The Dickies Roadshow

Yesterday a guy who was sure some gigantic wizard in outer space was granting him wishes blew up a bus full of people who were sure that some gigantic wizard in outer space was granting them wishes. Also a bunch of still-anonymous individuals who, presumably, were sure that some gigantic wizard in outer space is granting them wishes blew up the office of a guy who put helping other human beings ahead of whatever stupid beliefs he may or may not have had about the special rewards he'd receive when he went to the fairy cupcake kingdom after he died.

The Fiend Fest was okay. I met Mer there around 7:45 -- it took me a long, long time to get up there, because I had to buy earplugs and then run back to the office to take a horrible shit -- and the show hadn't started yet, though they had said to be there at 6:00. At 8:00 they let people in and the bands started going on at 8:15. So the bands, in chronological order, were D.I., Balzac, Agnostic Front, The Dickies, The Damned, and The Misfits. D.I. and Agnostic Front were terrible -- an embarrassment to themselves and hopefully their fans, though I don't know if their fans are capable of being embarrassed. Balzac was okay. The Misfits web site describes them as "horror punks from japan," which apparently means dressing up in spooky costumes and singing like The Misfits.

The Dickies were just great. It's just Leonard and Stan now, of course, but they seem to have tamed the three frosted-tip jerk-offs (who're playing drums, bass, and rhythm) pretty well, because every song sounded like the album version. Leonard made some characteristic stage small-talk, which sounded, as usual, gratingly rehearsed. Among the gems:

• He referred to Stan as "the best bisexual Muslim guitar player in all of punk rock." Stan leaned awkwardly toward his mic and said, "Well, first of all, I'm not religious." "Second of all," he said haltingly, as if he resented having to participate, "you're the one wearing the snakeskin stretch pants."
• Leonard presented literally 5 or 6 variations on a proposal for a new reality-TV show he'd like to shoot called "Who Wants To Suck My Dick?"
• Leonard mentioned that the new album came out on Fat Wreck, which meant that Fat Mike from NOFX was his boss. "How'd that happen?" he asked. After a moment's reflection, he said, "Oh yeah! Heroin!"

So anyway, I danced around a little, but I don't have the energy for it I had when I was 16.

The Damned played a boring set that took too long to set up and too long to play. Then The Misfits took even longer to set up. I'd never seen them live before, and they're probably better than their Tour Edition ("Dez" from Black Flag on guitar and Marky on drums). They played the songs really fast and there was some kind of buzz problem with one of the PAs and the vocals were too low. The band was also kind of ticked off because not enough people were dancing around. I am sorry guys, but I woke up at 7:00 AM, and your roadies spent 45 minutes dicking around trying to hang black sheets in front of Marky Ramone's drum kit. Jerry Only kept trying to get people excited with good old working-class crowd-pleasers like, "Hey New York, are you ready to have a good time?" Some article somewhere once described him as "the hardest working guy in punk rock." I'm no expert, but I think it is definitely not punk to be the hardest working guy in punk rock.

I'm starting to feel pretty healthy again, which means it's probably time for life to fuck my ass. Thanks for everything, God, you great merciful faggot!