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archive: 12/4/01 to 01/30/02
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1/30
I'm still running over in my mind certain portions of the Billy Lee Riley set we saw the other night. He looked like he was having the time of his life. We were the first ones to the merchandise table..and he arrived there with a big damn grin on his mugg. He had a better time than any of us perhaps.
All you people in bands should take note. He's almost as great a legend as any still alive in RNR history...but he wasn't acting aloof, snotty, arrogant, pretentious or "sensitive". He's a damn role model for sure..
I'm listening to "DALEVIS" a CD by Dale Watson..who evidently is playing yet again here in San Marcos on Friday night. It's the first time I've ever heard it..10 Elvis songs recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis.
Tribute accepted Dale...we'll be there front and center for your set Friday.
On Saturday we're due for a real fucking treat that's been a long...a LOONNNGGGG time coming for we Irwin's; Junior Brown live at Antones in Austin. DAMN I can't wait.
I made the rounds today of thriftstores in South Austin. Shee-it..it's almost TOO EASY. I feel like I'm driving around on a collection route. It's obvious by now that even though it's a lame month for thrift stores there are so many of them (at least 10 well stocked ones in a 4 mile by 3 mile area) that I'm set up well.
I had to bust my ass to relist auctions for our Ebay store that were cancelled by Ebay for having "profanity" in the titles and item descriptions. In all they cancelled 17 damn auctions. It's NOT the work of a human being..it's a roving computer that makes these decisions. The computer is programmed to jettison auctions with the word "ass" or "pussy" in the description. Makes it really damn hard on donkey and cat salesmen I guess.
I'm reading several books at once right now courtesy of the San Marcos public library. "Son of a Grifter" deserves special mention. I heard the author on Art bell's show a while back. His Mom is a psychotic con artist who seems to be a cross between Liz Taylors charachter in "Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf" and Joan "mother of the year" Crawford. This woman not only managed to be convicted of keeping SLAVES in the 20th century,..she involved her two Son's and millionaire hubby in senseless shoplifting and bunco sprees through the stores and marketplaces of America for 40 years..she wound up killing people with no remorse. I recommend this book.
The last 48 hours Elvis and I have been involved in the initial creation of SIMS charachters for the new MAC game he ordered. I fucking LOVE shit like this! Our bachelor is a guy named Rex Powers who is a blatant womanizer with absolutely NO redeeming "nice-ness". The game is so realistic you have to send them to the frigging bathroom regulalry. He's such an asshole he bitchslapped a woman within 2 hours of our creating him....A SIGNAL VICTORY for we Irwin men!! A NEW HEIGHT in video game history in our home. I think so far it's the BEST video game I've ever played. We just created a black single Mom named Ebony Washington who kicked the CRAP out of Rex Powers. To his credit he fought back. We don't want a guy who bakes cookies and wears earthshoes..we want him to be lookin' to get his rocks off each and every night. If Ebony doesn't want to give him any, that's HER right. And it's HIS right to engage in a bitch slap fight with her (she won!). Expect frequent updates..dear diary.
1/29
Marla did it again.
Whereas most women are enthusisatically opposed to their man shitting the bed...mine seems to be driving me to it. Here's what's happened over the last 24 hours in a nutshell. Elvis and I enjoyed some of Sundays early Spring Texas weather by BBQ'ing a 9 pound brisket on the communal outdoor grill here at our apartment complex. Naturally it takes a few days for us to eat all that tender succelent beef. Last night...Monday night Marla returned home from work and asked me if I had purchased any BUSH brand baked beans to accompany the brisket. I replied "negatory". She burrowed in our pantry a bit deeper and non-chalantly brought an innocent can out, smiling..
"Oh..we have a can of Mexican beans"...she chirped
"Mexican beans?" I grunted..."what the hell is a can of "Mexican beans"..by that I meant were they refried beans, baked beans, crowder peas, black eyed peas (which I'm banished from eating)...I had never seen anything at a grocery store that simply said "Mexican beans" on the label. Sounds like something out of a Roadrunner cartoon.
"they're good....I've had them before"...she remarked..and turned to warm them up.
We Irwin's rarely sit down like the Osmonds and eat family style. Only on special events or Holidays. Somebody cooks something up and everybody just helps themself when they feel the urge. I felt the urge later that night. I had some slices of brisket and a few spoonful's of Marla's "Mexican beans". Later, I had a tiny 2nd helping of both beef and beans. I didn't eat all that much all told. I went to bed very early for me...about 2:30 am.
I woke up in the middle of the night and felt the urge to let one; being a long time married fellow I kindly pointed my butt away from Mrs. Rebel...lifted the blankets and.. BBRRAAPPP!!!
A typical wet fart...this one's scent was wafted right back down to me thanks to a ceiling fan located directly over my side of the bed. PHEW!! I regretted that fart. I woke up about 6:45 am central time and cracked a couple more vigorous ones to the ceiling fan. PHEW!!! Those farts REALLY stank..I began to slowly waken..fascinated at how a couple measley farts could raise so much hell with my nostrils. Marla awoke..and caught wind of what was going on. "QUIT FARTING"! she demanded.
"Hey..it's YOUR fault!" I replied.."YOU fed me those weird beans. DAMN..I think I hafta' shit!" and so I trotted a few steps to the master bath. The last few steps I should say were getting quicker and quicker as I went. I dropped my shorts,,,,,
BBBRRRAAPPPPP!!!!!!!
Suddenly..it sounded like a late New Years fireworks display in my shithouse. Burning shitlet pellets mixed with clear burning liquid refuse blew out of my sorry ass. And friends, it BURNED!! I mean it REALLY burned.
As I sat there suffering I wondered why Marla did it..why is she tormenting me?? I thought I could hear her chuckling in bed through the door of the john.
Wiping up was the worst part. My ass stung like an open wound.
I hopped back in bed momentarily. Soon I was right back on the pot for another 12 minutes of sweating those damn beans out.
After a couple more sessions I'm sitting here several hours later hoping those damn beans are completely out of my system. Thanks ALOT Marla.
RAW last night was pretty good. It's amazing how close to the truth Vince is by stating he wants to destroy his promotion by bringing in Chump Hogan and the twin towers of boring psuedo-wrestling Nash and Hall. The dialogue between Flair and Vince (Five fucking stars *****) could well have been a carbon copy of a backstage real-life discussion.
If Vince's longterm goal is to elevate the careers of the loyal guys who helped him whip that godawful WCW crap ratings wise..well, OK. If he winds up taking the spotlight away from his topnotch performers in favor of focusing longterm on those behind the scenes assholes and manipulators he's making a HUGE mistake. Vince has a long memory..and I know he has to be fully mindfull of the problems those same guys caused for him in the past. I'm encouraged though by his working into the program the doubts of so many of us who know about what's gone down in the past.
On the other hand, remember that I've been saying for 10 years..CHUMP HOGAN RUINS any promotion he wrestlers..er, I mean works for".
This is a good time to plug our Ebay store....you can buy our "Darkest souls in Rock and roll" CD in which we (Rancid VAT) wrote a song for ol' Hogan...Perfect and Marla specifically wrote that one. Here's some of the words:
"hey Chump Hogan you make me sick..the way you suck on promoter's dicks"
"I wouldn't cry at your fucking funeral... I'd use your casket as a piss-hole urinal
you sorry Steroid using sack of shit..with a Louisville slugger I'll make your head split!"
"your gimmick's so old your game is so weak ...from 5,000 miles I can hear your bones creak"
You get the idea. Buy the CD and play the song during Hogan's upcoming boring matches and promo's
1/27 part II
Damn it all.....Billy Lee Riley was great. He's gotta be 70 years old..but he's still a top rank entertainer. He played a set of SUN label tunes..some were his recordings originally..and some were those made famous by his pals at SUN.
To put things in perspective for the "music history challenged" out there, Jerry Lee Lewis started out playing in Billy Lee's band...which was known as the "little green men" due to his hit record "Flying saucers rock and roll" (yeah..he sang it tonight).
I drank mucho (see I'm learning Spanish already) beer tonight...but had the sense to be the first amongst a crowd of skinny rockabilly enthusiasts to get an autographed CD (for Elvis) and a glossy (for Mike McNally..who introduced me to rockabilly in the mid 70's).
I cracked a joke to Marla at the club; I pointed out how in the mens room guys were spending more time fluffing their hair (it was a rockabilly crowd) than urinating.
That's actually OK in my book. Before I was declared thee Whiskey Rebel I wore my share of Hawaiian shirts and had a dyed black greasy as fuck hair-do. I understand fella's.
My head's throbbing..I'm fucked up..time to go drink more..
1/27/02
Got a pissed off email from Geoff up in Philly over the WWF's recent signing of Hogan, Nash and Hall. He wants to know what I think about it..and a couple other people have asked..so, It's time to take a public stand.
First off, I automatically respect the business acumen of Mr. McMahon enough to take a "wait and see" attitude even though I fucking HATED the WCW "NWO" angle the first time around. I quit watching WCW forever soon into it.
When I say "the first time around"..I should qualify that to mean the first time in the USA. The "Nwo" had already been done in Japan before WCW decided to do it again over here.
So, WHY did I hate the gimmick so much??
1) First off it degenerated into a moronic orgy of 3 letter factions that confused the fuck out of me; You had the "NWO", "NWO red, "LWO" "OWN" ("one warrior nation..GAG!")....YUCK!! The factions DIDN'T STAND for anything you could put your finger on. Wrestlers hopped back and forth over the fence from week to week..and it was all MEANINGLESS.
2) Pro Wrestling is best presented as a struggle between two opposing athletes or groups of athletes representing....SOMETHING...ANYTHING.
It can be a Redneck wrestler versus a narcissitic body builder...
Or, a couple Lucha guys from Mexico versus a couple guys dressed like cowboys....or a "rock n' roll" tag team vs. a "whigger" tagteam. Or a psycho guy dressed in insane assylum duds against an arrogant guy who looks down on him.
You get the idea....
The NWO bit was a conglomeration of wrestlers thrown together without any evident common purpose or reasonable bond except 3 letters and a T-shirt.
3) Hulk Hogan RUINS any promotion he signs with.and, he will very possibly RUIN this promotion..for the time being at least simply bybeing there. Even in the 80's his in ring work was very mediocre. If you don't believe me, GO BACK and rewatch HIS Wrestlemania matches and then those of REAL wrestlers like Rick Rude, Ric Flair and more recent headliners like Austin and the Rock. Even guys I'm not a huge fan of like Randy Savage and Shawn Michaels were SUPERB in comparison to the chumpster. So why was he so big at one time?? Hulk Hogan's comic book wrestling style appeals to "non-wrestling fans"..and I am a fucking LIFELONG DIEHARD wrestling fan.
If Chumpster gets in the ring with any of the WWF's top 15 or so guys and goes to put 'em away with that hokey, outdated "lethal" slow motion legdrop...I'm GONNA HEAVE! And then, I'm gonna kick in my friggin' boob tube. There are guys like RVD and JERICHO and BENOIT with HUNDREDS of moves in their arsenals...anybody who could cheer for Chump-amania when the guy is NO WHERE in their league seriously should be prevented from reproducing.
