Change is coming.  I’m getting rid of things and replacing them with others.  I’m becoming a robot again.  This is a good thing.

May is going to be a busy month around here.  Finishing up the School Bus ”Blue Button” CD, mixing some Kochalka tracks, finishing up the Kochalka album, preparing for the very first School Bus live performance (May 17, w/ Swale at Radio Bean), Kochalka gig opening for Mike Watt (May 3, Higher Ground), tooth extraction (May 16), and finally, picking up Led LO/CO at the airport (always a fun job) and driving them to their marathon gigs at Red Square (May 9) and Nectar’s (May 24).

James Kochalka depicts me in his comics as a dog with a robot brain.  When we went to Oklahoma last year (which has become the subject of a tune on ”Blue Button”) we were presented by a girlie named Heather Peanut with sculptures of our characters.  Thanks, Heather.

The next School Bus CD will either be called “Blue Button” or “Drinking Games”.  Which do you like better?

I had a lot of weird dreams last night, one of them was sort of about me phasing out some of my old friends.  I’m definitely guilty of this.  Why did I do it?  Who do I think I am?  I just let it happen.  I’ve been phased out by a few recently.  Fuck it.

You can tell I’ve been making progress on the new CD because my room hasn’t gotten any cleaner.

Will be flying very soon … Costa Ricky in 4 days.

So I get up at 6:30am, my skin hot but my inner coil icy, all weak and feeble … a cough cripples when you’re like that. So I go to the 24 supermarket to fetch some goods for the ill, basically preparing a Sick Basket … lozenges, tea, honey, thermometer (came out at 100.9), aspirin, what have you … fruit, too. And oatmeal. Whatever. So I buy and leave, try to start the car I just bought from Austin for 500 bucks, and it’s flooded … I sit there and a nice fellow comes over and offers a jump. I explain, and he sympathizes wiith me. I feel hopeful as he waves and drives off … I offer him a small smile.When it finally starts, I see an older woman who works at the Blimpie up the street from our office carrying too many bags to handle comfortably for such a long walk back to the sandwich shop. I offer her a ride, I guess because the niceness of the other fellow had rubbed off on me … she smiles and gets in, and immediately her perfume fills the car, a sickly smell, sweet, like old dirty flower-vase water and overripe oranges with cloves pierced into the rinds. I sped up. And got her there in record time.…

…and still the smell lingers. Sure as shit, she left something behind. Fucking kindness … just made me feel sicker.

