stall next to it with a full toilet, never used as such due to the... residue... that collects around toilets when dozens of guys use it every night.  Plus, there was no door on the stall, and a lot of guys don't really want to be taking a shit while being watched.  The tiled floor was damp and smelled faintly of bleach, the only concession towards "cleaning" the staff made.  As usual, best to touch as few things as possible.  I stepped up to the urinal as a guy walked in behind me and went into the stall.  The splashing sound proved he wasn't pee shy, and apparently he didn't have very good aim, either.  I finished, buttoned up, and turned to the sink, wondering which was cleaner, the faucets or my dick?  I had decided that, in fact, it would be more sanitary not to wash my hands and turned to go, when I heard the guy mutter, "What the fuck?" 

I didn't want to look, but then I heard him grunt in pain, and I had to turn back.  I saw a tentacle coming out of the toilet, and had grabbed the guy straight in the crotch.  The tentacle was a dark eggplant color, purple-black, with suckers running along the underside.  With a crash, the toilet lid hit the floor as another tentacle emerged from the tank, and shot out at the guy's head like a whip.  His white baseball cap flew off as the tentacle wrapped around his neck, choking off his cry of pain as the tentacle in his crotch writhed and pulled.  Drops of blood were staining his faded jeans as the suckers grasped for purchase, and then lifted him off the ground and slammed him into the wall. 

Another tentacle emerged from the bowl, and wrapped around his left arm.  His face was bright red from being strangled and suspended in the air, and his eyes were wide, bugged out.  There was a tearing sound as the tentacle around his arm pulled, and separated the sleeve of his denim jacket from his body.  Along with his entire arm.  The guy jerked and flopped in agony while the tentacle tried to drag his severed arm into the toilet bowl.  Blood rained down onto the floor and a fourth tentacle came out of the tank, wrapping around his waist.  His body was thrown to the floor, and then tossed into the air again, the tentacles ripping at his skin.  The bathroom looked like a slaughterhouse, and I finally saw the light go out in his eyes, his body going limp. 

The tentacle in his crotch finally seemed to tear through, and shoved itself into his abdomen.  His stomach distended and bulged.  It pulled out, the very end having wrapped itself around his intestines, which extended now from his crotch like an obscene pull-string for some gruesome doll.  I heard a tearing, popping sound, and the guy's head fell to the floor, and rolled under the toilet, coming to rest in the palm of his severed arm.  I slowly backed out of the bathroom, trying not to call any attention to myself, when I felt someone grab me.  I spun around, face to face with my bassist.  "Come on," he said, "We're on.  Let's rock this fucker."

[bds]

I swear these just keep getting better, LMNO.

[LMNO]

Day 16 – 17:

After work, I decided to head to this Greek restaurant my friends had been telling me about.  There was apparently a live band that played some really excellent traditional music, and the food was said to be superb.  Well, why the hell not?  I could use a few glasses of wine and some good music.  When I was young, my parents took me to Greece, and I remember having a great time visiting the ruins where the myths supposedly took place, like the place where Persephone was dragged down to the underworld by Hades, or the palace of King Minos.  It was also one of the first times I got drunk on cheap wine, which is something I will always almost remember.

The restaurant was a bit outside the city proper, tucked away in an alley off a main thoroughfare where cars sped by, racing between major population centers, disregarding anything they had to pass through on their way between what they considered "culture".  The door was sheltered by a dark green awning trimmed with white Christmas lights framing the name of the place, "Prosechō".  I walked in and was immediately greeted by the smells of a wood-fire grill, and the sound of a bouzouki in the hands of a skilled player, winding out a complex melody.  I was seated up near the musicians, and ordered a glass of red wine as I took the menu.

They had all the traditional Mediterranean fare, and some more interesting foods as well.  I ordered some grilled smelts, soujuk (a spicy dry sausage), some grape leaves wrapped around rice and ground lamb, and sat back to watch the band play.  In addition to the bouzouki, there was a clarinet player who had a fairly serious delay pedal stretching his sound to the farthest reaches of what could be considered normal, and a drummer who was throwing in solid, heavy beats to drag it all back down to earth.  On top of all that, the bouzouki player would also sing melodies in a language that I thought sounded Greek, though I couldn't be sure; all I could tell was that this was all wrapped up in a musical tradition far older than any music you usually hear these days.  I was startled as the air burst into flame beside me, and then I grinned – they were serving halloumi, an extremely firm cheese with a high melting point that allows it to be doused with ouzo or brandy and set on fire, charring it.  The staff here obviously knew how to put on a show, so they were in the habit of adding more alcohol than was strictly needed, sending flames several feet into the air.  What next?