4) Nash is possibly the most over rated wrestler of all time. Some people criticize Big Show and Kane for being big awkward guys...they're both high flyer's compared to Nash..whose forte is just standing around looking bored and jaded while actual trained wrestlers do all the work.
5) Scott Hall has shown flashes of brilliance over the last 15 years. He can actually wrestle..whereas those other two don't bother to learn. Unfortunately he's been such an unstable guy behind the scenes from all accounts that it'll cause real problems on the job with the wrestlers that are "professional", loyal to the company and hard working. Ever work at a job where you wonder why you bust YOUR ass when you see the boss rehiring some problem case over and over???? Imagine if the boss assigned you to do his work for him...and paid him more than you??? HhHHmmmm???
Well, I'm just getting started..I have more reasons. But I've gotta head out the door to see Billy Lee Riley. I hope he plays "Flying Saucers Rock and roll"....
1/24
So, I was standing there at the Triple Crown club here in San Marcos with a box of CD's. Two cute little gal's walked up to the table and began gushing..
"Oh..you're so CUTE!!!"
"You're so SEXEEEEE!!"
I was slightly startled...and then I realized..hell YEAH; I AM pretty damn sexy. I AM cute as a button..
I wondered why they were ignoring Dale Watson...who I was standing there jawing with..negotiating a purchase of a few of his CD's.
Dale blundered..and assumed the hotties were talking to him..
"Well...THANKS. What's your name??" he asked stretching his hand out towards them for shakin'...
We saw Mr. Watson and his band tonight crank out two sets that were hotter than a pepper sprout, baby. I particualrly enjoyed his renditions of "I ain't never" "In the Jailhouse now" and "blue eyes cryin' in the rain". He even took a request from some limey visiting from Barry Hannibal's homeland for the "Dukes of Hazard" theme.
His lead guitar player is Red Voelkart..a guy about 60 who's played on probably a hundred records on my rack.
And now we're digging in to a post nightclub meal of Texas steak and eggs..MMmm...mmmm.
I got an email from Cosmo tonight. He evidently thinks somebody told us he's pissed off at us or something. Nobody did...what the hell?? Are some gossip mongers at work??
We haven't turned heel on him or anybody else from our former home of Philly; yeah, I get a kick out of refering to it as "cautious city" instead of Hostile city..since it seems like the primary concern of clubowners and bookers there is whether or not your band is going to bust a $10 table..or an old microphone G.G. probably crammed up his ass in the late 80's.
Our pal Eric Flawless has been in touch with us..and it seems like every dealing with Philly club jerks he has concerning his mighty band the Party Wreckers revolves around whether or not they're gonna break some piece of crap furniture.
I hear the Bad Vibes had a good show at the Khyber pass in Philly the other night wherein they kicked the crap out of some bigmouth...sheesh..I'm surprised Mayor Street doesn't have them arrested for a "hate crime".
To change the subject, did anybody catch Steve Austin's interview a couple WWF Raw's ago in Dallas?? He did a big spiel on eating that day at "Whattaburger"..which just happens to be our newfound home of worldclass vittles.
Philly had topnotch hoagies and of course holy CHEESESTEAKS..but I never ate a memorable burger there once in 8 years. Austin wasn't kidding about how fucking great Whattaburger's are...they're open 24 hours per day and you can take a SHIT in their clean men's rooms too. His hometown is Victoria Texas...about 75 miles from here..and a band I talked to from there gave me a report of sightings of him pushing a cart at the local grocery store.
I got a PORTLAND WRESTLING tape from an Ebay dealer that focused for 4 1/2 hours on a lengthy Rip Oliver vs. Billy Jack Haynes fued; it also featured the brief face turn of Buddy Rose and a young Dynamite kid with a goofy Hart hairdo losing his locks to Rose in a "playboy" (hair) match. Kurt Hennig is in a lot of the matches too; he was very good at doing the rubbery legged bit..his image was that of a scrawny yet goodhearted fan favorite wrestler at the time.
The playboy looks slim and trim believe it or not....he does cartwheels, dropkicks and about 90% of Ric Flairs moves. I think they were both trained by Verne Gagne's school in the same class..so, it's understandable.
1/23
I thought I was doing pretty good having found a Goodwill store, a Salvation Army store and a fine 2nd hand record store all in a tight package in South Austin. It took me 5 hours aT LEAST to cover those 3. I prepared the other day to visit the stores on the other side of town. But lo and be-fucking-hold. I found 4 MORE thrift stores listed in the Yahoo index in the same area in South Austin. I drove my luxurious 2nd hand Caddy up to visit them on Tuesday and found TWO MORE along the way. Fucking HELL!!!!
The only other place with this many thrift stores I know of in the USA is in Florida..and those places are crammed with donations from dead grannies garages. Lot's of beat up shit to sort through. In Austin even in what is a BAD month for hitting thriftstores I've found collections of New wave/borderline Punk rock records and T-shirts at almost every store. TON'S of books to look through..and they're not just dumped into a pile like everywhere else in the lower 48 States...they're seperated into sections believe it or not. The employees at thrift stores here AREN'T tard's....they hire people that appear to me to be gay or weird or on drugs..but NOT retarded. That's VERY important.
We didn't move here for the thrift stores..which I assumed would be picked over..we simply lucked out.
Some damn good "keeper" records from yesterday too. A Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazlewood LP I've already played 3 times and a Roy Wood with Wizard album "introducing Eddie and the Falcons" . It's a great cross between glam and retro rockabilly.
Dale Watson is billed at the local tavern 2 miles from our home this Friday night; the next night Wayne Hancock at the Continental in Austin. R.L. Burnside is playing both of those nights too. On 2/2 it's Junior Brown..2/5-2/6 Hank III, Billy Lee Riley 2/10 and Slayer 2 nights back to back in mid February.
I promised not to crow about the live music down here..but what the fuck. I can't help it. YEEEEHHAAWWWWWWW. That's more great shows in 2 weeks than most places get in a year.
Elvis and I went to resume our normal Philly baseball diamond workout the other day. We were very paranoid..because the humongous..I mean REALLY FUCKING GARGANTUAN park had a slew of baseball diamonds with real bases and elevated pitching mounds imbedded in the field and red dirt basepaths. No signs of vandalism. We were convinced at first that there must be a catch..that we'd get thrown out of the park. SURELY you can't work out anywhere that nice for free. But, nobody bothered us. It's like the parking spaces in front of every store here...in Philly they were all reserved for "handicapped" license plate scammers who outnumber legit handicapped folks several times over in lovely "cautious city U.S.A". Here you just park 5 feet from the door like nature intended.
A real test of the worthiness of this vicinity will be the first wrestling card (indie) that we go to....on 1/27. The promotion I've been told by our pal Don evidently feels it's just short of the "breakout" point at which they can start hiring legends (like Terry Funk I heard) for it's cards. Perhaps it'll all work out if they earn the Whiskey Rebel's blessing.
1/22
Since two people have emailed me the following review of my book "JOBJUMPER" from "Your Flesh" within the last few hours, I guess it's time for me to get my red pen out and grade the review. It's the first I've seen that isn't entirely positive..so, it's interesting to me.
"I finished this book wondering why a man with the obvious intelligence of Phil Irwin would spend his life trying to annihilate that same intelligence. Irwin is content to do repetitive, semi-skilled jobs, for varying periods of time, just basically to survive and purchase that next twelve-pack of beer. The hundreds of pages of this book provide a detailed litany of those jobs, innumerable cans of beer, the pals and shitheads he's worked with and for, and not much else. Did you know that Phil Irwin is better known by his nom de plume of The Whiskey Rebel, fronting the ageless punk rock outfit Rancid Vat? Or did you know that he is also in a band called [appropriately enough] Alcoholics Unanimous? Did you know that he has a wife and kids and has written other books? Well, you won't be reading about this in any of his work. He keeps everything outside of his dayjob life out of the story, tossing in asides such as getting married like he just popped open another cold one.
One never gets the sense of a full person here: just someone who wakes up, goes to work, drinks, then goes to sleep. What is going on in the mind of Phil Irwin? Maybe that will be included in another book. The one is friendly and conversational, it's a good read. But if you are looking for any kind of insight, you'll be left sorely wanting"--Les Scurry.
Right off I just KNOW that Les must LIKE his job..or not have to work. I state plainly in the book that a large segment of society would "not get it" because they have no idea what sort of daily hell a huge percentage of us Jobjumpers go through on the job. Wealthy people, college students supported my Mommy and Daddy (Les?) and people who have walked into a great work situation (like my WIFE for instance) simply have no CLUE.
The "insight" that I think Les missed (and this is what makes me suspect he didn't read the book thoroughly) is found in the charachters I worked alongside. There's Paul..a fellow devoted area manager for the inventory service who worked such long hours he wound up a glassy eyed beaten man reading for the nuthouse. There's my boss Ivan (who I name as the worst ever) who checked the pencils and copy paper at the end of the day lest someone waste an excess sheet or sharpen a pencil stub too often. HELL LES!! It's right there in the damn book!! This is what millions of us..FUCKING 10's of millions of us have to deal with. How about the many pages I devoted to John Messenger a guy I worked with in a warehouse; he was starving thanks to the American work system..he poured WATER over his cornflakes for breakfast...a loser in his 50's whose life was effectively over. A TOTALLY beaten man. How about the fact that I wound up in a suicidal fetal position..unhirable at the age of 40?? I spend hundreds of pages explaining why.
Why should I go off on a Rancid Vat history (I've got one on the drawing board that will pull no punches) or my childhood as a nerdy chess prodigy (I've got that book already written..publishers??) or go off on politics (I do that here damnit) anymore than I did.
There are many, many pages of drinking stories in the book..(why didn't you see them Les??) And what about all the shit stories?? I thought if anything I included TOO MUCH stuff unrelated to the subject at hand..the American work scene. That's why I edited a lot of extraneous additional stories out.
My friend Judith made a much more accurate and pertinent remark upon reading the book; she wondered WHY I still worked so hard at those crappy fucking jobs. Why I never shook the work ethic my parents ingrained in me.
I didn't say so in so many words in the book, but my troubles began with my parents and my Wife's parents all pressuring me to be a white collar businessman. Somehow it took me years to get past that. I'm simply TOO WEIRD to succeed for long in the business world; I lasted a year and a half in the ranks of management as a wolf in sheeps clothing. The results I produced job wise were great; but that WASN'T ENOUGH for the bosses. They claimed that they only looked at the "bottom line" whether or not I earned profits..but that was a fucking LIE. I produced profits for them while hiring and employing misfits..punk rockers, lesbians, blacks, Filipino's, bikers, etc. who were VERY LOYAL to me that the bosses didn't like. This all took place in L.A. in 1987 or so. It's all explained in detail in the book.
Here's some more "insight". I plainly state in the book the fact that I worked hard and fast at many jobs I didn't like because it made the TIME go by faster. A simple truth, but a real-life "insight" to name one. The book is crammed with explanations of why I avoided company lunchrooms and why you can't trust "help wanted" adds in any paper in the U.S.A.
