The Lords of Mischief

Art by the Amazing Lance White @lancewhite_cit

“I remember Halloween.”

Our first Halloween in ’96 started out harmless enough. Mike, Mat and I were barely a band—we didn’t even have a name or a real drum set yet, just a single snare that Mat hammered at high speeds. We were supposed to meet at Mike’s friend Chris Furin’s house and a bunch of Chris’s surfer buddies were gonna be there, though to them I hardly had a name; everybody back then just called me “Dobbs” because that’s what the 9^th Grade gym teacher, Coach Jackinoffski, would scream at me—before I stopped dressing-out for his class, that was. From then on, I was banished to the Driver’s Ed bleachers at Lake Howell, where all the delinquents met to skip class, smoke and listen to music. That’s where I met Mike for the first time and started hanging out with him, which awarded an infinite value to the endless columns of zeros that Jackinoffski had scrawled next to my name in his grade book.

Our recipe for trouble was simple: one part eggs and two parts toilet paper, plus a hefty dose of teenage angst. We planned to shake up this highly volatile and virginal cocktail on the streets near Eastbrook Elementary and then rip the fucking lid off.

What could go wrong?

Mat and I met at Mike’s house first where we scoured for last-minute costumes. We discovered a few flannel shirts and beanies in Mike’s hallway closet, and then viola!, we became instant mervishaws—our slang-term for Alternative/Grunge Rockers—which was funny, because I still had seven Nirvana shirts tucked away in my own closet back at home, even though we were cool Punks now… Super tough.

After joining up at Chris’s, Mike, Mat and I walked to Winn Dixie (referred to as “Winn Dick-Me” in those days) for our evening’s ingredients with Dave Gunderson, one of the surfer-dudes who was also in my Spanish class. Somehow, we weren’t questioned or denied when we arrived at the check-out line with nothing to purchase except for four cartons of eggs and eight packs of toilet paper…

Above, the Lords of Mischief were smiling.

We got back to Chris’s street and went to work. Since we didn’t have any idea for a house to target, we decided we were going to egg random people instead. Makes sense, right? Gunderson sat poised behind a tree as our first victims came into view—it was a guy and his son all dressed up for trick-or-treating.

Gunderson hid behind a tree and waited for the pair to approach. He took his shot—and MISSED! Then, as if by some kind of Halloween miracle, the egg stayed INTACT. Gunderson’s would-be target picked up the misspent ammo and returned fire—it was a DIRECT HIT!

“Goddamn it!” Gunderson shouted as he wiped vainly at his goo-blasted chest.

“Little assholes!” the guy called out before leading his child away in triumph. This wasn’t going so well, at all.

“You guys really shouldn’t do this so close to my house,” Chris, who was not an aspiring psychopath and had way more sense than any of us, said. He was content to just hang out with his friends in the garage and didn’t share in our tendency towards embracing demonic possession.

“You’re right!” Gunderson said. “We should split up!”

I grabbed a few eggs from a carton and stashed them in my beanie, which had grown too hot to wear. Mike, Mat, Gunderson and I walked down the street and in no time our next targets appeared: three little girls, dressed as princesses or fairies or some shit like that, all about ten or eleven. Easy pickens, for sure.

“Bombs away!” we shouted as we launched our eggs from afar, but Gunderson, not to be slighted again, charged up for a close-range attack and for some reason, like a fool, I followed. I tossed one egg, which overshot, but Gunderson continued to close-in. He was at ten feet… five feet…  He stopped at point-blank range and pelted an egg directly into one of the girl’s faces.

Gunderson, you lunatic—what the fuck are you thinking!?!?!?!

My brain couldn’t process what happened next: a bellowing scream emanated from one of the pre-teens that sounded nothing like the cry of any little girl I’d ever heard. I couldn’t compute. How was this possible?

Then my sociopathic and underdeveloped brain put it together… this was no little girl—it was their MOM! And this wasn’t just any mom, this was the mother of the devil, himself, hidden here on earth, disguised in human form, posing as a child on All Hallows Eve, all the fires of hell at her command. And Gunderson had just brought this ancient and unholy beast out of hiding.

“YOU GODDAMN BASTARD MOTHERFUCKERS! I’M GOING TO FUCKING! KILL! ALL OF YOU! YOU ASSHOLE SONS OF—”

Clearly, she had never known the divine grace of God like her son, Lucifer.

Gunderson and I bolted back towards Mike and Mat, who were already in retreat. Gunderson inched past me as this Satanic mamma bear bore down and got right on my tail, cursing and clutching. One of her stubby claws reached out and snagged a piece of my mervishaw’s flannel.  

I was dead meat.

“PIECE OF SHIT!!!” she responded as I barely wriggled from her grip. “ASSHOLE!” I picked up the pace and her footfalls pounded louder, seeming to stomp the breath out of my own chest. She was closing in again. This whole thing might have been almost funny for the first thirty yards or so, but how much farther could I run? And for how long? I was no fucking athlete—I’d abandoned my long-distance track abilities back in the 9^th Grade when I stopped dressing out for Coach Jackinoffski’s class.

“GODDAMN—” We’d gone about a hundred yards and Mother Suspiriorum wasn’t letting up. “—LITTLE FAGGOTS!” I used up every last ounce of my energy to sprint forward and at last her roid-raged banshee voice began to fade. Somehow, beneath the sound of blood pulsing in my ears, I heard a crack from down near my hip. I looked and saw the eggs I’d stashed inside my mervishaw-cap had all broken. I flung the beanie down in a random yard without another thought and then dared to look back—

The age-ed battleaxe had reached her limit; she huffed and puffed in the distance, content to spit curses at us from afar. I ran on to catch up with Mike, Mat and Gunderson, who’d hid up against the side of a house. “I’m gonna go and get my bike,” Gunderson told us. “I’ll meet back up with you guys later!” Gunderson ran off and disappeared.

“How long should we wait here, you think?” I wondered aloud in honest-to-God fear of that witch who obviously had Satan on speed-dial. Now that our number had dwindled by one, there was no way we’d stand a chance. “You guys think the coast is clear?”

Mike looked at me suddenly. “Hey—where’s that hat?”

“The what?” I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

“The beanie! The one you were wearing!”

“Oh!” I remembered at last.  “I had to ditch the mervishaw cap. The eggs busted inside while I was running—”

“THAT WAS MY MOM’S HAT!” Mike screamed into the night and shoved me into a chain-link fence.

“I had to!” I shouted in disbelief as I throttled back. No longer did I care if our hiding spot was revealed; our own eggshell reality had cracked and all those rows of Jackinoffski’s careless ovals were beginning to feel as empty as the value he’d ascribed to them. Big fat fucking voids, no longer spheres of possibility.

“Hey! Come on!” Mat yelled as he wedged himself between us before the situation could escalate, saving our embryonic band and friendship in the process. He was our hero. “It was just a fuckin’ beanie for Chrissakes—what the fuck!?”

That brought us back to our senses, along with the light which flicked on inside the house we’d sheltered against. A set of eyes peered out from a nearby window. “Shit! Let’s go!” We took off once again and barreled down Betty Street, which led out onto the main road, Tangerine.

Safe at last, we decided it was time to switch gears—maybe a little less trick and a little more treat? I don’t think I’d even had a single piece of candy yet. No more terrorism, I promised myself. It was gonna be good clean fun from here on out. The Lords of Mischief could go fuck themselves.

We knocked on our first door and an old lady answered. “Trick or treat!”

“What the hell are you supposed to be?”

“Oh—we’re mervishaws, ma’am.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know—grunge-rocker types. Ever heard of Pearl Jam? Soundgarden? There’s Stone Temple Pilots, too, but they’re kind of poseurs, don’t you think?”

“Uh-huh. Aren’t you a little old for this?”

“I guess so…” But really, who’s ever too old for free candy? Dumbass. She handed us just enough chocolatey crap to make us go away, then we tried another house or two with diminishing results. We snacked a little bit, chasing a sugar-coated dragon, but it didn’t take the education required of a Hershey Corporation chemist to realize that our hydrogenated oil-based high wasn’t going to cut it anymore—we were one-hundred-percent trouble addicts now. Mischief was the only thing that was gonna do it for us. So, of course, we got bored and decided it was probably okay to go back to Chris’s, even though it had only been about 30 or 40 minutes since our near-death experience. We returned to Ardmore, Chris’s street, and figured—hey, why not trick-or-treat our way down to his house? This multi-tasking seemed like a practical idea, but as we hit up the first couple houses on his street, an unsettling feeling began to tug at our nerve endings…

We were being watched.

There was a man lurking in the shadows across the street. I don’t know how long he’d been there, or how we hadn’t noticed him sooner. When he first caught my eye, I figured he was the parent of one of the trick-or-treaters skipping from house-to-house, but as all the kids vanished into the night, this man lingered behind. He imposed a foreboding gravity which grew heavier and more menacing as he mimicked our every movement on the opposite side of Ardmore.

This guy couldn’t be here for us—this is just a coincidence, right? After forty-five minutes, things must have settled down… Forget about the fact that our frontal lobes weren’t developed; these were the thoughts of three morons.

“You see that dude?” Mat whispered. Of course we had, but nobody answered.

Then, at last the man spoke and I could see the picture from a mile away of where this was headed. Straight back to hell.

“Nice night out, huh, boys?”

“Uh…. sure….”

“Any of you guys get the bright idea to throw some eggs tonight?”

We all froze. None of us said a word. Chris’s house was all the way at the end of the street, and there was no outlet in that direction. Nerves rattling, we discovered that we possessed a mental link, a group telepathy, one which might come in super-handy—should we be able to survive the night. Somewhere, deep in the yolk of this newly unified unconscious, our collective flight instinct beckoned us back the way from which we’d come… Slowly.

“What do you say, boys?”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mike ventured.

“Which one of you is Dave? Which one of you is Dobb?”

My blood turned cold.

My identity had been compromised.

One of the guys back at Chris’s must have talked. Not only did this man, who had to be the husband of Medusa, know my name—well, part of it, at least—he also knew two other things: one, that I was not really a mervishaw, like my flannel purported, and two, that since fucking Gunderson wasn’t with us, we might as well have been the fuckers responsible for fast-balling the godless abortion of a chicken fetus right into his wife’s face.

We were so dead. The husband was about to finish the job his wife had started, all before we’d even gotten a goddamn drum set.

