Unicycle Loves You • Pittsburgh PA

We ordered Philly cheesesteaks from a breakfast delivery place.
Casey laughed at me for ordering Philly cheesesteaks.
Not because it was a terrible breakfast decision, but because I specified “Philly” cheesesteaks when ordering.
We were in Philly.
They just call them cheesesteaks here.
Ya asshole.

Fishtown was hacking-coughing itself awake to classic rock and Flyers sweaters, cleaning its cars and walking its pit bulls.  The chicks all look so tough here, in that challengingly sexy kind of way.  Worth a black eye if you ask me.

I was such a good house guest I broke two of Casey’s coffee mugs while washing them.  That would cost me two black eyes.  That’s all the eyes I’ve got!

The drive to Pittsburgh was long, windy, and treacherously wet.
Nicole serenaded us as Nico, with versions of “Light My Fire” and “Buddy Holly” by Weezer.  If only we knew the words to “We Didn’t Start The Fire”.
Vee yet noammm, tee vee dinnerrrs…
I in turn gave them a crash course in Pittsburghese.
It was slippy out an’ at.
Which was fine, the van needed washed.
Yinz goin’ dahn-tahn?

I love Pittsburgh.
If it were up to me, I’d live here.
I don’t know what I’d do.
Then again, I don’t know what I’m doing in Chicago either.
Why Pittsburgh?
I like the hills.
I like the people.
I like its uniqueness.
I like its gloomy weather.
I like The Stillers.
I like Jerry’s Records.
I like Frank Gorsham.
I like B&L Dip.
I like chipped ham.
I like frownie brownies.
I like Peppi’s and Primanti Bros. sandwiches.
And I married a girl from here.
It’s the Paris of Appalachia.
And who else is moving here?
No one.
Which is why I like it the most.
Maybe someday.

We pulled up the DIY venue.
Nobody answered our knocks.
Famished, we grabbed some Vietnamese food down the street.
When we returned to the venue, a small man in a white billy goat beard and a yellow Steelers cap spoke the word hello at us.
I’ll call him Charmy.
Jim explained that we had just eaten.
Charmy froze.
“Ate?  I just bought food for fifteen people!” he underlined.
This was news to us.
“Don’t sit on that table!  It’s already broken!” he scolded the headlining band.

Soundcheck was grindy.
It became clear that Charmy had eccentricities.
A contrarian’s contrarian, you could be in agreement with him but the script read like an argument that you let him win.
“Sing more emphatically,” he instructed Jim.
“???” said Jim.
Charmy continued to try to fix our vocal problems and issues.
“It sounds like My Bloody Valentine,” he criticized.
But that’s what we want.

The bathroom also had its problems and issues.
Housed in a dank Silence of the Lambs basement, the commode sat at the end of a long, narrow hallway, far away from the door – a door which had no lock and not even a doorknob.
Before Nicole could attempt to use it, Charmy jumped in carrying a taped up show poster.  He noticed two large cockroaches had gotten stuck to the tape.
“Hey look!  There’s two cockroaches stuck on there!”
Their antennae spun and their legs flailed.
Charmy shrugged.
“I’m just going to put them up there!”
He smooshed the roach-laiden poster on the wall.
“Yeah, I think they’re dead.”
And then Nicole was supposed to use the bathroom.
That Vietnamese food was giving me problems and issues, too.
But I just couldn’t bring myself to use that bathroom.
So I got another beer from the fridge.
“Don’t open the fridge!” Charmy chided.

It was the 31st show on the 44th day of the Failure Tour.
And our most polite.
We even obeyed the sign posted on the stage.
ONLY ORIGINAL MATERIAL.  ABSOLUTELY NO COVERS.  PERIOD.
So no Beefheart and no Goo.
Aside from an unfortunate sip of water – it went down the wrong pipe, and my coughing convulsion rendered me a teary-eyed invalid after “Garbage Dump” – the set went smoothly and goodly and godly and golly we’re almost home!

While loading my drums back into their cases, a groovy gal named Jackie made conversation with me.  We bonded about Jerry’s Records in Squirrel Hill and Columbia College in Chicago.  She asked us if we had a place to stay for the night, which we didn’t.

While (the second band) brought updated UFO Club Farf ‘n flute space rock to The Burgh, I caught up with my brother-in-law Jim.  Charmy reprimanded us for standing within twelve inches of the phone.
“Don’t knock over the phone!”

