The March 1999 REPORT

"The Grass is never greener on the other side. I'll stay right here and frolic in the dirt and gravel." From the Vandals song "Let the Bad Times Roll"

Time seems to have caught me by the ass and is pulling me into mid-age. It seems that the only time I feel old is either when someone reminds me or when the joints crack in the morning. The biggest fear of old age I have is that I'll stop changing and become boring. Being dull is the closest you'll ever come to being the living dead. Like that line in Repo Man where Harry Dean Stanton says sometime to the degree that he hate ordinary people. We all are deathly afraid of being normal but at the same time hope for acceptance of some kind. That pat on your back and the friends that seem to hang on your every word.

So, where do you stop growing and start to settle down? I almost did last year until the source of my need to settle down walked away. It happened so fast that it took a great deal of time to realize it. One day I'm family man and then after a 30 minute conversation on the phone, I'm swinging single again. I hate being single. It's too much work trying to convince one single person that you're worth dealing with. Let alone 30 or 40 other people. It's kinda like selling Amway. After a while you understand that you are your own best customer and even you wouldn't waste your time.Just who started this whole soul mate bull shit anyway? More then likely it was someone trying to figure out a way out of a good relationship and didn't want to fell like a horny asswhole wanting to score more tail. The thing is that too often, you find that the things that you are most different about, are nothing more then something you convinced yourself of. You're the asshole that sold you that bill of goods and it wasn't really that cool to begin with.

So, hit yourself in the forehead with the palm of your hand and move on. The biggest question is where to now. Just how do we formulate these directions we all seem to have regardless of how clueless we seem to be? Do we subconsciously flip a coin or spin a bottle? Do we jump on the first fever crazy thought that crosses our mind? Often I think we act like children trying to make sure that if things don't work out we have a way out. In the modern world we seem to have went out of our way to insure that there is always some loop whole. The thing that always in consent is that there is no true commitment. If there is a moto for the 90s it's "give up and don't blame yourself" or "Nothing is forever". One thing my ex told me the day things ended that has stuck in my mind is, "Good guys never win". Could it be the route of all my problems is that I look good in a white hat or at least think I look good in a white hat?

For the five or ten people that do equally read this month after month, I got the test results back and I'm a father. No more wondering but where from here? I feel like my life has been on hold for the past year and nothing has changed. Truth is that I don't feel like a father. I feel like a friend of the family and friend real isn't the right word. It's my own fault I guess because I saw the problems in her character long ago but I sold myself a bill of goods and tried to make the best of it. Though the thought of just giving up and moving on is on my mind daily, I still think I look good in that white hat.

Well on the what's been happening front. It's been a busy month of fun and stress. My 2 favorite things. March started with Coastersride from Japan and Real Estate Fraud on 3/4. REF left me a little less then satisfied and were not even good. Coastersride made up completely for the REF set. They are much in the vain of TeenGenerate. Loud driving fast R-N-R to get the heart spinning. They were fucking great but the low turn out pissed me off.

Next highlight has to be the Chicken Hawks/Short Fuses/Bastard Sons on 3/12. Bastard Sons have been playing out a great deal lately and I'm really growing tired of them. They tend to piss me off cause they have too many less then good songs to not bore the hell out of me. They're kinda a Cow Punk band but I don't understand why the funk keeps working it way into their sets. The Short Fuses are a punk-n-roll band from Minneapolis and simply put they rock. Much in the style of the Humpers or Loudmonths. The Chicken Hawks really need to be seen to feel the love. They came out and tore the place apart from the start with "Fuck Minneapolis". They were much more direct with less down time then the past. I noticed an increase of Peter's uses of the slide and a feeling that they maybe going into a more Gun Club direction.

A low point was Agent Orange's show being cancelled. I guess that someone broke out their window in St Louis and ripped off Mike Palms lyric books on the 13th. So they didn't get in contact with me until it was too late to keep the show on. I might add that some one also broke out my back window and stolid my Dickies Jacket. They missed all the CDs and other valuables in the front seat but that jacket meant a lot to me. I'll never understand thieves. What's the point of breaking a $150 window to get a $50 jacket?

I was lucky enough to get to check out the great Big Sandy and The Flyrite Boys at the Val Air. I only got to see the second set but it was more than worth it. Their Country Swing brought me back to seeing Hank Thompson about 10 years ago. If you get a chance go see them. The crowd was odd, I think that this whole Swing thing has ran it's course and I think those people will dance to anything.

Well all for now see ya next month.

DaVo March 23, 1999