Happy 4th!

"He who goes forth on the Fourth with a fifth will not go forth on the fifth." Well, by God, America celebrates yet another birthday (232, but who's counting?). I'm alive & kickin, too- living proof of that was showing up last weekend to sing the Cornbugs' "Dust N Bones" at the Combichrist show at the Avalon in LA! I'm no industrial-strength rocker like Combi's Andy, Joe & company, but I can bust a move when the music's right. Thinkin' the other day about the rooftop Shoe Gorilla that used to loom large over the old Payless store at Western & Santa Monica. Another example of corporate down-sizing? Hell, it was just a big rubber balloon filled with air. Are things so bad here that they have to deflate the symbols as well as the payrolls? And even as we speak, Moe, the 42-year-old chimp who uses a toilet and eats with knife & fork, is on the lam in the San Bernadino (CA) national forest after escaping from his "state-of-the-art" monkey cage a couple of days ago. You might remember the last time Moe made headlines: His human "parents" were celebrating his birthday w/ a cake several years ago at Moe's wildlife hotel when two teenage chimps, angry over not being included in the festivities, sprung the lock on their cage and attacked Moe's folks, biting off his "father"'s nose and genitals before being shot dead by the owner of the place. Not sure how I got there from "Happy 4th," people. Suffice it to say, I'm proud to be an American (but don't trust a monkey)!

8:21 AM - 41 Comments - 64 Kudos - Add Comment

R.I.P., USA?

What the hell's going on these days? Stock market crashing, gas nearly five bucks a gallon out here in sunny CA; are we winning our wars or what? Read on a message board for yet another shell-shocked bank that America is dying, that we're a "dead man walking." Is that just part of globalization-gone-mad? Are things worth more, or is it just that the dollar's worth less? The money's got to be going somewhere- so what language do we need to learn to speak to our new owners? Arabic? Chinese? Russian? Is democracy just inefficient, obsolete? At least the Supreme Court reaffirmed our right to bear arms! I mean, sh*t, the way things are going, a body needs to shoot something just to relieve some of this tension! Me? I'm cool. My union's contract expires in a few days, so maybe you can add strike to all this nonsense (I do play a mean paint can out there on the picket line). But I got Mr Hanky on my shoulder; the chihuahua drug in another cat turd this morning; took my 9-year-old to her first baseball game last night at Dodger Stadium. Yep, life's good.

9:17 AM - 127 Comments - 128 Kudos - Add Comment

"After all the jacks are in their boxes/

and the clowns have all gone to bed/" Thinkin about Jimi again as I re-adjust to hot hot Los Angeles after spending quality time in the borough of Manhattan (Charles Band Road Show) and Monroeville, PA, (Horrorhound convention) last week and weekend. Today I've hit the gym, the bank, et some chicken wings and salad, done the laundry, brushed the cats, and now I'm thinkin about what it takes to get disqualified from Emergency Exit Row (EER) duty on any given U.S. airplane. Sure, if you can't open and lift out a 40-lb. door, you shouldn't sit there; if you're hearing- or sight-impaired, if you can't speak or understand English, it's nothing personal, but grab one of the reclining seats. That makes perfect sense- you need able-bodied and able-minded people to help others evacuate from a burning/sinking aircraft! But dig this- according to the seatback safety card, you're also disqualified from occupying EER seats if you're carrying an "Emotional Support Animal"!! A what?! But, yeah, that, too, makes sense: If the passengers need you to open the door, help them onto the wing, etc., and you've got a kitten or a little weasel in your lap to keep you from FREAKING OUT at 33,000 feet, you're gonna be NO GOOD TO US! Now, I'm all for emotional support animals- God knows i have a few- but when the plane's taking on water, the flames are licking up the aisle, and you're scrabbling on the floor looking for your pygmy zoid-clopper (or whatever floats your emotional boat), BLOCKING the PANICKING PASSENGERS who are trying to EXIT... get outta the f&%kin' way, Jerry! Leave the little furball and follow us down the rubber slide, dammit! Whoops, I'm getting a little worked up here. Better go de-caf!

6:03 PM - 48 Comments - 50 Kudos - Add Comment

Eureka!

means "I have found it!" in Greek, and no matter what tongue you choose, my bag finally made it home this afternoon (Wednesday). Got a call yesterday from a woman at the American Air counter in Madison, WI, informing me that my hithertofore lost bag was sitting there next to her. She seemed genuinely surprised to learn that the other end of the call- me- was in Los Angeles! So American put my blue rollerboard on a flight or two, United drove it out from LAX, and voila! I got my bag back after last seeing it when i checked it in Sunday morning! Good news is a) it's back, and b) everything's still in it! And by golly, I'll be back in the air next Tuesday, headed first to NYC for another stop on the Charlie Band Road Show, and then onto Pittsburgh for the Horrorhound convention June 20-22! Am I pressing my luck? Does the chihuahua love cat turds? Is it going to be an all-Chicago World Series? Who the hell knows, but the Great Journey starts with one small suitcase.

