vic solo california dates

VIC RUGGIERO appears on tour with The Phenomenauts and
>> KEPI:The Band (Groovie Ghoulies)
>> AUG 1 to AUG 16 2008
>> US WEST COAST
>>
>> The Phenomenauts
>> Kepi Ghoulie: The Band (Groovie Ghoulies)
>> Vic Ruggiero (The Slackers)
>> ___________________
>>
>> FRI AUG 1 Modesto/Stockton? TBA/coming soon...
>> SAT AUG 2 BERKELEY, CA ASHKENAZ
>> WED AUG 6 SEATTLE, WA EL CORAZON
>> THUR AUG 7 PORTLAND, OR SATYRICON
>> FRI AUG 8 ORANGEVALE, CA CLUB RETRO
>> SAT AUG 9 RENO, NV confirmed venue TBA soon
>> SUN AUG 10 SAN JOSE, CA NICKEL CITY ARCADE
>> ___________
>> Vic and Kepi acoustic senace...
>>
>> *Mon Aug 11th SAC, CA more info soon
>> *Tues Aug 12th SAN FRANCISCO, CA AMANTE 21+ Free! 8pm
>> *(Phenomenauts not playing)
>> ___________
>>
>> WED AUG 13 SAN LUIS OBISPO DOWNTOWN BREW
>> THUR AUG 14 HOLLYWOOD, CA THE KNITTING FACTORY

9:22 PM - 5 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

oppressed part II
Category: Pets and Animals

please undersand, i do not write this to complain about the gato...no, your humble narrator intends only to transmit these reports as a means of understanding the component parts of a greater story...

of course the gato is hungry...are we all not hungry?... for food but of course also attention, meaning...immortality?

is not hunger in it's purest just a bid for continuation?...and continuation could in el gato's mind lead off indefinitely?...to immortality in a way?...does it not even for all of us?...

...so who's to say that my simple cat does not wish immortality for himself as much or more than parents wish to live on thru their children, or a painter thru his work? or the soldier in his tiny part of a legendary seige?

...and here is where i beleive my poor gato's runt life begins to resonate...that when the revolution approached him, he was more than game...that his hunger was piqued...

1:33 PM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

oppressed
Category: Pets and Animals

the little one is always hungry...he moves the suitcase off of the top of a pickle bucket that contains his food...the suitcase is heavy...there is a cardboard box on top of it...he moves it all...
he licks the food off the bowls in the sink...rips open the bread sitting on top of the microwave...eats the spinach out of a pot on the stove...hot curry off the floor at my feet he licks up...
he is food crazy...is it because the big one bullies him away from his dish?...the little one looks on waiting for him to finish.
...he has always been a runt... the day he was found near the beach, his family abandoning him to the humans, they never looked back...
...he was expendable...the runt...his whole life is defined by it...he can beat the larger cat in a fight if he wants but the he doesn't...his posture is low to the ground.
he can obtain anything in the house thru his sheer will...but he begs us mostly.
he is often incarcerated in a smaller room while we eat...he makes himself a nuisance until there is no other solution...
sometimes the front door is open for more than a moment...he runs out only to stand on the front porch terrified...
why am i telling you this?
because he is ripe for convincing...

1:37 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

an intersection
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

in a cool spring morning stupor upon my couch, a friend of mine discovered a strange thing...he heard coming from the kitchen a small voice...sounding much like a cat's meow, but he could not deny that he thought he heard it shaping the sounds of human language...he listened and listened, afraid perhaps that the previous nights alcohol had forever warped his perception, but he couldn't deny the sound...like english..."hello?...hello?" it said...
"hello" he said back...
"well?...what?...what?...when?", it was asking...

...suddenly pierre swatted tyson in the tail.
"you mustn't let him hear you", said pierre
"but why...i'm forever hungry, and they've been taking the trash out more regularly...i need to spread it out all over the kitchen floor just to find a few good morsels!" , said the little one.
"yes, but if they know that we're learning to communicate with humans they'll surely stop us...remember, in some ways we are cruel, but humans are far crueler...",peirre shook his furry head.
"but i'm hungry...hungry...all this thinking gives me an appetite!...you see i eat and eat and i'm not fat, if anything i'm getting muscular."
"oui, indeed, our training is paying off..." grunted pierre, "here!..." and he lunged at the top of tyson the little one's back. Tyson flipped over and grabbed pierre by the belly and in one move he was atop pierre with his paws on either side of his attackers shoulders, trapping him...
"good", said pierre..."now i'll show you how to open the refrigerator...i think they brought some taco's home...that place they go to now actually makes a decent al pastor, don't you think?"
"i don't know...you and rudy hogged it...i got some of the barbacoa though...did you?"

...their gato voices trailed off into the darkness and in the morning my friend related to me what he had heard...what he thought was a cat trying to speak english, then two cats playing and meowing at each other, then the refrigerator opening, at which point he assumed someone had come downstairs, so he fell back asleep...i also assumed logically, someone got hungry and ate a couple of my tacos...though the container did seem a bit overly abused...

