Happy Holidays

"The Holidays are here.

Isn't this the time of year you look back and reflect?  ...Make your silly little resolutions that sound nice, make us feel better, then we never do them and leave ourselves feeling like failures.  Like the gym membership that will be used once or twice.  A vow to quit smoking that lasts only until your in-laws show up to have dinner.  Then you're on the back porch, sucking down a Camel.

(Yeah -- this kind, you sick-o!)

Or how about drinking less?  Isn't that what the holidays are for?  If you're a kid, you think presents.  If you're an adult...you think booze and food.  I like to booze while I hang the lights.

So I'm looking back.  ...All those nice memories.  Like the time I crafted the perfect ice ball, then hid in the bushes to catch my big brother when he stepped outside...only to have him duck and my ice ball smashed into his six-year-old daughter's face.  I am instantly the worst uncle in the world.  "Sorry Sheila!"

Then the time I demonstrated my immense skill to pedal a BMX bike to record speeds.  While passing our campsite, my little brother Phillip steps into the road and I hit him dead center.  He goes flying, blood is everywhere, and once again....all fingers are on me."

(*Note from Ester: Drugs did something bad to Mike's memory, because that was on Spring Break one year, and all fingers were pointed at Ester because I hit him... riding Mike's bike, which, unbeknownst to me, had NO brakes.  Phil has a black eye and a concussion and my mom couldn't look at me for a couple hours, so my brother and Dad took me to see the movie Sgt. Bilko.  We were camping in Biloxi, Mississippi, and Mike's stinker ass was sneaking into an Aaron Tippin concert, which I didn't know 'til I typed up this post for him.  Just to clear all that up - We all would have corrected him if he had tried to make this claim around the holiday dinner table too, so... anyway.  Sorry for that detour.  On with the show:*)

"Of course, there are all the hunting and fishing memories.  My dad put me in the front of his canoe one year.  Big mistake.  Ten year old boys love big splashes.  So it didn't matter if we were fishing sunfish, I was using a deep-sea lure with half the hooks in my tackle box.  I guess I wound up to cast that sucker all the way across Houghton Lake.  And...my lure must have resembled a bug.  For that quick second it dangled in dad's face, he felt the need to swat it out of his way.  At that very second I hooked my dad and made a memory that we will both never forget.

That's really my life in a nutshell.  The picture perfect days, well...they are really only remembered for a short time.  It's those major mishaps that last a lifetime.

Giving tattoos in prison is frowned on.  So, it's an undercover operation.  You need a look out, and a hidden corner.  We have both.  Personally, I sew a hidden pocket on the inside crotch area of my pants.  For special occasions.  Like when the cops come in and you're in the middle of a tattoo.  Very quickly, I cram the tattoo machine and battery pack into this hidden pocket that hangs between my legs.  The idea is if they search me, hopefully they won't go high enough into my crotch to feel my nuts, or my stash spot.

So, the machine is stashed.  The cops walk past.  ...Doesn't get five feet away from me and the power wire reconnects to the machine and the needle is now piercing my ball sack.  Intense pain follows.  Just as the officer turns to look, I smack the machine to disconnect the power wire.  Thing is, the officer and all the guys just see me smack myself in the nut sack.  Bottom line, I got away that day.  That's good.  However, I tattooed, then smacked, the family jewels.  I have been called a freak, but even that was a little far for me.

These memories, at the time, make you feel two inches tall - make you wish you could just disappear - yet later down the road they make you laugh.  Those are the memories you will never forget.  They're the memories that become the very staples of our lives.

What are you grateful for?  Ask yourself that.  I'm thankful for my peeps.  My family.  My woman.  I would like to tell you Happy Holidays.  Thank you all for being a part of my life.

May the Detroit Lions rule the field Thanksgiving Day.  And don't get tangled in the lights and fall off the roof.

On a sidenote, J.J. is thankful to Sevendust, as it took 1st place for the most used keyword, bringing in a ton of traffic to the blog. At number two: "Porn for Women."  ...This touched me somewhere deep inside.  God bless you.  I take the first place award previously given to Sevendust, and bestow it on you.  May God also bless whoever linked that as a keyword.  Fuckin' genius!  And...if J.J. is bringing in MEN searching for "porn for women," then shame on whoever used that as a keyword. 

ESTER!!  Are you playing jokes on me again?  I told you I don't need anymore pen pals.  Silly wabbit!  This dick is for my chick.

Ok, before I am completely sidetracked.....hug your family, call your momma, kiss your wife.

Happy Holidays from the King Hooligan!"


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Music Moves Me

"So, I seriously thought I died and went to heaven.  …At least for the past hour.

One of my buddies came up to me and said “Put your radio on 101.5!”  For the past hour, the featured band was my all-time favorite (and Ester’s all-time favorite!), Pearl Jam.  Not only that, but all songs were recorded live.  …Just like being at a concert.  Three of us, all zoned out, rockin’ to one of the greatest grunge bands from the ‘90s.  We would look at each other occasionally, just nod.  Each of us was far away.  I could tell by the look on my buddies faces that they were front and center stage.  “Yellow Led-Better, Elderly Woman, Better Man, Alive…” - wow – they were playing them all.

There are so many bad-ass, HAWT pictures of this band, but I had to pay homage 

to Michael's era with this 1994 shot from American Song Writer

At one point, I looked over at my buddy Lance and said, “I’m 16 and wearing a flannel again.”  He just smiled.  Anyone who grew up with me and was a friend of mine knows Pearl Jam is my favorite.  In high school, I wore a flannel, wore my hair like Kurt Cobain, and always had a guitar nearby.  Even through years of drug abuse, music remained dear to my heart.  There are a few of you who have heard me play and sing.  After the right amount of beer, I am not too shabby.  That’s when you’re drinking beer J

One of the things prison took from me was the ability to play music.  Notice I didn’t say they took music from me.  That’s the beauty of music.  It stays in your heart and soul.  Nobody can take that away from you.

So, like tonight, from time to time, we escape through the music.  Priceless.

Isn’t it amazing how music brings back memories?  Good ones and bad….  To this day, I hear certain songs and remember a certain car I had.  Along with a woman I was with, a place I lived, someone I loved long, long ago. 

Music is probably a prisoner’s best friend.  I have different programs I listen to.  Right now, I’m sitting here, laughing at my buddy H.A.  Perhaps you remember my big, rowdy biker buddy.  Well, today is Saturday.  Saturday nights are honky-tonk Saturdays for him.  …All that old country stuff.  He zones out.  H.A. is lying on his bunk, tapping his toe to some song saying, “She got the gold mine, I got the shaft.”   

(Thank you, YouTube!)

Across the room, I see Scottie.  He’s listening to some new-age techno stuff.  From the way he’s moving, he thinks he’s at the club.  I was telling one of my pen-pals the other day about music and its effects on me.  If I listen to techno to this day, I start thinking about DJs, colorful lights, glow-sticks and eating ecstasy.  Yeah, I should probably stick to my honky-tonk Saturdays with H.A.

One of my best memories as a kid was the time my dad and our Uncle Carl took me and my brother Aaron to see the Doobie Brothers.  That was long ago - I was a little boy - maybe 8 or 10.  Since that concert, I was hooked.  There is nothing like a live show.  My dear Uncle Carl passed away last year, while I've been down.  Whenever I hear the Doobie Brothers, I think of that drive from our house to Pontiac, Michigan.  If I recall, we went to Pine Knobb.  God, it was so long ago. 

(If he was 8 or 10, this is the ticket... I [Ester] even remember when the boys went to this concert, 

because we weren't even allowed to listen to rock and roll!  It was a pretty big deal!)

Then there’s the time when our family went on a vacation.  Dad bought a motor-home.  He declared we were all going to Florida.  I was the oldest, and talked him into letting me bring a friend.  That would be my friend who smoked that first joint with me.  Yeah, that one.  And we had plenty of that stuff, and some other stuff with us.  One of our overnight stops was in Biloxi, Mississippi: casino town.  My first country show was on that stop.  Aaron Tippin was playing some craw-dad festival.  My buddy and I snuck out of the camper, into the concert, and the cops brought us home at the end of the night.  We would have been about 16 then.  …My first taste of country music.  I don’t remember any of his songs, but the chicks were hot as hell!

(Sorry - should I have googled "Country girls?")

A few years later, my brother and I were in Florida visiting our grandmother.  They had just had all those bad wild-fires in the state.  It would have been 1997 or 1998.  The band Sevendust gave a benefit concert in Daytona Beach for all the fire-fighters that came down to throw water on the flames.  So we went.

I think our intentions were good.  After all, I’m an angel, you know.  But shortly after the show started, some cool-looking surfer dude came up and asked me if I wanted a hit of acid.  Of course, I said yes.  Until then, I had never tripped.  So after a half-hour, the guy comes by again.  I say, “Yo!  Let me get another hit man.”  He gives it to me, I stick it under my tongue and he does one of those Cheech and Chong things to me… “WOAH, dude – you just took a lot of acid!”  Get real, man.  How harmful can two pieces of paper the size of a pencil eraser be?

