Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Dissed

Dissed
For reasons that have become increasingly unclear to me, I have thought, for several months, that King Missile should play Bowery Electric, a club located relatively close to where CBGB’s was located back in the day. That proximity may have been a reason, or it may be that a number of my friends have played there and I liked the sound and the layout of the place, and a friend of mine tends (or tended) bar. I don’t know. But I knew that after two shows at Brooklyn’s Shea Stadium, it would be good to play Manhattan, and I thought Bowery Electric was a logical choice.

I went to their website, and found a contact email, and I made an inquiry. I didn’t hear back. I emailed again, and was told by Nick (not his real name) that he had forwarded my email to Debby (not her real name). She eventually got back to me and asked if we wanted to play a free show in the bar area upstairs. I said, “No, we’d like to play the downstairs room. I’m sure we could get a lot of people there. We have done well at Shea.” Or something like that. I didn’t hear back. I emailed again, and Nick got back to me, and then Debby again. Finally, we settled on a date: April 10, 2016. Debby told me I could put the evening together by adding bands to the bill but that I should get back to her in ten days.

I was excited. I asked Rachel Trachtenburg if her band wanted to play and she said yes. I had trouble thinking who the third band would be, and the ten day deadline was approaching, so I emailed Debby to tell her Rachel would open and I was just looking for the third band. Debby told me that she had filled the 9 and 10pm slots for that evening but that if King Missile wanted to play at 10, maybe she could switch the 10pm band or move everyone earlier. “And is Rachel 18  yet?” Debby wanted to know. Debby apparently doesn’t know about Wikipedia.

I got on the phone with Debby, and she started asking me questions about my band (“Are you local?” Are you the band’s manager or are you in the band?”), and I quickly realized that this was way more of an uphill battle than I had expected. I told her, “I think maybe I’ll find another Manhattan venue, one that is actually wants us to play.” Debby said, “How can I know if I want you to play when I don’t know anything about your band?,” to which I might have replied—“Wikipedia?” “You Tube?” but I was kind of resigned to the fact that this wasn’t going to happen. So I ended the call.

We went ahead and booked a show at Cakeshop for this Sunday (May 21, 2016) and yesterday I learned that we got a little write up in the New Yorker. In order to kind of rub her nose in it (but more because I still really wanted to play there), I sent Debby an email, reminding her about the show we had booked there that had fallen through (without blaming her) and letting her know that we got a little write up in the New Yorker, and that I hoped we could put a night together at Bowery Electric in the Fall. Her response was. “Congratulations. Cakeshop is a good size room for this.”

I pride myself these days on not writing angry obnoxious emails to people who are really pissing me off. So instead I wrote back and said “Thanks, but we’d really like to play Bowery Electric sometime.” Her response was “Maybe down the line. Thank you.”

If you know me at all, you can imagine the kind of things I wanted to say to her. I think I am glad that I didn’t say any of them. And I guess King Missile will never play Bowery Electric. And I guess that’s okay.
May 25, 2016

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Hoverboards

Hoverboards
Fuck hoverboards
They fucking suck
I fucking hate hoverboards
Such fucking bullshit
 
They shouldn't even be called hoverboards
They dont even actually hover
They're just fucking skateboards with motors
 
Which makes them motor vehicles, right?
Which means they shouldn't be on the sidewalk, right?
Which means the motherfucker who bumped into me just now
Had no fucking business riding a hoverboard on the sidewalk in the first place, right?
So fuck hoverboards,  right?
 
I'm glad I got that off my chest
But the truth is, I didn't just get bumped into by a motherfucker on a hoverboard
I made that up
But it is true that I do hate hoverboards
They suck
Fuck hoverboards
 
May 19, 2016 

Friday, May 13, 2016

Three Short Poems: "Itch," "Creep," and "Bus."

Itch
I've got an itch
On one of my inner thighs
I suppose it might be sexy
If you were into older guys*
May 13, 2016


Creep
There was this a young boy
Coming down the subway stairs
Holding a plastic T-Rex
Asking his mom if all dinosaurs were carnivores
And his mom said no, some dinosaurs w‎ere herbivores;
They eat plants and vegetables.
"But T-Rex eats people?," He asked
And she said yes.

And because I'm such a busybody fucking smartass,
I wanted to point out that there were no people
When T-Rex was around,
Unless you happen to favor a very expansive definition of the word people,
Which, who knows, maybe she did,

But the forecast called for rain today,
So there I was,
An old man in a rain coat,
I wasn't about to butt in
And run the risk of coming off like a creep.

So that poor child
Will have to live in fear of people being eaten by dinosaurs
Because I didn't want to feel like a creep.
But of course, I feel like a creep anyway.
May 13, 2016


Bus
Being on a cross town bus
Is like being‎ stuck inside
An enormous, round, turd
Too heavy
To move
More than a few hundred feet
Every few minutes.

A fucking glacier
Made of shit
That never
Fucking
Moves.
May 8, 2016



*This could be a verse for a song if I wasn't such a lazy piece of shit.