“I should kick every one of your fucking asses…” He started to cross the street towards us and we began to walk a little faster, but only by a bit; in the circumference of our fledgling mass mind we’d gained the knowledge that breaking out into a full-on run would only expedite our demise.

The demon’s slave got just a couple paces behind us. I could feel hell on my heels as he tried to talk himself out of killing us. “Yeah, I should kick every one of your asses, but the cops are on their way right now. You pieces of shit fucked with the wrong people!”

As he continued to stalk us to the end of the street, I begged the Lords of Mischief to deliver us from this chaos. Please… please… They must have heard me, because once we made it out of the subdivision for the second time—

I looked back and the bastard was gone.

Holy shit! My prayers had been answered! I don’t know how, but we escaped! That was it for me, no more fucking around. I was done making trouble. Perhaps the Lords wouldn’t be too happy about this decision, but we’d already won their favor, bent them to our will, so fuck ‘em once again. We decided to be good little mervishaws and call it a night.

Mike, Mat and I made it to the home stretch, almost to the turn that led to Mike’s house, when we saw a car approaching. Its headlights were blinding, burning. I held up my hands and squinted through outstretched fingers to try and ID the vehicle, hoping upon hope that it wasn’t what it looked like—

But it was.

It was the squad car en route to Chris’s house. The demon’s bitch of a husband had not been lying. Now there was no need for the cops to go over to Chris’s, because they’d found us right here, out in the open with no sanctuary from the law. No wonder the demon fucker had stopped following us—he’d driven us right into the cops’ grasp.

The cruiser dropped speed as the driver spotted us. Time slowed down as my heart beat faster and faster. I was weak in the knees, my whole body shaking. We’d crossed the Lords of Mischief and now they demanded satisfaction. We were about to face time in juvie, fines, not to mention the fact I would never be allowed to hang out with Mike or Mat again.

Our burgeoning band and the bond we’d formed were done for.

The cruiser’s brakes squealed to a halt as I braced for arrest, both cardiac and legal. It came to a dead stop right alongside us at arm’s reach. We listened to its engine hum on the otherwise silent street but the sound I heard the most was an echo from the not-so-distant future of the judge’s gavel pounding three times—once for each of our condemned adolescent souls.

If this moment only lasted a millisecond, it was an eternity. We just stood, frozen, waiting for the sleepy red and blue lights to awaken and announce, We’ve got you, you little shits, in their tired, dizzy cliché. Incarceration was upon us and we never even stood a chance. We’d been so stupid.

My body rattled from beanie-less head to Airwalks. Fear and insanity had breached my every membrane. But then, just as complete madness was about to hatch, the cop took his foot off the brake pedal and the cruiser inched forward again—

And he fucking drove off. 

“What the HELL?”

We turned to watch the cop car crawl away from us, that’s when we looked up to see that directly behind us was a familiar octagonal shape:

A fucking STOP SIGN.

This flag-saluting fuck was just following the rules of the road (I know, unusual for those in law enforcement) and had actually stopped for a stop sign. “No. FUCKING. Way…” I’d never had a drink before, but I sure could have used one then. Leave it to the Lords of Mischief to have the last laugh. You gotta hand it to ‘em; they’d delivered us from one realm of chaos, alright, and placed us right into another.

We walked back to Mike’s house, our souls beaten and basted. I can’t begin to express the amount of relief I felt once we’d said our hellos to Mike’s mom and quietly closed the door to his room behind us. Safe at last, but for real this time…

We sat in silence, catching our breaths and fortifying our nervous systems, but then—

The phone rang.

All of our hearts stopped.

Somebody at Chris’s house had not only given the vengeful lunatic and the cops my name, they’d obviously given up Mike’s name and phone number, as well. We were toast, after all…

Mike yanked up the receiver to intercept the call before anybody else in the house could get it. “Hello?”

Is it the cops? I wished to ask, but couldn’t pry my jaw off the floor.

“Oh, hey, man—” Mike said into the phone.

It was Chris. Thank God. I was able to relax. They exchanged a few words, then Mike hung up.

“What happened?!”

Mike gave us the details: the lady Gunderson pelted in the face had brought her husband by Chris’s house after she saw the cartons of eggs we’d left in his front yard (Smart!), so Chris and the crew were forced to fess up to something. She didn’t recognize any of those guys as her assailants, so Chris and the crew admitted the kids who threw the eggs maybe went to their school? They didn’t really know any of them, per say, but one’s name was Dave, and the other was, like, Dobber, or Dobbler, or maybe Doppeler, or something like that…

I felt a wave of relief that the guys hadn’t actually ratted me out, but I was also beyond-thankful that Coach Jackinoffski had never called me by my full name in 9^th Grade. Luckily, our juvenile psychosis wore off long enough for Mat, the hero of this story, to convince his dad to buy him a real drum set. Mat’s reasoning to his pops was that playing music would help keep him from running amok on the streets of Eastbrook, even though RunnAmuckS is exactly what we named our band. And you know what? It all seemed to actually work for a time, though the Lords of Mischief weren’t done with us yet…

Plight of the Pussy

Art by Lance White (lancewhite_cit on IG)

We were the Pussiest bunch of Punk Rockers you ever saw as we piled into Kelly Gillin’s wood-paneled Dodge Caravan with our dyed hair and ironic thrift-shop T-shirts. Growing up, Punks in movies had always looked so intimidating with their mohawks, leather jackets and safety pins stabbing through their noses. We were not of this variety. We were all pacifists, vegan or vegetarian, Straight Edge for the most part, with a high bar of moral standards to uphold. Our spiked bracelets were feaux and some of us even came from unbroken homes. Still, we felt like we were bad asses—we were on the way to see the greatest, most legendary Punk band of all time—

THE MISFITS.

Yet this show presented an ethical quandary for Pussies like us. It was 1999 and the Misfits were no longer in their prime. The real band had broken up years before and Glenn Danzig, the bands iconic mastermind, had been replaced by an imposter who—as legend had it—had never even listened to the original records before joining: Michale Graves. If we were Pussies, then Graves was King Cunt as far as we were concerned. But supporting him wasn’t that much of a strain on our principles; we were confident that if we sang loud enough, we could overpower Graves—though he was the one with the microphone—and keep our Pussy-like virtues intact.

Our main conflict with the show was the openers: Earth Crisis. How the hell were they playing with the Misfits?! E.C. was the band responsible for perverting everything we held dear about Punk and Hardcore. Going to the show meant we had to inadvertently give them money, so to us, this was like funding a terrorist organization! Something had to be done. We had to confront them… nonviolently, of course. It was the only way to justify going to the show, though it went against our Pussy-like natures.

Why did we feel this way? What sense did this make? Why couldn’t we just keep our stupid mouths shut and enjoy the show?

Earth Crisis were also Straight Edge and vegan, hated mainstream society and were pretty much into all the same stuff that we were, but they weren’t like us. While we were pacifists into nonviolent protest, their lyrics took the violent Hardline stance. To our ears, the song “Firestorm” was fascist propaganda instructing kids to round up drug-users for a Nazi-style extermination.

Also, it was pretty cool to not like them. My friends in the Tampa band Reversal of Man had gone as far as to parody “Firestorm” on a track called “Get the Kid with the Sideburns” in response to an altercation some of the members had with E.C. and their cronies in South Florida. ROM’s song called out Earth Crisis and their label Victory Records for all their hypocrisy and we thought it was awesome. Reversal received multiple death threats from the Hardline community, who warned them to never play the song again.

So, with all this in mind, I decided it would be a good idea for my Pussy Punk friends and I to bring a copy of the ROM record along for Earth Crisis to autograph. What could go wrong? Since our world view was as black and white as Marilyn Monroe’s final film, this could be like a Punk Rock version of an Old West showdown between good guys and bad guys, Punks against the jocks. With peaceful protest on our side, I was confident there was no way these guys would dare lay hands on me or my friends, especially if we weren’t violent first. Perhaps even a mature dialogue could be struck up on a few subjects as there was a rumor floating around that they didn’t even play “Firestorm” anymore. Maybe these guys had amended their ways? The open-minded Punk thing for me to do was to give them the “benefit of the doubt,” right?

The show was out in Daytona, an hour away from us in Orlando. We headed out early to scope out the beach. I didn’t bring a bathing suit, so I had no choice but to barrel out into the ocean in only my Hanes briefs. What kind of Punk wears whitey-tighties? A Pussy Punk for sure. I probably could have passed for another one of the town’s local perverts except for the pink dye streaking off my scalp and down my shoulders. Disgusted families shook their heads as I oozed up onto the shore like some kind of Punk Rock jellyfish… So much for their beach day.

Once this no longer amused us, I realized I also had no way to dry off, so Kelly—the smartest and ballsiest of our bunch—suggested that I walk into a souvenir shop and rub up against the beach towels on display. Ingenious! Once I’d completed this and had my soggy undies secured, we decided to head over to the only appropriate place to wait out the day for the mighty Misfits—a cemetery.

Surrounded by death, some of our other pussy Punk friends met up and we recounted the day thus far. A police chopper had followed Alex and Darren to Interstate 4, where they were headed off by a fleet of squad cars. Apparently, the pair thought it would be funny to point squirt-guns at people while driving. Squirt-guns! I told you we were lame. They miraculously got away with just a warning even though Columbine had only happened three months before. Somehow to us those victims at Columbine only felt like TV casualties, though we would know real physical violence soon enough.

We pumped ourselves up as we wandered through the gravestones, wondering what songs the Misfits were going to play, imagining how those Earth Crisis guys were going to react when we handed them the ROM record. One would think that a bunch of kids hanging out in a graveyard would’ve wanted some beers or weed on hand, but none of that shit was necessary… yet. We hadn’t hit the “Adult Crash” that Ian Mackaye of Minor Threat describes in their eponymous song.

After we’d ghouled it up—not long enough for my underpants to dry—we headed over to the venue in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Misfits before the show. We crept around the side of their tour bus only to see… their roadies. Well, that was something, at least. It looked like they were carrying in some heavy-duty equipment—perhaps guitar-player Doyle’s stacks of amps stenciled with the bands iconic Crimson Ghost skull logo?

Uuuuh—NO! It was workout benches and barbells!

So, instead of getting to hear our favorite band sound-check, we got to hear them grunt and scream in triumph as metal clanged on metal and the occasional weight dropped on the ground.