8:55 PM - 40 Comments - 56 Kudos - Add Comment

cold coffee and an earful of bad jazz

back home in sunny LA, it's just past noon on Monday, and I'm on hold with United Airlines trying to find my lost bag! There's cold coffee in my porcelain mug, United piano theme music banging straight into my brain like a needle into Amy's inky arm. It was just my time in the barrel yesterday, I say to myself, and it looks like yesterday's stretched into today. 11 hours in O'Hare yesterday, two canceled AA flights to Madison, WI, an hour delay on United 129 to LA because the flight attendants were late, LAX by 2:30am, 25 more minutes in line waiting to file a lost luggage claim, Jimi Hendrix' "The Wind Cries Mary" swirling through the empty airport, wirling through my tired brain. Oh, hallelujah, here's a rep- uh, oh, she's got an accent: Can you say "outsource"? Well, I don't care where I'm calling or to whom, as long as I get my rollerboard back- and as long as that infernal swelling United hero music stays stopped! Oh, shit, now she's saying that there's "no further information" about my little suitcase. I imagine it languishing in some dark baggage claim corner in O'Hare, frightened, alone, full of Otis photos and Cornbugs CDs, sniff, sniff, not to mention my Purple Aces sweatshirt! What to do? It's a tossup between playing Disraeli Gears and Tommy James' Greatest Hits. And the winner is...."Draggin' the Line." Hit it, TJ!

1:49 AM - 37 Comments - 45 Kudos - Add Comment

Happiness is a Rainy Day in Chicago

On my way to O'Hare this morning to catch a flight to Madison, WI, I realized that I was happy. I was riding shotgun in an airport shuttle heading out from the Loop on Interstate 90, looking out the window at train tracks, pigeons roosting in the rusted beams of overhead trestles, rain-green grasses and summer trees, a night at the Abbey Theatre with the Charlie Band Road Show behind me, tonight's stop in Madison ahead. Happy- it don't take much. Happy to see my older brother, Bruce, last night, happy he got to see Charlie's half-naked Poontang Girls backstage, happy to be back in my home town, hell, I'm even happy here at O'Hare, my noon flight canceled by tornadoes to the north, the 3pm flight just bumped to 4:45. It's only a 45-minute ride, so what's the prob? I'll get there with time to spare. I found a bratwurst for lunch, just swallowed a Cinabon to satisfy my sweet tooth. It's funny, 'cause I'm sitting here next to a beautiful woman- a married woman- who slyly watched me consume my sticky mound of sugary goodness only to order her hubby to fetch her one when he returned from his wanderings. I read online somewhere that since "Rejects" I've done 20 movies! God, can that be true? Well, I could try to remember em, or we could all just go to imdb.com and look it up. Either way, I love the Midwest, love these big plane-scaring storms that make the skies unfriendly. Holy sh*t, the rock on the woman's finger is almost as big as her Cinabon! Oh, well, you don't have to be rich to be happy...right?

1:47 AM - 48 Comments - 63 Kudos - Add Comment

Hell Before Breakfast

I'm hungry, need a slab or two of my homemade French toast before I head back out into the world. Lady in a silver Camry XLE (?) cut me off this a.m., but she used her turn signal, so I didn't have to riddle her with my hood-mounted machine guns! It's those bargey drivers who think you're a mind-reader- or don't think at all- who get my trigger finger twitchin'. And being hungry doesn't help, especially with a bellyful of Costa Rican coffee- black- and a head full of undigested dreams. I sleep pretty good, soundly in fact, no conscience rats gnawing my cute pink brain, no sleep apnea squeezing my nose, making me sound like a fart pillow or a wounded beast. My French toast is easy to make: two eggs, a splash of whole milk, beaten and dusted with cinnamon and beaten again. I sop up the mess with a slice of white, drop it in the fry pan (stick or non-stick? Oh, I sweated over that choice!), cook it until it's got liver spots like the back of a nonagenarian's hand, slather it with real butter, drown it in real maple syrup, and yum yum yum, down the hatch! I'm a wrap on "The Graves," had a ball in Seattle at last week's Crypticon, saw Mom in her board-and-care in beautiful Bozeman, Montana, and today I've got a mountain of laundry to do. The hell is getting up early to take my 9-year-old to the bus, and breakfast? That's now!

