George Grows Sideburns, Checks Out Nashville Pussy, Listens to Records
New Burns
"What the fuck are you doing, Tabb?" asks the drunk guy with the reddish-blond hair whose name I can never remember, but I pretend to know so he doesn't get mad.
"Calling my ship," I explain to the guy, who had earlier asked me to tell him his name as proof that I knew it.
"Your ship?" he asks, as he slobbers Rolling Rock all over my black denim vest with the Dwarves pin, the Furious George pin and my new Jones Crusher pin.
"Yeah," I tell the guy, whom I told that if I had to repeat his name it would be not only an insult to me, but to him as well. He just nodded his head and agreed.
I look at the Samsung cellphone model number #SCH-8500, which also connects to the Internet, as it dials my home. When I hear my answering machine pick up, I hang up. I guess P.J., my Yorkshire terrier, wasn't home.
"Mr. Spock isn't there, Tabb?" says my drooling pal.
"He must be in Engineering with Scotty," I tell the St. Bernard.
"You smell good," he says, putting his nose right up to my neck.
"It's Jovan Musk for Men," I explain, feeling his cold snot against my warm skin.
"Smells nice," he says.
I flip open the Samsung cellphone model number #SCH-8500, which, with its metallic look, is almost a dead ringer for an old-school Star Trek Communicator. Not like those new pussy ones you wear on your shirt like a brooch. How lame is that?
"Beam me up, Scottie," I say into the phone, then quickly finish the rest of my double shot of Jose Cuervo, a fine alcoholic beverage I have been enjoying these past few months.
The phone starts to dial and then someone loudly says, "Hello?"
"Scottie!" I say into the Samsung cellphone model number #SCH-8500.
"How'd you do that?" says the drunk with the reddish-blond hair.
"Voice-recognition software," I tell the guy.
"What's that?" he asks.
"Hello?" says the voice on the phone. "Is that you playing with that damn phone again, George?"
I tell my stepdad Nick to hang on. He tells me he has better things to do at 3 in the morning, like sleep, and hangs up. Jeez.
"I bet that thing uses alien technology they stole from Roswell," the drunk guy tells me, as he walks over to the pinball machine and starts to play some game where you rack up points for nailing little green men.
"Probably," I tell him, as I put the Samsung cellphone model number #SCH-8500 in my vest pocket and order another double shot of Jose Cuervo.
"Can I try it?" he asks, as he lets his first ball slide past the flippers, only scoring a thousand or so points.
"If you buy me my drink," I tell him.
Just then the bartender interrupts our conversation to inform me that I have dirt all over the sides of my face.
"It must be because I was looking at my picture in The New York Waste and the ink must have rubbed off," I tell her.
"It doesn't look like ink," the drunk guy at the pinball machine tells me."
I touch the sides of my face and feel it. Them. The fuzzy things I'd been growing for more than a month.
"They're sideburns!" I exclaim. "You noticed!"
"Looks like dirt to me," says the bartender, as she pours me a drink and doesn't let me pay.
"This took me over four weeks!" I say, pointing to my face.
"Ain't puberty a bitch," says the guy at the pinball machine who then misses his second ball.
Ha.
"By the way," says the bartender, "what's that smell?"
?
A few nights later I find myself at the Continental checking out Nashville Pussy after a Furious George set. The Pussy's new album, High as Hell, had rocked my world for the past few weeks, and I was more than ready to see them play.
"Hey George," says Noel, my pal who books and does sound at the club, as I walk up to the mixing board.
"How'd you know it was me?" I ask. Noel had not moved his eyes from the many black knobs he was futzing around with.
"Your smell," he tells me.
"Jovan Musk for Men," I tell him.
"I know, I know," Noel replies.
"So what do you think?" I ask Noel, as I point to my face.
"About?" he asks.
I point to my sideburns.
"Uh-huh," says Noel.
I tell him that these sideburns are very Nashville Pussyish. That they epitomize rednecks and white trash. And that I so much want to be trailer trash.
"You're a Jew," he tells me.
"What? And Jews can't be redneck white trash?"
"If you grow them long they could be payess, like the Orthodox Jews have," Noel explains to me.
I tell him to go back to mixing the bands, then leave him to show off my 'burns in the downstairs hallway near the bathrooms and in the "backstage" room.
"Hey George," says some tall hot chick, "how are you?"
I tell her I'm fine, drinking lots of Jose Cuervo and can't wait to see Nashville Pussy.
Just then my bass player, Mini-Me, walks up to us. Well, he really isn't "Mini-Me" anymore. Although he still wears black women's stretch jeans like me, New Balance sneakers like me, a black t-shirt like me and a denim vest like me, he now has brown hair instead of bleached blond.
"How you doin'?" Mini-Me, errr, Stevie says to us.