Anyway, I'm not angry about the review. It's not really bad. The one in the same zine for our Alcoholics Unanimous X-mas single 10 years ago; Now THAT was bad. And the editor Peter Davis attempted to make me look like a dummy when I wrote a letter of response. I shouldn't have set myself up for it. Since then I wage a quiet war against Mr. Davis who knows quite a few people I know. Hell, I'm used to getting bad reviews in Your Flesh, Maximum R'nR' and other zines. There are many that almost automatically rave about almost every record I've played on, so what the hell. It balances out. In fact, for years we've gotten more mail orders from a slagging in M'R'nR' than a positive review.
And so...the moment of truth. I deem this review of JOBJUMPER worthy of the grade: C-/D+
1/19
OH MY GOD!! Elvis is threatening to chug a full fifth of Bacardi Rum!
False alarm..luckily he just mixed a damn drink instead. Tomorrow is MLK's birthday..which is begrudgingly celebrated enough here in San Marcos so that it's a school holiday. I sure as fucking hell hope it doesn't interfere with my thrift store plans tomorrow. I want to hit the stores in the area NW of central Austin (damn, I hope nobody in Austin reads this and cleans out the stores ahead of me).
MLK faced a lot of adversity and made some great choices and decisions after being placed in a position where he HAD to. He's not one of my hero's..hell, he was a Baptist preacher; that alone disqualifies him. I'd rather see a "Rudy Ray Moore" day..or "Iceberg Slim" day. For that matter, I'd be happy to see a "Lee Marvin" or "Charles Bukowski" holiday in place of "Presidents" day.
While we're at it, I've gotta admit that "Columbas" day does nothing for me; I think it's nonsense to accuse ol' C.C. of being some sort of facist heel; he wasn't any worse than others from his period. His shit smelled no better or any worse than that of any inhabitants of North America before he got here. If THEY had lucked into a technological advantage over their enemies THEY would have slaughtered them or enslaved them or at the very damn least looked down their noses at them.
That's why it's so ridiculous to argue over racial and cultural differences and supposed "superiorities"..everybody who gets wrapped up in that blind alley ignores the fact that people are 99.9% BAD. Human beings are a Bad BAd BAd BAD species long before their racial traits positive or negative kick in.
Of course, it's perfectly natural for the majority of people with blue skin to hate those with green..and vice versa. It's understandable to me. In the same way that I understand why YOU KISS YOUR GRANNY on the cheek when a lot of us might hurl at the sight of her ugly mugg. To YOU she is beautiful....because of your personal attachment. To US she is NOTHING SPECIAL. We all love OUR Grannies...warts and all..not yours.
Likewise, most people feel better about people who speak their language, pray to the same non-existant gods and eat the same food as they grew up eating. It's NATURAL and UNDERSTANDABLE.
In a country like the U.S.A. we have so many damn culture's crammed one next to the other that we also seem to have more bitterness between people of different racial stock than countries where everybody's worshipping cows or geese or dead puffy-nosed alcoholic priests.
I think I am uniquely qualified to pass judgement on multi-cultural brou-ha-ha's and race-hate. Why?? Because I was adopted and raised by people who were obviously of a different racial stock than myself. I'm not Irish or Scandanavian..and I never identified with my Father's pride of being Irish..or my Mother's Norwegian legacy. I admired certain points about the both of them..and hated things about both of them too. I didn't have a race to belong to though; I was obviously Caucasian..but beyond that we had no clue. The Sister I grew up alongside had no clue either.
We did just fine in spite of having no racial-stock barometer reading available to us. There was no "Columbus day" or "MLK" day for us. We were raised as mongrels. We weren't unique in our part of the country. There were alot of mongrel's raised in the Pacific Northwest which was in the late 1800's a place for misfits and oddballs to escape to. At this point in time cities like Philly and Boston and Chicago are all still very "race conscious". Polish, Italian, Black, Jew, Irish....blah blah blah. Lot's of celebrations for everybody of an identified immigrant group. That's all well and good.
I truly believe though that people like myself with no visible racial hereitage are lucky in the sense that we can sort out racial and "cultural" issues easier than the rest of you.
You may say I'm full of shit; well, I say..GRUNT!! here's a turd..put it in yer fucking pipe and smoke it.
Alot of you white-folk out there are cynical about MLK day..but you get offended when YOUR day is insulted or protested by another racial group. Well, as my hillibilly stock Missouri Pappy used to say.."what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander". BALLS to you and your race when your day comes around...I don't give a frig about any of them. I just hope the damn thriftstores aren't closed up. And I likewise sneer at those of you who fingerpoint at the big day for other racial groups.
"can't we just get along" the goody goody touchy-feely multi-culturalist whimpers....
"FUCK NO!!" the Whiskey Rebel answers....because 99% of you are just NO FUCKING GOOD..and not worth standing up for. You're ALL part of a BAD BAD BAD BAD species.. Hey, Ever notice how "Species" rhymes with "Feces".....
Urp.
1/18
We lucked into a Post office box today at the local post office. There was a supposed list we'd have to wait on once we got our Texas driver's licenses; such was not the case. Our new and longterm P.O.B. address graces the front page of this website. Send your gifts of booze and CD's..we've got plenty of tamales and Mexican chiclet gum.
I'm working on a fifth of REBEL YELL and an 18 pack of Miller's genuine draft. I'm reading a few books simultaneously...today mostly a Rolling Stones band biography that was published within the last year. At one time in my life they were by far my favorite band...I guess that'd be from 1973-1976 or so.
When we were yakking with our friend Don the other night I learned that since he's heard we were Bowie fans that he figured we liked most of his stuff (incidentally, to Don's credit he pointed out openly he doesn't care for Bowie much at all..here's a toast to honesty between people when discussing music!) of course neither one of us care for post 1980 or so Bowie stuff OR stuff he did when he was just starting out; his BEST stuff was the "Ziggy Stardust" "Diamond Dogs" "Aladdin Sane" & "Pin-ups" albums and other stuff from his 70's recordings. A couple of boot's we have are among the best stuff of his we've heard.
When it comes to the Rolling Stones I think their last really good album was "Some Girls"..like the "Thin white Duke" (Bowie) they seemed to never bounce back entirely from the kick in the ass they received along with all the other aging 60's band rockstars from late 70's punk bands. I remember the late 70's as being a time that entire bands of major label megastar's were being marched off to the barbershop by their labels for makeovers. I'm not exaggerating!! They'd do anything to remain "relevant"..but hairlength and facial hair style has nothing to do with being "relevant". Punk rockers who still spout 25 year old cliche's about long hair don't realize that THEY have become nostalgia mongers with their carefully reasearched and duplicated styles.
It's silly and trite for me to have to point that out...
but still, everywhere I go I see handfuls of "cutting edge" punk rockers with hairdo's that failed to be shocking or original a long time ago. They remind me of "Fonz"...EEEEYYYYYYY!!
Back to the Stones.
If they wanted to, they could be among the best bar or large hall-band you'd ever hope to see..but they've chosen to continue to take the stadium route...which makes their performances impersonal and distant. They have to keep cranking out albums of mostly non-memorable trend-oriented material to pedal on the road. I'm sure they'd have more fun playing blues in a tiny bar...if they could; which they can't because they'd be mobbed.
Between 1964 and 1974 they released enough topnotch stuff that they don't have to apologize to anybody. A HUGE pile of often fantastic albums.
My favorite is the spacy "Satanic Majesties request" album. "It's only Rock 'n roll" is right up there along with "Begger's banquet" "Aftermath" and many more. I'm way into "Between the Button's" which is uniquely different from the rest.
Don't judge long running recording artists by their latest album..judge them by what they've done overall.
I may as well encourage a wave of hate-mail from disappointed Rebel-Roo's by publicly pointing out that we've turned heel on KISS around here in the last year. I grew up not liking them, but was converted to being a fan after watching some video tapes at Jeff Clayton's house. I was ammused that Gene and Paul were crowing over the clever methods they used to make so much money. 10 years later, they're still laughing and boasting..but they haven't done a damn THING musically.
KISS is little different from watching "Rocky horror picture show" over and over and over and over and over and over and over...
How many times can I hear "cold gin time" and pretend not to recognize it's a slow, sluggish song that plods along twice as long as it should...???? How can I listen to Paul Stanley crowing about drinking booze..when they don't drink a goddamn drop..and don't allow people working for them to??
I could go on and on..but I'd rather simply point out that current Rolling Stones albums and current techno drenched Bowie albums are way the hell more admirable than the boring dreck Kiss releases...."Psycho circus"?????
HAH!!!! It would be more appropriately titled "Cliche Carnival for CASH" or "Geritol jamboree"?
I'll give them points still even on their umpteenth rehash tour being better than Rap or hiphop. I've gotta go; Elvis just popped in our videotape of early 80's WWF heel interviews...
1/15
San Marcos Texas..small city, GREAT public library. I found a book today that covers the Hatfield/McCoy fued in depth. It's a great book so far even though it was written all the way back in 1947. Biographical history books sometimes suck when written back in times when authors had to beat around the damn bush about violence or sex.
It's loads of fun to read a book like that while knocking back shots of Whiskey and maybe playing a little appropriate music...some low budget bluegrass records for instance.
My whole life I've had to deal with people who are afraid of getting too close to books or to act interested in matters that can be labeled something an egghead might be interested in. I can sort of understand why in ONE way..since I was persecuted and teased almost to suicide in Junior high school for being too smart. The assholes giving me a hardtime never understood a really important angle though; in many instances your best chance of having fun and attracting women is by using your head. Marilyn Monroe for instance didn't go for body builders....she wanted to hang with brainiacs.
I'd be taunted for spending a weekend at a chess tournament that'd be written up in the newspaper, but it was a FACT that the tournaments were held at a glorified whorehouse hotel where I could run amok at the age of 13..not screwing whores, but renting a room to hang out with other chess players my age...drinking and smoking pot like crazy. We'd be out vandalizing shit at all hours of the night, eyeballing hookers long and hard and having fun long after the jock assholes back in our subdivision who gave me shit had said goodnight to Mommy and Daddy.
Chess players on all levels are drunks, druggies and especially kinky sex Motherfuckers. A grandmaster from the 40's Rueben Fine who was a psychologist retired from the game and wrote a book (one of many to be exact) about how warped and perverted Chess Grandmasters throughout history had been. A former world champion (Alekhine) from the USSR was found dead in a circle of shoes..WOMEN'S shoes..evidently he had expired from the exertions of ritual masturbation.
Some of the masters I used to face at tournaments would have one or even two women at their side throughtout our game. Invariably they looked horny as fuck!! No WONDER some of them made game ending outrageous blunders.
I learned to smoke pot from CHESS players.
I was served my first beer by CHESS players.
I sold my services to a chess club who wanted me to be #1 man on their team when they traveled to Canada and other places; they had to buy me beer and cigarettes upon request as well as pay for a room for me to stay in. I was 14 years old.
I wound up climbing a water tower out of my fucking head after consuming mescaline with...chess players. I spent a couple years as part of a shoplifting team..with a...CHESS player who sought me out after reading about me..THE PRODIGY..in the newspaper.
I hustled for money at the Greyhound bus depot in Portland; NOT billiards, ass or grass....CHESS.
