..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Sunday, December 21, 2003

“The first rule of Rough House Club is don’t talk about Rough House Club.”
- Fight Club (abandoned first draft)

“Go...go...go...go Jesus, it’s your birthday, we gonna party like it’s your birthday...and we don’t give a fuck if it’s your birthday!”
- 50 (aka fiddy) Cent - as performed by me & The Bucketmen at The Christmas In Queens Concert For Disabled Children and the Endanged California Rattlesnake

“Here’s to Ben!”
- Blue Velvet



what up fuck knuckles? haven’t been on here in a while because i don’t have a phone line in this place yet. so here’s what i did last night:

Bar Christmas Caroling!

even though i predicted this night would end in violence, it only started out that way. the only punches in the face were between two of the guys i was hanging with and that was, of course, the result of young men simply talking about Fight Club waaaaay too much. this Bar Christmas Caroling thing though? slam dunk. had a blast. the first all-nighter since i got here. this girl Kelly, who knows this guy i work with, Kyle (you know the Kyle in Tenacious D? well, that ain’t him. but he does know all the words to their shit) they had the idea and, as dangerous as it sounded, i figured what the hell. turned out drunken Christmas Caroling is something that is lovingly embraced by strangers in lots of places. although i think the flashing Santa antenna on Kelly’s head might have helped our cause more than we know. pictures to follow.

the first bar we hit, and i can’t remember the name, was the fucking jackpot. and actually the rest of the them never really topped that one because...we had a back-up band!!! we come crashing through the door after some pre-game drinking at an apartment (that's where the lively Fight Club discussion was, and the half-hearted jabs that always result. more "Rough House Club" than "Fight Club" i’m afraid) and in this first bar are these two high school science teacher looking mofos crooning some Beatles “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” like they were on Star Search. i think K & K just went up to ask them to stop playing but it turned out they were more than happy to join our band instead. who knows, maybe in the moments leading up to our invasion, their audience had been slipping back into their beers.

First a heartfelt "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer," then a "Jiggle Bells." i think. i was next to the band and the guy with the guitar leans over all smiley and says to me, “you guys doing this for some kind of charity?” and i felt like i had to give the right answer so i lied. i say, “yeah, we’re raising money to save the snakes.” and he smiled and went on playing, not hearing a word i said. “saving the snakes” jumped into my head because i lied about that once before in order to hang out on the set of video shoot in LA with my friend Holly...

she knew a guy who knew a guy who was in this band Rocket 88? i think that’s what they were called. anyway, H has (had) a boa constrictor named Snakey! who they wanted to put in their video and i was visiting at the time so i tagged along. it was chaos on the set and this assistant director was all-business and i felt like i had to have a reason to be there so when some assistant to the assistant asked who i was, i pointed to Holly’s cooler full of Snakey (you know i had the weirdest dream the other day that you were getting married) and i said i was the “snake wrangler.” that must have carried some weight because he would come back and ask what i needed in hour intervals and i’d pull some something out of my ass like, “uhhh, we need the temperature not to exceed 78 degrees.” or “i need to take the snake back from the stage because his ears are sensitive” or "can i get an orange juice?" and then i hit the table full of food near the wall. oh yeah, the place where they were filming was some backlot on James Cameron’s property. it had all these framed posters of his movies and this weight room (it looked like shiny nautilus machines had been brought in recently to replace the free weights. pussies. that explains his transition from “Terminator” to “Titanic”) where we’d sit and eat pizza and wait 5 hours for them to put Snakey in guitar case for his, her, it’s, big moment. the guys in the band found their way back there too so they could call their girlfriends and wives in the corners. however, i couldn’t help but notice they were slipping off their rings when the cameras were rolling. anyway, story for another time. i got some pictures i'll throw up sometime. i sneaked a little Fuji disposable in there and got a shot of the story-boards the director was looking at. turns out there was a story of such complexity behind that video that film students could write their thesis about it and never really understand all of the subplots and motivations. i’ll try to sum it up anyway. here’s the classic three-act structure, even though it won’t do it justice:

1.) band plays decent Social Distortion sounding song.

2.) band members go home one by one.

3.) last dude opens guitar case and sees a snake in it. Boo!