As it turns out, dancers.  Every so often, a young woman in traditional belly dancing garb would emerge from a doorway and display particular skills in movement and flexibility to the delight of the crowd, a mix of men and women (but there seemed to be quite a few older men).  In what was explained to me as a traditional Greek tradition, if you liked what the dancer was doing, you could give them money; however, there was an art to it.  Everyone seemed to have a different way of doing it, whether throwing it in the air, or rapidly dealing it off a stack of ones, or holding two bundles of it and letting it slip through your fingers.  It was interesting to watch how, depending on how they offered the money, the meaning seemed to change.  Sometimes it was a celebration of the music and the dance, and sometimes it got a little creepy and demeaning, like a strip club, a literal "money shot" in the girl's face.  The floor was eventually covered in cash like confetti after a parade, the band never missing a beat, the dancer's feet sure and confident.  I was feeling pretty mellow after several glasses of wine and a belly full of fish and meat, and I settled in to see the rest of the show

The tempo slowed, and a wizened old man stepped up to the mic.  He was thin, with a long beard.  He closed his dark, glittering eyes, and opened his mouth to let out a long, low wail of a note.  Where the music before was old, this sounded ancient.  The clarinet came in as a harmony, and the interplay with the old man's voice was haunting.  The drummer laid down a throbbing pulse, and the bouzouki plucked out a polyrhythmic pattern that both pulled the beat forward and laid it firmly into the ground.  The dancer, meanwhile, had slowed her movements as well, and now was moving simply, gently bending her arms into soft shapes and gracefully twirling her hips.  Her half-lidded eyes looked around the room, resting on a large man in a white linen suit.  She glided over to him and slipped a veil off of her shoulders, playfully wrapping it around his neck.  With a leer he stood up, and she stepped lightly backwards, leading him to the center of the floor.

He seemed to know whatever eons-old song was playing, moving his feet with an agility and grace that belied the bulk he was carrying on his frame.  A few rapid arpeggios from the bouzouki brought the pace up, and the young girl weaved suggestive steps around the man, who gave a predatory grin as his feet never stopped their insistent tattoo, matching the rhythms of the band exactly.  Sweat beaded up on his forehead, and he hunched forward slightly.  The girl dropped to her knees facing the audience, her back to the man whose suit jacket bulged out between his shoulders, tearing at the seam running down the back to expose a chitinous shell-like surface.  With a look of concentration, she slowly rose from her knees as if in slow motion, her arms spreading wide as, behind her, the man's suit split open from the sides as hundreds of insectoid legs sprang out, waving in time to the music, which had grown in intensity, dissonant notes now arguing with the insistent melody.  The man's head was rolling in circles on his neck, and his mouth opened wide, then stretched wider as a pair of mandibles forced their way out. 

The old singer let out a sharp cry, and the creature's legs grabbed the girl from behind and with a single movement, tore her filmy costume from her body.  She let out a gasp as her firm breasts swung free in the air, her nipples hard and pointed.  The band was playing furiously now and the clarinet wailed as the girl continued dancing, lost in the moment.  Her bare hips swayed and twitched and her stomach undulated to the unearthly music.  The creature behind her reared up towards the ceiling and swooped down upon her again.  But this time, her eyes rolled back into her head in ecstasy and let a moan escape her throat as the centipede legs didn't wrap around her, but plunged into her skin, burrowing in her torso. 

The old bearded man was shrieking into the mic as the drummer began a crescendo of rhythms, each competing with the other for dominance, and the bouzouki player's fingers were a blur of movement, shards of notes thrown into the air like broken pieces of glass.  The dancer started to shake as the legs dug deeper into her body, rivulets of blood dripping down her muscular legs.  The music, amazingly, continued building in intensity until all the sounds converged into a single, torturous sound that seemed to last an eternity.  And then, as if a switch were thrown, they went silent.

No one moved.

I thought I had gone deaf, except I could hear the girl panting, as if she was nearing an mind-blowing orgasm.  Then, with a groan, the creature threw his dozens of legs open, ripping the girl in half.  Blood sprayed into the air like a red cloud.  Her ribs had broken away, and she was completely exposed, her organs spilling out onto the floor like cattle in a slaughterhouse.  With a cheer from the crowd, handfuls of money were thrown into the air, heavy with smoke from the halloumi and thick with the smell of fresh blood.  Her body fell to the floor, among the piles of money coated and spattered with blood, with more bills fluttering down on top of her, sticking to her skin.  The overhead lights dimmed, and I was approached by a waiter, who handed me my check, thanking me for coming in.  Next time, maybe I'll just order a pizza.

[Doktor Howl]

I can't wait to see what day 30 is going to be like.