So I’m at the Dragon Beets show the other night, sitting back by the bar, where I can stay lit up like the season’s décor and smelling like a movie bum. Opening Akt just finished and I wasn’t really sure what they hell they had accomplished on stage, being as though they didn’t do much but look at me, presumably trying to pry into my mind. It was quiet, finally. My head throbbing from over exposure to the drink and the smoke – and we’re not talking the smoke you get at Ralph’s. Reeling madly into the void of grime, I realize something. Was I on stage? Maybe. What? This is crazy talk. I’ve been sitting on this stool since I arrived at…Well, I can’t remember exactly, but it’s been long enough to lose track of my cocktails. Where was I? Jesus! “Get this man another round of drinks!”
There’s a girl sitting next to me wearing a Wicked Warlordz t-shirt. She didn’t look old enough to be dumping booze down her throat like she was, let alone old enough to know who the hell those crazy fuckers were. She had a look in her eye like she’d just been on a date with the devil and he was so disturbed he hadn’t called her back. Without saying it, she asks me for a cigarette, I put it in her mouth and light it. “Thank you.” “God damn it, you talk too!?” I smile in acknowledgment and run to the bathroom. The sound of her voice awoke the demon in me. That hellish little beast that wakes up anytime someone evil decides to speak. “Get the hell out of my head devil woman!” I throw some water on my face, trying to get myself back together, and exit the bathroom. Okay, good, it’s safe now. I sat down at a table with a couple that apparently had missed the boat on rules against sex in public. Oh well, fuck ‘em, they’re fucking, right? The bouncer clearly doesn’t mind watching the show, but boy, he’s sure giving me an evil eye. “Don’t look at me like that fuckwad! I’ll shrink your brain!” He looks away, then moves on.
Lights drop, on with the show
The feline wearing alligator boots offers me another cocktail, I say yes. “Bring some for my friends too,” motioning to my fuck buddies at the table. She waddles off, tail swishing back and forth as she goes.
There’s something about the DB crew that gets me going. They’re so Goddamned evil on stage, and yet, their evil does not try to seep into my brain, at least not in the bad way. They share their violence, hatred, and plots to destroy the world with me, but in no way seem to want to destroy me, like all the rest. One by one the MCs come out of stage, spitting words fueled with a lunatic kind of psychoticism that I can’t begin to believe.
“What the fuck? Can’t be!”
Back when I was kid, growing up in Minneapolis, there was always these two dudes that used to kick it on the corner. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have jobs and lord knows they didn’t have money to buy clothes – not yet anyways. Spilt 40oz at their feet, smokes in their mouths, and that Goddamned microphone. They were always talking into it. Even then, at the tender age of 11, I knew there was something wrong. Something so blatantly wrong that my mind couldn’t grasp what it was but I sure as shit knew it was there.
As I got older, I began to understand what it was. They were good for nothings. They didn’t do shit. No jobs – couldn’t have had them, they were always on the damn corner like fucking vultures just waiting for some poor hapless soul to get hit by a bus. “Hey guys, can I hang out with you?”
John Flakmasterson, James Gallactic, and on occasion, Benjamin Pennyworth became my friends, or rather, a trio of screw-ups that helped get me started in the world of the fucked. Thank God. I don’t know what would’ve happened had I not be introduced to the drink when I did. I may have ended up a banker, or worse, a novelist. Jesus! Having to write with all those rules? Following diagrams and plot lines that everyone knows works? Fuck man, my life would’ve ended a long time ago. My mind would’ve eaten itself from the inside and then I’d have been one of the fucking Bobsy Twins. But I digress….
As the last member of the Dragon Beets took his encore, I recognized him as one of the same assholes I grew up with. Of course he’s now known as Chief Hottstixx, but was once known as Flakmaster Jack. And instead of being a member of the Dragon Beets, he had been a founding member of the group Wicked Warlordz. Now, I hadn’t thought about this fucker in at least 10 years, since they hadn’t really been around since the early 90’s, and to see him here blew my fucking mind. “How did I not know? I thought I paid attention!?” Well shit, I guess not. Of course I’m sure smoke, snow, and booze had nothing to do with that.
“I gotta talk to that asshole, tell him what I think about him!”
I hand my lawyers business card to the security guard and he gives some gum-flap about how he knows me. “Oh you don’t know me asshole, you only wish you didn’t!” Tripping over a stack of adult content magazines, I make enough commotion to get these assholes attention. “Hey you fucks, I’m here, where should I go?” As it turns out, not only are they not surprised to see me, they sounded like they were expecting me. “You’re late!”
“What? What the Goddamned hell are you flapping about? You crazy asshole!”
Then, out of the corner of my eye I see her again. The Devil Woman. “What the hell are you doing here!? Shut your mouth!” She doesn’t seem phased at all. She continues her walk to the backstage bar. She’s wearing fucking pigtails now. “Oh-ho! The Devil thinks he’s crafty, huh!? Well, fuck that, I’m a step ahead!” I grab the scissors out of my back pocket and make for the bitch’s hair. “Yo! Jimmy!”
“How do you my name!?”
“Jimmy dude, it’s me, Chief.”
“Jesus Christ, when did you get here?”
Oh thank Christ, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to tell him about the imposter on stage, Flakmaster Jack is back and he’s on the attack. “Chief watch out! Behind you!”
“What up Jim Timmons?”
“Who the Sam hell are you, and how do you know that name!? I want my Goddamned lawyer! NOW!!”
At that point I can’t recall exactly what happened, but next thing I know I’m on stage spitting lyrics like I know them – shit, maybe I even wrote them. I walk back off stage and sit on the couch, next to the Devil Woman, and things seem okay. “Excuse me, Dave?”
“Oh thank God. Good to see you Johnny. We need to talk.”
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