I was interested in sports too....I wasn't a cliche pocket-protector type egghead. I was a HUGE wrestling fan and also totally obsessed with baseball. But, I didn't allow a youthful interest in sports to prevent me from going where the ACTION was Brother. For fucks sake...WHORES in mini-skirts and pimps with big fro's and professional wrestlers (including Beautiful Beauregarde who wrote "Testify") would watch me play. A skinny, tall kid who may have looked a bit geeky; but as we all know nowdays..inside that skinny kid's brain a plan was at work...a plan to escape his parents, his school and his church. A plan involving rock and roll, the images of the rebel flag..and the first hard liquor the kid had ever drank...JIM BEAM.
And as for all the jock imbeciles who gave me a hard time??
Before thee Whiskey Rebel had even had time to transform from an Ugly Duckling (where do you think we got that Vat CD title, anyway?) into a stately stud of a role model for all the Rebel-Roo's those very same short sighted, tiny-dick juvenile jocks had settled into jobs selling insurance, pulling slurpies at the 7-11 and unclogging toilets.
A bunch of male pattern-baldness assholes whose kids hate them.
And me?? Just last year I made my full length film debut..along with my old pal's Jello and Dee Dee. I had a song accepted for the soundtrack of another film which the last time I checked was being shown on Cinemax. I'm a registered B.M.I. song writer pally! I've appeared on more CD's and records than I can keep track of..and I'm a noted autor and philosopher.
The dumb jock assholes get BILLS BILLS BILLS in the mail everyday that they are always late paying.
As for me, I get FAN MAIL..along with fifths of Whiskey out of tribute from fellow geniuses all over the U.S. and Europe. As long as you read this diary...you'll bask in the warmth of my glow. You're on the right path.
(Of course If you'd rather follow the way of THOSE clueless jerkoff's..and the ones you specifically grew up with as well,..scrap all those "weird" records you've now outgrown.. go clock in with Ebay and buy a Billy Joel or "Loggin's and Messina" cassette anthology; make sure you ONLY drink when you get together with your buddies on official football nights. Start praying to Billy Graham's god....and buy your clothing from now on off the rack at the GAP or J.C. Penney..preferably Levi's "Dockers").
1/14
I've been deleting diary entries a few times over the last several days. I find myself getting all excited and woundup over how great it is to live in Texas (at least this corner of it) and I get carried away. I've criticized others over the years for breastbeating and crowing their opinions too often about their local burg (it's the official Summer AND Winter sport in Portland and Salt Lake City)..so, I've decided to try to keep it to a minimum.
I can almost hear certain cynics I know who may or may not read this (I really don't know ) scoffing at my optimism. "Well, wait'll it's Summer and 115 degrees there..he'll fucking HATE it then"!! They lick their chops and slump off find a Joy Division or Nick Cave CD to bum themself out with.
I will say this one little thing about the Austin-San Antonio stretch of I-35. EVERY fucking thrift store has a shithouse..and so far they've all been TOPNOTCH. It must be a State law or something that you need to provide one. I used to be a hardliner against letting South-Street scumbags use the bathrooms at Tower when I was a frigging Supervisor. Perhaps all the times that I had to cut trips to South Street shops short or just head the fuck home because there was no shithouse was some sort of karmic payback.
I say "perhaps" because I'm not sold entirely on the principle of "Karma".
I HATE hippie philosophy..and it's one of their main principles.
As for one of my main principles?? "When the going gets tough the tough go drinking". That's so off the subject that it's almost a proper bridge into my next topic: the "Q-Ray" bracelet I've ordered as a last ditch measure to stave off suicide due to my tendonitus pain. I shouldn't use the "S" word all that lightly....it's only a distant consideration as a cure for what ails me really. I still haven't jumped through all the possible hoops that doctors have in store for treating this problem. I had to call amoratorium on writing about my pain in these pages a while back (I didn't announce it) because it's getting to be such a bleak, boring illness to deal with.
Marla knows of TWO very different men who don't associate with one another who have tried a copper bracelet as a last ditch attempt to cure themselves from intense, recurring pain. One had a terminal back ailment..I forget where the other fellow hurt. They both happily found themselves cured after setting aside their scepticism long enough to order and strap on the lovely things. These guys are NOT hippies..they aren't "New Age" 'er's or guys who spend their time playing bongo drums with their feet while they pen sensitive haiku's. They are hard as nails fellows (like me!) who watch Monday night football..and DON'T squat to piss.
The bracelet I'm going to try is linked to the practice of accupuncture..which is the route I was going to try next anyway. A.M.A. Doctor's are my LAST resort!!! Go read Feral houses book "Pill's a-go-go" and you'll know a FEW of the reasons I am so leery of medical doctor's. The doctor I've seen about my tendonitus was never in any hurry to CURE me..he kept renewing my prescription for the medicine that is driving me apeshit over and over. He said more than once "don't worry..you can take this stuff for years!!" I envisioned him gleefully receiving a toaster-oven in the mail as a bonus for keeping me hooked to the shit for almost two years.
Remember that John Lennon solo album song "god is a concept by which we measure our pain" where as a part of his "primal therapy" he screams like mad and denies belief in one "God" after another ranging from Budda to Zeuss to the Kennedy's to the Beatles and Bob Dylan?? I'm kind of like that..I am suspicious of all "great" things supernatural AND manmade even though I am curious and have been an Art Bell listener for many years. The one exception I've discovered over the years was hypnosis; when I was about 20 or so I lost 80 pounds by seeing a hypnotist. It took me many years to gain it back..and I never went back to certain "gorging" eating habits I had. The hypnotist was delighted that I was a fantastic specimen to work with even though I was sceptical going into the experience.
At any rate, I fucking KNOW that hypnosis works..at least for me.
I hope wearing a fruitcake copper bracelet (yeah..it looks rather feminine) is even HALF as effective as hypnosis was. I can hear a few people laughing..I'd like to be on hand when they're howling in pain from whatever middleage hellish pains THEY have to go through. I had backaches that would drive a preacher to cuss on and off for YEARS..they eventually went away. I had heartburn 4 times a day for years..and now I NEVER do. Maybe 10 times in the last ten years I've experienced heartburn. Sometimes you CAN fucking whip physical problems.
I've suffered and howled in pain enough that I'd practically be ready to wear a grass-hula skirt to get rid of my tendonitus.
Having been married for so damn long I'm not easily freaked out by the thought of wearing something that alot of guys would reject as "uncool" or "faggy". What the fuck?? I haven't had to be out trolling the singles bars like those pudwackers in many a year.
I'll get the damned bracelet on Friday..will it work??
Former wrestler and world's strongest man Ted Arcidi (sp?) endorses it. I just finished a Graig Nettles biography in which he admits that accupuncture (sp?) cured him in one short session of a likely career ending case of tendonitus.
If I cure myself, I can literally triple my writing output overnight. I've had to hold back for years now. I'll also be less irritable (well, theoretically).
I'm drinking shots of Henry McKenna whiskey tonight with my beer...a lesser known and celebrated brand than most I suppose. It's fine quality though. It does the job and tastes damn goodat the same time. It'll be time to go to my new liquor store for a jug tomorrow. I can't WAIT!! Will I get "Maker's Mark" "Jim Beam" "Rebel Yell" or something else?? It's my favorite time of the day. Whenever I buy beer in a small store I always scare hell out of the clerk because I stand for so long gazing at the selection. I rarely buy the same brand more than 3 times in a row. I tell them "it all looks so good!" but only a chosen few truly understand what I mean by that.
1/11
It's not the notion of respecting individuals racial, sexual or cultural "diversity" that gets me fucking upset; it's the assholes trying to forcefeed it to us.
I'm hot under the collar about the article I saw about a controversy over a statue being erected at ground zero in Manhattan. It's patterned after a famous photo of 3 firefighters erecting the U.S. flag; people are upset because in the interests of "political correctness" the three white firefighters have been magically airbrushed and altered into a happy rainbow collition of one White, one Black and one Hispanic firefighter.
This altering of a historical, factual picture that millions of people have seen in newspapers is explained by Kevin James of the "Vulcan society" which I am told represents black firefighters. "The symbolism is far more important than representing the actual people" "I think the artistic expression of diversity would supercede any concern over factual correctness".....
Gee..why not just alter the faces to represent Marion Berry, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton??
Wait a minute though...I've written over the years a few times about my respect for Orientals; I love the food..and I REALLY appreciate the courteous way I'm treated at Oriental (am I breaking a P.C. rule by not referring to them as "Asian"..OOPPS!!) groceries, restaurants, convenience stores, etc. I'm gonna repay my debt and ask here publicly...why an Oriental isn't represented as one of the firefighters??? There's a HUGE population of Chinese, Japanese, Thai's, etc. very near to ground zero.
Well, Mr. James??? Why are you so warm and happy about this clear slap in the face to Oreintal's???
While we're at it, I think it'd be a shame not to include some other racial groups besides. Lets have a statue depicting a larger group of "diverse" peoples at ground zero to "SYMBOLIZE" the need to forcefeed open-mindedness down peoples throats. Let's include a homosexual firefighter..ur, I mean..TWO homosexual firefighters..one male one female. We need a Native American firefighter, a Jewish firefighter, a "homemaker" statue to represent the Wives at home, a male "at home Father" to represent partners of female firefighters..WHOOPS! WE FORGOT TO ADD ONE OF THOSE!!, a Senior citizen firefighter, a Canadian by birth firefighter, a "multi-racial" firefighter, an albino firefighter (after all, we wouldn't want to offend albino's..would we?? Albino's have feelings too!!) and..well, hell folks. We're JUST GETTIN' STARTED!
We'll need a dwarf statue (er, I mean "verticall challenged")..even though there's never been a dwarf firefighter in New York State history; as Mr. James says..it's the SYMBOLISM that matters the most. And of course we're forgetting the poor victims who died at the WTC from dozens and dozens of countries from South Africa to France to Fiji. Are we just going to "dis-respect" them and their feelings?? And what about the physically handicapped??? We can show a poor legless fellow on a pushcart squirting a penis like hose sticking up out of the center!!
A blind firefighter, a dead firefighter, a pedophile, a nose-breather firefighter, ..and if we're REALLY gonna show how "symbolic" we should be, let's not forget our animal friends?? A doberman, a horse, a chimpanzee and an eagle are at LEAST mandatory. Uh oh. We're forgetting one big group here...we haven't represented one very important group yet..HAVE we?? We need an Arab firefighter, a Pakistani firefighter, a Syrian firefighter (after all..EVERY ONE of these racial groups are represented in NYC). We'll need an Afghan fire fighter and....gulp,..to show we want to "get past" the unfortunate affairs of 9/11/01 we'll need to depict a Taliban firefighter standing shoulder to shoulder with the rest to bring "Closure" to the situation.
Well, what do all you Whiskey-Rebel-Roos think of all that?? It's a damn good thing they flattened such a huge chunk of real estate in Manhattan; they're gonna NEED a lot of room for all those positive symbols of diversity. Right??
1/9
Santa brought me a damned practical gift that should tickle the fancy of most other heavy beer drinkers; you've seen it on TV...it's a plastic gizmo a little like a slotcar track that runs along the sides and back of your refrigerator. For frustrated beer drinkers like myself who are forced to live with savages who insist on putting stuff like pickles, eggs, leftovers and juice in the refrigerator it's great. Once installed you can slide beers into the track without having to lean over or get on your hands and knees. Later, when you pull them out chilled you'll enjoy them more because you've excerted yourself less. I recommend it. I actually got 2 racks in the box, but our current frig will only handle one; what a shame..I'd only have to load it half as often if I had two.
