Blood & Absinthe

I had a “black tie” formal event in the evening. In prepping and making myself look oh so pretty, I was shaving my head with an old bic, talking on a cell phone and walking around. So, I should have expected to slip and take a one inch strip of skin from the top of my head. 

Heads bleed. 

Alot. 

So, finally the bleeding stops and I pop a band-aid on. I’ m not thrilled by this, as I am gonna be self conscious all nite, resplendent in my suit sporting a band-aid on top of my head. 

I get to the event- 500 movers and shakers- tuxes and sequined dresses. As it was an awards dinner, I guess everyone thought it was the Oscars.

I make my way to the bar and start pounding Ketel One and club sodas.

Social anxiety quickly melts away.

When the dinner part of the nite starts, I discover my table is right next to the bar. I slip the bartender 10 bucks and tell him to make sure my glass never hits bottom. More Ketel One and club sodas . I really like Ketel One... especially free Ketel One. 

The dinner and awards are just lovely as I continue to drink and chat with the lovely folks around me. As the event phases into the celebration part, I’m not feeling any pain and I figure, hey, I’m sure I don’t need the band-aid on top of my head anymore.

So, I take it off and start chatting up a couple of people.

Two minutes later, one of em says: “Excuse me, but your head is bleeding.”

As I reach up, my hand comes down totally red. The cut had opened, sending streams of blood down my forehead and splitting into two rivers of crimson on each side of my face.

Heads bleed.

A lot.

I rush/stagger to the bathroom and see that my face looks like something out of a Hershell Gordon Lewis flick. So, I’m washing the blood off, trying to stop the bleeding with paper towels and a guy sees me doing this and tells me he’s a paramedic and asks if I need help. I say something stupid and smart assed to him as a joke, which he doesn’t appreciate.

I get the bleeding under control and decide it might be a good time to “get out of Dodge”. My car is parked a couple of blocks away and Im still carrying a large crystal glass of Vodka. I drain the glass and “touchdown spike” it. 

Bad idea number 2.

A shard of glass rebounds and slices the meat at the base of my thumb, nicking a “main cable”.

Thumbs bleed.

A lot.

Immediately my hand starts spurting blood in rhythm with my heart. In no time at all, I am covered in blood. I get into the car and try to stop the bleeding with a bandana and a t shirt I had. It’s not working, and soon enough, my car’s interior is starting to look like the scene in Pulp Fiction when Samuel L and Travolta shoot the guy in the head. 

My nice black suit is completely covered with blood. I feel my arm getting very wet and cold as the blood is flowing towards my elbow as I’m driving home.

By the time I get home, I’m starting to sober up, which isn’t good. Sobriety = pain. So, I take off my bloody suit and access the damage. My lovely lavender shirt is ruined. Into the garbage. The suit is in bad shape, but I throw it in a bag for the dry cleaner. My white t shirt is a lovely melange of red blood tie dying the white cotton into swirls of iron rich protein based life fluid.

Punk rock.

At this point- it’s about midnite and I need to decompress- there’s a bar that just opened within walking distance of Casa Nomad. So, the first thing I have to do is bandage up my still bleeding hand. I have to wrap it in several layers of gauze (in my stupor, I actually tried to staunch the bloodflow with a maxi pad)and then an ace bandage. The head wound is easier- I bandage and a bandana converted into doo-rag. 

So I leave the house for a walk to the bar. For the 6 block walk, I pour myself a healthy tumbler of straight vodka (Svedka- it’s not Ketel One, but it’s alot less expensive). As I walk down the block, I remember that I should bring some music to listen to- so I go back to the house for my Ipod. And as I open the door, Princess Nomad is waiting for me. I have to explain the more non-incriminating events of the evening to her (luckily, I had left the tumbler of Vodka on the front steps). 

So, now, after passing muster with the Princess, I finally embark again 20 minutes later.

The balance of the evening was spent drinking Absinthe and Guinness at my new favorite drinking facility. 

I made it back to my house about 4 am- And went to greet the morning sun on my porch.

 And it took a good couple of hours to clean the car- though  some of the upholstery is still stained.

The suit couldn’t be cleaned.