The End.

fuckin’ Fellini would be scratching his head. Fassbinder would throw the pages in the air and say it was too much to think about. friggin’ Takashi Mike himself (genius director behind “Visitor Q (aka “With This Rock I Thee Wed”) would scream “I been looking at script for SIX HOUR! it make no sense! much dishonor! i return to school to study!”

getting distracted here. back to the bars. so we started off with a back-up band, not raising money for the snakes (Kyle just told me the name, but i already forgot. "Piper's" or something. whoa. wait a minute. Pied Pipers? Snakes? you can't make this shit up dude), we drank a quick beer there and then ran off to the next one. went to a couple more places i don’t remember. saw two girls grinding on each other and started to complain about fake lesbian antics, then trailed off and stared at their asses like the hypocrite i am. what can you do? at one point i asked the one girl, “tell me, you did that for the benefit of the guys watching, or did you do it for you?” her response was, “we just like having a good time!” this was no answer and i couldn’t pursue that line of questioning because i didn’t have the energy to scream over the 5th encore of “Brown Eyed Girl” on the jukebox. i complain about these things and i’m singing along anyway. Billy Joel’s "Piano Man too." i ain’t afraid of the hits. i’d sing along with Piano Man even if it didn’t say “talkin’ with Davey, who’s still in the Navy...”

okay, what else? oh yeah! went to a place called "Casey’s" with the midget on the bar who pours drinks in everybody’s mouths. funny stuff. they talked about that bar in the issue of Maxim with Shannon Elizabeth on the cover. they had a sign behind the bar that said “Midget Wanted” crossed out with “We Found One!” written under it. as if they turned over a garbage can or shook out a rug and POW! there he was. poor little dude. his real name is Sean even though the signs call him “Man Boy.” and he doesn’t just run around on the bar, he seems to live on it. there’s this little treehouse looking structure on the left where he retreats sometimes, not unlike those clocks where the little man comes out with the hammer to ring the bell? we throw down ten bucks, the lights start flashing and he jumped out with a Sombrero on his head and poured some sweet Willy Wonka tasting drink into everyone’s mouths. mine included. it was fun but i felt sort of bad too. but there’s a time and place for everything and, as much as i wanted to, i couldn’t grab the little fucker, run outside and scream, “you’re free! run away! back to your tree!”

went to some other bar where people were all glaring at the flashing Santa on Kelly and mumbling about the girl with “the blinking shit on her head” so we didn’t sing there. tried to request a Christmas song on the jukebox to do it but got tired of waiting through the rest of the crap songs. found some place down the road and got about 5 strangers to join in on the “Dashing through the snow...” intro. i suggested "Little Drummer Boy" and got mocked by Girl #2 (guy to girl ratio obviously wasn't too cool) for a long time after. i tried to explain that we could take it to a new level by doing a sad Christmas song and getting the drunks to hold lighters in the air or something. she just kept interrupting me by saying “Rum pum pum pum.” i still think it was a good idea.

on to some place called “Bar 11” that looked like the set to a bad science fiction movie. silver foil on all the walls and lights and tinsel everywhere. i think that’s where the night ended. some more Fight Club talk. at some point i told them all about the second time i went to see Fight Club in the theater and ruined it for the guy two seats down (and you thought my Real Time Reviews spoiled shit!) this guy deserved it though. okay, sorry to the people who already heard this story multiple times but i got to repeat it 'cause i’m all proud of myself and if i try hard enough it can be like the moral to this whole evening:

okay, i had already seen Fight Club and wanted my brother and my dad to go see it too. my sister was around and decided that she’d meet us there. however, she’s late everywhere she goes (later than me, if that’s possible) and me and my brother decided to save their seats. it was sorta full in there but there was a bunch of empty seats in a row on the rail. like three empty seats, then this one guy by himself, then three empty seats to his right. me and my brother sat down and watched the door for my dad and my sister and figured we’d just ask this guy to move down one seat when they got there. can you picture the scene? three empty seats. one guy. my brother. me. one empty seat to my right. and as the movie starts my dad and sister come walking in and i lean over to ask this guy to please move.

he says no.

i ask my brother who’s right next to him, "what did he say?” i’m not being a smart ass. i honestly can’t believe it.

“he said no.”

my dad and sister are standing there on my right and i’m fumbling to explain, “i don’t know, that guy won’t move. seriously. he said no.” my dad gets that vein on his head and says something like “maybe he’d move if you cracked him in the head with your drink” (i guess he was thinking for a minute that the “drinks” in a theater are in glass bottles and not soft cups with smiling Disney characters on them but he was angry so you know how that gets) and after a second my dad and my sister move up two rows behind us to sit down in disgust.

a few minutes of the movie go by and i can’t concentrate because of this fuck and i keep leaning over my brother to look at him. young guy, flannel shirt. looks like anyone. i lean over my brother some more and ask him his name. he ignores me. i ask again. and again. and again. i’m like a Tourette’s victim over here and i keep on him until he finally sighs and says, “Ben.” i say something like “Ben, i can’t believe you wouldn’t move down one seat when it wouldn’t effect you at all, but it would mean we could all sit together.” Ben says (wait for it) “that’s why I get here on time.”