Yesterday of course a fastfood Icon passed away; Dave Thomas of WENDY'S. The best thing I can say about him is that he designed a huge mega chain that is much better quality wise than McDonalds or BurgerKing. They led the way when it came to offering salads to please the health conscious folks who often dine with burger eating carnivores. To paraphrase one of my favorite ELVIS film lines "I wouldn't feed a Burger King salad to a razorback hog" and Mc-Salad's??? it's amazing they haven't developed a way to serve artificial lettuce based on their track record..or how about "Mc-salad nuggets"?? MMmm....NOTE! I'm not bellyaching about the "big two" based on the fact they serve meat or are big corporations; I prefer anywhere else almost (including Wendy's for sure) to them because they trowel out fucking garbage 3/4th's of the time. Particularly in urban areas where they are forced to hire teenagers who hate their jobs. It's like those early Beavis & Butthead episodes, eh?? In rural areas McDonalds hires Seniors and other folks who almost care about making the food taste as good as possible. In the city..they're PISSING in the french fryers!!
Yeah, Wendy's "chili" is pretty whitebread and mild..and full of yesterdays hamburger patties that didn't sell...but it's better than alot of canned chili I've had. Their burgers aren't as good as many Mom and Pop joints..but as I wrote in a HITLIST column you have NO RECOURSE if you have a bad mealed at an independant restaurant. At least you can get your money back or more free food at Wnedy's if they fuck up big time. For fastfood their burgers are the best of the chains in most parts of the country (of course here in Texas "Whataburger" stomps the daylights out of them..and in California "In and Out burger" rules the roost)..and several of their monthly specials I've tried over the years were pretty damn good. Dave Thomas seemed like a likable guy in his commercials...watching him was SO much better than the hiphop oriented Burger King commercials or glassyeyed phonyness of McDonalds and their OBNOXIUS add's..featuring smiling fastfood clerks who pretend to "love to see you smile"...HAH!!!!! If one of those greasy little creeps male OR female that work at mcDonalds ever looked me in the eye and smiled like that I'd either look behind me to see what they were smiling at or suspect them of coming on to me.
Wendy's is the haven of overweight guys who sell stuff for a living..and seniors who still have their teeth and can tell the difference between chow with real ingrediants and phony soy-bean "McShakes" and Burger King "french toast" (HAH!) processed to resemble oversized french fries for a cheap, lazy "fingerfood" oriented society. Wendy's never heaps all that putrid bigmac sauce all over their burgers..it's just basic burgers without the kind of frills or technique and care you'd get at a nice diner...but still edible. Before Wendy's tore down their salad bars (thanks to low IQ fucks sticking their hands in the food probably) I ate huge salads their many times. It was usually better than what you'd get at a BAD diner, but not as good as what you'd get at a GOOD diner.
Elvis has composed a haiku for Dave Thomas:
He made burgers good
A very happy cool guy
May he rest in peace
http://www.ebaystores.com/brilliancyprizerecords
At our new Ebay store besides all the label items I've got alot of Country LP'S listed..including some real choice ones. Whenever I write about country music I get a raft of emails asking where people can get some of them-there albums...well, go visit our damn store. Two particular items I listed tonight are a 2 LP George Jones album featuring several of the best of the best songs of his career; folks, "Whiteligtning" was great..but ol' possum has done alot better songs. "These days I barely get by" is a story of a pathetic loser that's so sad it's funny" (that's the conscious goal of tragic-country song writer's..they're often not written by sad people (Hank Williams being a huge exception)..they're written FOR sad people to identify with). "Still doing time" has some of the most pathetic bar-just-closed-and-here-I-am-with-puke-on-my-shirt" lyrics about passing out leaning on the steeringwheel car horn and waking the neighborhood.. It's got a fantastically produced (Billy Sherrill) sweeping, haunting slide guitar that makes me dizzy when I listen to it shitfaced. "The grand tour" is a sorrowful George walking you through the deserted house where he and Tammy lived, loved and fought. "He stopped loving her today" makes me mist up friends; it's as perfect as a Hank Song. George has lead a hellish life that makes guys like Keith Richard (no slouch!) look like a Sunday school teacher. Booze, Coccaine, ex-wives, arrests, starving down to 89 pounds..he's done it all. Nows your chance to hear him at his best. Another great one is a Lester Flatt Earl Scruggs 20 song double LP...not only do you get a slew of classic toe tapping bluegrass breakdowns..you get the Ballad of Jed Clampett to boot. Bluegrass has two speeds....medium and fucking BALLS OUT fast. The only genre of music to give fast as shit hardcore punkrock a run for it's money speedwise. The musicians aren't a bunch of lame rockstar burnouts either; they're low income son-s o' bitches like you and me who sit on their porches and bash away at their mandolin or fiddle or guitar. Flatt & Scruggs were to Bluegrass what a group like Black Flag or the Clash were to punk rock. Anyway, go to our store and click on the COUNTRY music LP'S section and check out what I've listed (I've also got some choice Bobby Bare LP'S listed).
I feel a little bit like a frigging whore running commercials for our Ebay store here..but I've gone six months and written hundreds of pages with nary a self-serving add. What the fuck. If you go to the most popular wrestling website around (1wrestling.com) you'll find you have to click on icons and look at add's five or ten times just to read one fucking interview. They also run teasers to get you to click around their site (which is a damn good site..and I applaud them for it) to increase the spin of the "counter" at the bottom of the page..which is their bread and butter. Frankly, what they have is so good that sometimes in spite of all the bullshit and loading and reloading and pop-up adds I spend some time at their site anyway..and I know lots of friends of mine do to.
People email me several times a week asking where they can find Rancid Vat, A.U. stuff and...yep..Country LP'S. So here you go!!!
Johnny Cash and D.A.C. seem to serve the same role for country music that soda-pop wines such as Boones Farm and Ripple and flashy Malt Liquor brands (do they make that stuff anymore?) do for alcohol. Experienced drunks have drank all of the above and enjoyed them..but gone on to other juices. Particularly people weened on rock N' roll seem to need to hear some music that's not quite "hardcore" honkytonk to get used to the idea of listening to a differentmusic genre. Cash and Coe are two of my absolute favorites..but as I've stated before I get frustrated when budding would-be country music listeners can't get "past" them.
My favorite artist any-genre-alltime is Sonny Burgess; but Hank Williams is #2. Most people have heard Hank that are reading this..and probably enjoy a few of his songs; even the ones who aren't card carrying country fans. How many have sought out an Ernest Tubb or Webb Pierce recording?? Both of those fella's are right up their with Hank..why not take the plunge?? "Never mind the Bollocks" is perhaps my favorite punk rock LP..but I'd be a fool to stop there. I'd be missing out; likewise you're missing out if you limit yourself to Hank Sr. or J.R.Cash or D.A.C.
Enough preaching..for now. I bought a 20 pack of Bud longnecks at Walmart for
$11.89..and it's time to drink 'em (well, the REST of them!).
1/8
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Elvis Presley and David Bowie.
A great website for all to visit is at: http://postalx.blogspot.com/
It's the "Diary of a disgruntled Postal worker". I'm a sucker for stuff like this..having worked for years and years with the kinds of creeps our postal worker pal has to deal with. He's a reader of this diary..so we all know he's FOR REAL and not some clown from the creative writing circlejerk symposium.
When I first spent some time reading his diary I wanted to Mother the poor fellow and teach him to drink properly..in other words to incredible excess. I've positively influenced a lot of people by urging them to drink..but of course sometimes it backfires.
Reading and drinking definetly go together. One time when we lived in L.A. I pciked up a few Bukowski books I had never read. I took them up to Griffith park very close to the observatory you see in so many movies ("Rebel without a cause" for one) along with a pint of Seagrams 7 and a couple 6 packs of Lucky Lager tallboys.
I sat on a rock looking out over Hollywood....the neighborhood C.B. lived in when he wrote the books. I got fucking smashed...it was so much fucking fun!! What a setting to read some of the great ones best stories for the first time. I managed to drive down Franklin to our apartment by Fox studios between Sunset and Hollywood blvd. Marla got home from work about 7:30 pm or so; she woke me up walking in the door. I was laying flat on my back on the floor taking a well deserved little nappy-poo. I later surmised I had evidently made a phonecall to Pig Champion about what I had read..but I'll be damned if I remembered any of what we talked about. A classic blackout.
Those were good days...I wouldn't exchange my year and a half in L.A. for any year and a half spent anywhere else. Philly is a better place to live..but if I had more money to work with I'd move to Hollywood...or fucking Malibu. I worked 65-80 hours a week when we lived there which really sucked. On the other hand when I had free time I did incredible things.
I'm drunk and blabbering...
My foot hurts....why?? I have another can of LONESTAR sitting here, so everythings is great.
Are there any great writer's from here in Texas to read?? must be..
Where's ol' Skandor Akbar when you need him for guidance???
My foot hurts...one more shot..although I should post this before I drink it..one more shot and I won't be able to post it that is...
Well, maybe if it's just an eency meencie little one...there we go..a perfect eencie meencie half shot....with a Lonestar back. uurrrp.
Now I can contemplate serious issues..like why the little wooden duck falls off the ledge of the IMAC..and the plastic pig and the porcelain turtle just sit there....like statues with petrafied fucking bowel movements.
Somewhere up near Dallas Skandor Akbar sits with a stogie clenched between his teeth; he's idly clicking through the TV remote channel selector...there's the "juicer" infomerical with the guy with freaky eyebrows..and..there's an old re-run of the Wacky Races (does the leader of "Devastation Incorporated" watch crap like that??) and there's Mr. Rogers...which means it's time to finish up the drinks on the fucking table here in San Marcos; but, Skandor scratches his scrotum...belches and takes another drink off of his Vodka drink. I bet he sneered at RAW last night..I bet he KNEW he could've done the Flair part better; well, maybe so Skandor. Hell, his name is probably Harvey or Serge or Hal. Still, he's a pro...
My names not really Whiskey Rebel, Skandor..it's Phil Irwin..what's your name?? Hhmmm???
1/7
I'm blown away that there were no bidders on my Jerry Lee Lewis auction that ended tonight; I'll be relisting the item..a red hot "borderline" legit authorized Live album that kicks fucking ass. I hear people go on and on about being bored..but there's so much great stuff out there (including a helluva lot of records in every town in the USA) to listen to I have no sympathy. What more can you ask for than Jerry Lee drunk behind the piano swearing while he sings??
http://www.ebaystores.com/brilliancyprizerecords
I added more items today to the Ebay store. It's getting pretty damn big.
I'm listening to a "Bonnie Guitar" album...a 60's country singer. I've never heard her before even though I've owned and sold alot of her records; she's got a damn good sexy voice. kinda a cross between Julie London and Wanda Jackson...
I've had a few shots or so...and many a LONESTAR beer. That's the official Whiskey Rebel beer of the night. I was unsure at first about LONESTAR even though I'm fairly easily pleased. I've learned it's designed to either wash down shots or be drank from a glass (it's $10 per 24 can case) kinda like YUENGLING PREMIUM back in Philly..in fact a helluva lot like it.
I listened to "Hog heaven" by Elvin Bishop tonight..and I wonder ( even though I'm not a huge fan of his) how many people who consider him to be a dumbass redneck realize he's got a lot more in common with old R&B blues shouters than with well known Southern rock bands; furthermore, his awful commercial hit "fooled around and fell in love" should be seen as nothing but a onetime meal ticket..which we need to excuse musical artists for...ONCE in a damn while. D.A.C. has recorded HIS share...
I haven't written about wrestling in a long time.
At least it SEEMS like a long time..Hell, a week would be a long damn time..an eternity.
WWF RAW had hyped heavily the return of HHH tonight. OK....for good reason. I applaud his guts at busting his ass to come back from a devastating injury. I've criticized him in print a few times before here and there...mostly I got tired of seeing him wear the strap for so damn long. He DESERVED to wear it..but not for as long as he did. Get it??
Tonight he came out and was cheered and all...but I didn't think the crowd was nearly into him as much as Lawler and J.R. were carrying on. That's their JOB...I don't blame them. I thought Austin's comeback last year was much, much better. He's a better wrestler, a better talker..flat out better in almost every category.
Still, even though he isn't Stonecold Steve Austin..how good was HHH's return, eh??
Comparing it to returns to territories made by other wrestlers I've seen over the years it was handled damned weakly. I think it would have been better to have him come out and bust somebody's head open..or rescue somebodyfrom a beating or an unwanted haircut or something. The scenario of a wrestler just coming out to the ring to rant...when you KNOW somebody is going to interrupt them (Kurt Angle did tonight) is awfully transparent and uncreative.
Then again, they have to kowtow to moron's who don't even know who Ric Flair is!?!?!? Still, I can recall a dozen (in 5 minutes) instances of wrestlers returning to territories from over the years that were MUCH more convincing. Hell, Jerry Lawler's USWA brought familiar guys back into their promotion damn well. It's so cool to see some guy appear out of the blue with a foreign object in his hand rather than 4 weeks of hype.
Of course, none of this is HHH's fault.
Unlike the snotnosed internet "experts" (average age 19..been watching wrestling for 9 months) I recognize I'm not really worthy of judging a gifted athlete like him..I'm merely expressing a boozy opinion here, OK?
I'm glad to see him back.
On the other hand, I'm NOT happy abut the alleged inevitable signing to the WWF of Kevin Nash. I think he fucking SUCKS compared to even wrestlers I criticize all the time like HHH or Justin Credible or Billy Gun. I think Kevin Nash is no better than Hacksaw Duggan..he just appeals to a different demographic group. Hacksaw has better moves for that matter.
When Elvis and I went back and watched all the WRESTLEMANIA'S in order last Summer we were impressed by how BAD Nash looked in his infamous match against Shawn Michaels. Michaels carried him like Rick Rude carried another horrid wrestler years before in an early wrestlemania..another man who achieved way the bloody hell beyond his rightful skills..the Ultimate Warrior.
I'm not some kind of technical move stickler..Nord the Barbarian is a favorite of mine. But dudes like Nash and Ultimate zero just fucking suck..PERIOD.
Dusty Rhodes on his WORST DAY was 10 times better than Chump Hogan. Ric Flair on his WORST DAY of working supposedly "the same match" over and over was still 10 times better in every way than can be thought up in a 5 hour brainstorming chat of wrestling geeks than Nash, Hogan, Duggan, or Luger.
The often criticized BIG SHOW is a barrel of laughs and a wrestling clinic compared to that goddamned Kevin Nash. I assume they're gonna pair him off with HHH. What a shame...for Helmsley if they do.
Diamond Dallas Page used to manage "Diesel/Nash" years ago; Page is a mega-talented superstar compared to the wrestler he led to the ring way back when. (His website is also great).
I hate wasting cyberspace attention on subpar guys.
It was great to see William Regal back tonight..and Bossman too. He was watching Jim Cornette's back before Undertaker had even laced up a pair of boots unless I'm mistaken. He's not too many peoples favorite wrestler, but damn he's had staying power..and is 10 times better on his WORST DAY than Kevin Nash who will be given an immediate push.
Oh well, so goes the wrestling biz.
Top work of the night goes (natch') to Ric Flair..who went to the ring sporting a beautiful french cuffed white shirt for the purpose of selling his gushing headwound better. YEEHAAWWWW...I'm glad he's back.
1/6
We caught the BULEMICS at local San Marcos bar the TRIPLE CROWN last night. It was a critical night out in a way; everybody says it's the best bar in town and since I've decided to try to be a sociable guy instead of the town hermit it's important I have somewhere to go drink occasionally. When we got there a longwinded local alternative band was delivering the last song of it's set..it lasted about 18 minutes..hell, it could've been the first song of their set too for all I know; Yeck.
Marla and I drank on an outside deck to avoid the incredibly loud music. Why is it that bands that play too long also play too LOUD?? The Bulemics showed up and we yakked for awhile. They welcomed us to Texas and introduced us to their ex-drummer and his Wife who also live in San Marcos. Various band member recruiting gossip and related talk went on for awhile. Eventually when the Bulemics started their set I was up front and center to witness them preaching to the unconverted in a small town where it seemed like not too many people knew about 'em. Gerry worked the crowd, pushing a few people, tossing a glass or two..pretzeling the mic stands..yunno; good clean fun.
The locals accepted all that...eventually he picked up a table some people were sitting at and bounced it off a wall. THAT was cool....I thought the plug might be pulled..but luckily not. Gerry didn't press his luck further. He gyrated and bellowed and groveled the rest of the night withing busting anything else.
It was a minute or so after the table was smashed that a guy I'll henceforth refer to "the pest" invited himself into my life. WHY ME????? 100 people there...and he's gotta latch onto ME!?!?!?!? He was dressed a bit differently than the rest of the people there. He wore a nice white sweater, red dress shirt and a striped tie with beige slacks. He had a slightly grownout crewcut and if I had to guess I'd say he looked 1/2 or 1/4 Mexican. He started talking to me grinning all the while.....as the band played. I couldn't hear what he was saying..so I did what I usually do in that situation. I nooded and smiled and nodded and then turned back towards the band so that he could see that I wanted to pay attention to what they were doing.
After the set, he came over and started up.
"hey man..your people and my people need to sit down and talk; all that shit should've been OVER in the 60's man!"
What the fuck! I though.."uuhh....I don't know what you mean"
"You know what I mean man. We gotta TALK. I don't need to have a bunch of YOUR people beat the shit out of me..and you don't want a buncha MY people to beat the crap out of YOU!!
"I don't know what you mean by MY people. I'm just a friend of the band. Didn't you like them??" I couldn't figure out what the hell the guy meant. My attempts to get the guy to come and say what was on his mind were useless. He just kept making vague statements..as if I knew what he meant, but was trying to deny it.
"It's no good man. The 60's are OVER!! You know what I mean??"
"Look..I don't know who you think my "people" are; if it's what I think you mean, I've never touched a motorcycle in my life" (people are always assuming that I'm a biker). I walked away from the guy.
10 minutes later he walked up to me again...
"Hey..could we TALK??" he gestured to the door.
I thought he might want to apologize..so I agreed to. Outside he started up again oblivious of anything I had said.
"Man..I LIKE the way you dress (???? sweat pants..sleeveless T-shirt..camo pattern vest and leather jacket?? He looked like a snazzy dresser who wouldn't be caught DEAD dressing like me). We just don't need to start all that shit from the 60's over again.."
Oh FUCCKKK!!! I thought...how do I get rid of this guy..
"Look" I said a bit rude this time.."I don't know who you think I am or what you think I am..but I'm NOT part of any group of people. I take that back..I'm a WRESTLING fan..you see this guy on my T-shirt?? (Abdullah the Butcher) I'm into WRESTLING!! THAT'S my thing!"
Instead of apologizing the dude shifted gears quickly and without warning..
"hey man..you got any weed???" he asked desperately in a conspiratorial whisper.
"NO!". I fired back. I figured I must've finally shut the guy up about whatever the hell he was jabbering about. Marla and I had made plans to follow a few of the Bulemics to a small informal get together at their old drummers pad. "The pest" asked if he could go to the party..and I said firmly that I had no right to invite anybody there.
But, of course when we pulled up to the house we saw him standing in front of the porch where his path was being blocked subtly by a couple of the boys so he couldn't go inside. He had managed to con somebody into thinking he was a friend of ours I guess, and they gave him a ride over.
He started right back up as if he hadn't heard a word of what I said..not in a rude way; he seemed sincerely interested in making peace with whatever group of people he thought I was part of.
"Man..we got to set aside all that violence shit, you know what I mean?? I think you don't like some of my friends because they have shaved heads"
"No. I DON'T know what you mean??? Just who do you think "my people" and who are "your people..???" I was aware that the people on the porch had quit talking and were listening to us.
"Oh man"..he seemed disgusted..as if I was playing games. "Do I have to say it?? MOD'S and ROCKER'S man..I'm a MOD!!
"GOOD FOR YOU!! But I told you..I'm a wrestling fan..and a friend and fan of the Bulemics. THAT'S ALL!!" I hoped he finally understood..he veered off in another direction again though..this time a surprising one.
"I'm JEWISH too" he blurted out...
"Good for you pal...I've got A LOT of Jewish friends. I started naming a few of them off. The pest turned away suddenly and leaned towards somebody sitting nearby..
"Hey...anybody wanna some some WEED?? I got a bag in my pocket??"
OH JESUS CHRIST..I thought. Why do I always attract these pests. A couple minutes later he was offered a ride by a couple Bulemics people who were doing it to get rid of the pest for the rest of us.
"You shoulda punched him" Craig said later..
"Yeah..but it seemed like the wrong thing to do when the guy kept rattling on and on about wanting to make peace!!" I tried to explain. Maybe Craig was right..maybe I should've popped him one. Our discussion was 3 times as long as I've repeated here..he really was a fucking pest.
I was introduced to the owner of the bar. I didn't know he was the owner of the bar until after I had gone into a happy drunken routine in full WHISKEY REBEL charachter.
"you know...if this is going to be my new home bar (who can beat $1 for 16 ounce drafts during a 3 hour happy hour daily??) I think they need to put a sign discreetly over the bar somewhere reading.."this is the OFFICIAL HOME BAR of the Whiskey Rebel".
The fellow who I later learned owned the bar went along with it..
"Yeah..we'll have to see what we can do.."
I also suggested to some locals that a sign be erected on I-35 when you first enter town..."Home town of noted writer, rockstar and philosopher thee WHISKEY REBEL".
All in all it was a decent night out.
Oh yeah...I almost forgot. Wes, Craig, Gerry and I knocked back a jar of huckleberry moonshine at the end of the night. it looked like Grandma's preserves. it was even kinda thick and blue instead of clear. It tasted ok..real smooth in fact. I was sent to bed by Elvis 15 minutes after I got home...I must've been smashed.
I woke up at 7:30 when Marla got up to go to work. I was too hung over to sleep, so I read some of the Erskine Caldwell biography I got at the library. Eventually a cold beer and a dose of my medicine sent me to slumberland.