9:29 AM - 57 Comments - 77 Kudos - Add Comment

Tom Cruise Ship

Beatin' my tom- no, not my cat, my voodoo drum! It's makin' the neighbors nervous 'cause they don't know what to expect: Is it just Bill workin' out his libido? Or is it Choptop tenderizin' some poor letter carrier? Or maybe Otis bangin' out a new piece of art? It's Tuesday, that i do know. The sun is shinin' out past my dirty blinds; I can't see no cops out there with guns drawn, just the garbage truck lurchin', clankin,' feedin' itself with its long green claw. Bang, there goes my older kid's futon into the belly of the ten-wheeled beast. I feel that-somehow, some way. It's like a part of me is tossed out with that dusty old flop. Bang boom bomp- sadness away, stay away; quit tuggin' at the corners of my eyes. Big voodoo in the big hand drum that i carted home all the way from Haiti. I used to fly there- American Air to Port-au-Prince. Man, i love Haiti, still send checks to Ecole St. Vincent, a school for handicapped children not far from the dazzling white grand palace in good ol' P-A-P. Love the spirit there, the danger & the mystery. Can you smell romance in that declaration? I got a painted papier-mache tiger on one wall, a lion on another here in my abattoir, both from Haiti, both poised to spring and tear out my heart if i go soft. Bang boom bomp- slappin' the bongos, shakin' the hard-bark Haitian bean pod full of loud dried seeds. it's a Tuesday rhythm, a salute to May thirteen, to the gods and devils that call the tune. My blood is red, my veins are blue. Go figure.

9:42 AM - 28 Comments - 43 Kudos - Add Comment

(Somewhere) Between Polk Salad Annie & Cloverfield

"Polk Salad Annie/ Gator's got yer granny..." Now that song's all up in my head, Friday morning, 5/2/08. My coughing kid's off to the doctor with her mom; Mr Hanky's nuzzling in the crook of my left arm- OW! he's not nuzzling, he's feeding! And here i thought conures were vegetarian. "Everybody thought it was a shame/ 'Cause her mama was a'workin' on a chain gang/A wretched, spiteful, straight-razor-totin woman/ Lawd, have mercy." Tony Joe White...i think Elvis covered "Polk Salad Annie" during his Vegas years. Never saw the King- that must have been sweet watching him in action. i did see "Cloverfield" last night, absolutely loved it! Tobe Hooper's son, Tony, lent it to me, told me- a big Godzilla fan- that after watching "Cloverfield" I'd be saying, "Godzilla who?" I snorted, scoffed, said "I doubt it," but he was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! I'd say Godzilla has a lot more personality than Cloverfield; I certainly know which one of em would go farther on "American Idol," but "Cloverfield" was so intense, so nightmarish, that I had to watch it again & again, bring in the family and make THEM watch it ("chomp, chomp"). Shit, my older kid turns 21 on Cinco de Mayo ("chomp, chomp"); I'm doing a movie called "The Graves" starting May 18 in AZ ("chomp, chomp"); and Uncle Miltie finally cashed my $4 check, so i guess he'll be sending my ailing 9-year-old some ants for her Ant Farm ("chomp, chomp, chomp!").

8:41 AM - 53 Comments - 68 Kudos - Add Comment

Cuts Like a Knife

Taking younger daughter to school this a.m.- she was up all night coughing her darn head off, missed the bus this morning- but she still wanted to go rather than stay home and be "bored to death." As we talked about ways to die- fiery quick-death spectacles vs slow, wasting deaths like staying home from school (!)- I spied a red-capped woodpecker pecking away on the trunk of a Beverly Hills palm. I pulled the car over, slid back the sun roof, and we enjoyed the sights and sounds of not one, but two Hairy woodpeckers at work. I dropped the kid off at school, then decided to hit the traffic-jammed freeways back home just to enjoy rush hour (I was in no hurry), make random cell phone calls with my excess minutes and listen to Prince's "Purple Rain" CD- most enjoyable! Yeah, yeah, but what i really wanted to crow about was getting my knife back yesterday from the Indianapolis TSA! I had it in a belt sheath when I hit the airport in March on my way back from the Horrorhound convention, forgot I was wearing it until i was stripping to go through security. Crap, i thought, that's how i lost my Leatherman a couple of weeks earlier in Philly returning from Monster Mania! Back then, I figured the jig was up, so w/o a word to the Man, i just tossed the Leatherman in the nearest trash barrel. Now, I love my knife- a 5-inch Gerber slingblade, gift from a girl i met at my Ripley's Haunted Attraction appearance last year in beautiful Gatlinburg, TN! Anyway, this time I told a TSA official that i had the knife, wanted to keep it. He took me out of line, around a corner to an iron box, told me to fill out a form, include a $10 bill, and CheckPoint Mailers would send it back to me. I figured yeah, sure, imagined some TSA person laughing at my naivete, sectioning an orange with MY KNIFE, but folks, I actually got it back!!!! That's no endorsement of any political party, government bureaucracy, etc, but a simple statement of faith rewarded. Life is worth living after all. What i still can't wrap my head around is how my 9-year-old can imagine that staying home from school can be a fate worse than ...watching TV!!!?!!!!

11:28 AM - 61 Comments - 79 Kudos - Add Comment