"What's that smell?" the girl suddenly asks. "It smells so good!"
I'm about to tell her it's Jovan Musk for Men, that I, as well as Stevie, wear the stuff.
"Fahrenheit," replies Stevie.
My jaw drops to the ground as the hot chick starts to sniff my bass player's neck, then put her arms around his shoulders.
"How you doin'?" Stevie repeats.
I feel ready to bash his skull in. First he changes his hair? And now his scent? Et tu, Brutus?
"You smell really sexy," the girl tells Stevie, then asks if she can buy him a drink.
"How you doin'?" Stevie says for a third time, then begins to walk away with the chick.
"Wait," I yell to her. "You didn't even say anything about my sideburns!"
"What sideburns?" she asks, then tells Stevie how nice and smooth and baby-faced he is.
"Norelco Double Action blade," he explains.
I hear her giggle as she walks him up the stairs.
?
After Nashville Pussy's awesome set, almost as good as the one the Dwarves had put on in the same club a couple of weeks earlier, I find myself out front on the sidewalk.
"Great show, eh?" I say to Michael, my drummer, as I turn my face side to side to see if he'll notice what he hadn't noticed at the past four rehearsals. My sideburns.
"They fucking rock, dude," he tells me.
"The singer has kickass sideburns," I say, fishing for a compliment on mine.
"Who cares about that?" he says. "Didn't you see the girl guitarist deep-throat that beer bottle?"
I ignored him and hailed a cab. I'd had enough for one night.
"Where to?" asks the cabbie with a name like Singvh Mohammed, Mohammed Singvh or Singvh Inda Rain.
I tell him the City Hall district and he just stares at me.
I give him the address and he goes, "Oh, Tribeca."
As he makes his way down 3rd Ave. and over to Broadway, he blasts a Heart song on the radio.
"Can you please turn it down?" I ask him, as Jose Cuervo had decided to play drums in my head along with the fat ladies from Heart.
"Rock musician?" he asks.
I look at his eyes in the rearview mirror and they are fixed upon my guitar case.
"Yes," I scream.
"Hard rock?" he asks.
"Yes," I scream again, knowing I should really say "punk rock," but not wanting the conversation.
"I like hard rock," he says, and then turns the Heart song up even louder.
He drives for a while, saying nothing. Finally, after the Heart song ends, he turns the radio down and speaks again.
"Colon?" he asks.
"Excuse me?" I say, wondering if the guy likes anal sex along with his hard rock.
"Colon?" he asks again.
"Yes, I have one," I tell him. And it was beginning to hurt.
"No," he says. "When you get into cab, it smells. Colon?"
Knowing damn well that I washed my ass earlier, as I always do, I try to figure out what he is saying.
"Cologne?" I finally ask.
"Yes, colon!" he replies. "What kind?"
I tell him it's Jovan Musk for Men.
"Joe who?" he asks.
At this point, Jose Cuervo is not only playing drums in my head, he's taken up guitar, bass, tuba and jackhammer as well.
"Jovan Musk for Men," I repeat.
"Oh," says the cabbie, as he writes it down on a pad of paper. "Oh-von Musk for Men!"
"It's Jovan," I say, pronouncing the "J."
"I know," says the cabbie, as he shows the pad of paper to me where he spelled it correctly, "but the 'yay' is not pronounced."
"Uh-huh," I say, praying I'll get home any second, and that the cabbie doesn't try to kiss me goodnight.
"It smell good. Do jew get lot of girl with it?" he asks.
"Yes, lots of them," I tell him.
"Very good! Yes! I like lot of girl!" he exclaims.
Just then we pull up to my building and he stops the cab.
"I go buy colon tomorrow to get American girls."
I tell him that that's a good idea as I pay him his fare and exit his cab.
As I'm closing the door he says, "Jew have nice sideburns."
And with that, he speeds off into the night.
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Speaking of American girls, Bionic Finger's new self-released CD, Inner Bimbo, rocks. Well, in that girl sort of way. Meaning, they don't really know how to tune their guitars, and have no clue what a "distortion pedal" is. Still, they end up sounding like a rocking version of the Bangles, with cute as hell vocals. And with songs like "A.S.S.H.O.L.E.," "Shut Up" and "Big Dick," you know these babes would appreciate my sideburns.
Another all-girl band, Big Sister, just had a CD called So Hi How Are You come out on Capricorn Records. It's amazing, but they sound like a female version of the Black Crowes. Well, if the Black Crowes were all males, that is. Anyway, they play that funky-blues-rock stuff that you'd probably expect to hear on Sex and the City when the gals are hanging out at some club looking for Mr. Right-Now. Unfortunately, I don't visit those kind of upscale places, so I wouldn't have a chance with even one of these six women. Plus, I bet they think sideburns aren't classy. Snobs.
