A Brief Synopsis of The J's (AKA: The Kafeteria Kids of America)

I was going to do this post on a story about my trading of a working car for 15 loose cans of Schlitz Malt Liquor at age 16, but I realized that to understand such a thing would require the knowledge of who the the key characters involved were. Matter of fact, for many of these posts, you would need to know who the key members of miscellaneous groups, bands, and gangs I've hung out with throughout the years are. Otherwise our actions might be wrongly interpreted as random, senseless acts of violence.... well many of them were, but that is not the point. This is the story of the group of friends I hung out with throughout high school, The J’s.

Kuban J and Drunk J

Back  then I always hung out with the older kids because most people in my grade weren't into music the same as I. Particularly, aggressive music. As it stood, none of the J’'s were into the same genre of music. We all came from different backgrounds. I listened to punk, Jay #1 listened to metal Jay #2 listened to experimental Residents type stuff, and JZ listened was a Juggalo. There wasn't anyone else in our bumfuck country town that listened to anything other than top-40 and new-country, so because we didn't have the luxury of hanging out with people of similar taste due to there being zero scene in Madison Township, we were all banded together as the group of weird outcasts.

In retrospect, it was kinda cool to hang out with people that didn’t listen to your particular genre of music. I introduced them to Social Distortion, they introduced me to Gwar, and before many years our tastes contained enough bleed-over that we discovered music that all of us could tolerate while riding in one anothers cars... although we all agreed that JZ was retarded as all hell  for enjoying the “stylings” of Insane Clown Posse.

Kaf Kids and The Kick A Cunts

So this is the story (or at the least a brief synopsis) of the J's. The J's consisted of myself, JZ, and two other members named Jay.... get it? The J's? Well we didn't come up with it, that was a nickname that stuck, given to us by a punk band in the neighboring scene of Middletown. They were the Kick A Cunts... and I’ll be covering them in my next blog.

Looking back, for being friends we were all cruel as shit to each other as our nicknames arose from the worst or most shameful attribute each of us had. We always joked at one another's expense and we were always picking on one member or the other.

Jay #1 was nicknamed Fat J for potentially obvious reasons, he was a big fucking dude... but he didn’t mind the nickname. Fat J was sort of the ringleader of the group, not that he was any more in charge than the rest of us, we just tended to mainly hang out at his place and ride in his car. He was the sort of guy who called you a faggot for having a conversation where you displayed any sort of emotion, but then would drive you to fight a guy and back you up during it if someone tried to jump you.

Jay #2 was nicknamed Krazy J. Krazy was good people, damn good infact. The kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back without you asking for it. He came from good stock too, his parents were solid human beings, a rarity in this life. A few years  prior to his hanging out with us, Jay had hung with the popular crowd, and it is my estimation that they used his good naturedness to hang at his amazing house and play with his amazing toys. I suspect he either grew too smart to deal with this or was for some reason ostracized from the group. He could be a bit strange some days, but then again, who of us fucking aren't. But his demeanor toward others and their reception to him is why we dubbed him Krazy J.

JZ was nicknamed Kuban J. Why? Because we were fucking cruel to each other and he obviously came from sort of hispanic descent... even though both his "mother and father" were as white as a klansman's hood. Kuban was a Juggalo... and if you don't know what that is, do a google search and prepare yourself for the weirdest sub-genre/cult of music in the fucking world. A brief synopsis of the movement would read like this: They dress up like hell-spawned clowns in black and white makeup, drink Faygo, and are proud to be the whitest of white trash. Its fucking strange to say the lease, and to them, that would be a compliment.

Me at 18

Me? Oh I was known far and wide (and would continue to be for years) as Drunk J. Why? Go fucking figure, even at 16 I was a committed (albeit functioning) alcoholic. I was so known for my alcoholism at this early age that even Fat J's parents didn't have a problem with my drinking in their house (though no one else could) because as they said it, "He's got issues". My issues? Getting kicked out of my fucking parents house every two weeks. I'd bounce back and forth between my mother and fathers house until occasionally they ganged up on me and both kicked me out simultaneously.

My solution? No problem, I'll just go live at Fat’s house. It never lasted more than a few weeks or a month, but there were many, many nights I stayed there due to a lack of other options, and much as Krazy's parents were solid humans, so were Fat J's. They fed me, allowed me to sleep on their floor, and never raised issue one with it. Looking back, I'm incredibly grateful about that, and for Fat J allowing me to do it as well. As I said, he WAS a cocksucker, but he was my cocksucker... though not literally.

We all even had a band called the Kafeteria Kids Of Amerika (noticing a trend with the K's? Not even I am sure about that). What did we do? Well not much, we all played instruments to varying degrees, but we never played one show because we didn't make any goddamn music. We were the only band that did not practice or play. There are a handful of 5-6 demos that we recorded, but they are as low-fi as it gets and no more than us screaming into a mic with a few instruments accompanying.

Our lyrics made fun of ourselves, and handicapped children (told you we were cruel). We were nicknamed the Kaf Kids and got our name from the fact that the "helpers" in our schools cafeteria were mentally handicapped.... Just being honest here, judge all you want, but in our defense, most of our songs made fun of ourselves, songs like "Roush is a Penis", "I Am A Piece Of Shit", or "JZ fucked a goat" are overly apparent of this. You can expect this to be included as a future part of my AntiCurrent.com Archive series.

So that's us. Now I can tell you stories of the mischief, mayhem, and disorder that we caused and don't have to re-explain who the fuck we were.

AntiCurrent Archive Vol 3: Rancid- Let's Go / Wolves Demos

Greetings, for the third edition of "AntiCurrent Archives", a collection of rare albums I'm releasing through this blog, I chose some seminal demo's from two of the biggest albums to ever hit the world of punkrock.  Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.

On the heels of releasing their debut album, Rancid recruited former U.K. Subs guitarist Lars Frederiksen and completed what is known as their classic lineup (one that would withstand the test of time until drummer Brett Reed's departure from the group in 2006). This was 1992, and the band was recording demos for an album titled "Let's Go" that they had no idea would get major nationwide airplay, ushering in the triumphant return of punkrock's spitting in the face of worldwide culture. Also included on this are the demos for "...And Out Come The Wolves" which showcased the bands ever-maturing style of blending punk and ska forming their trademark sound. If the Phil Spector sound can be best characterized as a "Wall of Sound", then Rancid's patented formula is the equivalent of a "Brick-To-The-Face of Sound".

These demo's are a little rough around the edges, just as punkrock is supposed to be. I actually prefer a few of these versions to the cuts that made it onto the album. Additionally, there are a few nearly lost treasures on here as well, like the song "Do You Wanna Dance With Me" that wouldn't resurface until Lars' solo band rerecorded it for the Viking album, retitling it "Little Rude Girl". This release documents a band that was still discovering exactly how to best utilize an amazing lineup of musicians that would take over and change the face of not only punkrock, but rock n'roll as well.

If you enjoy these, please purchase the album from the band via whatever format you prefer... personally I suggest buying it via their recently rereleased discography available on 7 Inch vinyl. Completely remastered, these records have NEVER sounded so good.

Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:
Mp3 Zip Archive

The tracklist is:
1. Tenderloin       
2. Ballad Of Jimmy & Johnny       
3. Dope Sick Girl       
4. Radio Radio Radio       
5. Just A Feeling       
6. Someones Going To Die Tonight       
7. Ghost Dance       
8. Roots Radicals       
9. Sabrina       
10. Do You Want To Dance With Me       
11. Sick Of It All       
12. The Way I Feel About You       
13. End Of The World Tonight       
14. Crucify Me       
15. Im Gonna Blast Em       
16. Leave It To Tomorrow

How to Calibrate a Non-Calibratable Turntable

I've recently been collecting pieces to make a DIY HIFI soundsystem. The first piece of this that I bought was my record player, the Audio-Technica LP60. This is known far and wide as THE best introductory model record player due to its price, ease of use, and availability. After researching, I found some low-cost/high-value mods that are easily done to upgrade this setup. These include a diamond tipped needle, and an upgraded belt, come to find out, the whole package including upgrades is available here at LPGear for $99

However, just listening to the record player through a normal amp, I realized quickly that I had a problem: Near the end of every record the last few tracks of it were distorting (or peaking) out. This made the vinyl highly unlistenable and basically negated the entire reason that I was assembling this system in the first place.

So after researching the issue, I discovered that it was due to the needle being unbalanced on the player. Basically, if the needle side is too heavy, it causes too much pressure on the record and results in distortion. Consequently, if it's too light, it causes record skipping and the needle doesn't stay in the groove. This problem generally does not become apparent until you reach the last few songs on the record due to the reach and pressure of the arm being maximized.

The solution to this is needle calibration, basically adjusting the weight on the needle end of the record player. This is easy on higher end record players and only requires a few clicks on the needle arm, however on midlevel record players it's a bit harder and requires measuring and highly technical readjusting. The problem? Although the LP-60 is an introductory model, it does NOT let you calibrate the needle on it, the only factory suggested way to fix this problem is to ship it back, and let them fix it. Being impatient and having zero clue if I voided the factory warranty by adding a new needle, I elected to fix the problem myself.

The problem is one of balance of the needle, so if it is too heavy.... simply counterbalance it. There is room behind the pivot point of the arm to do this afterall. Yes, it does look a little redneck, but I'm concerned very little with aesthetics and only after sound quality with this project. So to accomplish this counterbalance, I used a variety of objects, but most of them fell off.... until I tried the change from my pocket.

Now the balance issue will be different for everyone, I tried every setup from two quarters (which was MUCH too heavy) to a dime (which was much too light). This easiest way to do this process is to find a non-aggressive sounding album (think Bob Dylan, early Tom Waits) that doesn't contain big, distorted sounds. This way you will tell very easy if the weight is not correct due to the distortion being EASILY detectable. Start the record, then skip it to the last song of that side and listen to it as that is where the problem will be most apparent. If it's skipping around, you have too much counter-balance weight, if it's still distorted, not enough. (It should be noted this isn't particularly good for the record that you are playing, so DO NOT attempt this with a high-value, irreplaceable record).

I found my desired weight after a few hours of tinkering, which ended up being one penny placed as far forward on the platform as it would allow. This was adequate for clearing the record-player cover as well as the arm moving around the enclosure. I added a piece of tape and secured it. Now? My records sound amazing, and I'm ready to start building out the rest of my new HIFI system....

Next up? DIY tube pre-amp.

How I Ended Up Frozen To a Dock

One random Winter day during my 14th year of existence, I woke up on a dock in Cave Run Kentucky with very little memory of how exactly I got there. What I do remember is that it was freezing cold, my head hurt, and it seemed to be early in the AM hours of the fog-laden lake. After taking a moment to analyze my lot in life, I tried to raise up and rub my weery head, but I could not... my arm was stuck. I rolled over and looked down as to see what had taken hold of my stuck arm. It was when I viewed the devastation to my arm that I began to question exactly how I had gotten myself into this situation.... and slowly, partial-memories flooded back into my consciousness.

My first thought was the last thing I could fully recollect which was riding in the back of my fathers Ford Expedition, sat directly behind my then step-sister and her boyfriend, and sitting next to his brother Mike, while my father was driving the beast with an attached cigar boat trailing wildly behind. We were on our way to his house boat. Dearest Dad was weaving maniacally between trucks while doing 85 as we all sat in the back passing back and forth a bottle of Apple Pucker and chasing it down with a case of nut brown ale that we had just bought for the trip.

By the time we had completed the 4.5 hour trip, we were all loaded, save for Father who was only half in the bag due to his being "responsible" and drinking only during the final hour-long leg of the journey. When we finally got to the house boat, we quickly unloaded and shortly thereafter began an impromptu game of "Up and Down the River". Now, I'm sure this game has rules in some book, and I'm sure someone cares about them... however we did not, we played the Jack Roush way. This consisted of passing out five cards per person involved, then turning the remaining cards up one at a time, and anyone that had a pairing card had to take a shot of Pucker. Generally most people would get 3/4 through the game before relieving the high-fructose inebriate from their churning stomach. Good times.

However, we were old hat's at the game, and managed to put two games of it under our belt.... and then came the whiskey... Jim Beam precisely. After about 4-5 shots, my father who had been at work all day went back into his private bedroom and crashed. That's when the fun began, Mike and I heard some faint yelling across the lake, the more we listened, the more it began to sound like females... so naturally we went to inquire as to what they were doing.

When we finally found the sources of the squeels down a random dock, we were disapointed to see that there were only two females and they both were taken, however the other 3 guys with them seemed to be drunk frat boys and down to drink with Mike and I... which my being 14 probably doesn't say much as to the caliber of human beings they were. We were drunk and I was once again drinking people nearly twice my age under the table... a talent that has lasted my entire life. It was around this time that I noticed a few of them were on another "plain" so to speak, I asked the guy to my left what was up with them and he informed me that they were tripping on ecstacy... it was around this time that I really began to lose my grip on reality, but I was later informed that I didn't in fact take anything that night besides smoking a little grass... but I honestly cannot tell you what happened in the next 4 hours. To hear the tale though, it involved me pissing off of what I thought was their boat onto the dock, when in actuality, it was the other way around and I got kicked off for my pissing on their boat.

So there I found myself the next morning, still-drunk, frozen to the dock... in what was apparently my own vomit. My arm literally a vomit-sickle containing a gross combination of last night's steak and my own bile. I tried to pick up my arm, but it was met with strong resistance. It was obviously early AM, and though my father didn't mind my drinking, I knew that I had to get to bed before he got up, for if he found me in this state in front of his neighboring house-boaters... he would be none too pleased to say the least. I briefly considered throwing water to melt the vomit-sickle encapsulating my arm, but I had no way to get it. I even considered pissing on my own arm to melt it, but I didn't feel like dealing with the explanation that may come along with being caught in such an act. So I held my breath, looked away, and ripped my flesh off of the dock.

Not as much of my skin was removed as I had feared while enduring the pain, matter of fact only a small patch was noticeably seeping with blood, most of it just looked as if I had a massive rash. It was the huge rush of endorphins that accompanied the pain combined with the fact that I was still drunk from the night before made me fall back to the ground as soon as I stood up. It was due to this momentary lapse of consciousness that caused me to not realize that my Dad was standing there on the bow of the boat. "Hey boy, what'd you get sick or somin?" I looked down, the vomit was beginning to glisten and thaw in the morning rays of sunshine, enough to where I felt safe in acting as I had just spewed it up. I stood up, hid my arm behind my body, mumbled "Yes sir, it was a rough one", immediately took a shower, drank a beer, and started attempting to imbibe enough whiskey to force the pain away.

AntiCurrent Archive Vol 2: Street Dogs: Savin Hill Demos

Greetings, for the second edition of "AntiCurrent Archives", a collection of rare albums I'm releasing through this blog, I chose one of the best punkrock demos I've ever came across.  Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.

The year was 2002 and Mike McColgan had been notably absent from Punk since quitting the Dropkick Murphys in 1998 to become a firefighter. Thankfully for us, living out this lifelong dream was not enough for him and thus, he created this demo with the ex-drummer from Dropkick Murphys, Jeff Erna (who played drums on the Boys On The Docks EP), Bill Close from The Freeze, and Rob Guidotti of The Bruisers (Al Barr's band before Dropkick). This demo quickly circulated at the time, and there's damn good reason for it... it's raw, aggressive, well planned, and damn near genius Boston punkrock (I actually prefer these versions to the properly recorded ones on "Savin Hill"). However, in recent years, it has became harder, and harder to get your hands on.

If you enjoy these, go and buy "Savin Hill", these are great stripped down versions of these songs, but in the end, it is just a demo, the album is a much more cohesive example of their sound at the time.... matter of fact, go and purchase their entire catalog if you enjoy this as they have yet to have an album that disappoints.

Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:
Mp3 Zip Archive

The tracklist is:

1. Locked & Loaded
2. Star
3. Mystery Box
4. Justifiable Fisticuffs
5. When it Ends
6. Cut Down On The 12th
7. One Of A Kind

I Saw a UFO and Fuck You, It Was Real

There is no way to ease into this subject.... yes, I have seen a UFO and yes, they do in fact exist. No, I'm not claiming to have seen "little green men" nor am I suggesting that this was some sort of alien life-form  I AM claiming to have seen a UFO in the most traditional of senses, an "Unidentified Flying Object". Now, I lived about a 45 minute drive from Wright-Patterson Airforce Base, where they are infamous for having off-the-book experimental aircraft and I suspect that it was just that, some still-not-yet released aircraft that was in some sort of development phase.... BUT nonetheless, this happened, and it was real.

It was in late 2001, I was 16 and my buddy Brian was spending the night when we snuck out onto my roof to smoke a cigarette. Brian had just turned 18 and we were enjoying the comfort that comes with having readily-available access to cigarettes  So once my Mom fell asleep, we crawled out of the window to my room around midnight, STONE SOBER, (no beer, no weed, no anything). After about 10 minutes of quietly chain-smoking, we notice a light far off, pointing in our general direction. We began to discuss it and how strange it was to see a light of that type at midnight out in the country-side.

As it gradually got closer we realize that the light is unmistakably pointed directly at us. Not only that, but it IS actually some sort of spotlight,. We literally turned and looked behind us, and could see our shadows silhouetted onto the woods behind my house. "Must be some kind of police-helicopter" I said.... "should we put out our cigerettes?" "No" he responded, "Fuck 'em, I'm over 18 now anyway". Not thinking what that meant to myself being underage, I agreed with him immediately.

As it got closer, we could tell that it had a triangle/dart-like shape unlike anything I'd ever seen outside of the X-Files. It's bright-blue lights vividly outlined its edges, and the spotlight (unmistakeably directed at us alone) originated from the dead center of it. It was quickly approaching us and the house seemed to shake with the tremendous noise that it made, yet my mother's light in her room never turned on... as a matter of fact, no ones lights seemed to go on in the neighborhood. "How can anyone NOT hear this?" I asked myself. Brian and I turned to look at each other, his face seemed bewildered and I'm sure that my face reflected the deep fear that was coursing through my body at the moment.

By the time it approached us at 100 or so feet away, it stopped and paused in mid-air, it was still deafeningly loud, but it somehow just peacefully paused there hanging motionless in the sky. Was I about to be abducted? Dissected? One thing was for sure, I was scared shitless. I turn to Brian in an effort to see what sense he can make of the situation.... as I do, he stands up, pulls his pants down and flashes his beaming white ass at the object. I just sat there in a stupefied-awe as he began to slap his ass and scream "Come on motherfucker!" (To this day, I have not seen a weirder, more ballsy move when confronted by potential danger.)

As I watched this mad, mad scene, I again looked behind us at the tree-line in disbelief, watching the silhouette of my friend provokingly slapping his ass while screaming belligerence at the object. After about 5 seconds of this spectacle, the pilot of the vessel must have either got bored or had "bigger fish-to-fry" as it started to move again. At this point it was directly above us, and my friend finally had the good sense to pull his pants back up as he too watched it in awe. As it loomed directly above us, the whole house was shaking with the insane noise that no one but us seemed to notice. Then the main spot-light went off and suddenly all noise stopped... not metaphorically... literally. There was no noise. There was no sound of crickets. No sound coming from my trying mouth, just dead, dead silence.

Then it quickly took off, vanishing behind the woods at a speed of which I could only make out the blinding light trail of it. Ive never seen anything go so fast in my life, as if it went from 0-300 miles per hour, and as it did, sound seemed to return. As soon as I could collect my rattled thoughts, I struck him several times in the shoulder with my fist and asked him what the hell he was fucking thinking. He then informed me "If I was going to be abducted, they weren't going to take me begging on my knees". He actually said this as if presenting his ass was a better option of some sort.

So that's it. I saw every bit of that and I remember it quite vividly... every terrifying fucking second of it. Alien? Maybe, but more than likely not. More than likely it was just some secret government aircraft that is as of yet unclassified and was being tested at Wright-Patt. But honestly? I hope it was some lifeform trolling the galaxy for signs of higher learning... and as it descended for the first time to experience life on this obviously industrialized planet, it saw Brian's ass and hightailed it back home, warning it's kind to never, ever visit again.

AntiCurrent Archive Volume 1: Lux Interior: The Purple Knif Show

From 2005-2007 I lived in Fullerton California and worked at Black Hole Records, owned by local punk-rock legend (don't tell him he is though, don't want to over-inflate that ego of his) Bill Evans. During that time I was a broke as shit college student who basically worked for him in return for store credit, something that I am eternally grateful for and led to alot of the amazing records in my collection today.

But working for $15 an hour store credit soon was not enough to fulfill my musical obsession, so I struck a deal with him: I'll research, locate, create artwork, and print you one copy of the rarest of rare bootlegs for $40 a piece store credit (he would then reproduce the album and sell it to consumers). He agreed and I got to work. During this time I pulled demos from bands such as Rancid, Street Dogs, compilations such as the nearly impossible to find "The Bat Cave, Young Limbs & Numb Hymns", live and deleted albums, etc.

So what I'm doing here is the first in a series of hard to find recordings I am titling "The AntiCurrent Archive", in it I will post a series of the rare records that I tracked down back in my days at Black Hole. Now, some of these recordings are able to be found on other websites, but most of the time the encoding is shit, or the artwork sucks, or even worse, the website is old and the link is broken. I will post THE best version of the recording and artwork I can find, and feel free to contact me if a better one is available and I will be happy to replace it.

So without further ado, the first release up is the AMAZING "The Purple Knif Show" by Lux Interior. 

This was a one off radio show by half of The Cramps recorded in Hollywood in 1984. In it, Lux DJ's 24 of his favorite 45's for the listener while providing Horror-Host style commentary. The show play's like and old episode of Cleveland TV's famous Ghoulardi show. Even the name "Knif" is a tribute to the late TV horror host, in Ghoulardi's show's he would refer to his legion of fan's as Knif's (Knif being the backwards spelling of Fink"). This show is arguably the BIGGEST non-musical source of inspiration for The Cramps, seeing as how Lux grew up near Cleveland watching Ghoulardi in his youth. 

This compilation is the best, most strange, and epically genius piece of live radio I have ever came across. It perfectly showcases Lux's amazing and strange taste in rock and roll, music, theatricality, and radio all at once. These are definitely NOT the highest quality recordings of the songs available, this was played from Lux's personal 45's, broadcast over the airwaves, taped on cassette, and finally digitally encoded, but it's worth dealing with the quality degradation to experience this as Lux intended it, with his genius intro/outros and insightful commentary. For a great, high quality example of songs The Cramps drew on for inspiration, research the compilation "Songs The Cramps Taught Us", or the 11 disc set "Lux and Ivy's Favorites".

Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:

MP3 Zip Archive

The tracklist is:

  1. One Way Streets, The - Jack the Ripper
  2. Swamp Rats, The - Louie Louie
  3. J.J. Jackson - Oma Liddy
  4. Trashmen, The - Bird '65
  5. Sparkles, The - Oh, Girls, Girls
  6. Link Wray - The Fuss
  7. Bill Carter And The Rovin' Gamblers - Baby Brother
  8. Tides - Midnight Limbo
  9. Earl Hagan & The Interns - New Interns Watusi
10. Mad Mike And The Maniacs - The Hunch
11. Billy Strange - 007 Theme
12. Ted Weems & His Orchestra - Heartaches
13. Ray Anthony - Dragnet
14. Grady O'Neal & The Bellatones - Turkey Neck Stretch
15. Enchanters - Cafe Bohemian
16. Jam Space & The Cadets - Take Me To Your Leader Chachacha
17. Archie Bleyer - Fernandos Hideaway
18. Spark Plugs - Chicken
19. Frantics - The Whip
20. 5 Blobs - The Blob
21. Unknown Artist - Miller Beer Commercial
22. Ward Darby And The Raves - Safari
23. Cozy Cole - Topsy Pt. II
24. Deadly Ones - It's Monster Surfing Time

A Dispatch To My Unactualized Progeny...

Dearest lads,

You've came so long, and you fought so hard, but alas, our time has come to pass.

I'm proud of the promise, strength, and resolve encapsulated in each one of you, but unfortunately, you were not destined to see your potential fruition.

You left your warm, comfortable world surmising that you would be welcomed into the balmy pursuit of life, but unknowingly, you were destined to be cast aside as so many of your kind have been before.

Life is unfair, life is cruel, and you truly deserved more than experiencing one other drown in whirlpool shortly after being propelled into achromatic absorption. For that, I apologize.

But fear not my banished once-potential stock, this is a trek that many of your kind have endured before, and as assuredly as your time alive has ceased, a new aggregation of you is perpetually forming, and with luck, one day, one of them will actually cross the finish line that is life.

Thinking of you,
Josh

"Damn Eye-Twitch Has Reappeared" or "My Time In Juevy"

Recently I have been working ungodly hours. No, really. We're talking 20 hour days at work for 5 days straight taking only 4 hours a night to myself to crash underneath my desk on-top of two sleeping bags and using my leather jacket as a blanket kind of rough.... for 5 weeks straight. Yeah, see?

I'm proud to think that there are few people on this earth that could undertake such a fool-hearty endeavor, at least for the five weeks straight that I have done it. Unfortunately, this is beginning to take a hell of a tole on me. In an attempt to balance these 4 hour nights and to save as much money as possible during this process, I have been fueling my body on leftover bagels, powdered soup, bathing in the company bathroom with hand-soap, and consuming around 60 OZs of coffee per day... but the side-effects of this life are beginning to shine through.... enter the eye twitch.

Unfortunately this isn't the first time that my eye has been subjected to this phenomenon, and this feeling takes me directly back to a story that I would like to subject you to.... and boy oh boy is this a long story.

The last time I felt my eye doing this I was 16 years old at Madison High School in Middletown Ohio, as I was being violently pushed against a wall and handcuffed by an over-zealous pig of a cop (who I will address in here as deputy Dick-Weed) and aggressively escorted into his patrol car. What were the charges you ask? Hacking. Hacking the school mainframe, changing grades, changing roster-sheets, and eventually deleting a teachers computer logs.

Let me first begin this section by saying, yeah, I did it. I hacked my asshole teachers computer, and after getting bored changing my grades and continually reversing his screen, talking to him, and restarting his computer from the next room (which was HILARIOUS to listen to), I ended up going a step further. See, I was in a class in which the idea was to teach you an instrument you had not yet learned, a class of which I was SUPER excited to attend, but alas, the cocksucker did not teach the entire 4 people that took the class anything, he instead turned us into his servants. We carried stuff from his car, we took stock of the inventory of instruments, we sold candy in his class to younger students (which was supposed to be going toward the band, and it was NOT) in short, he was using us, using the system, and not performing the one task he was getting paid to do.

This is all dealable until you factor in that the guy was an ENORMOUS dick to us. On good days he was short and shitty, on bad days he would spit-fire and slam doors. Now, I had an eye and an ear on the schools mainframe for a while, but after one particular day of the guy going off on me about how I didn't assemble a fucking gong stand right, I logged into his computer as he was using it, clicked on the C drive, and drug it into the trashcan and clicked "delete". You know why? Fuck him, that's why.

To give you a bit of backstory on the situation, I'm not by nature a hacker. A few friends of mine who fancied themselves as "hackers" discovered a back-door trojan program entitled Sub-7. Using this program, it allowed you complete and total control of another computer as long as you had installed the "back door" which was CAKE to do. There was a group of 6 kids (not including myself) who were doing this at the time, I was the LEAST offensive user of this program. I used this program aggressively just once to exact revenge on one fucker who was a cock-sucker.

Eventually, as I eventually came to learn as a result of this story, you should never trust anyone... ever. One of the kids in this group was trusted by teachers and was asked to consult about the possibility of this being a hack (of which there was NO evidence). Instead of being smart and dismissing such a notion, he then agreed with them and began to ask ALOT of questions to this group... of which I had trusted two of them with my story. Unfortunately those two told the group of 6, and every single one of them rolled on me immediately and without hesitation. For a group of "hackers", they were VERY frightened of authority... pussies.

So the whole damn thing got investigated and the full and frightening extent of the records that the group had altered and had access to was revealed by proper cops, and due to the fact that everyone of them ratted on me, I was made to be the example of why crime doesn't pay... even though I hadn't done 10% of the crimes that were put on my shoulders.

So I was arrested, booked, and released. Charged with conspiracy to deface federal property and a host of other bullshit charges that were not even close to the reality of the crime I had committed. I was trying to explain this to the judge when he told me "if you are so sure you haven't commited these hosts of crimes, take a polygraph test and prove it". I GLADLY agreed to as I had nothing to hide and was being forthcoming about my actions (even though I refused to rat on those fuckers who turned on me).