“Are they really lifting before a show?” we asked one of the roadies.

“Oh, yeah—they do this before every one.”

“Wow…” What the Misfits lacked in the form of Glenn Danzig, their estranged singer and songwriter, they made up for in… pumping iron?

Anyway, after a seemingly eternal stretch, we were finally admitted into the club. It was apparent from the start why the place was called Orbit 3000… Take me to your leader. The rave scene had just wound down, but somebody thought it was still a good idea to adorn the place with items from the bargain bin at Spencer’s Gifts. Black lights hung from every wall, poised over fuzzy posters portraying mushrooms and marijuana leaves. Careful around the corners, lest you step into a puddle of goo originating from a glow-stick or something worse. Ecstasy wasn’t as in as it was a couple years before, but that didn’t stop Daytona from hanging out after the party ended.

“Isn’t it weird Earth Crisis is playing this place?” It was fuckin’ hilarious—the world’s premier Vegan-Straight Edge band was practically playing in a head shop. Maybe it was all part of their genocidal plan to get all the douche-bags with Jnco’s and alien shirts in the same room for annihilation?I began to grow worried, but it was finally time for the show.

Earth Crisis took the stage. I stood close enough to read their set-list and “Firestorm” was in-fact nowhere to be seen… Maybe the rumors were true—perhaps they had amended their ways. I wasn’t into Earth Crisis’s set by any means, but, to either their credit or the shady contractors who built Orbit 3000, E.C. broke right through the stage! That was pretty intense. The sound-guys came out to make a haphazard reparation as impatience stewed among E.C.’s frenetic fanbase. After a miniature forever, Earth Crisis came back out to pound the place.

The crowd had maintained a consistent degree of insanity during E.C.’s set, but it was still manageable for a Pussy like me so close to the pit. I never felt like I was in any trouble I couldn’t maneuver myself out of—until the last song dropped—the one that wasn’t on their setlist. Those sneaky fuckers. They started playing their signature tune “Firestorm” and the whole place ERRUPTED. Bastards, I thought. So much for all that “benefit of the doubt” bullshit—they were still the same ‘ol human pieces of garbage, after all.

I looked back at my friends Bryan and Richard who stood stoic, their forearms drawn into Straight Edge X’s with middle fingers extended, lit cigarettes hanging from their mouths as they blew smoke up at the stage. Pussies that we all were, this was nonviolent protest at its finest. “Violence begets violence”—so said MLK and Ian MacKaye. That’s always true. Earth Crisis insisted to go the opposite way with their beliefs: “Violence against violence.” I tried to push my own Pussy-ish peaceful protest to the next level—we needed to make our position known. “FUCK YOU!” I screamed as I edged closer to the stage with my own middle finger masted. “FUCK YOU!!!” I continued to yell while their meathead fans screamed along.

Well, I wanted some attention and that’s exactly what I got. The bass player took notice of me and wasn’t bothered by the fact that I wasn’t enjoying the show—he was happy, grinning like a gleeful prick. He walked over to me, stopped playing his bass, and swung out at me, narrowly missing. I redoubled my middle-finger-isms and the malicious bastard swung out again—this time he made contact. Ow! Still, he saw I wasn’t going anywhere… that’s when he got really happy.

“Keep your fucking arm down!” he mouthed at me over the hateful din.

I defied my own Pussy-like-ways and stuck my middle finger right back up into his face. He swung again, but this time he smacked me right in the head, knocking the shit out of me. Holy fuck, I thought, flabbergasted—the dude had effectively put me in my place. The set ended and the assholes walked off stage.

Attacking anyone who’s opposed to them—that’s what Earth Crisis was all about. They should have quit music and joined the police force. I was in definite shock from what had just happened, but I vowed to have some fun during the Misfits set despite the glimpse I’d gotten of who we were really up against.

It took another eternity for the Misfits to appear. After the bozo stagehands were content that their perfunctory repairs were at least lawsuit-safe, the Misfits drummer, Dr. Chud, climbed his monolithic drum kit that stretched to the ceiling and started pounding away to a symphony of screams. Jerry Only and his brother Doyle, the only original Misfits present, stood illuminated at the side of the stage waiting to come out—each stood about eight hundred feet tall and looked amazingwith their signature Devilock hairdos and makeup. So what if they weren’t writing any good songs anymore? Lifting those weights had certainly paid off!

The brothers Caiafa marched on-stage to Dr. Chud’s epic introduction with their custom guitars and proceeded wreak havoc upon Orbit 3000. It was a blast—so awesome, in fact, that I’d almost forgotten about the bullshit that had ensued only a little while before.I was right in front facing Jerry, so from where we were standing, we didn’t have to see or hear Michale Graves—the poorly positioned P.A. actually helped the “real” fans instead of hindering them! We all sang along, belting out our best Danzig imitations for the classic tunes (“One Last Caressssssss!”), while somehow passing the time and ignoring the new, shitty ones. The band didn’t delve that deep into my favorite album, Earth A.D., but they did play their Metallica-style versions of “Green Hell” and “Die, Die, My Darling.” Then, at last, they got to one of the songs off the album which epitomizes what people love about the Misfits—“Death Comes Ripping.”

Death is the ultimate adversary of us all, especially Pussies like me, for whom it looms—or gapes—larger than life.

It’s easy to grow obsessed with this opponent. When I was a teenager, I was more interested in death than with its nemesis, life. That’s why records with skulls on them sell well—the Crimson Ghost or any other variant. Morbidity has its own currency, especially in young sexually frustrated minds. Everyone on this side of the ground wants to master this enemy known as death—dominate it, bend it to our will—so we try to trick it, make it believe we’re on its side. We party in its cemeteries, slap its face on T-shirts, buttons, badges, back-patches, butt-flaps. We try to entertain ourselves with the idea that if you can’t beat it, join it. Create your own death cult, fiend club or some other esoteric system of belief and use a skull as the logo—I guarantee you’ll get some followers. And why not? Skulls are just… cool.

For me, I never felt more in control of this inevitable foe as when I was hauling ass in my stepdad’s Toyota Corolla, blasting the unholy hell out of the Misfits’ Earth A.D. In that window-rattling volume which shook me by the collarbone, I found a life-affirming surge of survivalist supremacy that gave me the power to hold death at bay.

Living loud is the supreme defiance of death. This is and has always been the ultimate goal of Rock ‘n Roll since its inception in the Atomic Age: saying “Fuck You” to annihilation, itself.

That’s why Rock ‘n Roll is the greatest.

We need this volume. We need to feel tough, even if we are gigantic Pussies. Forget about Toyota Corollas—we’re all kamikaze pilots strapped to a planet zooming around the sun at breakneck speed in an expanding universe that’s eventually going to snap and implode on itself. With this in mind, it’s important to grasp some sense of power—to clasp a clamp on the chaos of existence. Hence:

“I want your skull—I need your skuuuuuuuul!”

At first it was baffling that these two disparate bands were playing the same show, but now I think I understand: it was the law of attraction. It’s why we were all there. These guys were all Pussies, too. Death defying and wishing we were tough is what brought all of us together.

Regardless of all that, the Misfits played a great set. The show was over, and it was time to take a stand against our enemies, Earth Crisis…

I addressed my friends, all clitoral nerves. “Okay—who’s gonna bring the record up to them?”

Nobody said a word, but then—

“I’ll do it!” Kelly, who once again had way more balls than any of us, yelled as she grabbed the ROM record and sauntered up to Earth Crisis to ask for the autograph. She had absolutely no fear as we hung back on the peripherals. 

“Hey, Mr. Earth Crisis—” She approached Karl, the singer, feigning star-struck awe. “—will you please sign this?”

It was amazing to watch the transformation on Karl’s face as Kelly handed him the record sleeve. At first, he was grinning, but as soon as recognition dawned, his stage-shattering smugness twisted into mortified hatred. “What the fuck is this shit!?!?” he screamed, beckoning the attention of his goons. He began to tear the record sleeve to pieces (with some effort, as I recall) while Kelly wisely backed off, a smile plastered to her face.

We completely lost our shit.

“You think this is funny, you fuckin’ pricks?” It was my friend again—the bass player.

“Yeah, it’s funny,” Sam, who was soPunk he didn’t need any product in his hair to spike it up, spoke up.

The bass player gave Sam a shove—always the mark of someone who hopes they can just intimidate their foes away. Then the bastard picked up a stack of bundled newspapers and hurled it at Sam, but Sam jumped out of the way just in time—the papers only clipped his shoulder as they sailed past and nailed me instead. One of the other members was starting shit with Darren who was, like, four-feet tall, and that took away any doubt that these guys weren’t fellow Pussies.

The situation was amping up—people were screaming and yelling. It was apparent that we were about to get our asses kicked. Pacifism hadn’t prepared us for anything like this; trying to prove our point—whatever that was—was about to get us stomped.

It was then that every Pussy’s savior showed up. Flashes of red and blue pierced through the parking lot, alternating with my thoughts: GODDAMMIT!/THANK GOD!/FUCKING COPS!/WE’RE SAVED! The pigs had compounded the chaos and cracked open a narrow window of opportunity for us to escape with our asses intact. I hated all cops at the time, but because of them, at least we weren’t going to get our teeth kicked in. It was another moral dilemma, but such is the plight of the pussy…

Amid the pandemonium, I grabbed up the scattered remains of the ROM record cover to give each of my friends as a keepsake, then we bolted back to Kelly’s van. My blood boiled all the way home to Orlando. Impotent rage and unrequited adrenaline pulsed through my body as I wished absolute death unto mine enemies known as Earth Crisis. Pacifism had begat violence, but now pacifism was dead. I had succumbed to the violence cycle, become an active participant in the Legacy of Brutality, if only in my mind. Did I really think I could just Mephisto-waltz into a trippy black-lit room full of tough-guys and expect to be immune from their martial law?

Glenn Danzig was a kid with an artistic streak—a Pussy in other words—who defied his own Pussyism and shaped the world to his will. Legions of people have joined his crusade against death by joining his bands, growing a Devilock, or tattooing the face of Death right on them in the form of the Crimson Ghost. He’s an inspiration to all of us, though you can see where going too far with the tough-guy image landed him after the entire world witnessed him getting knocked out with one punch on Youtube. So maybe it’s good to admit when you’re a little bit of a Pussy?