J. Church's new CD One Mississippi on Honest Don's is emo, and my friend Kelso, who works over at CMJ, would probably like them. She likes all that pussy-punk-pop sort of "hey we're sensitive guys and we know it" sort of emo garbage. Nice guitar hooks, melodic music, good songs. Who cares. She also thinks facial hair is ugly. What does she know?
The Nixons' Latest Thing on Koch Records will probably be huge. The singer sounds like Cobain, the music sounds like Soundgarden and Primus, and songs like "Calling Yesterday," "Don't Cry" and "The One" could be radio hits. Then again, this isn't the 90s. Oh well. And no facial hair on these guys is a minus.
Equilibrium is the name of Crowbar's new CD on Spitfire, and it sure is a doozy. Heavy, heavy stuff here. Think Slayer with even lower tuning, and played on 16 rpm instead of 33. The singer sounds like he ate a beer bottle for lunch, and the guitars and drums punch you right in the gut. Which is a good thing. My favorite songs on this include "I Feel the Burning Sun" and "Down into the Rotting Earth." You get the idea. Also, they all have facial hair, so they must be cool. And they look all tough and shit. Wait. Isn't Crowbar the name of a gay club in the East Village? Hmmm...
Casio's new Wrist Camera is amazing. No, Casio is not a band, and Wrist Camera is not the name of their album. I'm talking about Casio. Them people who make them calculators, keyboards and stuff. Anyway, they got this new little watch, model wqv-1, that, besides having an alarm mode, a stopwatch mode and all that other stuff these gadgets usually have, also takes digital pictures. No shit. It holds up to 100 postage-stamp-sized pictures, each at 14,400 pixels gray scale. Meaning you can be like James Bond and take pictures by just pushing a button on your watch without anyone even knowing. Then you can download them to your PC later, if you want to. Me? I love walking around and getting shots of boobies and butts! The list price on this thing is $199. A bit expensive for a sideburn-wearing guy like me, but it sure is fun to play with. Look! I took a picture of my dick!
Virtua Tennis for the Sega Dreamcast may be the most addictive thing since tobacco and crack. Once you start playing this ultrarealistic tennis simulator, you won't be able to stop. Wendy and I plugged it in the other night and found ourselves still playing it four and a half hours later. The action is fast and intense, and you can play against the computer or friends, or a combination of the two by playing doubles. You can team up, play on clay courts, grass courts and even wooden courts. And get this, the French guy, Cedric Pioline, whom you can whack balls with, has sideburns. Now how cool is that?
Speaking of cool, almost no one is cooler than Alice Cooper. Well, except maybe Stiv Bators and Blag Dahlia. And Stiv is dead...so...anyway, Mr. Cooper's new album, Brutal Planet on Spitfire Records, rules. It's great to hear Alice Cooper singing again, and he's got a new and heavy sound a la Slayer and Marilyn Manson. Songs like "Wicked Young Man," "Pessi-Mystic" and "Take It Like a Woman" are perfect examples of the direction Mr. Cooper has taken his talent. And it's pretty damn neat. I do have one complaint, though. It appears that he has lost his sideburns. Alice, what's the dilly-Yo?
Tim Wilson has sideburns. Although they may be little, they are long enough to impress me almost as much as his new comedy/music CD, Hillbilly Homeboy, on Capitol. If y'all remember, his last album, Gettin' My Mind Right, was one of my favorite discs last year, and this one is just as good. Some really funny redneck humor here that makes me want to hoot and holler. I really like "The Talledega Song," "19 Year Olds & the Go to Hell Store" and "The Ballad of John Rocker," although he should have called the last tune "John Rocker, Punk Rocker." Hell, I could write the lyrics: "John Rocker, punk rocker/Immigrants and queers, drink all them beers." Yeah!
Now out on R.A.F.R., probably L.A.'s coolest label, is the new one from Motochrist, called 666-Pack. Besides having songs that rock like "We Came, We Saw, We Drank," "Hellbound" and "Dig Your Hole," one of these dudes was in a band with Stiv Bators. And?you guessed it?a couple of them have sideburns. Heavy punk rock 'n' roll points here.
Lastly, John Strausbaugh slipped a CD into my mailbox called Doob Doob O'Rama 2: More Film Songs from Bollywood on Normal Records. It's a compilation of those wacky songs you hear in all those bizarre films from India you see on cable early on Saturday and Sunday mornings. You know, those flicks that always look like they were shot on 1970s film stock. The ones where the good guys wear white, and the babe has a dot on her forehead. Anyway, I don't know if Strausbaugh gave this to me as a joke or what, but it fucking rocks my world. Really fucking kickass tunes here, in a language that is as foreign to me as fine wine. My favorite cut, track four, "Saiyan Re Saiyan," has a dance beat you can boogie your ass off to, and a chick singing with a voice that makes my sideburns hard.