Sometimes when I get myself good and drunk and my motor skills suffer, I like to imagine that I am undergoing a mutiny attempt upon my person by my personal effects.

Sometimes my Bic lighter conspires with my keys to jab me in the leg through my pocket.

“Mutiny!” I shout, and rearrange them.

The car, of course, is the most mutinous of the bunch, so I refuse to even go near it when I’ve been drinking. I can tame most of its uppity tricks when I am stone cold sober, but after a few drinks it gets the best of me.

This weekend I was set upon in a most cruel and mutinous manner by the following inanimate objects:

1. a ’79 fender stratocaster guitar
2. a bic lighter (white)
3. J-rock’s car door (vw jetta)
4. The stairs
5. my door
6. the lightswitch (too far up the wall to reach while lying on floor)

As you can see, there is a lot of discipline to be handed out to the objects in my life, and by god I am the man to deliver.

Many times in your life people may ask you questions with you doo not wish to answer. Some of the ones I get asked a lot tend to include the following:

1. How many drinks have you had?
2. Where have you been?
3. Why are you late?
4. What were you thinking?
5. Are you always this immature?

Friends, I have come up with a few simple methods to get these people off your back.

Now, first of all, you have your old standby phrases like “It seemed like a good idea at the time”. This is a good place to start for you burgeoning idiots out there. Repeat this phrase at whomever is demanding facts from you about why you did something silly or inane, and eventually they will either give up, hit you with something, or explode. Try to survey your surroundings for heavy things they might bonk you with. Never try any of these methods if there is a baseball bat or tennis racket around. Broom handles also hurt. A lot.

Moving up from there, almost any failure on your part to carry out a simple task or arrive on time and sober can be blamed on a “snafu”. This is a term of military origin which means “Situation normal: all fucked up”. Your inquisitor will be confused by the high military grade of this response, and probably wander away. If not, repeat it.

THe next level of these phrases is called the Cha Cha Cha Method. All you do is simply repeat whatever they say to you and add “Cha cha cha!” to the end. Example:

“Hodgson, where the hell have you been, why are you wearing a blue sequinned cocktail dress, and what the fuck are you doing with that golf club?”

“I have a golf club, Cha cha cha!”

“I’m serious! Answer me!”

“You are serious! Cha cha cha!”

As always, repeat as needed.

If this fails entirely, one can almost certainly blame any bizarre or irresponsible behavior on your part on a henweigh. I have previously discussed this, so I will not go into great detail, but here is an example:

“Isn’t that my mom’s dress?”

“Yeah, sorry, there was a henweigh wedged in the closet. Had to get it out with the golf club”

“What’s a henweigh?”

“Oh, I’d say four or five pounds.”

That wraps up the lesson for today, kids. Good luck!

There is a little speaker that lives on the wall next to where my desk is at my day job. It is the ass end of a system whose head is at the front door. This allows people who want to come inside to talk to me without me having to go see who they are.

They press a little button outside and the ass end on my wall goes BOOP and then people can talk to me.

It booped this morning.

“Yes?” I said at it.

“Hi this is Dick Johnson. I’m a contractor. My card isn’t working.”

I waited a few seconds.

“Who is it?” I said.

He was very polite. “Dick Johnson, I’m a contractor. My card’s not working.”

I paused a few more seconds.

“Hello?” I said.

He sounded a little more exasperated, but he held it together. “Yeah, Hi this is Dick Johnson. I’m a contractor. Just trying to get in.”

I paused for effect, stifling a giggle.

“Hello?” I said.

He was a little more peeved now. “DICK JOHNSON.” he insisted. “CONTRACTOR”

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Hahaha, just having some fun with ya man, hang on I’ll be right over.”

I went to go let him in.

I love shit like that.

Jesus Christ, I just drove an hour and a half to get home. I can’t take it.

ATLANTA, WHY DON’T YOU HAVE A DECENT MASS TRANSIT SYSTEM FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS?

If someone drove by you in Atlanta traffic this morning going “FUCK! FUCK! SHIT! FUCK!” over and over again, I apologize. That was me.

Walter’s got a pretty full plate gig-wise, and that’s why when Jorge asked him to do some studio work for his band Say Marcie, he was reluctant. Walter, however, is a nice guy though, so he did it anyway.

The problem became that he was getting busier and busier and Say Marcie was taking up more and more of his time. This problem was compounded by the nature of Say Marcis’s music, which was mediocre at best.

It was due to all of this that Walter gave Jorge my number and told him to call me instead. Walter’s about 300x the drummer I am, but Jorge called me anyway because he’s desperate for some sort of a drummer.

I picked up a copy of their cd from Jorge and listened to it the other night. The music is okay for the most part, but the vocals are pretty terrible. From what everyone says, the band only exists because Jorge wants desperately to be fucking the girl lead singer, so he wrote a bunch of tunes for her to sing. The lyrics are high-school love note quality.

Anyway, my first instinct was not to do it, because I don’t want to be known for playing with shitty bands. I decided to talk it over with Madison, who is quite a badass drummer and gigs constantly. I knew Walter wanted me to do it because he wanted Jorge off his back, so his opinion was biased.

I told Madison about it, and he advised me to do it.

“Look man,” he said “Your stated goal is to be an increasingly-working drummer, and someone called you for a drum gig. Where’s the problem”

“Well, the music sucks”

“So? When I moved to town I didn’t say no to anyone ever. It’s only recently that I have enough gigs that I can turn some down. I used to introduce myself as Contestant Number Four on those gigs because I didn’t want my name attached to them, but I got work and I got better”

The man had a point.

“Besides,” he added, “What’re you gonna do, wait for Sting to call?”

I thought about all of this while doing a guitar gig with him this weekend. He was on drums, right behind me. I heard some pretty interesting shit coming out of him, and I turned around to watch what he was doing, and the motherfucker was doing it all with one hand.

“Bastard!” I shouted at him.

He grinned at me and kept playing.

He’s a smart and talented fellow, that guy. I’m lucky to know him.

Later on, some drunken woman stepped all over my cables and shit and unplugged them all, and then sucked on my forehead by way of apology. Who sucks on a forehead?