diary

A Nice Christmas Dinner

It was this time – Christmas – of 1997, and the whole world was happy. I had just gotten back from Panama, and with my hazardous duty pay and my Christmas bonus, I bought a brand new shiny black Dodge 4×4 pickup. It had the works. Everything from leather seats to CD player, heated mirrors and one of those bitchin’ built-in cell phones that looks like a pocket calculator embedded in the visor. It was Wednesday, December 24, and I had spent the better part of three hours negotiating this buy at the dealership. I finally fiinished and tore off across I-20 for Dallas to go pick up my family for dinner. We would head to Three Forks for steak and brandy, followed by lavish dessert and maybe the men would venture outside for a cigar. Well, my Pops and I at least. My grandpa wasn’t much into that.

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Copperwound Chronicles Vol. 2

So we had our first gig Saturday. Since no one else wants to write anything, I’ll write about that. It went well, thanks for asking! We began our set at about 8:00, and kicked it off with a bang, playing Soulhat’s Prayin’ for Rain. Everything was going just dandily until our fourth song, where all of a sudden, the door flew open and someone waved, and half the bar cleared out in less than twenty seconds.

Bar fight! Except that it wasn’t actually in the bar. It was outside. A full-on biker fight though, it was! Exciting stuff. Except that it was the lead singer of the headlining band who had gotten jumped. These two guys had been sitting at the end of the bar for a couple of hours waiting for him to show up. And my friend Brandy had been talking to them.

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Dirty, Dirty People

I was using the great room of rest today, playing with my phone, minding my own business, when suddenly a suit walks into the bathroom. First of all, he turd burgaled me. He pulled on the stall door several times before he finally caught the hint that someone was actually in the stall pinching a loaf. Then he goes into the next stall and drops trou, sits down, and proceeds to take the nastiest ass piss I’ve ever heard. It smelled like someone had just dumped a 30-gallon barrell of fetid porpoise shit right in the middle of the room.

I instinctively looked over and saw his shoes, bright shiny brown penny loafers with laces. Ahem. And his visitor badge, dangling on the floor by his trousers. After a couple of minutes I finished up and got ready to pull the door open. I heard the bathroom door open and someone popped his head in. “You all right in there, Kenny?” he said. Kenny said yeah, he’d be just a minute. So I go wash my hands, and as I’m looking in the mirror, I hear the ole swoosh of the toilet flushing.

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There are no women in football.

Friday night my better half spent the evening (well into Saturday morning) at her sister’s house watching girly movies with their legs curled up on the sofa. What this meant to me was that I should immediately round up the fellas for a Friday-night barbecue and beer fest. So I called Stout and Trip and Boogie (yes that’s what we call him) and Minnesota Steve, and Stout called David The Great, Trip called Showboat and Arnie and Boogie called Tina. So they all came over and – wait… Who the hell invited the broad?

Have you ever had this happen on guys’ night out? Isn’t this more than just a simple party foul? When I made the initial phone call, I said the special code sentence that alerts the individual that he is to immediately report to drinking duty. I said, “Hey Name, tonight the beer flows like wine. SpacePlace at twenty hundred hours.” And that means (to you lay folk out there) that we’re drinking tonight, and to be at my place at eight o’clock. So since when are chicks invited to guys’ night out? Since when do the women drink like men? We have shit to talk about, you see. Namely women. And you can’t well do that when there are women present. Even women as neato as Tina.

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Copperwound Chronicles Vol. 1

People ask me quite frequently “how I come up with this stuff”, referring to my writing – be it music or fiction or otherwise. And the simple answer is, “I just don’t know.” But that’s sort of a copout too. Creative energy is like a good beer. The more you have, the more you want, and the more it keeps flowing. Right through you. At least if you have a small bladder like I do.

I wanted to journal some of the ways I’ve written music though, partly for those who wonder how it happens, and partly so that when they’re nickelbacking it on the radio, I’ll remember how it all came to be.

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No Such Addressee…

Kimbre’s column reminded me of something that happened during my time in the military. I worked in the Logistics Group, in the HQ building smack dab in the middle of the base. High profile, dress blues, etc. So there’s typically a lot of high-ranking traffic breezing through those hallways. Well our shop code was (I’m going to make one up so as not to divulge the actual code) 7LGCX. The base hospital’s was 7LGXC. We took a delivery for the hospital.

It’s not that they labeled it correctly and the mail carrier dropped it in the wrong building. They labeled it incorrectly, so it was actually addressed to us. This happened quite frequently too, like once every few weeks or so. Anyway, we got a large cold crate one time, sealed and insulated with dry ice cells. Not the kind of shipment we generally receive, but we opened it. After the fog cleared, I pulled the sheet of insulation plastic off the top of the contents pack and stared aghast at a crate full of human body parts.

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Trapped on Animal Planet

The weirdest damn thing happened today, and though I’m not certain these two events are holistically motivated, I can’t well explain their connection.

You all know me as an animal lover. My custom title on the awful forums is “Defender of the Dog”, based on my interactions with a certain person who’d brought harm to my loyal hound. (Someone else bought me the title, in case you were wondering.) But yeah, I love animals, and save them when I can. I don’t step on crickets. I go out out of my way to rescue the ladybugs.

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My Run-in With a Pedophile

When I was in grade school there was this kid who was a friend of mine named Kerry. He had the same last name as several other kids in grades above ours. Obviously they were brothers. Well, not as such. This one guy, Bob Samelastname rented them. It was weird, but all through his adult life, I guess this creepy bastard has always adopted young boys, then when they grow up and move out, he gets more to replace them. Always boys. He wasn’t married or anything either. He just liked boys.

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Backstage Pass

My dad was in the music distribution business for thirty-five years or so. To me this translated to many perks, because though he sold the hell out of all the popular artists, he scarcely liked any of it. I was therefore given boxes and boxes of albums, CDs, tapes, stickers, promo posters, album artwork, concert tickets and backstage passes. My room as a teenager was covered with shiny colorful posters of hundreds of bands – most of which I’d never even heard. By the time I was twenty I’d probably been to a hundred concerts.

I have a few stories of those encounters – some of which are forgettable – but others are pretty good, and good for punk rock points. I would work summers at the distribution plant, stacking CDs on shelves, pulling stock from boxes and other miscellaneous bullshit. I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen at the time. And they paid me one CD per hour. That wasn’t bad considering. I had a free ride at home, so I didn’t really need money as much as I needed the music.

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Shit or Get Off

Did you know there’s a certain code you’re supposed to follow when shitting in a public restroom? I had no idea. For instance, if someone walks in while you’re taking a dump, you’re supposed to tap your foot to let them know the bathroom is in use. Forget that there’s another whole empty stall right next to you. This foot-tap is called the Fred Astaire.

Furthermore, if you are that unfortunate soul who has just walked unsuspectingly into an occupied restroom, you are supposed to turn around and leave as soon as you learn the stall is occupied. Otherwise you are a “Turd Burglar”. Rock on, turd burglars of America. I say screw ’em! If you can’t shit with someone else in the room you have a special kind of problem that needs some attention.

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