11:48 AM - 5 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

that rumbling isn't purring
Category: Pets and Animals

3 gatos circle in the kitchen...their tails up like shark fins...their paws and claws, "tick tack tick tack" on the linoleum...the refrigerator door is open, the food bucket on its side, the extra bag of food on the shelf is torn and ravaged, the garbage too has been ravaged and now is just plastic shreds and bare chicken bones, the toilet is open and running, there's a steaming little shit in front of it, another one behind the living room chair, another on my mattress...
...the little one looks up at me, his great glassy eyes, wide and plaintive...
"Maaaare", he says...guilty? apologetic perhaps?
Suddenly and fiercely the other two turn to glare at him, then at me...the little one moves back into his position...circling the kitchen table with the other two, looking only forward toward the tail in front of him, raised like a sharks fin...circling,circling..."tick, tack, tick, tack"

10:51 PM - 6 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

mercury in retrograde

mercury in retrograde
"there is no use i've had a headache all week"
"indeed, the winter is cold and i cannot clean the dishes"
the gatos were suffering from the malaise which the mercury retrograde effect produces...a lack of communication ability..."mercury moves backward in the night sky and, it being the planet of communication astrologically, makes our ability to communicate suffer"...telephones dont work right, contracts negotiations turn sour, relationships are difficult...
pierre looked over the arm of the couch at the two black and white kitties sitting on the floor staring at each other and said, "but i thought you were socialists and didn't beleive in all that hocus pocus...?"
rudy looked up and said, "the tides move with the moon, so why are we any different?...astrology is a science not a religion...it's as much a part of the choas as anything...the chaos that is responsible for all of us being here at all..."
"put on a record", said pierre
"ok", said rudy,"what do you want? samba or leonard cohen?...that's all that's out..."
suddenly there was noise from the outside..."ahhh...they're coming home, we'll have to listen to what they want now...well, maybe they'll put on some reggae..."
"yes...i hope", said pierre, "ahhh, i guess i should stop smoking too huh?"
"ha ha ha ha", all the gatos laughed as the door began to unlock

11:32 PM - 3 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

pierre shows his roots
Category: Pets and Animals

"i was just lookin at what you put on the slackers myspace blog",said rudy ,"i don't come off like that much of a post-modern nerd do i?"
"ha ha...what do you THINK of yourself?",said tyson ,"all that art school had an affect on your brain!"
rudy shook his head,"but i didn't really learn that stuff i art school, i got it from talkin' to Joe Weil!"
"JOE doesn't sound like a DUMBASS though!", said tyson laughing...
Suddenly pierre piped in, "is arguing all you do?...the disciple Mattew wrote his gospel...no one knows if its true or not...or if the translations haven't ruined what he originally said!...no!...all that matters is that they got something to read in the church...something old and far away enough to make them feel like its important...that it could be closer to something true than they are!...and they have a piece of it..."
"wow, that's so existentialist man...", said rudy, surprised.
pierre shook his furry head and laughed,"i mean,i am part french..."

4:21 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

death to all infadels
Category: Pets and Animals

It was a cold night... gatos had been working for hours now,"gimme the camera!" said agent punky,"you dont know what you're doing!"...rudy scowled like he had just tasted bad wine..."listen!" said rudy,"last time it was left in your hands we couldn't see the subjects, remember that? grey,grainy, and flat!"...the two began to argue like newly introduced gatos...suddenly agent tyson piped in,"shut up , you're making a goddamn ruckus! I'd be taking the freaking pictures if my bowels weren't in such a state!...what's important is that the pictures get taken and the mission gets accomplished... it's US against THEM remember!...ahhh, my ass really hurts."... punky glared at rudy, knowing somehow they'd have to make it work..... "just get over it" said rudy ... "but how" answered punky... tyson just sighed.... "whatever man."

1:48 AM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

a smart cat
Category: Pets and Animals

In my universe there is no hope,
only an old, blue grey cat,
who suddenly kittenlike,
knocks over a vase full of chrysanthemums.
There's a good song playing on the radio,
in the dead eye of a long winter's drive,
the song reminding me of a ranch coat I had,
and of a girl who buried her face in it,
who left a trace of scented powder in the fur,
a smart girl, who knew how to be remembered.
-joe weil

6:20 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

a prison
Category: Pets and Animals

gatos get prepared for sleep under a comfortable suburban bush...little one looks toward the house it sits in front of...thru the window he sees the family finishing the remains of dinner, the old man sinking into the reclining chair, the light of the tv casting a flickering blue glow over him..."and us", he thinks,"in the green sheltering leaves, the sky our ceiling and the moon our lamplight...the poor souls there thru the window, as if in their own strange prison...and one of their own design... while paradise lies just beyond the walls."

2:01 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment