3/27/02

Raleigh's Rag

"We are all humanary stew, we must pledge allegiance to . . .

THE BLACK WIDOW!"

What the- ?! I got the above from B.D. Pain, I don't know where on earth he got it from, but I love it.

Thanks to one and all who sent me nice uplifting messages after the last pox of a newsletter, actually, I apologize for the alternately whining and defensive tones of AAB, I've just been feeling really punked out by life in general lately, and when some pissy comments came my way I probably gave them more weight than they deserved.

Bipolar and alcoholic, or just a moody guy who likes to drink? You make the call.

Feeling better now, thanks for asking. Just still that T- word. Went out with some friends in Beckley for dinner last Friday night, had a very nice time. I'd gotten a room at the Sleep Inn in anticipation of a late night which didn't develop, mores the pity, so I decided to just come back home to Harmon's Creek that night. Got back to the room a little before ten, figured I'd drink a beer, then check out and come on back. Cracked the beer (it's already been established Bill has no sense) set it on the nightstand, lay back on the bed for a minute to rest my eyes, raised back up and picked up the beer and started swearing at the convenience store across from the motel for selling me a piss hot beer, when I happened to glance at the clock on the nightstand. It now magically read 5:20 AM. Yeesh.

And for those of you wondering (that would be those of you who don't know me very well yet), yeah, I drank the beer before going back to sleep for a couple hours. Pouring out beer, even hot flat beer, is against the law.

I also appreciate all the positive feedback on WBHTFF, there ain't no French fans amongst the Billheads I'm happy to note. I'm writing an article on spec for Wrestling Then And Now about the glory days of Georgia Championship Wrestling (maybe I can turn a profit with this writing out my ass style), I should finish it by next week, I'll send it out to you guys. I'm thinking the essay/article style may be my forte (fuck that plot shit), upcoming features which I'll be sending out as they're done will include Why Bill Doesn't Do Drugs, Bill Versus The Snake, Bill Versus The Alligator, and The Night Bill Fucked The Two Girls From Pizza Hut.

I've also applied to be a reviewer for the Gazette (thanks for the heads up, Dave), they wanted some writing samples, one of the ones I sent was a cleaned up version of French. It was eleven words long.

Joe suggested we call our next band Thrashing Mohandes, Joe's really a damn funny guy. He ought to have his own newletter, but I don't need the competition. Besides, he's the only person I know who does less than I do. He also helped shed some light on my recent tribulations, when he said, "Remember when we had that car crash and you died?"

Mark, checked the Hybrid Zero website, all other Billheads should as well, very neat, I'm jealous. We ought to have something like that, Joe. Of course we'd have to have A FUCKING BAND, wouldn't we?

What's Bill listening to? John Coltrane, or trying to. Been wanting to expand my horizons, and someone already took Flatt and Scruggs, (and this newletter thing is a 2 way street, which is a neat thing for me, after cracking on Chris last letter I borrowed one of my mom's old F & S records and uhm, damn Chris, I must be as old as you, cos some of it sounded really good) so I thought I'd go in a jazz type direction. I've always hated jazz, I mean HATE HATE HATED it, but I've read a lot of good things about Coltrane over the years, about how intense and inspired and different he was, the late, lamented (at least around this house) Lester Bangs- he accidentally overdosed on cough medicine, Jesus H., I guess when it's your time- wrote a killer article back round '75 or so, "To John Coltrane, in Heaven," that made me think if I was ever going to like a jazzbo, Coltrane would be he. Got a Best Of, the Rhino one, there were 3 or 4 to choose from, got this one because it had songs of his I'd heard of. Starts out with Giant Steps, one of his biggies. Oh dear. Same old meandering blippity bloop shit these uneducated ears have always hated in all the other jazz I listened to, they're five minutes in and I'm still going, where's the fucking SONG? There's a couple of pretty good relaxing type things on here, but really, so what, I was expecting a lot more. My favorite thing on the CD is actually 14 minutes of John and friends jerking off all over My Favorite Things, because at least its a SONG, but trust me, a R&H fan I'm not, I HATE "show tunes," so sue me, I don't think I can hang with Coltrane. I may (since as we all know, I'M A SUCKER) go out and get one more of his CDs, "A Love Supreme," which is supposed to be his masterpiece, and because I really like the title, and I can hopefully see me saying sometime in the future, "Hey baby. You wanna hear A Love Supreme?" Oh yeah.

As for my love life, just like Jesse Ventura said in Predator, "I'm a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus." What Mr. Governor neglected to add was that tyrannosaurs are fucking extinct. By the way, got a call from Todd this past Sunday saying hotbody nurse Roxanne from way back in issue one wants to give me another chance, decided even though I was a smartass, her word, jeez, ya think?, I still might be good for a go. Probably gonna go there, cos it's been a while, I just hope she doesn't hurt me too badly.

Man, enough of that. Now Bill's listening to the Sonics, Maintaining My Cool, a greatest hits. Jeez, what a bunch of primates, every song the guitars go crunch, crunch, crunch, the drums go pound, pound, pound, the organ goes . . . organ, organ, organ, the singer does this snotty sneer, or else starts howling like he's just been set on fire, or sometimes both, like in "Psycho." And the SONGS, the aforementioned "Psycho", "Strychnine" (Some like water, some like wine/As for me, I like strychnine) "The Witch", "Boss Hoss", "Lucinda" (Got a gal named Lucinda/She threw me out the winda) and one of my favorite song titles of all time "Your Head's On Backwards". These guys make the Kingsmen sound like EL fucking P. Got that Coltrane right out of these ears.

As for a sucker update, my blue Danelectro (for those of you keeping track, this is number 3) is out of stock, try again 4/27. Yeah.

Came across some kind of Bubba'd up hunting show the other day, I kept watching when I would normally flip by because I couldn't understand a damn thing the guy was saying. I'm serious, between the twang and the actual strange words he was using- I'm willing to bet damn near anything that at one point he said "Humma bumma shebang. Woooee." Reminded me of the time many moons ago when Joe and I were at the beach and I was still trying to sleep it off while the maid kept asking Joe, more and more insistently, if he wanted something, which Joe, more and more insistently, kept refusing. Their exchange went on for quite some time, I figured it was just my damn drunk ears hearing funny, so when she left- "WHAT did she keep asking if you wanted?" "Near as I could tell, huttenzut." "That's what I thought." Made her mad he didn't take any, too.

Watching that show reminded me I'm supposed to go elk hunting out west this fall (yeah, I plan on making out a will first, so should everyone going with me). Never been much into the idea of shooting something I wasn't pissed off at, but I guess I can shoot something I'm going to eat. I'd really like to hunt something I could get into killing, though. Can you see my trophy room if I was a hunter? Yeah, over there's a goddamn crocodile, there's all of Jack and Mary's dogs, those are all shark heads, that son of a bitch was a Frenchman . . .

And that reminds me of Rachel's lizard. I've gone from hating to loving him (yeah, I know, fickle bitch). He's just so damn predatory. I entertained the movie club for a while by feeding him a mealworm. He's just so intense, the way he stalks and then lunges at them, it's a hoot (if you're not a mealworm). Seriously, if things like him got big, they'd rule the damn planet. They did, Bill, ya dumbass, they were called tyrannosaurs.

So. Think I'm going to call it a wrap, actually, a number of subjects I didn't get to that I wanted to this time around, but I'm sleepy, got real busy nights now through the weekend so I'm gonna get what's done out now, put the rest in the next one- watch for Dinner and a Lizard, coming soon.

E-mail me.

Humanary stew? Godamighty, I can't top that.

Bill