Okay, here’s what happened: we’re playing poker, it’s like 3 in the morning and I’m winning big.  We’re all getting pretty drunk but I’m still playing like a champ, laying down flushes, shit like that.  In this one particular hand I’ve got four sixes and I’m getting this guy Dan to keep raising the pot, knowing I’m gonna take this shit easy.  The last card dealt is supposed to be dealt down and dirty.  Eric’s the dealer and suddenly whipping these cards around like he’s playing air hockey or something.  He fucks up and deals my card faceup.  So everybody can see.  It was an ace.  Technically this fucks up the game, the dealer is supposed to match the pot and we start over.  I can’t fucking believe it.  We’re talking like nine or ten bucks here.  A HUGE pot.  Fuck!  So Eric gets a little defensive and starts with the “no way, man…I ain’t matching no fucking pot, man!  Fuck that.”   Then Dan starts talking about splitting the pot and I’m like, “What the fuck?!  What did you have?”  Turns out he had like, two queens or something.  SHIT!  So now, I’m like “Of ALL the fucking times to misdeal, you do it NOW?  Match the pot, man!”  Eric’s like “No!  Fuck that, man!  It was just a mistake!  I’d rather do this!”  He pulls out a twenty and rips it in half and throws it into the pot.  And then while we’re all trying to figure out the meaning of this gesture, he pulls out ANOTHER twenty and rips it in half and throws it into the pot, too.  Bizarre.  Dan starts splitting the pot and now I really can’t believe this is happening.  Eric fucked my shit up and now I’m losing four or five fucking dollars not to mention the awesome feeling of winning a fucking good hand in poker with all the guy testosterone pumping and shit, and now Eric’s gonna get defensive and standoffish and indignant about it?  Fuck that shit!  So I stand up and I’m like “Yo, Ricky, man.  Shut the fuck up and match the fucking pot already!  Take your fucking twenties and shut the fuck up, bitch!”  And he goes “No way, bitch!  You the bitch, bitch!  I ain’t matching shit!  And while you’re at it, why don’t you tape up the twenties I just ripped up because you riled me?!”  I’m like, “What?  Fuck you, man.  Tape ‘em up your own goddamn self!”  And he goes “Fuck that shit!  You fucking do it!  You made me rip that shit up and if you don’t do it you’re gonna owe me forty bucks, man.  Because that’s what two twenties equals!” (Eric thinks he’s so smart.)  I’m in awe of this most ludicrous of ludicrous statements.  “Fuck you, man!  Why don’t you get your fucking mother to tape that shit up, bitch-ass!” Okay, well maybe I fucked up here, the ‘mother’ thing is never a good line to cross in these kinds of situations.  And I forgot that Eric was standing in front of the refrigerator, which is where we keep the gun his brother left here last Christmas.  So he goes “WHATDIDYOUFUCKINGSAYYOUMOTHERFUCKERILLFUCKINGKILLYOUMOTHERFUCKER” and while he’s saying this the other guys are running out of the room and I’m trying to get up and Eric’s already got the door to the fridge open and my shirt gets caught on the flimsy fucking kitchen table we have and BLAM!  he fucking shoots me, in the fucking arm.  Then he freaks out and runs upstairs to hide the gun or something.  Austin and Dan come over to check me out, go “OH SHIT!!” and hightail it out of there.  I get up and since my arm is all numb and shit I find the strength to call a cab and then I get outside and wait for it, bleeding in the street and looking at Eric’s window yelling “You fucking dickhead!  What the fuck, man?!”  And I can see him hiding and shaking and shit behind the window, probably thinking I’m gonna press charges and shit.  Only pussies press charges.  So now he’s all sorry and comes to visit me and shit.  Whatta dink.  We told the doctors and the cops that I shot myself accidentally.  I don’t know if they believe us.

So that’s what happened this weekend.  Because I can only use one hand this took me nearly three hours to write.  I hope you all appreciate the shit I go through to bring you this shit.

Yeah, well, c’est la vie or whatever the fuck. Before you know it there’s a today and you’re taping together the $20 bills you tore in half the night before. Apologies and backslaps aside, it gets you sometimes, the rash and ready, how quick it comes and how far it goes.

What I’m saying, I guess, is that I shot Jason last night. He’s not dead, but he’s messed up pretty good. Shot him in the shoulder after a small quarrel about a misdeal and matching the pot, which had become somewhat substantial since we were playing high stakes by this point of the evening. We’ve been keeping a small pistol in the freezer ever since receiving some thinly veiled threats from Constellation Records in Montreal, simply because we beat them out on an eBay bidding war over an antique printing press. Unfortunately, we had set up poker in the kitchen since the spare room was filled with gear (see photo), and I had my back to the fridge. When things got heated, I pulled it out, mostly just to add some seriousness to the arguement … it seemed in dire need of some gravity, you know? Everyone quickly stood up and backed away from the table– that is, everyone except Cooley, who just crossed his arms and said something derisive about me having yellow shit inside me, I can’t really remember what it was– we were all pretty drunk– but it evidently was pretty bad because next thing you know .… things took a turn.

Anyway, he should be out of the hospital tomorrow afternoon … I don’t think anything’s going to happen. We agreed to tell the police that, yes, you guessed it, he was cleaning his gun when it accidently went off. If we keep our stories straight, everything should be ok– CD3s will keep coming, I’ll still be here as your humble webmaster, Cooley’ll finish the new School Bus, et cetera, ad infinitum. I just hope the wound doesn’t affect his music too much…after all, it was his right shoulder, his strumming arm. Might be a while before he can do his Townsend windmills. Let’s hope not.

Jason, I’m real sorry about that. I love you, buddy. Get well soon!