I Love My Job (Slight Return)

I Love My Job (Slight Return)

"I can wait to love in heaven
I can wait for you
Far away, I'll treat you better
Better than down here

Cuz I've done wrong
And I'm a little afraid
And I ain't too strong
And this ain't easy to say:

Take this bottle
Take this bottle
And just walk away - the both of you
And let me feel the pain - I've done to you

I can hope we'll be together
With a better roof over our heads
I can hope the stormy weather
It passes on - it passes on

But I've hoped too long
Hoped for me to change
And that hope is gone
So listen to what I say:

Take this bottle..."
- Faith No More


"Hey, you're a crazy bitch,
But you fuck so good I'm on top of it.
When I dream, I'm doing you all night.
Scratches all down my back to keep me right on"
- Buckcherry


Last night might have been the best gig we've done since January 6th, which was pretty fuckin' special.

Tonight kicked it right in the ass and left its whimpering pathetic nutsack hanging in the wind.

My second favorite place to play is a tiny bar/restaraunt 20 minutes down the state highway from where I grew up and am right now. A little nothing town, but it's always a goddamn blast to play, and I get free shots of Jager and Cabo Wabo, so you know I'm into it.

Last night T pulled some drumming out of his ass that surprised me a few times. Tonight he didn't surprise me, but he DID free my mind so my ass could follow. Jesus motherfuckin' shitballs, we GROOVED tonight.

It's not that he's exactly a metronome. His time wavers around like most drummers I've known, but he makes it WORK, because the fucker can groove his balls off. I might have to follow through on all the stupid queer-innuendo we joke around with now, because I bet that gnarly little drummer/gravedigger might be the best fuck I'll ever have.

D2 showed up and might just have to be re-promoted to D1 status for how she set my weenus on fire with one simple brush of her hand. Jesus, her EYES alone obliterate me.

I thought we might have been done after last weekend, but we talked through things, and she's very understanding and I'm trying to return the favor. I don't really believe it's going to develop too far, but it MIGHT. She's talking abo0ut getting back with her ex, but I'm not so sure now that her heart is into that. I'm trying to help her out - she says she feels weak, but I know she';s stronger than she thinks she is. Shit, *I* have turned out stronger than I thought I was, I KNOW she can do better. Not that I think she's going to do better with ME, but I really don't think she needs to go backwards, and I hope I can help her see that. Sounds like her other friends are trying too.

We got our second-ever slow dance tonight. It was...wow. A single touch and I was gone. And she thinks she's weak. Jesus creeping shit, any woman who'd give me the time of day could fucking OWN me at this point. That scares the ever-loving FUCK out of me.

We had a little high-school level makeout session in her truck on our third break. I was a good boy and didn't turn into a whiny pathetic douchebag ("Dear God, please just TOUCH it???") but it took effort. I can sense her internal conflict, the amount of shit going through her head, and I can tell that she'd like to throw herself totally into me, but she's just not sure. I understand. I'm not sure either. But...fuckin' shit...she can fuckin' KILL me with one look.


We've got next week off. My next gig is on the 23rd, the first solo gig I'll have done in over six years. I think I might have a familiar audience, talking to the band and our small crew of followers. As much as I'd like to totally own that night, I'm gonna have to let my ego accept some guests onstage, because I know I'll need the variety, and it'll take some pressure off.

I did three songs alone tonight. Dwight Yoakam's It Won't Hurt (likely far better than the drunk version I posted here recently, but that one kinda fit the mood) and two I hadn't done before - David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust (which I dedicated to our singer, who did more than anyone to get me deeper into the Bowie back catalog) and Nick Lowe's What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love & Understanding (everyone knows Elvis Costello's version), which seemd to come off quite well. Given that the upper 20% of my vocal range has been rather problematic for a few weeks, I think I picked the right shit. Ziggy nearly did me in, though...

I didn't get to do Roadhouse, but I did get to do some rather evil Neil Young-on-crank chord voicings over the end of Turn The Page (which fucking deserves that treatment, if you ask me) and quite possibly the most asinine version of Louie Louie I've pulled out of my wretched asshole yet. Vicious AC/DC-In-Hell chordage. And a few Wes Montgomery-as-a-retard ocatves.

I forsook my regular one-note solo (a unison bend on an E note) for this stupid shit:

-0000-0000-0000-0000--
-5555-6666-7777-8888--
----------------------
----------------------
----------------------
----------------------

keeping it going up to, oh, I don't remember now...the 17th fret? Who gives a shit anyway. Chromaticism rules.


Towards the end of the night, after D left with her friends, an incredibly hot blonde was dancing up front with a guy. She managed to accidentally get her top up enough to expose a really nice firm belly, and she noticed me noticing.

So she came back and lifted her top for me.

OK, she still had her bra on. But I nearly fell over the bass trying to keep a Roy Orbison song going while laughing my fool ass off at this HOOOOOOOOOOOOOT woman and her...wow...can I run my face all over that?

Just before the solo (we do this weird E-to-F pseudo-flamenco thing under a keyboard solo during the middle of Pretty Woman) I got up into the mic.

"I love my job."

Gales of laughter from the front seats.

When I switched from bass to guitar immediately afterwards, I got to the mic again and addressed my new lovely female source of inspiration.

"Thank you very much for your audience participation. The guitarist most definitely appreciates your input."

She yelled back at me. "You want some more?"

"Well. of course, this is your decision and you are free to do what you deem appropriate. But I will most certainly support your decision to continue with your present course of action."

I don't think I was QUITE that articulate (Fuck, how COULD I be under the circumstances?) but that was pretty close to the actual conversation.

She was laughing. I made a hot girl with killer long blonde hair and a sinfully delicious body laugh with my sexual innuendo! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Cut to a several hours previous, just before I got to the gig.

I bought a rather large bottle of gin at a CVS pharmacy. I went up to the counter. Very cute girl with shoulder-length blonde/brown hair pulled back tight at the counter. Probably about 25 years old. Or so I think.

You see it coming...

I invited her to the gig after she got off work, since it was almost across the street.

"I can't. I'm not old enough!"

Holy mother of Jesus.

19.

OK, 19 is perfectly legal and all, but it ain't far off, and this shit happens to me CONSTANTLY.

I told the guys I'm fully expecting to soon walk into a convinience store or pharmacy or something, and open my mouth, and just as the first word comes out, a bell will ring.

"DING DING DING DING DING! You've just hit on your one-millionth underage chick! Tell him what he wins, Bob!"

I'd LIKE to win a trip to South Dakota. But she's not talking to me now. Text-messaging song recommendations then telling me she can't talk to me, but...

It's frustrating and has caused a few Kinison-esque moments (She's been checking in on me here recently, so I hope you fucking read this, girl) but I'm not taking the explanation offered me by my laws-of-tradition-bound friends - that this is what I should expect from going after 17-year olds.

Fuck you. I know women 20 years older than ME who do the same exact sort of shit. Take some mushrooms and squeegee your third eye, fuckers.

Thing is, I love you for it as much as it makes me insane, honey. You know that, of course...

We began load-out and one of the bartenders came over to load up the jukebox. I talked to the lady who owns the place, and I DIG her. She's just a damn cool woman. Also has incredible thick blonde hair and she gave me some hair-care advice, with a few very nice comments about my own hair. When a woman says that stuff to me..........jello. Fucking jello, boys and girls.

He cranked up some Ramones, some Pistols, some Ween, some Primus. (Those Damn Blue Collar Tweakers - I thought about you, L.A. and Stone...)

Then Buckcherry came on. I don't keep up with newer music much anymore, not that I'm proud of the fact, I just live in a different world most of the time. But I knew this tune, and I found myself dancing with a Winchester to Crazy Bitch. I mean DANCING. I was goddamn movin' out there, baby.

I fucking love that shit. Ah yes, a song about my kinda girl. Caitlin has it on her myspace page, and it's MOST appropriate.

We said our goodbyes, and I drove back here, a quick stop for gas, and a nice Hunter-derived drive down a straight shot home. Listening to what might just be my favorite Faith No More album.

King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime.

How perfect.


I got to be a king today. Doing what I do best. What makes me feel strong and alive and full of power and soul.

Tomorrow I head back home. It's a lovely place, and the moments I get with my daughter are certainly enough to bring balance to the week away from this rock-and-roll love-machine I have to say goodbye to for a while, but most of my week is not strong, not alive. I have to crawl into a bottle nightly and dream.

This is what I have to do right now. I don't regret it, it just makes for a very bipolar ride.

Someday she'll ask me about it. Someday I'll have to explain this all to Katie. ANd I don't know how yet. How to put into the words she'll need to hear. How Daddy ended up in this place, somehow doing the thing he loves to do the most in the part of Indiana he spent 30 years trying to get the fuck away from, while being near the person he loves the most, three hours away. How he goes from very adult pleasures back to her world of innocence and constant eyes-wide-open wonder.

I have no fucking clue what I'm going to say when that day comes, but I pray to the gods I no longer believe in that I'll have the sense to be honest with her.

I hope she gets to dip her toes in this rain one day when she's older, when she's able to deal with it. It'll be at a younger time than I did, I'm sure, and that will be good for her. I'm going to teach her love and respect, for herself as much as for others, and I firmly believe that will see her through and help her make far more balanced decisions than I've had to make in this flailing attempt to make sense out of the shitbox I've found myself tethered to, but...

Goddamn, that was pretty fucking pretentious...

You get the fucking point. I'm gonna go drink some gin with my invisible headless friend Roland now.

Be excellent to each other.


Love,
Dougie

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