Hello everyone out there. My name is Mellie, and you may know me as Becky. I am one of Jim’s roommates and have been invited to be a guest writer on his site.

I’ll be updating you with my perspective of goings-on at The Casa, which I have to say I am more than a little excited about. I don’t read Jim’s site so I’m not sure what you already know about me, but I’m thrilled to be a part of the team. I nominate myself as the girl’s captain – letting you all in on the more visceral side of what it’s like to live with 7 men (give or take a few).

Here’s a preview – The boys love to talk about how emotional I am. Apparenly, I’m crazy as a rat in a can according to the Testosterone Litmus Test (FDA Approved). However, I happen know that these STOLID (I still haven’t gotten my 5 bucks, there Jim) men love them some FELICITY. That’s my favorite show, and thank Jesus (who I just learned also posts here – thank you, Jesus) that the Women’s Entertainment channel broadcasts that shit twice a day. The boys bitch about me watching, but they always drift into my room round about the time the show comes on – and they only have comments during the commercials. You could hear a mouse fart (or one of the guys, for that matter) while Felicity is agonizing over Ben or Noel? Noel or Ben? I’m just sayin’…

Okay folks. Over and out for now. Can’t wait to talk to you again.

Ben Covington forever!
Mellie

PS – right now Troy [or J-rock from my diary -jim] is coloring in my Halloween coloring book while I finish this up and we get ready to watch “City Of Angels” on Superstation. He’s bitching cause there’s not a “flesh” colored crayon for the teddy bear he’s shading. HAHAHA!!! This is going to be great! The wall of logic will crumble!

hey everyone it is me jesus jim asked me to make an extra special guest spot on his diaryblog so here i am in all my glory!! no but seriously jim and i are tight and i am here to give him and all of you by proxy some advice on THE MUSIC BUSINESS!! yeah thats right i know all about jim and his bands of this and that and how he is trying to make it int he music biz and get on the cover of the rolling stone!

so one two here we go the first thing is a good thing! never like to start off a critique with a bad thing you know!! so yeah jim shaved off the soul patch, GOODBYE ALICE IN CHAINS, HELLOOOOO 2003!! music industry bigwigs dont like soul patches or goatees or lambchops (well they might be liking lambchops these days as long as they are sculpted into little points, STAR TREK STYLE! HEEYAH!)

now for some helpful hints! get a gimmick!! GWAR wasn’t SHIT until they kicked out their first lead singer (who went on to form CREED!) and put on their chains and bladders of fake blood and guitars shaped like axes and skulls and dead babies so maybe you need some of that but you cant just go around copying gwar cuz theyll find out and come beat the tar outta you. so heres my suggestion: VIKINGS! they have a long and proud history, and they look totally bad ass! so dye your hair, grow it out like thor in fact get a hammer like thor and a guitar shaped like a hammer like thor! and then get some valkyries to be your groupies and a drum filled with the blood of the vanquished! oh yeah and then discover the new world that would kick ass

ok hint #2!! demo tapes are for sissies!

hint #3: get a good roadie who really knows how to tie those scarves on the microphones and i mean tie the SHIT out of em! if they cant pass the tie test, vanquish them and put their blood in the drums

so that should help you get well on your way to really wowing those suits at sony music or columbia records or barnone or sub pop or reprise or mute or whoever!!!

oh also sorry california you are fucked enjoy governor JINGLEALLTHEWAY!!

you can also check up on my day to day happenings over at my diary page which is awesome by the way it is http://realjesus.diaryland.com!!!

ok thats all for this guest appearance love you all especially some of you and you know who you are hot stuff

-jesus

This weekend I saw The Rundown and School of Rock. I expected the first to be very dumb and the second to be completely awesome, but I was wrong both times. The Rundown is actually pretty good, and School of Rock is actually fairly lame.

I think Jack Black is less funny around a bunch of kids, since he can’t really be as nasty and funny as he usually is. It has also been suggested that he’s a funnier sidekick than leading man, but I don’t know about that. I think he’s fuckin funny, for sure.

The interesting thing about both these movies is that I got to see the same previews twice. In this context, what I mean by “interesting” is “soul-crushingly mundane”.

Previews in and of themselves don’t make me want to vomit, but the large majority of new movies do. The movie compelling me to launch my vegetables at present is “Honey”, about a coreographer who “makes it on her own terms”, starring no one who has. I don’t think that people should be continually assured that they can make it on their own terms, because it’s so rare that it’s next to impossible. I think that in order to realistically “make it” on one’s proverbial “own terms” means that you redefine “making it” to mean something attainable.

I’m not saying people haven’t done it, and I’m not saying that it can’t be done, but I think a lot of really talented people burn out on the way to superstardom when they could probably “make it” if they redefined “make it” to mean “supporting themselves”, which I think is going to be more and more the case with the rise of myriad independant outlets for “making it” thanks to the internet. The big boys are not as big as they used to be.

So really, what I am trying to say is, of course you can make it on your own terms, but let it be okay to not be a super star. There are, after all, very few of them.

Our wierd mafia-like group of musicians has as its mostly-benevolent benefactor and godfather Francisco Vidal. He’s been playing gigs like a mad beast for 16 years or so. He’s really great, as you might expect someone who has been at it that long to be. He and T-Rock, a.k.a. Iceberg Slim, Pimp in Disguise, book gigs for all of us as well as doing some themselves.

It usually goes like this: Around Monday or Tuesday Fran will call me and tell me what gigs I am doing and when, but he won’t know where or for whom. In a few days he knows for whom, but not where, so I get another phone call. Usually I don’t know exactly where the place is until I’m on the way, as it was this weekend.

He told me to drive about 30 miles north of town and get off the interstate and call him, so I did.

“Is there a Wal Mart near you?” he asked when he picked up the phone.

I looked across the street, and sure enough, there was one.

“Yeah,” I said, a little amazed.

“Good, go in there and get some pants for Wormy. He’s on the gig too but he didn’t know it was a wedding so he’s in jeans. Go to the Girl’s section. He’s really small.”

I went over to the Wal Mart and went inside, looking for pants for Wormy. I found Fran in there, rooting around in the girl’s section as promised.

“I thought you were fucking around about the girl’s section.”

“Nah,” he said, “He’s tiny.”

He carried a few pairs of pants over to the dressing room and handed them over the top of the stall to a franctically-trying-clothes-on Wormy. I could tell he was in a hurry by the way his little feet scurried around under the stall door, hopping this way and that.

“Hurry up in there. Gig’s over already” Fran said.

Wormy, who proved to be tiny indeed, found a pair of girl’s pants that he liked and we paid for them and got in our cars. The next hour and a half were comprised of me following Fran’s van around in my car as he tried to find the place. We ended up way out in the sticks in a little town called Clayton, GA. It was so far away that we could have gotten to Chattanooga from Atlanta faster,
Frankie went through a selection of slower tunes with Wormy moaning along on his guitar. I played a couple of solos, but I didn’t really know all the older songs Frank was doing, so I didn’t have a lot to do. He got ripping on some country song, and I looked up to find most of the wedding party line dancing in front of the stage.

“Hell yeah,” said Wormy from inside his women’s clothing.

They kicked and jumped and swished their skirts all in unison. It was quite a thing.

So, this weekend I headlined the Civic Center. No one has to know it was in Clayton, GA, or that there was line dancing involved, now do they?