pause for effect. Ben has some balls on him. interesting because, according to most of the guys i wasn't hanging out with last night, Fight Club is all about balls and castration and little else. i sit back and try to watch the movie for awhile but i can’t stop thinking about him. i lean over my brother again (who’s getting annoyed with me at this point) and say, “Ben, i’m going to fuck you up when this movie is over.” he glares at me and tells me to fuck off and my brother is sort of laughing now. i sit back shaking my head a try sooooooooo hard to watch the movie. problem is this:

when some asshole says or does something to you, you don’t have time to say or do what you WOULD have done because you don’t have time. the situation is over and the stranger is gone and you kick yourself for all the things that you coulda woulda and shoulda done. well, here’s how this situation is different:

I get to sit FOR TWO HOURS with this prick and think up all sorts of good shit to say. i start in with the most ignorant shit, misusing “irony” as usual by says, “how ironic is that Ben? you get your ass beat at a movie called Fight Club? who’s gonna believe it!” and “see that beating up there? that’s you as soon as the credits roll, better run to your car!” keep in mind that i probably would do none of this but he’s just sitting there in silence and i smell blood and realize that i can say anything and he won’t do shit. i ask him what kind of music he listens to, i ask him what his hobbies are. at one point i guess i asked him if he enjoyed surfing because my sister told me that she heard the people in front of her whisper, “he just asked him if he enjoys surfing???” at one point my brother even gets off a good one. he looks down at the empty seats to Ben’s left and says “i see you brought all your friends with you.” funny shit. i was having fun. people around us were snickering or muttering. Ben was sinking down in his seat. eventually he would just give me a thumbs up whenever i said anything and stopped looking over. i kept on him. i asked how it felt “to take a big stand about not moving down for anyone, ever again, and making sure you got there early and have it backfire and fuck up your movie?” he shakes his head and gives me his thumbs up. for a while i even watch the movie. until i have one of the best ideas i’ve had, before or since. i realize this:

i’ve seen this movie. i know how it ends. i can ruin the ending.

sure, i’ll be ruining the ending for my brother because i’m going to have to lean over him to get to Ben, but it’s a small price to pay. all wars have casualties. you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. all that shit. so, at about the point when Brad Pitt is standing in the doorway with rubber glove asking Norton is he wants to “finish her off” i say:

“Ben, i can’t resist it. okay, see that dude? and that dude? IT'S THE SAME DUDE! that’s the twist Ben. that’s how it ends. turns out that guy was never there. i just ruined your fucking movie. how does that feel.”

he just gives me a thumbs up and my brother shakes his head at me and says “thanks dickhead” because i ruined it for him too. and some of the muttering people around me were mad too, i think, since the muttering picked up again. still, i’m all satisfied and i sit back smug and watch the rest of the movie, my mind finally at peace. and at about the point when you realize that Tyler Durden IS the narrator and that is really the twist, Ben stands up. i tensed up because there always is the chance you can get you ass kicked by anyone ("skinny guys fight till they're burger." - Tyler Durden)but he just slides past (“when you slide by in the aisle, do you give ‘em the crotch or the ass?” - Tyler Durden) and heads for the exits. i will admit though, the bastard got the last word. he said to me as he cleared the row:

“Save my seat for me.”

("whoa!" - Tyler Durden) well, what can you do? he was gone. i fucked up his movie. and he got the last word. it’s a trade-off that i still think about.

So here’s to Ben. raise your beer, wherever you are. and if there’s a dude on the bus who won’t move over to let you sit down, maybe you pull off one of his headphones to hear what he’s listening to, and then tell him how the song ends. or not. problem is, if it’s a Christmas song, they usually have a happy ending. except "Little Drummer Boy." maybe it does, but it sure sounded like the end of the world or something when i was little.

okay, i got a Zagnut from last night to eat. fingers are loose enough to work on some fiction now. i know i said there’s a moral in there somewhere. sorry if i couldn't get you to one. maybe if you squint hard enough. okay, maybe there never was. i just like telling people about Ben and it won’t stop any time soon if these drunken conversations keep turning to “Fight Club” in between the Christmas songs. and hey! Kyle and Kelly and Jim and Mike and Ron and Russ and Girl #2 and the Man-Boy. good time. great idea. or, as Ben would say, "thumbs up!" wait, when i said great idea i meant the Drunken Bar Christmas Caroling idea. not the“tranquilizing a midget, tagging his ear with a tracking device, building him a doghouse and putting him to work bartending” idea. okay, who am kidding. that idea isn’t that bad either. and girls can keep grinding on each other until i can research that subject a little further.

and Merry Christmas Ben, you selfish motherfucker. i hope you can’t ever think of that movie without thinking of me. As queer as it sounds, i have a hard time not wishing you were sitting next to me every time i watch it.

::: david - 6:22 PM [+] :::
...