Los Angelos

Once we exit the freeways and land on the downtown pavement, we are in a city. A city like every other great city because all cities are made of the same atomic materials. And from street level, they all look fundementally the same with their black tar and cement and rusted drainage gratings. The bricks and soot and graffiti. Buildings and streets. Buildings and streets. The bar is on the first floor of a flophouse motel with a broken neon sign three stories tall. Craggy men dressed in wino paper bags and vomity t-shirts slide in and out and mingle all around going somewhere. I don't know where. Where do you go when you're whole life is about being a drunk? Inside the bar it's all darkness and caverns and sickly men on bar stools. Spray paint on the walls and the smell of dried beer and cigarettes and puke. The bar tender is friendly and drunk and tells us not to leave any equipment unattended because it'll get stolen (what?). And so we load in. And we sit in the dark and watch our stuff and feel lonely. Then Toast shows up and she is just what we expect. She seems to be about thirty years old, but she has the body of a teenager - straight and skinny flat. She walks into the hall and sees us and says, "Duuuuudes." And right away, William says, "Man, she says that better than any of us ever could." But she doesn't want to hang around. Instead, she wants to take us around the corner to an art gallery to see if we can scam some free food and beer. I don't think we look that tired and hungry, but I guess my standards are slipping. So she takes us around the corner and through the looking glass. The art gallery is all glaring white painted walls and people with cocktails looking disinterested and dropping impossible one-liners like, "Well yes, I see the Mondrian influences. But I think I also sense some underlying debt to Boudelaire." And what is this shit on the walls? I'm standing next to a wall with a dead fucking fish on it. Okay, you've gotta believe me on this. It's just a dead fish nailed to a piece of wood. I'm completely dumb next to this thing. I mean what can be said? So I just look it right in the eyes and it boldly continues being a dead fish. No apologies. Nothing. And some guy in a white linen suit has slinked up next to me. He catches my glance and laughs a little because he thinks he gets the joke. "Well," he says. "I guess it's art, right?"

And I think, No...I'm guessing it's a dead fish.

But William grabs my arm and pulls me away saying, "Hey man. You've gotta see this." And he's right. It's a tree trunk with branches in the shape of a Y. And in the crotch is a pile of yellow fur. Hmmm...Like wow. Yeah. You're seeing this in your mind, right? And can you imagine the cocktail of sexual disorders that must have created this furry thing. Meanwhile, Toast walks over and just laughs at my amazement. "There's no free beer," she says. "Let's go back to the bar." 

And first "act" on the stage is a bunch of guys in medical scrubs shows up with a load of flight cases and steamer trunks. They start pulling all kinds of bizarre shit out of the boxes and start performing on the stage. And it occurs to me that they haven't introduced themselves to Toast or to anyone else. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that they are scheduled to play. Actually, I'm almost certain they aren't scheduled because the sound man hasn't even arrived yet. And they're playing to an empty house. It's just Dirtbombs, Toast, the regular drunks. But nobody seems to care that they're on stage. I mean, I guess I don't care. And frankly, I can't even really say that they're a band. In fact, they're definitely not a band. I think. Or something. I have no idea what they're doing. Okay, let me try to explain. There are a couple of guys at the back of the stage with some musical instruments and they seem to be playing some old Rolling Stones covers. There is also a guy in a surgical costume pounding randomly on the keys of an electric piano. Off to the side, a skinny guy in his sixties is dressed like a doctor and is ranting into a microphone with some weird shit like, "I am the KEEPER of secret memories and YOU are the ONE who fills my void with understanding of the WHOLE of internal consciousness in the VASTNESS of my anal canal..." and hey, there are also two guys dressed like pastry chefs on the floor performing surgery on a mannequin. And it looks like their surgery involves putting lit firecrackers into the mannequin's chest cavity and exploding. They've got candles and photo's and broken televisions all over the stage and...and...and oh no...nooooo....this is too fucking weird. There is a - okay I'm NOT making this up - there is a dead dog hung from the ceiling. It's a real dead dog - I'm not kidding - like little Poochie got hit by a station wagon and he's been sent to the taxidermist to get all fixed up. And now he's hung by his dead little doggie paws from the ceiling of this club. Oh man, this is the sickest thing I've ever seen. And the firecrackers are spilling out of the mannequin's chest and are crackling and popping all over the floor. The old man with the microphone wants me to join some cabal or something. The pastry chefs are examining x-rays and concluding that the mannequin needs to have its head smashed to tiny bits. And I just don't get it. None of it. And I don't think I'm supposed to. And then they leave the stage, pack up their props, and walk out of the club. Nobody talks to them. Nobody seems to know them. So I walk over to Toast and ask her if she knows them.

"Not really," she replies. "And to be honest, I don't know anyone who does. They just show up at clubs every now and then and play before the regular bands start. I've seen them lots of times. I don't think they've ever played a regularly scheduled show. And I'm sure they've never asked me for a booking. But most people don't stop them from playing, so I guess they don't really need to."