No one who owns an $800 guitar has any reason to play 'The Blues'

Okay, now that all the extra people who were coming here because of the Oscar post have all left due to my inactivity, it's time to get rolling again!

Hey, do you think James Lileks ever reads my stuff? I wonder if he thinks I suck as much as I do?

Anyway, a couple of folks have expressed disappointment in the fact that I haven't been relaying as many personal tales of woe recently. The short and simple reason is I haven't been doing anything worth wasting your time over. Work, sleep, eat, crap, watch TV, play Xbox, watch a DVD, lather, rinse, repeat - that's pretty much it. All I need is a squeaky little aluminum running wheel to complete the image.

Last night I broke this long streak of emptiness by going to a bar called The Rusty Nail with my friend Rick (whom you may recall from past tales). Rick is Renaissance Man as played by Ralph Kramden. He draws, plays drums and the guitar, knows all the keyboard shortcuts on Photoshop, and bellows a lot while doing any of it.

"Alice, as soon as I puts this Posterize Filter over this collage, POW! Right in the kisser!"

So he wanted to get out of the house and listen to The Cape Fear Blues Appreciation Society during their weekly Blues Jam. He arrived at my home around 8:30, replete with beer. I was midway into the process of gussying myself up - earlier I had purchased a pair of new Lugz Brand^TM kicks, and a spiffalicious new shirt. Both of which, by the way, I spent a sum total of $38 dollars on because I am one cheap bastard who actively seeks out clearance racks. Less money spent on clothes and shoes = more money left for DVD's and video games. He hung around and watched TV while I primped and gave myself a buzz cut. He also nearly ruined my surround system, because he is an impatient fuck who doesn't bother to figure things out before he goes around punching buttons and turning the goddamned volume on the receiver all the way up to 90. Luckily I caught him before he found the button which would have switched the TV sound on and blown all my speakers.

Hey, here's a tip: When using clippers to cut your hair, make sure the blades are properly sharpened. I didn't cut my hair so much as I pulled it all out in large wads.

Anyway, we called for a cab and waited around outside for it to arrive. Forty-five minutes later, I stomped back upstairs to phone and see what the holdup was. The genius who answered told me that she 'thinks someone was sent out a while back'. THINKS? Wait a minute - are you telling me you people don't write anything down? You've got it all stored and locked in your immense brainpan, huh? I hear this shuffling around (could've been papers, could've been her fat ass shifting around in the seat), and then she tells me that someone's on their way.

This might be a good place to mention that the Taxi Service is located less than four fucking miles from my doorstep.

This guy finally rolls up, and the first thing we notice is that he looks like Eric Clapton. Until he opens his mouth, and then he sounds like Alex Reiger from Taxi. Picture Judd Hirsch singing 'Cocaine'. We give him some shit about this and he plays along, which earns him the Mark Of Coolness.

I begin to notice the neighborhoods we pass through degrading with each block, giving the appearance that we are travelling in a circle through time. We pause at a stoplight, and a tooth-deprived elderly black woman limps slowly towards the driver - who promptly locks his door and rolls the window up. We can hear her through the glass begging for a cigarette. Judd Clapton ignores her, so she slinks around to the passenger side where Rick is sitting. He just blankly stares at her until she moves on. As she passes me to the car behind us, I notice that she isn't elderly at all - just eaten up by the ravages of many years spent suckling the glass cock.

All of a sudden I realize we are in the middle of CRACK ROCKS AND BULLET HOLES, U.S.A. Every town has a section like this - some towns have nothing but sections like this. After dark you usually go out of your way to avoid even driving through them, but here I was getting ready to party right in the middle of it.

"Exactly where in the Hell is this bar, man?" I ask the driver.

He doesn't answer, but on the next block pulls over beside a ramshackle building with a quivering neon sign reading 'The Rusty Nail'.

"When it's time for you guys to leave, have the bartender call for me when you order your last beer," he says. "Whatever you do, don't go walking around outside. It's a nice place, and the people inside are all pretty nice, but don't leave the building until you see me pull up."

For a split second I thought about telling him to just drive off when Rick got out, but decided to just suck it up and face whatever icepick between the ribs awaited me. I tipped the guy five bucks to make sure he came back later, and followed Rick inside.