Later Elvis and I went back to a great record store I found a ton of dollar albums at a couple weeks ago. I bought another pile..including a Scatman Crothers LP, a couple by Mitch Ryder and a live album from the early 70's by a sax honking black minister..yep. That's his gimmick..at least on the cover. I can't wait to hear it. We wound up shooting pool at a place that looks like one of the hicktown poolhalls in the "Hustler" gone downhill. $1.50 beers..and $2.50 per hour for a table. It's Elvis's new hangout..he's chosen a good one. It should be mine too..but if they hang a sign in my honor at the TRIPLE CROWN I'll be duty bound to do my hanging out there.
1/4
Damn it all...sweat is gushing down my brow from the curry chicken I ate an hour ago. I'll be remembering how spicy the curry was tomorrow when I sit on the pot with a hangover squeezing burning little gravle turdlets out. I had to take a "makin' room" dump 10 minutes after the meal so I expect it's gonna be a possible "most painful of the year" candidate for 2002 even though the year is hardly underway.
On the stool I read the Erskine Caldwell biography I picked up at the city library today along with my shiny new library card. The librarian seemed amused in a friendly way that all 3 of us were present and applying for cards together.Since I've reinvented myself to be a friendly outgoing chap I told the lady we had just moved to town from Philadelphia. She asked what brought us to town..and I replied "the weather..and the food". She turned to a co-worker and chortled "I guess you haven't eaten in town for long"...both of them chuckled. I neatly volleyed back:"I guess YOU haven't ever eaten in Philly!"
(Later Elvis said "but Pa...food in Philly is GOOD"...
"Yeah El" I explained..."but SHE didn't know that..it was the natural snappy comeback".)
After that retort while our cards were being made up I hammed it up by turning to Elvis and saying in a loud whitetrash slurred voice:"we just LLoovve...books!! don't we boy??"
None of the dialogue was anything special for ordinary folks..but since I'm re-entering the world of public social intercourse it's worth me mulling over.
The local library is much smaller than the huge one on Philly..but there were tons of books there I'd like to read. It had gotten to the point in Philly where I had to look for over an hour to find a book I hadn't read that looked exciting. My theory is this; the library in Philly is 10 times bigger but easily a 1/3rd of their books dwell in "black studies" that I'd never read, there's a huge section of feminist man-hater books, antiquated old historical stuff kept behind counters that employees have to personally help you with, a HUGE kids book section that's meaningless to me, aisle upon aisle of CD's I'd never consider listening to, several aisles of large print books..HELL it adds up!! The San Marcos library is graphiti free, homeless scumbag free (they sleep on the pots at the library in Philly) and the books are in terrific condition and filed in order. I checked for the hell of it the Jim Thompson section which was pitiful and dog eared in Philly; I saw a dozen well cared for books,,it looked almost like a bookstore..a well run one at that. The George Wallace biography that has always either been checked out or misfiled in Philly was waiting right where it should be on the damn shelf. It's nice to experience public oriented services actually benefitting ME for a change. The people here aren't snooty..and they sure as hell aren't wealthy; they just aren't pre-disposed towards destroying shit like people do in big cities.
You can actually shit in mens rooms in fastfood restaurants and gas stations here!! Just like the "good old days" (Gag) when I was a little kid.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.......I know. I'm starting to sound like Grandma. Not to mention the fact that I spent years of my life driving around vandalizing property just for the fuck of it. Destroying trees and parks and running amok with BB guns shooting windows, people and small animals. Pressing my weiner to the crack of the double doors of a church and pissing right into the sanctuary! Philosopically I side with troublemakers and rulebreakers. When I moved to Philly I was blown away at the spectacle of the men's room at ECW arena..it was TRASHED!! paper towel dispensers smashed...pools of urine 3 inches deep surrounding all the urinals..every damn toilet overflowed...HEAPING. I get off on seeing stuff like that too..it warmed my heart and made me happy to be there. But, as an observor of humanity I just HAVE TO NOTICE and admire the fact that I could take a fucking shit at the Texaco station or Arby's if I need to. NO LOCKS..NO RULES posted. NO POOLS OF PISS to dampen your shoes or pantlegs. Just drop yer pants and cut loose. It's a sight to behold. I've gotta go check out the Greyhound bus depot to see what it's like here. Those places are ALWAYS pockets of sin, trouble and gloryholes. What'll it look like here??
"Quack quack" says my little wooden duck perched on top of my IMAC...
The plastic pig next to him replies.."my balls itch"
http://www.ebaystores.com/brilliancyprizerecords
More new stuff posted daily to the new BRILLIANCY PRIZE RECORDS Ebay store. I'm specially pushing the "Whiskey Rebel 101" CD for people who read my stuff but don't have the guts to believe that my bands are worth a damn based on some halfassed review they might've read in some juvenile punk rock zine years ago.
The BULEMICS are playing here in town tomorrow night a mere 2 miles away. I can't wait to see 'em....it'll be a good way to check out the local music venue that everybody says is the best. WE'LL see....I don't think I'm ready to count on taking a shit there quite yet.
01/03
The Ebay store grows by leaps and bounds. I've been working for hours on it...find it at: http://www.ebaystores.com/brilliancyprizerecords
I've gotten alot of email from diary readers who've no clue what any of my bands (or bands I've guested with and people I've collaberated with) sound like. Well, check out the "WHISKEY REBEL 101" CD which is a sampler of bands I've played with and styles ranging from racket, to rock, to country and back again. On various songs I play guitar, bass, clavinet, saxophone, sing songs and even tapdance a bit.
I'll eventually get over the conveniences of living in Texas as opposed to places like Hollywood and Philly. I haven't yet though. Today Elvis and I drove to the local Staples office supply joint to buy a printer ink cartridge. There was a space directly in front of the store..I mean 12 feet from the double swinging doors. I saw it..but swung into a space about 20 feet behind it; Elvis didn't let me get away with that. He asked why in the hell I didn't park right in front of the damned store ..not having been conditioned in the way I have I guess. I looked at the space and sputtered for awhile..
"Well, it's fucking GOT to be illegal to park there! Nobody's in the space and it's right in front of the store..it's GOTTA be a handicrapped space (a scam in Philly where you can BUY handicapped license plates) these bastards are gonna tow me.."
El talked me into it. He was right..nothing bad happened..it's "O.K" to park in a convenient parking space in Texas; even if you're white, male, non-handicapped, bearded and wearing a leather Western hat.
You see guys all over the place down here that look like they could be Dick Murdoch or Stan Hansen's frigging Brother. It fucking sure is a damned sight better than seeing twerp after twerp sporting earthshoes, one of those fucking leather and bead necklaces that 90% of males under the age of 20 in the US (usually accompanied by bleached blonde "Prince Valiant" bangs that extend 1/3 of the way down their foreheads) seem to wear or Phish T-shirts and goatees like in Portland or Philly or Syracuse or San Jose or St. Paul or wherever the fuck.
I love being around Mexicans and Mexican food..that's for fucking sure too.
One thing I fucking hate is the organized canvessing of Austin freeways by a gaggle of pretend homeless fucks who are all in league with one another. I can't BELIEVE that otherwise sensible Texan's are fooled by these assholes. When we traveled through Austin last Sunday we saw two..exactly TWO working the offramps at every exit. One would sell flowers while the other dressed grungy and held a sign spouting nonsense like "I'm homeless..but trying to DEAL with it". If you looked closely you could see them talking amongst themselves..one guy walked erect with a smile and a healthy stride until he took his assigned workplace; whereupon he began to grimace and limp. It's SO OBVIOUS!!
Do-gooder's may say it's harmless, but what about legitamately homeless dudes, huh?? They'd probably be rolled by these organized phoney baloney fucks.
It's nothing new to me..there was a bunch of them in Philly with scuzzy looking dreadlocks and beards who all lived together in Jersey and drove into the city in vans. I had hoped Texas would be too shrewd for that shit....of course Austin is a notoriously liberal city chock full of P.C. types who are ripe for picking.
I guess I know what bunch to join up with if I get desperate enough for a buck..I'd be a natch for conning people into believing I'm a Viet Nam war vet. eh???
01/02
For any of you that think I was just spewing gung-ho flatulence in my last entry, I urge you to go to http://www.ebaystores.com/brilliancyprizerecords
Yeah, alot of you have heard me crow about having been on 60 CD and vinyl releases...well pally, watch my smoke as I make many of them available to you and the dozens of other Whiskey Rebel-Roos. It's taken hours and hours and I'm only about 1/8th or so done listing shit; I had noticed alot of friends as well as strangers were listing several of our items in their "stores"..it's time for folks to buy from the source I'd say.
Hey, Texas is sure great. Today I drove my new-used Cadillac (sporting my leather Western style hat) to the grocery store..where I selected a pack of T-bone steaks that Elvis broiled up..mine was so tender cut it with a goddamned butter knife!! Beef here is better..so is pork and chicken aint half bad.
The thrift stores here are incredible in many ways. At one in Austin the other day my purchases were rung up by a dude wearing a suit. He DIDN'T look like a derelict or a re-hab graduate. The books at virtually every thriftstore here are CATEGORIZED for Christ's sake....the tard's that work at thrift's in most States of our union could NEVER pull that one off. With SWT university here in San Marcos and UT in Austin I'm finding egghead oriented books everywhere I turn. Look up what I find on Ebay in my new store sucka...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I'm listening to SAM THE SHAM and the PHAROAHS; goddamn..they ruled. I like Steppenwolf too, but deduct points from them because they actually ridicule Sam & co. in the liner notes of one of their LP'S..go look it up.
Website of the year..so far: "Mike Sample professional wrestler". We've been re-watching his work with USWA in 1997...and it led to me checking the internet for a website. It seems he's a hardcore practioner of barbed-wire-board matches over in Japan. Dave Q. emailed him and got a reply within the hour! Nows your chance..Lots to read...go check it out. Also mindblowing is KAYFABE MEMORIES which has hours and hours of detailed regional stuff to read concerning wrestling's history.
I'm happy so many people have emailed me about Gus from RUPTURE. Of course I'm sad as hell to see him go..but I had no idea how many readers of this diary were bigtime Rupture fans. It just goes to show that it's important to spread the fucking word when you like a damn band.....why wait until somebody dies to spread the word, huh??
I'm gonna bang down another shot for Gus..because he's fucking worth a month of memory shots, OK?? JIM BEAM...here we go......WHAM!!! aahhhh.....chasin it with a 16 ounce can of Texas-Busch.
Salute brother.......(once again..as I swore..your enemies are mine from this day forth).
01/01/2002
Fucking Glory hallelujah to alcohol..and praise the lord with the sound of fuckheads. We've made it through another goddamned year....another year beckons with limitless possibilties; will you choose the cowardly route and lope along at your squarehead job you hate?? Or will you join me..thee WHISKEY REBEL..by raising your bottle high and swearing that this year you will finally whip your boss into the office copy machine head first..and then drop your pants and apply the stinkface to his shuddering mugg??? HHmmm..??????
