Caution: "Retard's" on the Loose

There's nothing classier than picking fights with a 13-year-old autistic boy. But apparently some Nephi residents were so sick of their autistic neighbor bugging them and getting into their stuff that they decided the only way to address the problem was to spray paint a giant that says "CAUTION, RETARD'S IN AREA." (My favorite part is the incorrect use of an apostrophe.)

Here's the link to the whole story.

Though this is sad social commentary, it does make me think of one of my favorite tee shirts , which also uses incorrect grammar.



From the tee shirt's description:

"I guess this shirt is a booby trap for wannabe grammar police. "Hey", they'll whine, "did you know that your shirt uses the possessive 'your' when it should use the contraction 'you're'?" At which point you'll shake your head, mutter the words on your shirt, and walk away."

Which then makes me think of my favorite Napoleon Dynamite quote from Rex, owner of Rex Kwon Do, "Grab my arm. The other arm. My other arm. Okay, now watch this. I'm just gonna break the wrist and walk away. Break the wrist, walk away."

Mutter the words and walk away. Break the wrist, walk away. It's all the same.

"We're Country"

Cutest baby in the world? Hands down.

Last weekend, Paige rode on a four-wheeler for the first time. Yep, an eight-month-old baby on an ATV. It's no biggie, "we're country." Though this was Paige's second trip to my grandpa's ranch, it was her first real visit. She got to drive very slowly on the four-wheeler with grandma (she looked forward, emotionless; she may as well have been in the stroller), she got to the watch everyone play in the pond and she got to see her cousin Nathan get stung by a bee right on the mouth. His lip swelled up so big he looked like a little Angelina Jolie.

I, meanwhile, continued to struggle with my quest to conquer the barbecue. I thought I had really done a good job on the burgers this time. I had just taken them off the grill on the porch when I went to step inside of the cabin to grab some ketchup. A giant gust of wind came blowing through and the burgers went sailing into the air and then crash landed on the cement porch. All that work down the drain.

On a positive note, outdoor enthousiast Traci and I are getting more succesful in our inflatable raft paddling skills. I've got the picture to prove it (somewhere).

Hot Like a Robot

It's 12:48 a.m. and I just got home from our show at Todd's Bar & Grill. I think we redeemed ourselves after our mighty dive at Burt's on Tuesday night. Once again, Mike the dirty promoter didn't give us any money, but we did make $50 off of t-shirts sales. So, all y'all who bought shirts, many thanks. (For those of you who want shirts, email me and I can get you hooked up.)

I think we're done with the bar scene. Johnny Tightlips is going where the kids are - the all-ages shows. As long as we continue to make no money playing at crappy bars late at night we might as well be playing the early shows and not dying of second-hand smoke. I hope to see you guys at Kilby Court on August 9.

On My Way Home from the Rock Show...

It turns out that I was worried about all the wrong things. I didn't think that anyone was going to come, but quite a few Johnny Tightlips superfans showed up for a 10 p.m. show on a Tuesday night.

I was worried that we were going to screw up all of our new songs, which we did. However, I hadn't thought to worry about the other band deciding that they wanted to play first so they could get in and get out, but then not get around to starting until 11:15.

You can tell that I am rock and roll novice because last night was only the second time we've played past midnight (the other time was also at Burt's Tiki Lounge). We didn't go on until around 11:45. We felt really bad that our friends had all been sitting there, waiting two hours for us to start playing. We hurried to get set up and play as quickly as possible after the other band was finished and cut a few songs off our setlist to keep things moving along.

As we started our set I could feel that it was getting to be past my bedtime. (Poor Aaron had been up since 6 a.m. and would have to be getting up again for work in another few hours.) Everything seemed really rushed, out of tune and really scattered. We limped our way through the set, probably screwing up on 9 songs out of 10.

That's not to say that we didn't have a good time. The audience was great. There was a lot of interaction, including a drunken Burt's employee grabbing the mic and singing our cover of "Your Love" by The Outfield.

The highlight of the evening was when the drunken employees started dancing around with a giant fiberglass skull and then asked Danny to wear the skull (which had no eye holes) on his head while he played the drums. He accepted the challenge and somewhat successfully played one song with it on.

Despite the poor performance, I had a good time hanging out with everyone. I had a good time playing as well, we just sounded like crap. We hope to redeem ourselves on Friday night when we play at Todd's Bar & Grill.

On My Way to the Rock Show...

I'll be heading home from work in a couple of minutes, then it's off to band practice. We're playing tonight at Burt's Tiki Lounge around 10 p.m. I've got the usual anxiety, wondering if we're going to suck, if anyone's going to show up, etc. We haven't played a show in three months and I'm worried we're going to be a bit rusty.

I was pretty excited when we booked the show because we would be opening for touring band Bang Sugar Bang - a band that actually falls into the same broad category of music that we play i.e. not metal, not avant garde/electro whatever, not sad, sad emo music. But we just found out that they cancelled their summer tour after their guitar player busted his hand. So we will be playing with another local band, Spork, who hopefully has a bit of a following.

I hope some folks show up since I've been frantically screenprinting a ton of new shirts and stickers, including my first-ever girlie tees. We're going to be debuting three new songs, hopefully not massacring them. We'll find out in a few hours....

July Consumption

Music

The Bouncing Souls - The Gold Record
Frou Frou - Details
Tool - 10,000 Days
Mae - The Everglow
Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary
Dashboard Confessional - Dusk & Summer
Hot Chip - The Warning
Tegan and Sara - So Jealous
The Format - Interventions and Lullabies
Gym Class Heroes - As Cruel as School Children
Living End - State of Emergency
Good Riddance - My Republic


Books

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak