Less Than Jake, Live @ The WarSuck

I roll up to the Warfield at 7:20 to pick up my tickets from will call. The tickets were 35 bucks online but 25 at the door. Thank you for screwing me yet again Ticketmaster. But I wanted to make sure I had tickets in case the show sold out because Less Than Jake is my second favorite band of all time. NOFX is number one but you can read about them in another post. No band was on stage. So while we wait for Erin, Darren and I go to The Matador to get a pre-show drink. Two $3 Vodka-RedBulls and then I’m ready to see the greatest number two band of all time. Stroll leisurely to the door of the Warfield and I hear Less Than Jake, current time 8:05. Oh shit, how can they be on already? There are three bands playing tonight. Oh well, I’m stoked to see them.

They played a variety of stuff including a few songs off their new album which I haven’t heard yet, nothing older than “Losing Streak”, which is ok because a lot of people don’t know their old stuff (but I do, because I’m that hardcore). In the middle of their set they prefaced a song with, “I’m glad this is the last show of this tour because we won’t have to play this fucking song again”. Hrm, what could that be? Why wouldn’t they want to sing one of their songs? It starts off familiar, not from one of their albums but I have heard it before. Then Chris starts singing and it’s the fucking jingle from the commercial for freecreditreport.com! Are you fucking serious!?!?!?!? Free credit report dot com (spelling it out just makes it so much worse). I wouldn’t believe it unless I heard it myself. I found a video on YouTube from the show in Hollywood. They have a recording of singing a KROQ promo, but at least that’s a music station. I feel so used, so dirty. I spent 35 bucks on your show and you guys are still sneaking advertisements into your set? I know everybody needs to make a buck but come on. Don’t you shit heads have enough money? You know, from your main job of making good records? Do you really need to whore yourself out to freecreditreport.com?

The last song they played was fitting, “Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sell Outs”. No guys, everybody thinks you’re sell outs.

I look at the clock…8:52. Wait a minute, you played less than an hour set? I look up. Encore? No they got the fuck out of there. I had to wait around because they must come back out.

I even waited until The Expendables were a few songs into their set. Shocked and appalled. On what fucking planet does Less Than Jake open for The Expendables? The Expendables opened for John Brown’s Body (who is playing today @ the Independent) and JBB is a no name reggae band (I still love them though). And The Expendables are good for a local band. When I first saw them, my buddy bought three of their CD’s because the chick working the booth was hot and for some reason he thought he had a chance if he bought a bunch of the shit she was selling. Or he just wanted to lengthen the time to ogle her.

It was even more heart breaking that there were more people into The Expendables and there was a lot more pot smoking which makes my two and half month hiatus from the ganja even more bitter.

Less Than Jake has solidified their spot in #2.

Something A Miss

You know how you look at your life and it seems like one of those "find what's wrong with this picture" cartoons. I wonder if I'm the one that's out of place.

And Now For Something, Completly Different

Since I was 18, I think I've had at least a few alcoholic beverages each week. So, I'm 25 now; that's a good, solid, 7 years of drinking almost everyday. So I decided after I spent a 9 hour flight returning from Japan with one of the worst hangovers ever, that I was due for a break. So I took a week and half off from drinking. Which is saying a lot. Last Thursday was the first time I've ever been in a bar and did not order a drink. I went to bingo night with Mat and I told him that I was on a break outside of the bar. When we get inside he says, "What do you want to drink?". "A water is fine". He looked at me strange, as if the words I said outside and my drink choice still shocked him. "Wow, you're not drinking?" As if his brain (which just scored a 35 on the MCAT) couldn't comprehend that an alcoholic was not partaking in a beer.

But don't you worry, I was tempted many of times. I want to say this was a lesson in "you hit the booze, you loose", but I just think sombody was fucking with me. Because I won bingo, not only once, BUT TWICE! And for those of you who don't know, you get a free drink from the bar with each win. I gave them away graciously. I bought Mat an "Absolute Manberry", which is vodka cranberry with Mandrin Orange Absolute. I got this other dude that was hanging out a "Brosef", which sounds quite disgusting. It's a shot of Absolute Citron dropped into a glass of Sparks and then chugged. (I tried the Brosef on another night and it tastes like Flinstones Vitamins, but leaves you with a wicked hangover in the morning). The guy who slamed the Brosef went from pretty drunk, to absolutly hammered. It was quite funny and intreguing. I still don't know why we decided to do two of them the other night. Oh well. Lesson learned. You hit the booze, you loose (at bingo).

Big In Japan

Actually, I'm not that big in Japan. People are about the same hieght.

For a country that prides itself on improving everything, they need to start at home with making their beds more comfortable.

#1 Thing I`ve learned on this trip, you can`t run away to the otherside of the world to escape your problems.

Assholes are like opinions, everybody has one.

Fuck realtors. They're such fucking weasels; worse than lawyers I think. At least lawyers have an education. Realtors think they're smart, which makes them worse. We have a parking problem at the shopping center; people park there all day and go somewhere else, either downtown or use it as a park and ride type spot. There are only 80 spaces and 11 stores. We had meetings at what to do about parking and none of the tenants could think of any ideas (only 3 showed up). We put up signs warning that cars that spend more than two hours here will be towed. That didn't do anything. So the owner and I talked, there are 11 stores which at any given time there are 3 employees working (even though the restaurants have more people working, but just for argument sake it's 3) So 3 employees x 11 stores means that 33 spots are always taken up. That's half the shopping center that's used by employees. So we decided that it should be a two hour limit for everybody and not worry about giving out parking passes. So half the shops have called to complain, the pharmacist got really mad at me and said, "why don't I just tear down the wall and have my employees park in the shop" I laughed and said he could do that, but I knew he wasn't happy talking to me (most people aren’t happy taking orders from somebody twenty years younger than they) so I told him he could discuss this with the owner. But here's what really gets my goat. One of the fucking realtors called me and said, "You can't do this, I looked over the lease." Which there's nothing about parking in there, and then he said, "well I read the lease and it's in the (some name he made up) whatever clause; I’ve written many commercial leases and that you can't do that and we have a right to park there” the fucking office manager calls me and asks for a copy of the lease because they lost theirs. I called her out saying, "one of your realtors tried to strong arm me the other day saying he had the lease and read it! You gotta watch out for those realtors of yours, they're weasels." Ahh, I love being an asshole back to assholes.

Booze helps, until your sober

I love Zeitgeist.

"A double crown and a pitch of Stella"

"Neat?"

"Yeah", who the fuck gets a double crown on ice? He must have thought the same thing because he smirked and gave it to me. I knock my head back and let the whiskey slide down my gullet before the pitcher reaches me. When your heart had just been ripped out of your chest and thrown on the sidewalk while you're walking around in the city during rush hour; a double shot of crap whiskey doesn't even phase you. Not even a little gag, just pure and bitter hate.

"Glasses?"

"One"

It's Monday and already I have had the start of a horrible week. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if the world was nuked tomorrow. At least I wouldn't have to finish the rest of this week. How come shit seems to come down all at once?

This past Saturday (well the 7th, technically) was the anniversary of Babajohn's passing. As Mat said, "the coolest member of my family". So on Saturday, we went to his grave and visited him. It is funny, he loved to garden and the grass is the greenest six feet above him. It was surprisingly easy for me, considering every time I have gone to his grave before I have cried like a little girl. There's not one day that passes that my family or I do not mention him.

Anyway, we're driving over the hill and at the bottom are sitting three cops on either side of the road slowing traffic down. I almost make it through when one prick signals me to stop and pull to the side. This fuck tells me that he is stopping me for the front license plate (which fell off thanks to a certain someone) and my tint on my front passenger windows. I tell him the plate is in the trunk and I need to fix it. The guy gives me a ticket for both the tint and the front license plate. I asked him what they were doing and he said the community wants to see more of a presence, so here they are; harassing the fucking community. One cop pulls away and the other cops stop traffic for him. This fuck hands me the ticket and tells me to be careful when pulling out into traffic, "What, you're not going to stop it for me?" What an asshole. So I do the only thing that a man who just visited his dead grandfather and was pulled over for a stupid fix it ticket; I peeled out and kicked up dust all over him. Dust-in-his-eyes.

The very next day, our shopping center gets robbed. WHY DON'T YOU FUCKS TRY TO STOP CRIMES INSTEAD OF HARASSING POOR FUCKS LIKE ME! I hate fucking cops.

I'll Make Your Mark!

Putting a handle of Makers Mark to your lips and taking a few good chugs, slam the bottle down, dry heave a couple of times, and then cracking open a natty ice after that; is a great way to start a hangover. But fuck; I hardly get hangovers anymore, I just feel tired the next day. Unless I'm drinking gin, that shit always fucks my brain up.



Sometimes you get thoughts rattling around in your head you don't want to think about or dwell on and the only thing to do is drown them with booze or music. But it has to be good, loud, fast music that makes you sorta def for a few hours. But with booze, it could be bad booze like Papov Vodka, good beer like Heineken, or anything that has an alcohol percentage on the label. Hell, cough syrup works sometimes, although I don't recommend it. It's sad to admit, but burying yourself in work does it too.



But don't think I'm superman, I still get the drinking shits...speaking of which.



I don't know why people don't like having butt pee. I mean, yeah you don't have control over holding the liquid. But you're in and out of the can so fast, even clean up is quick.