What And Quit Show Business? Pt. 3

From Rancid To Swabbies on Friday May 6.
Last night, the nice lady across the street said of our noisy Monday night rehearsals, "Your band is starting to sound really good. We enjoy listening to it. Are you playing anywhere?"
I told her were were scheduled to play at Swabbies on Friday, May 6, from 7 to 10 pm. Then she asked us if we were available to play a house party she's hosting on in May, but we already have a gig booked - a private party. We're in demand! Now I know how The Beatles felt when Ed Sullivan called.
The neighbors have not complained about the band at all, or even mentioned it casually. ("Our tomatoes are really coming in good, except for the ones that exploded during that guitar solo the other night, of course.")
"Anyway," the neighbor lady said, "it's really sounding good. I mean, when you first started..."
"It was pretty rancid," I said, reading her thoughts.
"Well, rancid, I don't know about that," she said. "But there has been a progression."
I Should Hit You, Drummer!
Despite the way I portray myself and Kenton in these pages, we're actually decent human beings who have never put metal in a microwave or started a nuclear war. We fight a lot in the context of the band, but these beefs never spill over into our personal relationship outside the band, which remains cordial, as in "It would be most cordial of you to stop choking me now."
Without a doubt, Some Kind of Monster is the best movie ever made about the subject of band fights. It's even better than the audio tape of The Troggs arguing as they attempt to record a follow-up to their hit single "Wild Thing." This tape, which must be the source that inspired This is Spinal Tap, features the immortal line, "I should hit you, drummer."
My one-line review for Some Kind of Monster is, "It's just like pre-school, except with rich guys and electric guitars." Relationships between the members of Metallica are so bad they have to bring in a psychologist/performance coach to help them resolve their issues! We should definitely do this! Except the guy charges $40,000 a month! Do you know how many drums you can buy with a budget of $40,000 a month? Several!
The best scene: drummer Lars Ulrich screams "Fuck!" directly into the face of James Hetfield. Their faces are so close together that Hetfield can smell the breakfast burrito Ulrich consumed two days earlier.
Some Kind of Monster teaches an important lesson: band fights are even more important to rock and roll success than bulge-outlining tight pants. Conflict means progress. Just like in marriage. Except in bands, the post-fight make-up sex isn't as good, most because everyone is exhausted from carrying the drums around.
Learning "Bad Little Doggie" got us to stretch ourselves while squeezing the pus out of the giant swelling carbuncle of unspoken tensions. ("Squeezing The Pus Out of The Giant Swelling Carbuncle of Unspoken Tensions" would be a great title for a self-help best seller, to be followed by "Never Wear White Pants to a Farting Contest And Other Life Lessons.") It was a necessary phase we had to pass through, such as adolescence or death. (The difference between adolescence and death is that death does not require the purchase of pimple medicine.)
It was a learning experience. I hate learning experiences. Learning experiences are the root canal of life. You never learn anything good about yourself. You never discover hidden talents or capacities slumbering inside of yourself, such as the ability to solve word problems or dunk a basketball. You only learn that you're a bitter, angry, tiny, resentful, negative, self-absorbed creep - a condition psychologists now call "Major Butt Hole Disorder," or MBHD.
Kenton and I both experienced MBHD before, during and after the Melissa Surprise 40th Birthday Party Gig as the carbuncle of unspoken tensions swelled to roughly the size of a mini-van. This story will have to wait, since I have rambled on too long. I know have to do my regular job, which is writing advertising. Yes - I write stuff that's even dumber than this Blog.