Glenn has stated that his band after the Misfits, Samhain, was a “darker, blacker understanding of the world—why it works the way it does… and has for endless centuries.” That show was my own equivalent, an apocalypse of my idealism. Later, I would realize that Earth Crisis had actually covered my favorite song “Earth A.D.” on a tribute album to the Misfits entitled Violent World, which it definitely is, alright. Still, I walked away with one good takeaway from the night besides my piece of the Reversal of Man record cover: the exterior part of my Pussy-like persona—which is called the vulva, I just found out—got a liiiiittle bit tougher.

“Penetration”

Art by Dave Mitchell. Logo by Greg Reinel.

            “This one’s for all you lovers out there…” –Some smooth-ass Radio DJ.

DISCLAIMER: The story you are about to hear is true. The names have been changed to protect a total degenerate.

“I’ll be back in a bit, guys…” Ernie told us as he left to pick up his new girlfriend, Yazni.

“Sounds good, man—see you soon!”

The door slammed and we got to work. First, we pulled the stack of Playboys out from the wicker basket which Ernie’s dad kept right next to the front door—the front door. Who the fuck keeps Playboys next to their front door? We opened every issue’s centerfold and tacked them up all around the living room. Next, we went to Ernie’s parents’ room and borrowed their entire library of sex books, the very tomes, we deduced, which had led to Ernie’s creation as all of their copyrights were issued back in the late 1970’s. We circled these sacred volumes on the coffee table around a quarter-bag of pot and a resin-clotted pipe… y’know—to help get Ernie and his new gal-pal into a more literary mood. Since we were in this deep, we also decided to liberate Ern’s mom’s bras and panties from her undie drawer and string them up from the ceiling fan to really make it a family affair.

Ambience was of the utmost importance, so we swapped out the lights in the living room for some red-tinted bulbs we’d found while ransacking the kitchen cabinets. We also came across some candles, which we lit for the additional amorous effect. I found one of those archaic back-scratchers in Ma and Pa Ern’s room that resembled a tiny pervert’s wooden hand—Pinocchio, perhaps. This, I offered at the foot of our haphazardly-constructed Sex Alter beneath the piece de resistance—a childhood photo of only-child Ern to inspire the conception of more little Ernies down the line… We were some sick individuals.

The room was almost ready, but there was one crucial component missing—the very piece of the puzzle which had led us to collectively play Cupid for our friend to begin with:

The soundtrack.

Time was slipping fast; Ern and Yazni, who was actually Ernie’s first girlfriend now that I think about it, would be back any moment. I rushed to his room and ripped through his CD collection to find the Stooges Raw Power—the album which had roused us to construct this family-friendly love chamber—then throttled back to the living room where I jammed it in place among the other smooth silky R & B Slow Jammers Ern’s parents’ kept in constant rotation. Those freaks couldn’t even keep their hands off each other in the sanctity of their own living room… Yuck.

I reminded myself to keep off the couch as I skipped past my favorite songs—“Search and Destroy,” “Gimme Danger,” “Hard to Beat” (originally entitled “Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell”)—to find the track in question, the tune which had motivated us to torture and humiliate our friend to this degree as he shuttled his new girlfriend back to show her off for everybody…

“Penetration.”

You see, about a week or so before, Ern had made the fatal mistake of bragging to all of us that he’d had sex with Yazni while playing this song on REPEAT. The sick fuck—may Jesus save his soul.

I programmed the Iggy Pop classic on the disc-changer as Ernie had in the passionate throes of his lover’s arms and boosted the stereo to an intimate but not over-bearing volume. It was time to let the love in.

Now, don’t get me wrong—the track does have one of the hottest guitar licks of any Rock ‘n Roll song imaginable, but—this display of rampant confidence from our friend Ernie could not be tolerated… this sick son of a bitch needed our help.

We shot out of the house giggling like prepubescent girls, parked our cars far down the street, then bolted back to the Ern-abode where we killed all the lights except for the ones providing the illumination for Ernie’s pleasure dome. After that, we crammed into the guest bedroom, hid the best we could, and waited.

And waited.

“Isn’t this guy supposed to be back soon?”

“Probably had to have a quickie at her place, that horny bastard…”

“Yeah, but his soundtrack is over here!”

“Well, I don’t—”

“SHHHHHH!” We heard a jingle of keys mingle with the din of the song—Ernie was finally home! The door opened and we heard voices, though it was still Iggy’s that was most prominent as he repeated over and over again, ad infinitum: “Ah, PENETRAAAAAATE ME—AH PENETRAAAAAATE—SO FINE—SO FINE—PENETRAAAAATE—”

“What the hell? What is—?”

Instant understanding dawned in Yazni’s words—Ernie hadn’t brought home some dummy. “Why would your friends do dis to you, Ernie?” she inquired earnestly in her thick New York accent. “Are dey mad a’choo?” Since none of us had met her before this was quite a first impression we were making.

“Those guys…” Ernie the grumbled with what he thought was Alpha-masculine authority, though to us he sounded more like a combination of Jackie Gleason and Cookie Monster. I’d give a thousand bucks to hear him speak that candidly again… “I can’t believe they would do this!”

But what did we do, exactly? We were just a bunch of aspiring Cyrano De Bergeracs—only slightly more depraved.

“Wait a second…” We could hear the gears clicking in Ern’s head from the other room, above the thunder of the Stooges and our own maniacal laughter. At that moment, Ernie was a detective for the ages. “They would never leave their POT here!” A very astute deduction. “You guys!!”

We braced for impact as Iggy continued his lustful litany—Ernie and Yazni tore open the door to the guest bedroom where we all sat there in stitches. “Okay, you guys, THAT’S IT!” he chided us in his most Father-like voice—appropriate since Ernie’s dad was perhaps a bigger sexual deviant than Ern himself. “What’s the big idea?”

“What? We were just trying to set the mood!”

Seriously, though—as I struggle to write this years later, I do wonder—what was the big idea? Why did we do such horrible shit to our friend? I think I might have some idea…

As much as I hate to admit it, I understood the plight of young Ernie. A year or so before we constructed this aphrodisiacal alcove, I myself had also been seduced by the raw power of the Stooges eroticized Rock ‘n Roll abandon. Before hearing them, I had mostly disavowed every other kind of music besides Hardcore Punk, which implements anger as its primary pump where blood vessels are concerned. When Iggy and the Stooges came along, I discovered a music that could embrace every nuance of humanity—sensuality included. It was a revelation—an AWAKENING—which led to the development of some alien sensation inside me that almost resembled… confidence? The Stooges had penetrated me, for sure. It was the dawn of a new day…

But this self-assurance is a beast that can run rampant if left unchecked as I—and I’m sure Iggy himself—eventually discovered. Humility is the key to balance, even if you’re the runaway son of a nuclear A-bomb. Ernie had obviously undergone my same metamorphosis—he, too, had felt the power from Raw Power, but Ern had overdosed. Confidence can go too far, and absolute confidence can corrupt absolutely. Raw power’s got a healing hand, but raw power can also destroy a man. Like helium, it’s an element that retracts and expands, and this particular explosive gas had elevated Ernie to a stratospheric height in the atmosphere where there wasn’t much oxygen to go around… This, probably combined with his years of huffing Glade, had massacred his mind, obliterated his brain cells. It was our job—no—our DUTY—to step in and help our chum back down to earth—to guide him to a more grounded reality. And humble him, we would.

“Oh, you guys!!”

Did we accomplish our job that night? Probably not—but it was pretty damn funny! After we hit STOP on the CD player, we exchanged awkward introductions with Yazni, then cleaned up our makeshift love dungeon, careful to put the Playboys back where they belonged, nestled in their little wicker basket right next to the front door, in plain sight for all visitors to see.

POSTSCRIPT: The events of this story occurred over twenty years ago and “Ernie’s” parents are still happily married. Perhaps “Penetration” isn’t merely a debauched anthem, but the key to eternal matrimonial happiness???

Live Free(aky) or Die.

White Bitch: A Rock ‘n Roll Salvation Story Starring Fashion Fashion and the Image Boys

A holiday present from your friends at the Orlando Punk Archive. Art by Ben Lyon. FREE Soundtrack by Fashion! Fashion! and the Image Boys available here! https://orlandopunkarchive.bandcamp.com/album/2005-danger-room-session

As the German Shepherd circled my beaten-down van I began to ask myself–how had things gotten to this point? It was a great question. If only the D.A.R.E. program in middle school had properly indoctrinated me, I might not be in such a mess. My short life flashed before my eyes–my years of waking-and-baking, the bad acid trip that had made me swear off all drugs, pot included. I hadn’t so much smoked a joint in years, but now, here I was, standing outside a drug dealer’s house in handcuffs, surrounded by cops, basking in alternating flashes of blue and red. It wasn’t until the police dog barked to alert Winter Park’s finest that there were in fact narcotics in my vehicle that I found a scapegoat for what had gotten me into this predicament: it was Rock ‘n Roll that had pushed me down this dark slippery road and rammed me over its snow-crusted rails to Rock Bottom.

Now, I hate to admit it, but sometimes the squares are right–Rock ‘n Roll can be really bad for you. A volatile substance, it can produce adverse effects on your health. Not only can it rot your brain, corrode your moral fiber, and potentially lead to venereal disease, it can also send the participant spiraling into a month-long drug binge… at least that’s what happened to me. But these cases of extremity don’t just happen from listening to any run-of-the-mill bullshit like Journey or Pat Boone–it has to be something really good to cast you over the edge and down the frozen embankment to be caught in the all-out avalanche of icy damnation.

In Dante’s Inferno, the Beast is trapped in ice, so it’s only appropriate that the demonic sounds which kicked up this particular snowstorm in my own life were provided by some of the coolest flakes I knew–a band called Fashion! Fashion! and the Image Boys.

It all started on New Year’s Eve, 2004. My friend Mary brought a drunken party-on-wheels over to my house which consisted of Erik (future Golden Pelicans), Robbie (future Autarx) and some weirdly-tall dude that was all dressed in black. He had a thick Appalachian drawl and to top things off, this clown was also wearing a fedora. I was convinced Mary, Robbie and Erik were fucking with me by bringing this guy around, who’s name was Derek, or Dunx for short. We were pounding beers and listening to the Beatles–one of the early groups that had plagued the masses with Rock ‘n Roll–and Dunx informed me in his heavy accent that their music was complete shit.

“What? Are you fucking kidding? Don’t you realize how influential they were on Rock music–on all of music?”

“Man, I’m from Atlanta, man,” Dunx presented as his sole proof of expertise on the subject. “I know what I’m talkin’ about.”

“What the fuck’s this guy’s problem?” I asked Erik.

“I’m really sorry, man–he’s just really fucked up.”

That much was obvious.

“I’m from Atlanta, man…” Dunx continued on repeat.

The group prepared to cart their intoxicated music critic off to the next party but they couldn’t go anywhere–Robbie’s car had a flat. I helped them fix the tire under an exploding New Year’s night sky, unaware of the potential fireworks that my friends and their fedora’d Atlantean chum possessed… I would soon find out.

It was a couple months later that Rich Evans from Florida’s Dying/Total Punk booked a recording session for a band I’d never heard of despite the fact that I’d played a show with them two years before in Gainesville–Fashion! Fashion! and the Image Boys. I had no idea who was in the group–then who should walk through my door but Erik and his obnoxious fucking friend! “Oh shit…” I muttered.

It turned out Erik was the singer and Dunx played guitar. The band had Orlando’s best and brightest degenerates as the rhythm section–Tracy Blades on drums and Ryan Codone on bass. As the legend goes, Ryan got his surname for being the first guy in Orlando’s Punk scene to get a prescription to Roxicet, or Rapid Release Oxycodone, which he didn’t hesitate to supply to his friends–what a guy!

After the band set up, I prepared my ears for a storm of shit, but when they started playing I was pleasantly surprised.

All my reservations went up in smoke–HOLY SHIT! These guys are fucking amazing! Fashion! Fashion! TORE IT UP–a perfect Killed By Death-style Punk Rock band with all the asshole attitude to back it up.

I was enamored.

The group got their instruments down pretty quick, then we started tracking Erik’s vocals. I quickly realized I had a situation on my hands as Dunx sat in the room to “produce.” His idea of playing Phil Spector was to smoke a bunch of weed while shaking his head at Erik the whole time and condemning him. “I don’t know, man… I don’t know… Can’t you do it like you do it live?” That last word came out sounding like LHIIIIIVE. Erik proceeded to tear his throat out to appease Dunx by belting out such classics as “The Hit,” “Shopping in America,” and “Breakout Tonight” (a cover by Tampa’s U-Boats) at max-intensity. Dunx still wasn’t satisfied, so after a while we had to force him out of the room.

Finally, we got to my favorite track the band had laid down. I hit RECORD then rolled the tape to listen closely to Erik’s vocals on “White Bitch.” Well, these lyrics sound a little sketchy, I thought… What the hell’s this about? Then I began to turn the words over in my mind…

She gonna make you spend your money/She gonna make you stay out all night/She gonna make you act all funny/She will make you cry cry cry

Oh–I get it! “White Bitch” is the greatest jingle for cocaine ever written!

Unfortunately, as awesome as the band played, we made the mistake of listening to Dunx and mixed all the songs that same night at three in the morning while our ears were beyond-shot–the results were not optimal and the band ultimately ended up shelving the whole session. Still, that couldn’t change the fact that the tunes themselves were electric, especially that song, “White Bitch,” which I just couldn’t get it out of my mind… It had woven its way into my head better than a Madison Avenue marketing campaign–or at least way better than the D.A.R.E. program had back in 7th Grade.

Shortly afterwards, my friend Richard and I were hanging out at our pal Jimmy’s house. Jimmy sold a lot of pot and he’d been getting back into doing blow after a long hiatus. I hadn’t tried coke in years–like I said, I’d sworn off all drugs a few years before after a really bad acid trip.

The guys did all their sniff while I was content to drink a Snakebite that Jimmy had made… then I looked over at the empty blow-bag laying on the table. There was some residue left inside it, I noticed. The echo of “White Bitch” kicked up a blizzard inside my head and I thought–Why not? Is it so bad to try a little? It’s not like I’m snorting it…

“Hey, guys–do you mind?”

Jimmy gave me the green light. “Naw, bud–go ahead.”

I dipped a finger in and gave a little taste. Hmmmm… Not bad… Then in no time at all my tongue was in all corners of the bag, scouring each crevice for any microscopic molecule of the precious booger sugar.

Damn. This wasn’t good.

An isolated incident, I assured myself.

But then a few nights later I was at a Fashion! Fashion! show at Will’s Pub. The band was burning up on stage and you could just smell what was fueling them in the air–it teased my sinuses and their dopamine-dealer brain up above. You’re never supposed to take sweets from a stranger, as any D.A.R.E. officer would tell you, but everybody at Will’s knew each other, right?

“Hey,” I begin to ask around, “know where we can get some shit? Oh yeah?”

My friend and I got directions to a house which was behind the Best Buy on Highway 50, though the blow itself wasn’t such a bargain: forty-bucks for a gram. Luckily, the amount of cocaine was so small that I didn’t even have to think about who made the stuff or how the shit got over to the U.S. in the first place… least of all how many lives had to be snuffed out at the hands of the cartels south-of-the-border all so that a couple of thrill-seeking Caucasian Americans could have some fun. Like I said–it was only for one night.

Well, fun we did have–so much, in fact, that I got some more the next weekend. And the next weekend. And then a few days after that. And then the next night. And the next night–

There was no stopping the crazy train. Fuck “Casey Jones” and the Grateful Dead–we were ALIVE and we had Fashion! Fashion!, the F-Pipes, Buttercups, the Hextremors and every other coke-sniffing Sunday Night Mutiny band at Backbooth as the soundtrack. It was a whole scene. Everybody was buddies, everybody was partying like Rock Stars and shit–everybody was a Rock Star. If all you had to do to feel like Motley Crüe was the same drugs as them, this seemed like a very practical shortcut from our white cloud of deluded confusion. Nobody was cruising down the Sunset Strip in the back of a hot-tub-equipped limousine–which Dunx had promised to Tracy Blades laid in store for Fashion! Fashion!–but we were all close enough.

One evening I partied so hard that I was convinced I could still go to work at 7 AM the next day despite the fact that I’d done so much blow my hands had contorted into these weird lobster-looking claws.

I got into my Dodge Ram van, which my band had used for touring. It used to be a very practical vehicle, carting our equipment across the country, but now it was quite useless and even more conspicuous due to its crushed-in roof and shattered rear-window thanks to the only falling tree I witnessed during Hurricane Francis the previous year. I sped to work, beyond-fucked up with a beer in hand, while the van swayed back and forth on the road like my head had the night before, when everybody was calling me Ray Charles.

“You got the right one, Baby! Uh-huh!”

But this wandering trajectory wasn’t all intoxication; in my vehicle’s cargo, not only was there a mountain of trash, but also the burnt-remains of a couch my friends and I had torched a month before at a bonfire in my backyard. I pulled up to the breakfast joint where I work and walked in, still gripping my beer even though the place was packed with Casselberry PD. My manager took me aside and asked, “What’s the matter with you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” I told her. To prove this, I went into the walk-in cooler to stock the servers’ line, but promptly fell over into a five-gallon bucket of butter portions and spilled its entire contents across the floor. I tried to serve a table but holding plates with my lobstrosity hands wasn’t working–plus I forgot to bring utensils. Customers and coworkers alike stared at me in concern.

My manager, a recovered alcoholic, came to the conclusion: “You’re drunk!” She didn’t know the half of it. “Okay, honey–gimme your keys!” she screamed through the kitchen. “Go out to your car and sleep it off!”

I handed over my keys, then went back out to the van where I got cozy amid the sea of trash I maintained within. Before passing out, I stared up at the ceiling to reflect on the time when the Dodge was used to transport musical instruments instead of acting as a dumpster-on-wheels–when life had more purpose. “I’m getting my shit together after this,” I told myself before slipping into unconsciousness…

Yet that same night I was back up at the Copper Rocket watching the F-Pipes, doing coke in my van off of a plate. Somehow, it had become customary to bring fine china to Punk Rock shows.

The next day at work, I blew my nose in the kitchen and a river of blood poured out. My nasal passage was like the elevator at the Overlook. “What’s going on?” my boss asked. “Who all is on drugs around here?”

“Uh–nobody I know of…”

I was done. Definitely no more of that shit. But then that night was Sunday Night Mutiny again at Backbooth–one last hurrah couldn’t hurt, could it?

I was hanging out with Richard at my house and we were trying to score–Jimmy had a couple of grams at his house that he was willing to part with. Jeremy from the Buttercups and Ryan Codone came over to get in on the action–it was amazing to see how many friends I had since this wonderful white lady had come into my life!

Richard and I made the run while the other guys waited back at my place. My undead Dodge lumbered up to the corner of Pennsylvania and Orange, where a cop was posted in the Cumberland Farms lot. No big deal–we were just a couple of pals out for an evening drive in a bashed-out van. So what if it looked like we’d driven in from some apocalyptic alternate dimension? We didn’t have anything on us…

Yet.

I made a right on Pennsylvania, Jimmy’s street, and drove slowly down in the dark. I’d only been to his house a couple times before, and knew I had to make a really sharp turn to get into the driveway which led into a one-lane alley feeding into the back parking area. The street was so dark that I ended up driving right past it.

“Shit!” Richard cried out. “You missed it!”

“Damn–should we just park on the street?”

“No–you can’t do that around here…”

“Fuck it–I’ll just circle back around.”

Big mistake. My obtuse path brought us right back by the Cumberland Farms, where the cop still sat idling. “Oh, Jesus…” This time when I turned down Pennsylvania, the cop put his car in gear.

“Shit…”

There was still a dull moment of doubt when I thought, Hey, maybe it’s just a coincidence that he left the gas station at the same exact time that we circled the block, but that thought-bubble poofed as his cruiser got right on my ass. Jimmy’s house was so close, yet so far away–

I spotted the driveway this time–but what the hell was I supposed to do? That’s when it occurred to me I should behave as any other law-abiding citizen would when alerting another driver of their altruistic intentions…

I put on my turn signal.

“You idiot!” Richard cried out.

The cop snapped on his misery lights at that exact moment and I knew I was fucked; I’d led the pigs right to where our woman in white awaited us.

I rolled the Dodge down through the alley to where it dead-ended in a gravel parking spot and shoved over my gear shift with a heavy sigh. The officer pulled up right behind me, blocking any potential escape. We were trapped. He got out and stepped to my window, told me to kill my engine–which I know you’re supposed to wait for them to do–then asked for all the usual documents: license, registration, proof of insurance. I wasn’t too worried at this point; aside from our bloodstreams, Richard and I were clean as could be.

Then he asked me what business I had up at the residence, which now towered above us.

“Oh–we weren’t trying to come to this spot, exactly.” I informed the officer, genteel as could be. “We were just driving around…”

“Just driving around? So why did you pull into this particular driveway?”

I looked in the side view mirror at the steep, single-lane slope up to freedom. “I was lost, so we were just going to turn around down here and–”

“Kind of a strange place to turn around, don’t you think?”

“Well, I don’t really know this area too well…”

He looked at my license again. “But isn’t Hazel Street only about five minutes away from here?”

I shrugged.

“So, what you’re telling me is that you didn’t mean to pull into this driveway and up to this house?”

“Absolutely not, officer.”

“What were you doing with your turn signal on?”

“Just letting you know I was going to do a three-point here…” I knew there was no way he could prove me wrong–the policy of Deny Everything hadn’t failed me yet in life…

“And you don’t know anybody that lives here?”

“No, sir.”

More cops arrived to further cut off our path towards sanctuary from the law. Escape was an impossible illusion, but it wouldn’t be necessary; these guys had nothing on us. “You boys mind stepping out of the vehicle?”

I looked at Richard but he’d erased all expression from his face. I realized that if we wanted to go home anytime soon, we had no choice but to play their little game for a few moments longer. “Sure,” I agreed with the utmost diplomacy.

“Come around this way,” the cop instructed Richard.

The porker made us stand at the rear of the van where we were blinded by the head lamps of the multiple squad cars slanted down at us–from my skewed perspective it seemed like they had at least half of the fucking force there. This little piggy went to confer with the rest of the swine, then returned.

“Mr. Dobbs, do you know there’s a pull-tag order on this vehicle?”

I’d been content to play my role in their Sunday night drama up to this point, but now I knew that this guy was full of shit. “No, there is not.”

“There is. We don’t have you registered as insured in the database.”

“That’s impossible! I just handed you my proof!”

“You gave me a card, sure–but the state doesn’t have any record of it.”

What the fuck?

One of the other cops waddled down the hill. “You guys say you don’t know anybody up at this house?” he inquired.

“No!” Richard repeated for the umpteenth time.

“That’s funny, because there’s a fella up here that says he knows both of you.”

Yeah, fuckin’ right… I squinted up at the house but couldn’t see anything through the pigs’ infernal high beams and spinning roof lights. It looked like one of the cops was talking to somebody on the porch, but the vague silhouette was too small to be Jimmy–a neighbor, perhaps? Whatever the case, now I was certain these guys were lying. There was no way our friends would snitch on us… Every cop is a criminal, after all. “Nope, we don’t know a soul that lives here…”

You’ve got the wrong one, baby! Uh-Uh!

“So you guys were out here, just driving around, and made this turn right behind a house where somebody says he knows both of you, but you don’t know him?”

“That’s right, officer.”

“Mind if we search the vehicle?”

“Mr. Dobbs, we have a hit.”

Even though I was one-hundred percent certain that we had nothing to hide–besides criminal intent, that was–I’d been prepared for this shoe to drop. “I don’t think that will be necessary, officer,” I told him. This cop had already lied to me about my lack-of-insurance and the pull-tag order–so why should I allow him to search my van? He didn’t have the right and I refused to grant him any single speck of satisfaction. “Absolutely not.”

“Well, okay…” He gave a signal and more officers emerged from the sea of lights to creep around my creeper-van. One of them, I noticed, happened to be a K-9 Unit… The dog’s handler began to lead him around the Ram.

Even though I had been sniffing blow in there the night before, I couldn’t help but think, This dog’s not gonna smell shit.

Of course, that’s when he started barking.

But we had finished all that shit! I knew I had nothing to hide. “Yeah, right…”

“Okay–please step over here,” the cops instructed, then handcuffed us. Afterwards, they implored us to come clean about the drugs we didn’t even possess. “Mr. Dobbs, I know that there are narcotics in this van of yours–if you don’t tell us where they are right now, we’re going to pull every single thing out of there and it’s not going to be pretty.”

“You’re not gonna find anything,” I told him. “Do whatever you want.”

The cops proceeded to do just that. They tore my van apart without discrimination, profiling non-garbage the same as garbage. They ransacked the loft my band and our roadie had built and chucked a supply of band merch out onto the rocks with the rest of the refuse.

One of the cops regarded the contents of a splayed-open box to keep us occupied. “What are those?”

“CDs…”

“Y’all into music or somethin’?”

Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll, I wanted to say, though it was apparent that order was off. The latter of which used to be the priority, but that time seemed like an eon before. “Somethin’.” I nodded.

“The wife and I just went to see a Kenny Chesney concert last month…”

“Kenny Chesney, huh?” Richard remarked. “That’s great…”

“You guys play in bands, then?” another one of the cops asked us–he was much younger than the rest of them.

“Yep,” I said as I watched them throttle a box full of LPs onto the cold hard ground.

“There’s a house up the road where some guys play–up on Hammerlin.”

Recognition struck my face. Oh my God.

“You know those guys?”

I certainly did–that was the Fashion! Fashion! house, where I’d just scored some blow at a house party about a week before. “Sure do…”

“What’s all this burnt wood?” the first cop asked after they yanked open the Dodge’s rear doors. “Part of your stage show?”

“Oh, no–that’s a couch that we lit on fire in my backyard about a month or two ago…”

As the metal bit deeper into my wrists, I began to feel worried–these guys were not going to let up until they found something. Tallying up their lies and the way they were treating us, I didn’t put them above planting some false evidence. Who was I going to call to get me out of jail this time? Could I call my mom again? She’d gotten me out once before on grand theft, but what would she think about a narcotics charge? Had that K-9 really detected something, or had the pigs trained their goddamn dogs to be liars, too?

Perhaps Marvin Lee Aday, better known to the world as Meatloaf, had been right to replace the word drugs with drums in his famous song, “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)…” What a mess this white bitch had gotten me into…

Please, I prayed to the God of Sex and Drums and Rock ‘n Roll. Please, please, please–please let them not find anything–if they don’t find anything I’ll never touch this shit ever again…

Never.

Again.

The coppers finally grew frustrated–there was only so much of my garbage they could get through and no more of my life left to fling onto the earthen floor. Since they couldn’t produce any drugs, that meant it was ticket time. As it turned out, the crappy insurance company I’d chosen, Esurance, hadn’t seen fit to let the State of Florida know that I was one of their clients. (Boycott!) The first officer issued me a plethora of citations for driving a vehicle that had a pull-tag order on it–then, since my van was no longer street-legal, he informed me they had to impound it.

The pork bellies uncuffed Richard and I and we walked back to my house without another glance at Jimmy’s place. Glad we hadn’t ratted on our friend, we watched the tow truck blow by with my van on it, the only one of us to be taken into custody that night.

Ryan and Jeremy were still at my house–it’s funny how patient people can be when they’re waiting for the man. I gave them their money back with the bad news–snow-snow was a no-go.

Richard’s phone rang–it was our friend Sean. “What the hell happened to you guys?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m over here at Jimmy’s house! The cops knocked on the door and asked if I knew you guys–I told them ‘yes’ and then you idiots kept denying it! What the hell’s wrong with you two?”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

So the dumbass cops weren’t lying about that, either? Perhaps there was a fault or two to denying everything…

Over the next two days I went through twenty-six miles of barbed wire and red tape to get my license, insurance and van back. I bounced around between the DMV, tag office, Clerk of Courts and the impound lot, all while riding around in the back of our roadie’s car sitting on a bucket sans-seat belt since he didn’t have a back seat. I also had to go to the Winter Park police station to find the accursed cop who’d pulled me over to get him to correct something on one of my tickets. It was an unnerving experience, walking into the lion’s den… Through the whole ordeal, though, I kept my pledge to the God of Sex and Drums and Rock ‘n Roll: no more coca. I would take Meatloaf over Eric Clapton any day.

About a month later, I finally decided to clean out my van. I pulled up next to the dumpster behind my work and began the task of purging all the burnt shit and trash that had come to encompass my life. Next to the front seat, I began grabbing up garbage near one of the spots the cops had pored over at least fifty times that night–

And what should I find?

A tiny plastic bag lined with coke residue at the bottom. The cops–and their little dog, too–hadn’t lied about anything. Just as every cop is a criminal, all sinners are saints. “Holy shit!”

And this was some holy shit: finding this little baggie cemented my belief in the phenomenon of Divine Intervention. My faith in the God of Sex and Drums and Rock ‘n Roll was confirmed. Forever. When he made me, he’d created such a slob that those pigs totally missed a bag of coke! Praise the Lord! I’ve still never touched that shit to this day…

But wasn’t it Rock ‘n Roll that I blamed for getting me into this mess to begin with? Like I said before–and as much as it pains me to admit it–sometimes the squares are right: Rock ‘n Roll can be really bad for you–

But that’s only when it’s really good.

In the case of Fashion! Fashion! and the Image Boys, it was proven to me without a shadow of a doubt that Rock ‘n Roll can annihilate your soul. Don’t believe me? The Beatles, for as under-appreciated as they are in the city of Atlanta, inspired Charles Manson for god sakes. Then you’ve Kiss, one of the most demonic, detrimental-to-the-youth groups ever, who cover a song that claims “God Gave Rock ‘n Roll to You”…Now, as much as that song sucks, the sentiment happens to be true. But, much like with life, it’s what you do with it that matters.

The Day I Voted For Bus(c)h

“Are they gone yet?” I asked from the back seat.

“No—not yet,” Apes spoke from his reclined driver’s seat. “Just stay down!”

I couldn’t help but poke my head up for another peek at the driveway—Eric’s parents were still there, but hopefully not for long. “When are they supposed to leave?”

“Eric said they usually leave before 7,” Lew mumbled from the passenger side. “Unless they heard him come in and realized how fucked up he was…”

The time was 6:45 AM on November 6^th, 2000 and the acid we took the night before was still hitting pretty hard. We’d tripped for hours, but had been driven from our Hazel St. refuge a little while before because some people (not us) had to work for a living. Hopefully this plan worked…

Lew’s expanded gaze never left the side-mirror. “They’re leaving!”

“Fuck, yes!” I cried out.

“Shhhhh!” Apes hissed from the front seat; the coast wasn’t clear—yet.

Tail-lights flashed on Eric’s mom’s car then his dad’s, followed by those wonderful white reverse lights as if beamed from heaven above. Both parents drove away with no idea that their son was about to invite three drug-crazed delinquents into their home.

“Holy shit!” We jumped out of the car, dashed up to the door and pounded it as hard as we could. “Eric! Let us in!”

“Alright, alright!” Eric screamed from the other side of the threshold.

“Now!”

He allowed us into his house, our pupils dilated portholes to an imploded universe, but that was nothing to address—we’d officially secured sanctuary for another couple hallucinatory hours.

“You know today is election day?” Apes reminded us.

“Oh, yeah?” I was nineteen, so this was the first time I was of age to vote in a Presidential Election.

“Well, let’s fuckin’ go vote!” Lew screamed. “Where do we do it?”

“Uhh—the polling place is right up the street at St. Mary Magdalen’s,” Eric enlightened us. “But won’t there be, like, a lot of people up there?” Paranoia threatened to pounce.

“Don’t worry about it!” Lew brought him back to non-reality. “I think voting starts at seven—we should go up and check it out! Eric, you got anything to drink?”

“Err—not sure, man…”

Lew disappeared into the kitchen, hoping to heist a soda or some orange juice, but what he found made him FREAK OUT. “Holy shit!!!!”

Oh no, what happened? Was something wrong? Was Lew losing it? I ran into the kitchen to discover Lewy wasn’t going screwy—he was absolutely elated. There in the fridge sat a pristine pack of Busch beer—twenty-four unopened bottles of bliss, their contents captured from a mountain stream, just waiting for Eric’s dad when he got home…

Too bad the poor bastard would never come close.

“Eric, let me get one of these!” Lew called out.

“I don’t know, guys—” Eric protested. “Those are my dad’s! Err—he’s gonna be really pissed if—”

“Don’t worry about it!” I consoled him. “We’ll replace ‘em—no problem!” And it wouldn’t have been a problem if only one of us had been twenty-one at the time, of course.

“Okay…”

We cracked open the first round of brews and Eric grabbed some CDs out of his room to blast on the living room stereo. The obvious first choice was Black Flag’s “The First Four Years” album. We stood in a rough circle in the living room, cheers-ing and slamming the suds, screaming along and pumping our fists while the Flag pummeled through “Nervous Breakdown,” “Fix Me,” “I’ve Had It,” and, (you got that right) “Wasted.”

“Fuck! I need another beer!”

“Me too!”

We chugged through the next round, the next round, and then the following one. “Jealous Again,” “Revenge,” “White Minority—”

“Hey!” Eric shouted from the kitchen. “There’s no more beers!”

“Oh, crap…”

I did the math: between the four of us at six beers each, we had killed the entire case in exactly fifteen minutes, which was a record at the time for our degenerate asses. “Yeah, but don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I said we’re gonna replace it!”

“Errr… okay…”

We all went out front for a smoke and to watch the sun rise. A school bus full of voting-ineligible brats drove past on the way to school. We pointed at them and laughed like lunatics. “What a bunch of suckers!”

“Fuck ‘em!” Lew declared. “Let’s go vote!”

“Hell yeah!”

We walked up Maitland Avenue to Mary Magdalen’s Catholic Church and saw a line wrapped around the building. Though we’d just been listening to “White Minority,” it was certainly the Caucasians that made up the mass of this polling center. As it turned out, 81 % of the people who turned out to vote in that election were white—but only 51% of voting-eligible people showed up at all.

Apes began a poll of his own. “Hey—who ya gonna vote for? Who ya gonna vote for?” he asked random people in the queue, but for some reason, no one wanted to answer him. Everybody ignored him for the most part, but he was definitely rubbing those Democrats and Republicans the wrong way…

I looked around and realized—Oh, shit! We’d lost sight of Lew! “Where is this guy?” I began to worry—fear began to inform my nerves. I looked to Apes for guidance, but he was off in his own political world.

“You, ma’am—,” he projected the journalist he would someday become, “who are you voting for this morning?”

Still, no one responded, so Apes decided he may as well reveal his own partisanship. “Well, I’ll tell ya who I’m voting for,” he proclaimed. “I might as well vote for what I had for breakfast…” He hoisted the last half-empty beer bottle out of his jacket. “I’m voting for Busch!” Apes took an administrative swig of the swill as Lew burst out of the Church.

“I just tried voting but they wouldn’t let me!” he cried out to the crowd. “Democracy is a sham!”

“Oh, my God—they’re drunk!” the lady Apes had just harassed called out—she didn’t know the half of it.

“Well, is this even your polling station?” a concerned citizen asked Lew.

“What’s your district?” another chimed in.

I decided to assuage everybody’s civic fears. “No, it’s okay,” I calmed them. “We’re not even registered to vote!”

These people were sickened. Most shook their heads and muttered curses like “God bless America.” We’d made a mockery out of them and the entire system–blown double-barrel nose-loads all up and down Lady Liberty’s gown. “Somebody should get one of the officers over here…”

That was our cue to high-tail it back to Eric’s house. “Man, those people were really bummed out, huh?”

“That’s what they get for not voting for Busch…”

“For sure…” Apes gave me a ride home as the acid wore off, then the rest of the crew went to Lew’s house where I presumed they would discuss politics more as they huffed Duster and lived happily ever after.

Of course, that day was the start of a great controversy. Al Gore claimed that he should have won the election and demanded a recount in Florida. After that, the Supreme Court ruled that Bush had won the election by only 537 votes—a super slim margin for sure. Would the world be a different place if we hadn’t been so fucked up the night before and voted for Gore? This is, if we had actually been registered to vote in the first place?

Probably not.

Was I even qualified or knowledgeable enough as a criminally insane nineteen-year-old to lend my voice to democracy with a single vote?

Absolutely not.

I actually hate voting and feel like a fool when I do. I’ve been informed by someone I love dearly that I’m allowed to feel this way because of my privileges as a white male in America. It turns out that everybody I know who doesn’t vote, or votes for a write-in candidate such as Roky Erickson, also happens to be a white male. The most common argument I hear from my fellow white males about why they don’t vote is that all these politicians are all the fuckin’ same, which I agree with for the most part.

However, I’ve come to the understanding that’s not exactly true.

Had I been more informed in 2000—if I’d have known that a vote for Bush was really a vote for Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, the Military Industrial Complex and an Endless “Military Engagment” which has destroyed the lives of so many Americans and Iraqis all so that G.W. could make his daddy proud, I would have definitely filled out a ballot that day and marked it for “Gore.”

And considering my elementary view of politics, I’ve since come to embrace an ideology I can understand—Ian Mackaye’s methodology of deciding on a Presidential candidate, which is basically this:

Whoever ends up becoming the President of the United States is the person that this country deserves. We deserve it because we either voted for this person, didn’t vote at all, or allowed our votes to be cheated. But no matter how much we deserve this person, the rest of the world does not. Therefore, Mackaye chooses to vote for the candidate that is least likely to go to war.

Makes sense to me. However, Obama launched airstrikes or military raids in at least seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. As a matter of fact, he also sent 30,000 troops over to Afghanistan right after accepting the Nobel PEACE Prize…

So, with that being said, I’m sticking with my own juvenile (delinquent) philosophy for this upcoming election. I maintain that the best way to pick the candidate is to picture yourself on that school bus we pointed and laughed at while tripping our asses off on the morning of Election Day, 2000. Try to envision you’re on the way to high school and about to vote for Senior Class President. Who would you rather see elected—the rich kid that feels way more entitled than everybody else? Or the somewhat-creepy dude who occasionally brushes up against your ass in the hallway while getting a sniff of your hair?

I know who I would vote for…

The Happiest Place on Earth

  

I squinted in the darkness at the strip of paper Apes showed to me–printed upon it was a familiar character controlled by a corporation that would’ve never licensed his likeness for a product such as this. “Donald Duck!? Where’d you get it?”

“Wacked-Out-White-Boy,” Richard named the dealer by the crummy eponymous tattoo on his arm, which was inked above an indiscernible shape that might’ve been a goblin… “What’s weird is we actually ended up on Disney property…”

“Yeah,” Apes agreed, “we stood beneath that dinosaur outside Planet Hollywood staring up at it for, like, I don’t even know how long…”

“Good stuff? You guys still fucked up?” Though it was past midnight and the streetlight was dead, their dilated pupils told me everything I needed to know–eyes stared through the darkness with no form. 

“The craziest thing,” Apes continued, “was when we got back in the car–”

“Oh yeah!” Richard let out.

“–I started it and everything was totally quiet at first–then out of nowhere we hear, ‘ONE—LAST—CA–RESSSSSSSS!’”

I stuck myself in their shoes. “WOW! Holy shit! That’s awesome!” 

“Yeah, I guess we’d stopped the car right before that part…”

“Damn…” 

I thanked them as they handed me the two-and-a-half inch strip of LSD with the maniacal mallard printed all over it–cheap paper dipped in liquid happiness. They drove off with their Misfits-haunted soundtrack as I went back inside to Jimmy and Tess, who were staying the night. We’d gone to Ybor City to see Christian Death earlier that night and it was the worst concert I’ve ever seen… On the bright side, Mortiis had opened the show and hung baby dolls from a big cross. Rumor had it that he’d surgically altered himself to look like a goblin with his pointy ears and nose–maybe like the one tattooed on Wacked-Out-White-Boy’s arm. Hey–whatever makes you happy.

“What’cha got?” Jimmy asked.

“A surprise.”

“What’s the surprise?” Tess seconded as she cracked open another Milwuakee’s Best, the only beer we drank back then.

“Acid,” I told them. “Look–it’s got Donald Duck on it!”

Jimmy let out his crazy laugh. “Are we taking that now?”

“No…” I did have to work at the pretzel stand the next day. “We’re goin’ to Disney World!” 

A couple days later Jimmy, Mike #1, Mat, and I were all at Mike #2’s house (Sorry, Tess…). I’d procured a few passes to the park and we were almost set to go–first we had to dissect Donald and disperse him onto our tongues, though Mikes #1 and 2 didn’t partake. Once that was finished, we began our journey to the Happiest Place on Earth. 

The world twisted as soon as we sped under Disney’s giant arch on U.S. 192. A falling elevator packed with screaming faces warned of the hallucinatory horrors laying in wait, but it was just an oversized ad for the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Fitting, since we were heading into a dimension of imagination…

The Transportation Center was empty upon our arrival–the crowd was already inside the park. We mounted the monorail with caution–as I looked around I noticed that we were the only ones on the thing–we had the whole car to ourselves! It was too good to be true… We took a simultaneous breath, waiting for someone or something to interrupt this magic moment, but no one did. The doors closed, sealing us inside the train’s futuristic dragon of a cabin like bullets in a barrel, projectiles of potential energy. Then the monorail lurched forward and we EXPLODED inside, detonating at the top of our lungs, bouncing off the walls, jumping up and down over seats and across barriers, screaming.

The lunacy was in full swing.  

As the monorail passed through the Contemporary Hotel we were guided by some sort of group telepathy–an extra, all-knowing intelligence–which told us the only appropriate action to take in our encapsulated space-aged vehicle was to pound on the windows as hard as we could while we pressed our five peckers against the glass. All the families eating brunch down below looked up in total shock… It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. 

When the sky-train stopped at the Magic Kingdom, I was certain the Disney Police would be there to pounce–surely the cartoon anvil was about to fall and spoil the fun before it had even begun. That was just the way things worked out sometimes…

But, alas, there was no one there… we’d somehow gotten away with it, dodged our fates until another day. We sprung into the park with animated glee–it was amazing. There was fun as far as the eye could see. After walking through a dead man’s nostalgic recollection of his hometown, Main Street U.S.A., our first stop was TomorrowLand, of course. The line at Alien Encounter was our first true test if we could keep our shit together, standing there in that group of tourists eager to have an alien spit at them in the dark. 

We were all giggles–everything was hilarious! We finally got inside and were shown a short video presentation starring Mr. Rooney, the principal from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, that established the premise of the ride. The famous child molestor was made-up to appear as an extraterrestrial in green-face to keep him barely recognizable from the concerned parents and children.

The alien spit was a hit. Afterwards, we delighted in the Wedway People Mover, Buzz Lightyear and Space Mountain, where I noticed a strange trend–the architects of the ride, or “Imagineers,” always make you look at yourself after the fun is over, either with a photo or in this ride’s case, through live action video monitors as you descend a moving walkway towards the gift shop. What’s the point of this, exactly? Do I really need to see myself? Was this kind of ego trip necessary in the midst of an acid trip?

I shook off these thoughts as we watched one of TomorrowLand’s self-aware trash cans zoom around. It was hard to discern these artificially intelligent mobile waste receptacles from the regular park guests. We peered at a park map trying to decide what to do next, and a surly cast member took notice of our misdirection. “Alright–so where are you guys trying to go?” he asked, impatient as he tried to “help.”

Mike #2 just said the first thing that popped in his head. “Uh–Thunder Mountain!”

The cast member hissed in disgust. “What? That’s on the totally opposite end of the park!”

We made our disdain visible as we walked away–Jeez, sorry, we were just excited, you fuckin’ prick! Shouldn’t the employees be a little bit nicer in the Happiest Place on Earth?

We weren’t bothered too much as we scuttered off to our adventure, which happened to be in AdventureLand: Pirates of the Carribean. This was before they made the ride so much less rapey... We watched the pirates commit random acts of terrorism then reward themselves with prostitues. It was pretty fun. I don’t know if it was the influence of the ride or what, but once we hit the gift shop we took on some of the pirates’ less sociable traits and started burglarizing everything in sight.

Coins, hooks, eyepatches, bandanas, treasure maps–it was all booty for us. The most popular item we looted were some rubber cockroaches, but I’ll get to those later… After that, we went to Frontierland and Mike #2 made the biggest score out of anybody: a black cowboy hat from a kiosk next to the barbaric snack stand where they only sold emu legs. He put the thing on then simply walked away, slick-as-could-be … We didn’t mean any harm, but now we looked the part of the outlaw, as well. You always need some Villains if you wanna have your heroes…

Speaking of which, we went over to the Haunted Mansion, which has always been my favorite ride. I wanted to live there as a kid. Our chemical kicked into high gear within the Mansion’s walls–our eyes stared into the darkness, but the darkness stared back as grim grinning ghosts materialized to socialize… 

Okay, I wasn’t that fucked up–I knew these spooks were just holograms of robots, but they were happy haunts, at least. The ride definitely sent its spirit home with me that day, but we were the opposite of these apparitions–we were fucking alive. 

Afterwards we finally got on Thunder Mountain, which did not disappoint. I truly felt like I’d arrived at a frontier of some kind. The most fun thing, however, was Tom Sawyer Island. We explored the caves and fort, but of course had to sneak off to the real unknown–a restricted part of the island where even the cast members weren’t permitted–so that we could fantasise about smoking pot and staying out there all night… Nothing was ever good enough.

As we exited FrontierLand we passed a Dixieland Jazz band. A little boy danced among them in the middle of the path, delighting in the music. There was a circle of onlookers gathered to watch, but nobody so much cared about the band–it was all about the kid, who bopped around, jumping from side to side with a great big smile on his face, immersed in the music, overjoyed in the jazz, that forgotten soundtrack of America. The trombone player put his horn right up to the kid’s face and issued a long, solid bleat, blowing back the hair on the blonde boy’s little head. It was magical, adorable, the cutest–a totally beautiful moment. It was–

–IT WAS THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING WE’D EVER SEEN. We completely lost any semblance of our shit. Each one of us doubled over in maniacal laughter, almost in pain, at this absurd sight–even the two Mikes who weren’t tripping. We were all practically in tears. After a couple minutes of these hysterics we looked up to notice the entire crowd staring at us, silent, sickened by the sight of the five assholes freaking out at the expense of this poor, innocent child. Their faces were Disgusted, Indignant, Enraged, their expressions like those mirror-monitors at the end of Space Mountain, showing us an image of ourselves through the eyes of others. There was no doubt in the world we were fuckups now. We fled the scene laughing like mad, cracking up harder than ever.

As we tried to catch our breaths I began to think about this thing, Disney. What was it? What began as one man’s vision was now a mass mind. It wasn’t just a network of theme parks… It was decades of calculating, cultivating, branding–in television, movies, merchandising and memories. What had started out as the dream of one man had merged with our own to transcend time, space, and reality itself. This entity was now a corporation with a will of its own, fueled by a hunger for the flow of commerce and the glimmer of gold which has tarnished to green over the years. I wondered if this sentient being had an artificial intelligence on par with those trash cans we’d seen back in TomorrowLand…

Then I saw them.  

A couple walking, the woman way up ahead of the guy. He was struggling to catch up, carrying their backpack full of bullshit. Both had on Mickey ears, but they looked like the most miserable people in the world, the most pathetic pair on the face of the planet. They were horrible, and not just to look at, but because they didn’t appear even remotely happy. Wasn’t that the fucking point of this place? After all the miles and years these bozos had traversed to get here they couldn’t seem to scrape together even the tiniest speck of that elusive substance which the Declaration of Independence deems our unalienable right to pursue? 

In a Magic Kingdom in the only country in the world which guarantees that right, these losers had lost on every account. God damn it. The couple passed and I felt my own fragile grip from the big H slip. I started weeping uncontrollably, crying like a little bitch. What’s it all worth if you can’t be happy at the Happiest Place on Earth?

After my psychedelic outlaw/pirate friends calmed me down, we started to have fun again. I tried to think of that child–that absurd, ridiculous kid dancing in front of the band. He was about as happy as you could get. Before we left we decided to spend our stolen rubber cockroaches at It’s A Small World, pelting them at the people in other boats as the manic tune played ad infinitum. We didn’t discriminate–it was a small world, after all. Then Mike #1 drank the water beneath us, just like Lisa in the classic Simpsons episode where she starts hallucinating at our ride’s Duff Gardens twin. I laughed so hard I almost cried again, but these tears would have left streaks of joy.

A few months later I attempted to recreate my Disney-on-acid double fantasy, but Donald was no longer with us. The constants from the initial experiment weren’t in place: the crew was different, as was the chemical. We had gel tabs instead of paper. Also, by this point we felt the need to bring Xanax as a back-up in case anybody freaked out. Richard was there this time and he puked right at the entrance of the Transportation Center. A disgusted father led his son away from the vomit site as a cast member appeared out of nowhere with a broom and dust-pan to sweep up Richard’s barf without a word.

I thought the game was up this time for sure. The cartoon anvil was gonna drop and nothing could stop it this time. I grew paranoid our pills would be found, so I ate all the ones I had, killing my trip. The monorail was packed this time. The rides weren’t as fun. No dancing child and no old-timey band–no miserable couple, either for that matter. I replayed many of my previous thoughts about Disney as an entity, but they were all just rehash. If I was using the scientific method and testing a hypothesis by gathering data, did I want a different conclusion or the same one as the time before? Would the results mean as much? Some people define repeating the same actions while expecting a different outcome as insanity, but isn’t trying to relive the same experience over and over again, also? What about Walt Disney, who tried to recreate his idyllic boyhood hometown on Main Street U.S.A.? Was he fucking nuts, too? I just wanted to be happy, goddammit, but I’d been happier sucking down Milwaukee’s Best with Jimmy and Tess, commiserating on the worst show we’d ever seen… happier picturing myself with Apes and Richard in Apes’s car, ‘ONE—LAST—CA–RESSSSSSSS!’ blasting from nowhere and everywhere.

On my first trip within a trip I thought I learned something about life, love, and the absurd joys of the simple things, but this second time was just an animatronic–cold, devoid of life or substance. Maybe if I was seeing through the eyes of that curmudgeonly duck the second time around, things would have been different… but probably not. I’d paid for my five dollar ride to Happiness, but it was closed for maintenance. 

The acid wasn’t the solution. Disney wasn’t the solution. Maybe it was something else–something inside of me. Perhaps that’s the reason the Mouse and his Imagineers make you look at yourself and your friends in those pictures that nobody buys and on those creepy closed-circuit monitors as you exit towards the gift shop–so you can visualize that fun part of your soul the ride shook out. That potential is the real gift at the end, and the real ride–who you’re on it with is also important. Happiness lies within but you have to shake it loose… just like that little shit gettin’ down with the Dixieland band.