Bite.

One of my infants upped and dropped his pants in the middle of the sidewalk to show me his new tattoo last Saturday night. Minds out of the gutter please,it was adorning his leg. This kind of caper happens to me more often than you would think. People just want to share with me for some reason. He then shyly showed me the screen-saver on his phone after he had  pulled them up again and composed himself. A black and white version of a magazine cover I graced a while back right there behind his shattered screen. He rolled back down the stairs fiddling with his belt and I felt like a fucking superstar.

Just when I feel muerto on my stonking size 11 feet,sweetness brings Senorita Shit-kicker here back into the fecund fold once again.

More on magazine folly deeper into this dispatch…read on….

I then discovered that I had been robbed when I got back to my battered but beloved belongings after my shift was done. A pack of drunk hipster fucks well past their used by date by at least a decade (“Hey ! 1992 called.It wants its tribal tattoos and Arnette sunglasses back.”) clad in hundred dollar flannel shirts and corpulent mountain man facial hair had been partying in the back bar with one of my bosses. My journal was bent backed in a puddle of Jack Daniels on the dirty concrete floor and my Hello Kitty purse was empty.  Fucking cunts. I think I shocked my stoic manager who has known me since I was a Fagin-esque young upstart because I upped and burst into tears. Listen, a cowgirl can only take so much at 4am when pre-menstral.

Miss Suzanne of the Tundras pulled me up on my bad writing,bless her. Let it be said that in my last rant that it was I wearing the black dress and not the polo player that I am flirting with on the trans Atlantic flight. Not that I mind a man in a frock.Or my underwear for that matter.Serves me right  for attempting to craft this shit when exhausted. Today finds me waiting for the sun to come out so I can go and wallow by my pool….

Miss Nina returns from the world today. I cannot wait to see her. My digits are itching to dial her number.My life at this point is a lot of interviews and running. Which is not a bad thing at all. Still valiantly battling to get my weight down. I dropped to my knees upon discovering that I can fit into my daisy dukes once more.Progress is being made.I know that this  is all over the place but my life is revolving around sound bites so suck it up or turn the page.

Great,now I have to find my Bob Seegar and The Silver Bullet band best of album.

Marcus,my dream guitar god informs me that the boys are gearing up to come up and jam. Nathan- devil-drummer-boy sent me the confirmation for time and location. Upon  receiving said digital missive I find that I am a heady mix of totally shit scared and  moistly thrilled. I am singing in the shower to get ready.Since the last of my rotund solo shows ( Trust me on the rotund,I have seen the footage.I am a large mammal.) I have not really sung at all. Its nice to leave it alone for a while.Makes you fall in love all over again when it starts up once more.

I am playing one last acoustic/autistic show for the year on December 7th.One of my infants is putting on a benefit for breast cancer and its the least I can do.

Beloved whiskey twin Mark G is taking Turbonegro to Texas but took the time to write me and tell me that my postcards had made his day. I really hope that he comes here with them in December.Larry Melano,guitar tech supreme just wrote  to tell me that he is on the road with Sum41 and that he is looking forward to catching up again. Being exiled from my longed for Los Angeles its always great when the mountain comes to Mohammad so to speak.That is why summer means so much to me. The festival season brings all my friends,the pack of fucking pirates they are,back into the somewhat limited and provincial orbit that I find myself in living here.

Rosco Deluxe writes and tells me that he and his inamorata Max are getting married in Spain next July. I am so happy for them both. He has requested my presence and also requested Saint Tina’s which I thought was simply charming.

And then some of my favorite infants come to me on yet another Saturday night bestowing gifts upon me. A huge bunch of my favorite white lily’s,a gold crown studded with jewels that the King would have been proud to sport back in Vegas and a Hunter.S.Thompson tee-shirt to stretch over my rack.( Merci beacoup mon amours Neimah,Jacob and Anton.) Why all the swag  I hear you ask? Because I got what I wanted out of the Miss Inked competition and there is no way that I would have made it without my 77 crew.

(“You told me that we would dance around your crown when it was all over.” he said softly placing in on my head with his eyes twinkling and mine filling with tears.)

They voted their little fingers to the bone for me.

If you care to peruse your news stands you will find me on the cover of Inked looming like a big boobed Godzilla (“Ohhhh no! There goes Toyko!”) behind the adorable winner Miss Tash. (“I’m just the out of focus guy on the tee shirt!” Jason Lee-Almost Famous.) to be followed by five pages inside.

The way I see it we both won.She is a model and dancer.The crown will serve her well. Your stupid scribe here? Oh baby! I am naught but a foul mouthed ,over opinionated ,under educated upstart with a bad attitude and great stems. I informed them with much hand waving and salty language that they are in dire need the gonzo element and that is where I shine all two-bit tinsel and hot -damn hustle way .The world is my campaign trail and now I,the original fucked up foundling and founder Lost Boy, has finally found a home. Expect to see my by-line staining the high gloss page like blood stained buckshot every eight weeks.

The first day of work found me cozied up in the sterile IKEA decked hell of a bar at the Vibe hotel chatting to the illustrious and most charming Erik Sprague also known as The Lizard Man. The heat shimmed like it was 1969 outside the plate glass window as my nipples hardened due to the bludgeoning of the air conditioning. We filled a tape with banter and he went to off hammer corkscrews ( The implement,not the beverage but then again it could have been both,whadda I know? ) into his heavily inked head at his Newtown show and I slunk off and gussied myself up in the toilets to go to the launch party at the wharf for the new issue of the magazine.

When all around you are dressing like Kat Von D? Elect to wear a stunning skintight grey shift dress,faux Cartier jewels adorning your long languid caramel limbs, skyscraper nude heels and channel Miss Jolie. Also remember to sit like a lady all night due to your lack of underwear beneath  said dress.No one needs to see your junk young lady.

I still find it hard to mingle so I sat downstairs most of the night by the door,perched on the table by the entrance,minxy and cross gammed and chatted to my fellow staff members. Muy relived to see that my ink slinging bitter ex-amour had not made the list I heaved a rack expanding sigh of relief and proceeded to shovel a bucket full of  popcorn into my fool head and talk bitter trash to keep my compadres laughing deep into the water surrounded night. At one point I was ranting on the edge of the pier to two of my editors who listened to me wide eyed and slack jawed. My eyes were momentarily snatched by the neon of Luna Park all wanton across the waves and I gave thanks at that moment for all the disarray and heart hurt that had lead me to this exact moment.

Being underestimated by the world at large is is boon of you know how to twist and then distill it into revenge riddled fuel and I do. The Ben Fong-Torres to my Hunter S / Lester Bangs hybrid,Miss Vanessa Morgan,is shipping me off to the Soundwave festival next year to pester my heroes for hot hard copy. I think back to my small town youth, full of repression and put downs,of my truncated education and I  smile. I grin like the Cheshire cat thinking that I will be breaking bread with Jimmy Bower of Eyehategod and Down in ten days time. That I have a backstage pass for life. That my peers became my friends. That my phone book reads like a rock and roll almanac.

I want to go back in time and tell the high-as-fuck hurting 13 year old me that being a late bloomer is the best thing that will ever happen to her.That she will grow into her odd features,her height and that only the coolest and most discerning bee’s shall be drawn to her very potent and particular kind of honey.That her past will melt away like malicious ice cream,31 flavors of solid sordid suburbia will not be on her menu for much longer…….

I want to kiss her big lipped face clean off  her fine boned skull and tell her its going to be just fine.

And it is.

Second place is just dandy by me.