It was pretty empty except for the guys onstage. The bartender said it was because of the Azalea Festival. The Azalea Festival is an embarrassing display of hickery which the locals suffer through every year. There's much staged pageantry and a sea of Azalea Belles (teenaged girls wearing hooped skirts) wandering around downtown, a 'coronation' variety show starring whatever B-level country acts the city budget will allow, and a Parade on Saturday morning with the honored queen - who is nine times out of ten a Soap Opera Actress. If you're over ten it's awful, and you can forget about being able to drive anywhere downtown all day long; if you're under ten it's great because you can load up on sugary fried dough, cotton candy, and sausage dogs - puking it all back up later as you're running along the sidewalks.


Your average middle-aged potbellied white guys, the exception being a younger fellow who resembled Mickey Dolenz with a ponytail. The lead guitarist and singer was an older (mid-fifties) gray-haired black dude playing an orange Fender, Def Leppardized with multicolored 'paint slash' stripes. Don't get me wrong - I love the Leppard for what they are; as a matter of fact, I find them quite Def. It was just wonky watching this dude working that mid-80's axe like a featured player in a Dokken video - picture R.L. Burnside singing 'Pour Some Sugar On Me', that's about right.

These were the kind of people who think Stevie Ray Vaughan plays Blues music, which he never did no matter what they want to call it. You look on that stage and you see about $5,000 worth of musical equipment, and you think to yourself What the Hell do any of these people have to be blue about?

"Oh, oh, I just bought my sixteen year old daughter a Mustang. Let me wail about that in this next song."

"Lordy, the water pump on my speedboat just went out, so this next tune is called 'No Mo Kneeboardin' This Weekend'.

"My accountant found a discrepancy, so I can only claim $30,000 in material usage instead of $31,000. I'm down on my knees about it."

Robert Johnson had reasons to sing the blues - his shoes were worn out and full of holes, and everyone he knew kept trying to poison him. If you sold that nightmarish Judas Priest grinder that lead guitarist was wailing on, the resulting money would have fed Johnson for an entire year.

Technically they were all very good musicians, so I can't dog them in that respect. I just don't think 'The Blues' exists anymore. 'The Blues' stopped being 'The Blues' when the folks playing it started making truckloads of cash off the songs. Look at B.B. King. He wears rocks on his fingers so large that just one could pay off the whole of my debt. How can you have the blues when you earn more money than most people will earn in three years just by bending over and farting?

So these guys played their faux Blues tunes, and between songs another middle-aged spectacled man brought out a saxophone, asking if anyone knew 'Green Onions'. Everyone stood around like he'd just asked "Hey, you guys know 'Disposable Teens' by Marilyn Manson?" None of these fuckers knew 'Green Onions', one of the most basic songs in existence - but they knew 'The Sky Is Cryin'. He tried to show them by playing a few bars, but the lead guitarist dismissed him with a wave of his hand and told him "let me get one more in here, and then you can play all that stuff". They launched into another generic jam, and the sax fellow tried to join in, but backed off the stage after a few moments with a bewildered look on his face.

After this the Def Leppard guitarist and the drummer left the stage. Rick asked the bartender if they intended to play anymore, and she pointed them out in the back packing up their equipment. Rick went to the bathroom, and while he was in there the rhythm guitarist jokingly asked if anyone was a drummer. I told him there was one currently taking a piss. When Rick walked out of the john everyone stared at him. He immediately knew what was up and shot me an evil look (he hadn't touched the drums in about a year and a half). A few minutes of cajoling and he took the stage with the remaining members of The Cape Fear Blues Appreciation Society, giving me the slow burn the entire time.

He was shaky at first, but once the rust flaked off he did fairly well. He made a lot of dookie faces, but whenever he slipped and made a mistake he covered it very well. 'Specs' finally got to play 'Green Onions'. Between songs I walked over and Rick told me he was going to kill me later. I told him there was a whole neighborhood full of people in the bushes outside already waiting for their chance, so he'd have to take a number.

After they finished playing I wandered down to the end of the bar and spent the rest of the evening talking to the cute girl sitting there. We talked about everything two drunk people talk about, and I used my brand of 'brick through the window' subtlety to feel her out datewise. She had the best legs that ever walked anywhere, and I kept glancing in that 'trying so hard to be inconspicuous that it becomes very conspicuous' way. Of course, I forgot to get her number. Too bad it wasn't written on her legs. She works there, though, so I may risk bleeding to death in someone's car trunk and take a trip back down in a few days.

By the end of the night Rick was thanking me for putting him on the spot. Not wanting to take chances, we called a friend to come pick us up. I ran from the front door to the back seat of his vehicle like Julia Roberts dodging paparazzi after an all-night table-dancing bender.

So anyway, I didn't get murdered, I might get a date out of it, and I had a decent time.