Enter the polygraph. I sit down, meet the guy who was to administer it, and we get along well. I tell him the whole story and he actually seems sympathetic as he had a kid my age. It was at this time he asked me off the books if I did it to which I responded "yes, I did parts of it, but not what they are accusing me of, nor to the extent they are accusing me of it". He then explained to me how it would be impossible to polygraph me with the fact that I would effectively be admitting guilt while simultaneously describing the intricacies of what I did, and did not do to the system. So the guy did a noble thing, he stepped up to the bat and called Deputy Dick-Weed and asked him if we could reach an agreement. Deputy Dick-Weed told him that if I would confess on record RIGHT THEN to what I had done, he would not push for me to serve time in Juevy, only fines and public service would be a result. I agreed. Quickly.

Here's the problem though, I gave my statement in writing based off of the word of a crooked cop that promised he would not fuck me. He spoke to my father on the phone and assured him thrice that no time would be spent in corrections, I know because he was on speaker. I even got my lawyer on the phone and after HE talked to the cop, he agreed to this course of action. Here's the moral of the story boys and girls: Don't trust anyone, and if you are backed into a position where you must trust someone, get it in fucking writing. I showed up to court, the charges hadn't been lessened, and now the prosecutors were unwilling to meet my attorney ANYWHERE in the middle. They wanted a hard-core example to the community, and now they had a confession in writing.In short, they threw the book at me and the judge was about to sentence me to 3 weeks in Juvenile Detention.

Unfortunately for me, as I soon came to realize, my attorney happened to be a crooked son of a bitch and was on a first name basis with the cop. Furthermore, he was a member of a family that had there roots based in both the police (2 brothers were lawyers) and the cops (the third brother eventually replaced Deputy Dick-Weed as the cop on our school grounds... two years later that cop would knock up a 16 year old girl... you can't make this shit up). So my lawyer reapproaches me and tells me he has came to an agreement for a plea of guilty that would land me three weeks in juevy... thankfully for me I am smarter than anyone else in the damn room and I immediately begin to beg them, informing them that this will force me to lose my job.... what I neglected to tell them is that my job was working for my father and there was not a snowballs chance in hell I would lose it.

So the powers that be, which evidentally all had a vendetta toward me settled on me spending the unsual amount of time of 4 weekends in juevy. Now, my eye had been sporadically twitching as this situation began to get worse and worse from the time of my being collared, but now it was in full Michael J Fox twitch mode as they cuffed me and drug me to jail, no passing go, no collecting $200.

Whilst in there, I encountered a group of skinny, dirty, skinhead racists. They immediatly approached me and asked me to joing their little click so we could go and "beat some niggers" as they put it. I laughed in their faces, picked up my pack of cards, and walked over to the much bigger and scarier group of African-americans and asked if they'd like to play some poker. While playing they all told me of why they were in there, some battery, some larceny, all scary, all dangerous. So eventually the topic came around to me and the head of the gang inquired "I like you little white boy, what'd you do to get in here?". This was sink or swim as I needed protection in there and wasn't lowering myself to the racist cocksuckers. Either I lie and make a big grand story, or I play it straight and deal with laughter. So I told them.... hacking. I went with honesty. Their responce? "No way!!!! Can you teach me how to do that too????" Whew... close one, so I informed them and gave them my contact info, telling them Id be happy to instruct them anytime, anywhere.

Now, in retrospect I'm not sure whether I impressed them with my technical knowledge, or I genuinely frightened the group of big, angry black men with my non-caring, direct presence and my twitching eye... either way, I'm totally fine with the outcome and i endured a minimum amount of violence save for having to punch my neighboring cellmate for attacking me because I accidentally woke him up while having the guard deliver my inhaler one night while he was sleeping. But fuck him, he deserved the black eye i gave him and it furthered my reputation in there.

Tom Waits & The Rolling Stones- Red Rooster Live 5/5/13

Hey everybody,

Here with a present today. I was SO upset that I missed a Tom Waits gig  (which has not happened in more than 5 years) that I was desperate to see and hear the best version of the performance possible. So being an audio and video nerd of the highest caliber, I downloaded every source available, combined, mixed, and edited them, overlayed a thick grain to make it feel more cohesive and uploaded the video.

Cheers everyone, ENJOY!!!

VIDEO:


AUDIO:
Tom Waits & The Rolling Stones
(Right Click, Save As)