Black Flag - Damaged

Aahhhh, it’s a fried-day and there is some rather interesting shit going on at my job that may spell doom or prosperity for old Nazz. Soooooooo, it’s BLACK FLAG time! 

Christ, I’ve only been addicted to the band for what, 30 plus years? Well, today it’s DAMAGED. Just a total sonic brute force. Were they the hardest band? No… I’d give that to the Bad Brains, whose performances would actually make the flesh peel back from your skull. But for outright anger management, the Damaged era Black Flag does it for me just fine. The twin guitars of Greg Ginn and Dez Cadena. The “lead bass” of Chuck Dukowski. The nasty ass drumming of Robo. And who is that guy that was singing for them back then? Henry something or other. Whatever happened to him? You had the “pop side” with “TV Party”, “Six Pack”, “Gimme Gimme Gimme”, “Police Story” and then the brute angst force side with the two versions of “Damaged”, “Life Of Pain”, “No More”.

Sure, a lot of the songs had been in their repertoire since the early days of the band (the comp Everything Went Black has multiple versions of many of the songs with multiple singers). But, the versions on “Damaged” transcend “old school punk” and re-invent the genre.

But you know that already, because you have the album- dontcha? The cover of course gives it away- Henry punching the mirror. 

This feeling haunts me

Behind these eyes

The shell seems so empty

Does anything live inside?

I want to live

I wish I was dead
 

---- “What I See”---

I saw the band in it’s Henry era a bunch of times- from the pre-Damaged tour thru the molten sludge end of the band tours. 

The sheer ferocity of the band, with Henry on stage in his little gym shorts and tattoos and skinhead (later of course replaced with his long hair and even more tats) would just engulf the audience. As the years went by, it became even more confrontational.

You’d come out of the shows absolutely drained. Ears ringing, body aching, drenched in sweat.

Good times.

This album will be on endless loop today.

11 Years

Remember

Old Skool Weekend

Old school, bitches!!!!!!!!



Tonite: Mr. Bob Mould for free in Satan's Asshole (aka- Williamsburg, Brooklyn) for free! Though I dread being surrounded by thousands of douchebag hipster fucktwats, there's no way I'm gonna miss this. Besides, that's why they invented al-key-howl... to put up with these "types" of vermin.

Bobby-kins is slated to play all of the Copper Blue elpee from his Sugar days (not my favorite of his albums or bands- I'd prefer him to play the Beaster ep if I hadda my cherce. But... between Copper Blue and some solo stuff and some Husker muthafuckin' Du stuff I'll be a happy camper. Beeeee-sides... Bobby's new album "Silver Age" is fucking great!!!!!!!!

I first saw bouncin' Bobby with the Hu Du clan waaaaay back in the early 80's -  Probably 7 or 8 times during the Metal Circus thru Warehouse era. Flying fuckin' V's, barefoot drumming and lotsa shreddin'.

Some "adventures" that will also need to be relayed on these cyber pages at some point... including showing up at a show in a dress shirt and slacks (after a student awards event) at Maxwells in Slobw-boken NJ during the Zen Arcade tour and having Grant Hart (my instant best friend from the previous nite's show at the Peppermint Lounge) burst out laughing and immediately install me as stage security- in charge of keeping the divers off the stage- needless to say, by midway thru the show I was shirtless and clad only in slacks!


BRICKLAYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tomoro: THE DESCENDENTS (and some other bands like Gogol Bordello and Hot Water Music)- MILO GOES TO BROOKLYN. Gawd- dealing with that venue 2 days in a row is gonna be a a bear, but I have to do what I have to do to.

 


Man- I am really psyched to see The Descendents again- another band from my yoputh- Songs like "Bikeage" and "Hope" and "When I Get Old" and "Rotting Out" and pretty much everything they've ever done are embedded in my heart and mind.

Plus... as an added bonus... it appears I will be interviewing Milo. I'll post the innerview asap-

Davey and I will be there to represent for our fallen comrades.

Adventure #8675… In Which I Poison Myself.

 Here it was, a humdrum end of summer weekend and I was fighting the algae in casa de Nomad’s swimming pool.