You know, nothing irritates me more than people that SAY they are going to do some grandiose or even not so grandiose creative or impulsive thing....and then they don't do it; You've met dozens of these people I guarantee.."I'm gonna start a band/paint/write a zine" "I'm gonna travel to____(fill in the blank)" "I'm gonna quit my fucking job" "i'm gonna sell that stack of baseball cards that's been sitting on my family's pool table since 1962" or one of my favorites especially heard this time of year "I'm never again gonna go through the hell my relatives put me through this Thanksgiving and Xmas..NEVER again!"
Y'know I'm a man with plenty of faults..but happily I have quite a wide range of talents, special skills and natural born gifts to balance things out. You can say I'm an overweight, plain ugly boozehound who is unhirable at almost any job. You can say I have a bit of an ego I suppose..and that I'm childlike in many ways. I have a bad temper, etc. etc. etc.
Yeah, you can smear me all day for some of those faults..but where I have almost everybody beat is that when I resolve to do something..I almost always do it. I've traveled most places I've wanted to in the US..I've appeared on 60 or so CD's, LP's or 7" records...I've been training myself to write over the last few years..and have done well enough that I've given drunken readings in States from coast to coast. I'M THE GUY that actually quit the job that millions of people only TALK about quitting.
When I was 20 years old I was a suit wearing up and coming young businessman making a play at climbing the corporate ladder. I succeeded in that world quite well, but I HATED IT; so, along with Marla I dropped out of that world and started over from scratch doing things I wanted to do. Now, I'm not saying that I've always done things I want to do..I've usually had some horrid job..and for many years 2 jobs at a time. Thing is, even during those years..when I had the worst jobs of my life, I STILL managed to inch along doing the things I wanted to do.
Instead of music, Pro Wrestling, writing, etc. being my hobbies I could just have easily turned to bowling or back to Chess (22 trophies decorate my den) or to painting with my toes while playing fucking bongo drums.
Maybe instead of traveling around the US I might've decided to travel to Australia or fucking Ubangi. The important thing is that we're only put on this fucking planet for a certain number of years. Sometimes I envision what it must be like to be some old coot in a nursing home who was a responsible businessman workaholic most of his life...looking back on it all and realizing that he never let his hair down and broke out of the mold.
The best advice I can offer for a new year is this: You can do almost anything you want to within reason; horny?? go find some quality hookers. Having troubles starting that band in your deadass home town..fucking MOVE...SOON!!!! QUIT PUTTING IT OFF.
Gals....are you tired of your asshole man chaining you to the goddamned stove?? FUCKING DUMP HIM!!! NOW!! Life is too short,,you've got to quit fucking around and ACT.
THIS YEAR...resolve to surround yourself with people who inspire you..encourage you..to get things DONE. It's like that old TUBES song.."Whadda you want from life":
"Whadda you want from life...
to kidnap an heiress..and threaten her with a knife?
Whadda you want from life..
to get cable TV and watch it every night?.."
Whatever it is..I can guarandamn double-tee you that somebody in my phone directory has either painted it, sold it, fucked it, ate it, been there, living there, smoked it, stroked it, ridden it out or slapped it down.
It;s YOUR fucking choice..you can either be like all the saps that talk about doing whatever the hell it is they want to..or you can climb to the next level like those of us who are there and would never consider living the old way...
Either way, do me a favor..either figure it out and do it...or SHUT THE FUCK UP about it.
ive, impressionable kid" argument to defend somebody a helluva lot younger.
As for the parents who claimed he must've been "brainwashed"..
Well, where in the hell were they while their dumbass son was converting to a religion that has declared open war on their country?? Good clean fun you say??
FUCK YOU!! If you don't realize that what we have here is a case of a fucking boob who was lucky to have an upper middle class Mommy and Daddy to finance his braindead mistakes.
I'm sick and tired of people kowtowing to idiotic dumbfucks with wealthy parents. I say, question him..squeeze everything you can from him..and then either string him up by the balls, or perhaps better yet LET HIM LIVE over there if he thinks it's so great. But only if you cut him off from any assistance from Mommy and Daddy!
It was fun to see Mr. McMahon sop up some of Rikishi's anal juices with his face tonight. I understand alot of "wrestling fans" (pardon the expression) are upset over his "ass kissing club". I read the Wrestling Observor internet updates everyday, and I have to admit that even though the commentary is way above average, still it smacks of the sort of snobbery I associate with college Shakespeare 301 classes (I got an "A" in that course incidentally). What a bunch of old Grannies bitching and pissing and moaning for more boring "technical" matches. Rob Feinstein's new promotion sounds like something to check out for people who wish Philly was still "Hostile city USA" (which it's a far cry from anymore). The card features nothing but WWF outcasts or wannabe's. The WWA promotion featuring main events such as "Bagwell vs. Jarrett" seem about as appealing as reading a 6 year old issue of "National Geographic" while taking a crap at Grandma's house. Or perhaps "Readers Digest's" latest joke columns.
I read that Chump Hogan will be making an appearance in Puerto Rico for a big card. You know what?? If THAT'S exciting to anybody, they should take up another sport to follow.
I have to piss. This hasn't been a very long entry...but if I'm taking the easy way out it's only because my mind has been on Chump Hogan and his boring work ethic.
Hell, Come to think of it..why not liven things up a bit and have the chumpster battle against American taliban turn-coat John Walker??? Now THERE'S a Hogan match that'd be fun to watch..for ONCE..
12/4
Hello All! This is the Rev. King Elvis 2000. I'm here today to set you faithful readers up for the following diary entry. Now I've known the Whiskey rebel for 17 years, 2 months and 10 days. Never in that span of time have I heard him go off on such a turn around over somebody. He has gone in a 24 hour period from idolizing a man to absolutely loathing him. I was surrised at his words to me, and I'm hoping you all will be too.
So Here goes.
Thanks,
Rev. Elvis
Dear Bobby Fischer..
Even though I've never met you in person, up until what I heard about you this morning, I would've given you the last dollar in my pocket. I would have taken a beating for you...and I know as well as you do that people have been lining up for the privelege of whipping your ass for a LOONNnnnggg time. As of tonight..I question myself why I haven't joined the ranks of those who wanted to kick your chickenshit ass a long time ago.
You have been a hero of mine since I was 9 years old..NINE FUCKING YEARS OLD. I wasn't alone of course. In the 1960's and early 70's you were the Babe Ruth of chess. You inspired a helluva lot of chess players..most of whom have either given it up long ago, or are too damn focused on the game itself to take note of your recent HORSESHIT TRAITOR TURN on your country.
I heard today (thanks to my pal Duke) about your fist-pumping celebration of joy on live radio in Manila concerning the sneak attacks of 9/11/01. I had my doubts prior to hearing this about what kind of man you had become since you went into isolation many years ago. I always gave you the benefit of the doubt...in the past.
Isn't that the attitude most of us take towards our greatest hero's??? I'm sure it was a big letdown to fans who looked up to O.J. when he went on his rampage.
But, Bobby...you're not an out of control, hothead dumb-jock athlete. You're not only the greatest chess player who ever competed; when you won the championship you did so while oozing class like Ali or Ric Flair.
When I was a nerdy kid long ago chess saved my life at a time when daily dealings with the asshole kids at school had me considering suicide. I most likely wouldn't have taken up the game if it wasn't for you not only kicking ass over the board, but also waging war on society.
You declared to a reporter when you were 15 or so.."teachers are jerks"..remember?? You were RIGHT! As a living miracle..a bonafide national legend...as the greatest child prodigy the world had ever seen even a brash statement such as that was reported by the media in an even handed manor.
A few years later when you were engaged in topnotch international competition you accused the Soviet players of working in kahoots with one another. It would've seemed like sour grapes coming from anyone else. In the long run, you were proven right.
You won the world championship finally, after forcing a horde of people ranging from chess officials to your own friends and backers to jump through hoops catering to your every whim repeatedly.
In retrospect, THIS is when I should've woken up and realized what a goddamned dickhead asshole you are. I allowed my respect for you to distract me from the fact that NOBODY worth idolizing treats their friends like that.
When you refused to defend the championship against Karpov most of the world pointed out the fact that you were merely holding out idealistically for things that would elevate the world chess championship in the long run; as if you were doing it for the GAME.
It's clear to me now that you were just a nutcase who had already gone over the deep end. You threw in the towel like a pussy. Everybody that defended you (including myself) was misguided by your earlier greatness.
The next sign you were loco was your involvement in that wacky cult-church in California. The chess world anxiously awaited your return. I knew damn good and well at that point in my life that people who give their fortunes to religious cults are goddamned fools..KOOKS. Still, for some reason I never questioned you, Bobby.
When you eventually made your "comeback" in the 90's it should have been clear to me that you had lost it. Your uninspiring games didn't impress the grandmasters who analyzed them. For the first time there were rumblings in the media that you had LOST IT. Your INCREDIBLE chess strength that is. What's more, your decision to take on Boris S. who was WAY THE HELL past his prime in a rematch was an indicator (if only I had looked at it with an open mind) that you were past your prime..AND KNEW IT!
After taking a whopping pile of money from that match, you disappeared after talking shit to reporters claiming you were still hot shit. You RAN like a sissyboy away from the worlds strongest competition.
The impression you meant to leave upon the world was that you were biding your time waiting for your terms to be met for a match. You had the world fooled..INCLUDING ME.
Until today.
I read accounts a while back of your screwy, outspoken anti-Jewish attitude which of course seems strange in the light of the fact that you are half Jewish. I had by this point several OBVIOUS CLUES that YOU Bobby had either flipped your fucking wig or were a world class ASSHOLE.
Still, I always thought warm thoughts about you..ny HERO. My CHILDHOOD hero. The guy I worshipped while other kids worshipped Joe Namath or Johhny Unitas.
I'm not a "super-patriot" who is touchy about the flag or Mom or apple pie. I'm a part time writer, musician and fucking alcoholic who once was considered a "minor" chess prodigy.
My chess game may have deteriorated over the years..but my COMMON SENSE and ability to spot BULLSHIT artists has increased to WORLD championship level.
You Bobby, are the lowest form of fucking traitor. You didn't just turn on your country over philosophical differences; you waved the flag for the Taliban because it was a convenient way to throw a childish temper tantrum towards the grownups in America who will no longer tolerate your acting like a spoiled fucking brat. BWAHH!!!!!!! BWAHHHHHH!!!!!
That's what you sound like you fucking overgrown, no-class, pouting baby!
You must be 60 fucking years old..and nobody has EVER challenged your childish outbursts in an effective way. I think you'd be better off if a long time ago..A LONG TIME AGO somebody turned you over their knee and administered a god-damned Billy Robinson backbreaker.
The world has given you the benefit of the doubt for a quarter century over whether you're a mis-understood genius or a common asshole with no class. Well pal, in the wake of 9/11/01 you've SHOWN us all your true colors. From this day forward if you want to worship Allah, or Garner Ted Armstrong or whatever wacky cause your "great mind" is suckered into this month, you can do it without THIS former suckered fan's support.
To all of Mr. Fischer's supporter's and spokesmen and backers and wet-nurses and apologists over the years who made his brief career possible..I SALUTE YOU. But, I'm sure you didn't expect the ingrate to wind up like this..who could have??
Let's face it..he's a washed-up asshole.
I never thought I'd say it..but it's true.
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