We brainstormed new business solutions with (the second band) while (the headliners) headlined.
(the second band) = GGGB
Good Guys Good Band

Jackie proved true to her word and offered up her happenin’ Lawrenceville pad for us to crash.  Her artist neighbor Kyle joined us for a nightcap and real life ghost stories about Pierre, the methed-out thief that lives between them.  I laughed so much I spun.
Good people that Jackie and Kyle.

Photo by Jim

I love Pittsburgh.
So much so I went down to the Strip District the next morning and bought a $4 shirt expressing these sentiments.

Unicycle Loves You • M Bar, Philadelphia PA

That’s the bummer about these longer tours.
After awhile, it’s just a big glob of numb nothing.
We haven’t taken road pictures in weeks.
Drove past some new mountains today.
I craned my neck and squinted, trying to appreciate them as best I could, to no avail.
Depleted of all romance.

My first time in Philly.
We headed straight to Fishtown.
Met up with Nicole’s childhood chum Casey.
She’s funny dry and pulls very little punches.
So we got along.
At least I think we did.
Grabbed a truffle burger at Sketch.
I submitted a crayon drawing.M Bar was M-tee.
Sometimes it can get you down.
Playing empty rooms.
It feels like you’re just traveling around the world playing practice spaces.
You start to wonder why everyone’s at the other bar.
I guess because they wouldn’t be able to have a conversation in the same room as this band they’ve never heard of.
It makes sense.
I don’t go see bands I’ve never heard of.
So how do you get heard of?
Beats me.
And right about now, I could not give a fuck.
Neither could our NYC pals Howth, who put on a spirited set.
I’ve now heard of Howth so I checked them out.

The second band – a local band – asked if they could use my drum kit.
I don’t know why the local band was playing second instead of headlining.
I also don’t know why they asked to use my drum kit when they had brought one of their own.  They said something about their car breaking down and their ride-
FINE! USE MY FUCKING DRUMS!!  JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
I already hated these guys.
The drummer proceeded to warm up on my drumkit by furiously pounding out masturbatory speed metal Guitar Center horse shit.  He wore a Metallica shirt without irony and had one of those double bass drum pedals.  His amazing nonsense served absolutely no purpose.  I wanted to gag him with Apollo Creed’s deathrag and shove Philadelphia cream cheese up his asshole.
This brand of worthlessness went on for ten entire minutes until they finally played what they considered a song.
How could it have been good?
It was the first band that legitimately pissed me off.
And that is saying a LOT on this tour.
Those stupid, stupid fucks.
Fuck you.
Sorry.
I mean Phuck Yous.

I wandered Fishtown.
Kooky row houses.
Narrow Colonial streets.
Skeeves trying to parallel park their SUV.
Old timers shaking their heads.
Tom Petty and co-ed yelling echoed from the Fishtown Tavern.
I walked up to the bar and found myself at the butt end of a pool cue.
A blue collar dude stopped his shot to shoot me a faggot stare.
Sorry.
I mean phaggot.
I got a Bud Light and watched the Phillies game to prove I was straight.
A red shirt hung above the bar.
FUCK THE METS
“Are you a Democrat or a Republican?” the bartender asked a blue collar guy in his fifties.
“I’m an American.  A Uka-ranian.”
The black gal next to me watched her man play video gambling.
I downed a shot of Jim Beam- my armor for reentering that awful club we had to fucking play.

That second band had stunk up the stage.
Not just with horrible music (I heard they covered Cee-Lo while I was gone) but with their actual butts.
It reeked of pungent, scrotal cheese and other male un-delights.
They donated their sweat-soaked drink tickets to the stage.
Because they were not going to stick around for us.
Their chumpy girlfriends were all whining about hockey or some shit.
Yo, please just get the fuck out of here.

Our set was all fucked up.
That humid, skunky stage.
I unplugged the drum lights directly above my head.
Before the first note Jim’s equipment was visibly frustrating him.
Thank Gawd for Howth and our handful of Philly friends.
They stuck around and gave us a reason to play.
We started with the Beefheart cover.
Jim got shocked by the mic.
He kicked over the stand.
Then his guitar stuff just took a shit.
We were one song into the set.
“THE TOUR IS OVER!” Jim announced and jumped off the high stage.
In the meantime, I performed some freestyle salsa dancing and reassured the tiny audience.
“Don’t worry!  This happens all the time!”
Everyone gathered around Jim’s guitar like The Monks (1:13), trying to figure it out.
Someone did.
Jim returned to unplug all his pedals and kick them against the wall.
Someone requested “Wow Wave Cinema”.
Unlike in Boston (actually Cambridge), tonight we used our fucked up tension for the betterment of the show.  I played “Magic/Dump” faster than a shitty local Philly band ever could, and the Howth kids mooshed around.
We ground through a few more, not many.
Of course during the ending crescendo Jim’s guitar cut out.
He grabbed it by the neck and almost smashed it.
It’s good that he didn’t.
One of the few regrets I have in my life is when I smashed my ’64 Slingerland silver sparkle floor tom in an emotional rage at age 17.
So the Gretsch would live to see Pittsburgh.
And I guess the band, too.
Afterward, the few concertgoers who had witnessed the Unicycle spectacle said they enjoyed the visceral release provided by all that fucked up stress.
Yeah…

Casey gave us a tour of her fab flat.
A triangular corner row house in Fishtown.
Upstairs she has a room devoted to New Kids On The Block.
Far out!
Nicole’s favorite New Kid is Danny.
I guess he’s mine, too.
I know it’s not Jonathan.
I would have gotten lynched at the Fishtown Tavern if it was.

Unicycle Loves You • Piano’s, NYC

Pennsylvania rolled past our windows in lingering autumn colors.
It seems winter had performance anxiety this year.
Hues of smoked reds, burnt citrus, and faint purples.
Construction orange also found its way onto the pallet as well, extending our appreciation of Appalachian splendor.
New Jersey had natural beauty, too, but everyone ignores it, so nevermind.

I wasn’t in the mood for New York.
Exhausted and starving by the time we found a spot on the Lower East Side, we settled for a slice of mediocre pizza recommended by misguided yelpers.
Justin Beiber’s new disco single yelled at us.
All I wanted to do was poop and nap.
In that order.
But I couldn’t while mired in New York’s aloof, impatient circle jerk of urban arrogance.
How was this The Greatest City In The World?
Let’s just agree that “best” sometimes just means “different”.
But of course we never will agree.
I found it too exhausting to even sleep.
So I hid in the van on Ludlow and made it my apartment.
Wrote about my “it’s complicated” relationship with this town.
And about gave myself a circus headache with my lower GI’s pressing demands.

Piano’s is a douchebag bar with a stage in its rear.
It pisses disco and farts empty but deadly coke chatter.
Everyone’s greasy and slimy, which makes squeezing through cliques easier.
The soundman looked like Body Count and declared a moratorium on all drum kits expect one.
He used words like “impossible” and “no”.
MY HI-HAT!  BITCH!!
Every band used a drum kit scrawled with the unfortunate moniker The Phuss.
They were the first of five bands.
We were the last.
The disco was suffocating.
Piano’s shat me out onto the streets.

It was a Saturday night in New York.
Ludlow teemed with boozie floozies in bunny-ears.
I walked to Delancey and followed the silly graffiti up the Williamsburg Bridge.
It was still loud but the air was discoless, and only pissy in spots.
High above the East River felt good.
It started sprinkling.
New York wanted to be a cupcake for a minute.I changed into my show shorts on stage.
Someone said they thought they were watching an SNL sketch.
But they used the word skit.
The shared drum hardware was absolute shit.
The cymbal stand legs were inverted.
The hi-hat stand had the shakes.
I prematurely knocked over my tiny New York cups of water.
Jim’s guitar flew.
I kicked my monitor when it overloaded me with bass.
Jim screamed.
I screamed.
Nicole’s family waved from the audience.
Nicole waved back.
Jim’s guitar strings kept loosening.
He bought them at a donut shop.
“I’m not really an asshole!” he insisted.
I waved my DON’T TREAD ON ME drumstick flag.Jim’s guitar got a boot in the ass at the end of the show.
He also flipped it the ole bird.
Punishment for going mute at the crescendo.
The Body Count guy immediately segued into disco.
An orange guy confronted Jim about his flare up.
“Why’d you flip off the crowd at the end?”
We learned one of the local bands received $75 compared to our paltry $30.
Jim yelled down Ludlow about it.
Twitter also heard about it.
I met his parents, who were very polite and paid me some lovely compliments about my drumbings.
Then a car almost ran them over.
A van parked behind us had a cat living in it.
Instagram.
People were still wearing bunny ears.
The night refused to end.
It never did.