Welcome to my world a half-hour later:  It’s raining turkey legs.  Yes, you just read that right – turkey legs.  Maybe you have been to see Sevendust before, but if you haven’t, let me explain.  This is a very intense band.  They draw a crowd of heavily pierced, tattooed, crazy-dressing, gothic people. 

(Thanks, Maximum Ink!)

…In other words, a bunch of freaks.  Let me tell you, I wasn’t the only one trippin.’  There was a concession stand selling big-ass turkey legs for a buck a piece.  The band starts, mosh pit is going balls to the wall, and then some dude chucks a drumstick [turkey leg-version, that is] into the air.  That fucker started a movement, man.  In a couple of minutes, the turkey legs are all bought out, and they are all flying through the air.

Maybe you’ve seen a harmless beach ball batted around the arena at, say, a Jimmy Buffet show.  Well, this is not a Buffet show!  This is a Seven-fuckin’-dust and we’re throwin’ turkey legs!  …And I’m trippin’ balls!  No shit.  There were a lot of turkey legs flying through the air, but I saw thousands of turkey legs.  Then it starts to really rain.  I’m now seeing purple, green, and pink turkey legs.  Then I start to swim in turkey legs.  I’m wasted.  That was Sevendust, and I was 18 then.     

That same year, I went to Ozzfest.  One of the best line-ups they have ever had.  This was my first time seeing TOOL.  To this day, TOOL is The Shit.  This is the first concert where I saw people just walking around naked.  The stage behind TOOL had a gigantic toilet.  I’m talking an exact replica of a toilet that stood like 30 feet tall. 

(I'm sorry - were you trying to eat breakfast?)

It even flushed during their set.  They all came onstage wearing brief underwear.  They stole the show, since Ozzy was so drunk he couldn’t even stand up.  I still love Ozzy.  My cousin was with me – one of our crazy-ass times together.  She’s an Ozzy fan.  I won’t say her name on here – she would kill me – but she turned me on to 80s rock’n’roll.  I will forever love her for doing that.

I’ve been to a shit-load of live shows.  I love concerts.  But the 80s stuff is so cool.  Those dudes can really put on a show.  To me, they mean rock’n’roll.  Well, except for the time someone dragged me into KC and The Sunshine Band.  With a name like that, I should have known better.  And I probably just offended somebody by saying that – whoops!

My point is, at 50+ and fat as hell, ol’ KC should not be wearing leather pants is all.  That’s OK, it did something for the woman I went with, and we had sex in the parking lot after the show.  …Or maybe it was in the bathroom?  Can’t remember.

It’s great to see all these 80s bands firing back up.  Not long after that, I went and saw Danzig.  Ha!  Every time OI think of them, I think, “Mother, tell your children not to….”  OK, I’ll stop.  That was a great show, but that audience was full of satan-worshippers for real!  Like, swaying back and forth and stuff.  Kind of freaky.  Not my thing. 

(That’s also what I found in the search results for Danzig images,

so I settled on this cute, cuddly one…) 

  (Thank you, Stereogum!)

Now Motley Crue!  Yeah!  Do I have some 80s rockers out there?  Thanks to my cousin, I got to experience:

(W.A.S.P.)

 (Cinderella)

 (Motley Crue)

 (Scorpions)

(Oh my gosh, Ester had to take a laughing-fit break after that 5-minute Google search.
NO KIDDING.)

Maybe this is sparking some memories for you as well.  I get excited just remembering the shows I’ve seen.  I’ll forever remember Blackie Lawless and the show they put on.  Now there’s a dude who can rock leather pants at any age.  His voice cuts through a room full of people and will reach your spine and make in tingle.  What happened to music that touches you like that?

Lately it’s been country music that touches me deep down.  Don’t even call me names, cause I can hold my own, and country dudes are some of the baddest dudes I know.  From time to time, I listen to honky-tonk Saturdays with H.A.  It’s peaceful l – makes you want to put your arms around your girl, pull her close and watch a sun set.  Can’t say I ever feel like throwing turkey legs while I’m listening to Keith Urban or Brad Paisley.  I do feel a lot like that “Stupid Boy” Keith sings about.  I can relate to Garth Brooks when he speaks of his “Friends in Low Places.”  God knows I have some.  …Seems there is a country song for every occasion.

Don’t worry!  I didn’t go all soft on ya!  I still bang my head to Disturbed, Godsmack, and Nonpoint.  Can’t exactly work out to country, and who wants to hear about that dog that ran away – or was it that woman who ran away?  I forgot, but if it was country, then something probably ran away.

I guess bottom line is I have a lot of love for music.  Music makes you feel.  That’s exactly what I’m trying to do – make you feel."