Old Nazz had neglected the pool for a couple of weeks and the pool had become a launch pad for lily pads, mosquito's and the heavy green scum that is usually found in Louisiana Swamps. I was actually winning the battle, after throwing enough chemicals into the “water” in the previous few days to deforest most of South East Asia.

Or something.

So, as I embarked to thrust the last dagger into the Pea Soup, I threw copious amounts of calcium hypochlorite (aka Pool Shock) and Chlorine into the filter. I waited the usual 5 minutes and opened the valve to put the cartridge back in.

Bad idea.

The shit hadn’t dissolved and a noxious cloud of apparently semi toxic chemicals exploded in my face and which I breathed in. I immediately hit the ground and started gasping for air. As an added bonus, the stuff got in my eyes and I was temporarily blinded. I staggered to my bathroom and flushed out my eyes and tried to gargle/puke up what I had inhaled.

Two days later, I was still feeling dizzy and my eyes still burned so I called up Poison Control. The guy said I should have gone for medical treatment but that if I was still alive and able to breathe after two days I would slowly recover.

 I said to him… “so, I’m not gonna die?
 His answer: “we’re all gonna die”

Fuckin’ A.

It’s two days later (4 total since my mini-Bhopal) and I’m still all chemically. Eyes sting, all foggy, bad taste in my mouth. I always figured if chemicals were gonna do me in (especially powdered ones,) it woulda been recreational.

 Though I suppose a pool IS recreation.

 Irony- it’s what’s for dinner

.

 PS- Bob Mould's new lp Silver Age is fucking awesome. Here's the first single.

You Cannot Petition The Lord With Prayer

I was sitting in my driveway, reading a graphic novel, having a beer and trying to blot out the horrors of the week.

 No one ever sits in their driveway in my neighborhood. Backyards are for commiserating with the outdoors, and the only time one is in one’s driveway is for car related entering and exiting and sporadic car washings. Or the basketball hoop.

But the mosquito's were too much to deal with in the backyard.

So, I was not too keen on the guy moseying up the street. His body odor preceded him by about 10 feet (granted, it was a hot day). He had the look of a vet from the Columbia U 1970 demonstrations. 40 years later of course. Thin and gaunt. Wearing tan khaki. All that was missing was the peace sign.

 Peace signs I have plenty of.

Got em on my car and a bunch hanging from the tree in front of my house. That plus the Ramones flag and Day-Glo painted pillars kinda give away my political leanings.

 And... he had a clipboard and was smiling.

 I’ve learned the hard way to avoid clipboards and smiles. 

“Hi how are you doing” 
 “I’m doing great, but I got no money for you”.

 He explained that he was from the Working Families Party. They’re a pro-union organization (the good unions- not the fucking moron unions that support the Repugnikkkans). They do good work.

 “That’s great pal, I’ve voted for your candidates”. 

I try to vote on alternate party lines, as long as the Democrats also support the candidate. That usually means I’m voting Green or Liberal or some other alt party. That way, the alt party gets to stay on the ballot in future elections.

 The guy starts telling me alot of stuff that I already know and I say-
“Hey pal, I’ll sign your petitions, but I got no money for you. 

 So, blah blah blah we really need your support and money and blah blah blah we REALLY need your money ensues. Now, in a way, am I failing to help “the good fight”. ?

Yeah sure... but that $10 could go to a couple of six packs of cheap shitty beer. And at the end of the day, that 12 pack of cheap shitty beer is going to be alot more beneficial to me than the donation would.

 I said something to the effect that I hate the Repugnikkkans and I was hoping the hurricane would kill them all in Tampa and thus take care of the problem.

 This offended my gentle friend who responded “Well, we don’t want anyone to die of course”.

That’s when the rubber hit the road. 

 My gentle friend then proceeds about all sorts of peace stuff and revolution through protest. He also points out my many peace signs.

 

 I responded “Hey pal, these fuckers are like roaches, you gotta kill em all or they’ll come back for more. It’s kill or be killed”.

 That pretty much ended the “meeting”.

 I signed a couple of petitions, once again turning down his solicitation of a donation.

 He went back to knocking on doors in our very GOP neighborhood,
and I went back to my beer.