Biscuits, Bitches and George Foreman

Hey all ya’ll. I just got back from Kentucky, and all I can say is that the McDonald’s biscuits taste the same no matter where you are in this vast land we call America. God, I had a hell of a time, and sure am glad to be back in Wheelie.

What happened was this. At band practice on Thursday night, Pepper sprang on us that he’d gotten us a gig in a place called Owensboro, KY. It’s a real and true place; you can check it on a map. I actually had heard of it before, because it is the hometown of some “Real World: Season 2″ person (I forget his name). I only know that because I saw an agent about appearing on that show (I guess they were looking for a hooker-slash-adult film actress at that time), but I was disqualified because I lied about my age on the application and because I said I had a phobia of tight enclosed places and was told they needed people to make “confessions” videos in a little booth that was being built in the Real World house.

You think THIS is the “real world?” Try living in an El Camino with
three other people for a month, and then we’ll talk real.

So back to the band. We left at the crack of noon on Friday, because we had a 5+ hour roadtrip to the venue. Well… five hours turned into eight hours when Pepper ran over a George Foreman grill that someone had thrown out onto the highway. Now most people would have stopped and collected something that nifty, but not Pepper. He had to prove that he could hit that thing and make the car airborne (did he think it was a ramp?); needless to say, all we got was a flat tire and I was the only one with the mechanical skills to change the damn thing. Everything was working out swell, too, until the jack flew out from under the back end and broke and sent the car right down onto the asphalt. Personally I blame the b-i-g chick who refused to get out of the back seat while I was changing the tire. All that extra weight, well… you figure it out.

I was so mad after that, I made the other four people get out and lift the car up and hold it so I could swap the tires. Pepper claims holding onto the bumper with his “playing fingers” bungled his hands all up, so he was being a real drama queen about going on with the show. If anyone should have been upset, it should have been me, because I was traveling in my stage outfit, and left half my glitter somewhere around the MO/KY state line.

By the time we rolled in to the venue - Skunk as a Dunk (talk about a bad play on words) - Pepper was bitching like an old woman. He conferred with the owner/bartender, and we were summarily dismissed, while a back-up band called The Hose Heads entertained the crowd with numbers like “Cheerios Depression,” “Ball Peen Justice” and “What is that Smell Coming from Under My Porch?” The owner felt bad for us since we came all that way, so he gave all of us a bowl of corn chips to share. We should have known it was a marketing gimmick, because all that salt consumption had us ordering beers.

After we left the bar, I was goofing around and “teaching” the other four how to pick up tricks, and somehow I ended getting us all busted for solicitation. Yikes. After some sweet talking at the station, I cleared up the whole mess and got us all released. Well, almost. Turns out Pepper had an outstanding warrant in that state, so now the other three think I staged the whole thing as a coup to try and overthrow The Twisted Sporks and take over as lead singer. I guess that’s not a bad idea, now that I think about it.

Anyhow, to calm down the others, I had to pop for breakfast on the way home, which is where the aforementioned biscuits came in. It doesn’t take much to bribe a trio of angry people over to your side.