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1. Look Who's Talking God Help Us All This all revolves around the Cornerstone Festival, which is real. If you've never been to the Cornerstone Festival, imagine a ridiculous amount of people crammed into a farm like dirty dirty ducks, where they walk around in oppressive humidity eating ice cream sandwiches and quacking. Sort of like this "Burning Man" festival except there are more tank tops and there's a Dairy Queen 4 miles away. But this is where it all started. After a few years of attendance a shallow encounter began when Michael, Tim and I went to see a band called Chalice play the the "underground stage"--again, this part is all real. There was this 13 year-old-looking guy asking us for a light, and he had an Everdown shirt wrapped around his head. He smacked himself in the butt, called himself a "sand nigger", said he would "drive 542,00 miles to smoke a camel" and then he laughed suggestively. Michael shook his head and muttered an undisclosed line about buying American, Tim started fishing around in a trash can, and I said something like "sorry" and assumed he would drive that far to smoke that particular brand of tobacco product. He continued to stand there, probably waiting for me to understand the hilarity of his racism, but I just stood there awkwardly, which is what I typically do. Michael finally asked if he liked Chalice, to which the guy said "no." "Shit," muttered a disgusted Michael. Then I guess the potential smoker decided to slink away, and the warmth of new kinship fizzled out. Later on the guys in Everdown came by our "campsite", by which I mean our vehicles and a tarp, and we told them we had met their Fan Club President. One of the guys was wearing a Jon Secada t-shirt, and somehow Tim ended up eating the aforementioned piece of lettuce I had proposed they have sexual relations with. And I think one of them tried "You Suck" in the dirt on the window of Tim's car. He was a poor speller and the lighting was bad, so it ended up reading more like "You Sork". Feeling jovial, we later changed it to "You're a Snork" and some horribly obese man thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. I suppose the tour was inevitable, much like bankruptcy. As indicated by the car window art, there was a generally blissful feeling going away from Cornerstone '96. Amidst the portable sewage and the aptly proponent "poop on satan" merchandise, half-assed commitments to a vague future itenerary came about through a conversation over smoked venison between Jason and one of the Everdown guys (Richard Zubaz was his name, I think): "Dude, we should play together like on tour or something--you losers could be our rodies." "Rodies?! Man, more like ro-DENTS, which is what YOU should be for US, being OUR rodies, in that manner, I mean!" "YOUR rodies?! You guys have a band?" "Well it looks like I'm eating deer ass with PROFESSOR PLUM!" (violent laughter) "Yeah, man, totally. We been around since like '89 well at least in theory and we've made like 15 'albums' since '91 and we have our own 'label' and 'everything'. You must not be up on stuff enough to have heard of us, man, don't you read Bitch of Nebuchadnezzar [Tristan Saylor from Kokomo, Indiana's controversial 'zine'. It lasted only two issues and received criticism from two Montgomery County youth ministers for its overzealous use of the word 'piss'.]? He said someone told him Body Count wants to do an IHOP commercial with us using a 'fuck this orange juice' theme. It's totally on, man." And on and on with a "gosh damn" here and a "we should like tour together" there. And yes this would eventually set up the tour which of course ended with the only show we would actually play with Everdown, who somehow still managed to headline shows they didn't play. They didn't play them because they broke up right after they agreed to tour with us. But, of course, then they decided to play one last show--just like KISS and Aerosmith--one last show at Cornerstone, and they cried and cried like tiny little grumpy babies until we decided to open for them. So I'm starting with this last show because, in retrospect, it simply followed the best show of the tour and no one really wanted to play it. And I don't really remember it well, and by remember I mean I can't really think of a way to make this plot scenario as funny as other stuff I have in mind I mean remember. So yes, the tour finale began with David Cross or at least someone who looked like him reading the
at midnight. I'm pretty sure it was David Cross. He came out in some baggy pants and a wifebeater, holding a couple styrophoam "tablets" he later told me he "found in a dumpster". Here are a few of the commandments stuck in my mind: That's enough. It's true, though, at least in a loose sense. It was painful to watch and it took a long time, so the only thing I could do when we finally got on stage was yell "We're making fun of this, right?" in an insecure voice. There was a lull in the crowd until a man holding a cat--a reluctant man who must have though I was posing a serious question to someone specific--sort of stood up and forced out an obligatory "Whu-waat?" It really wasn't what I was hoping for. His cat was enormous. He later told me its name was "The North Face". Anyway, this show. The turnout was great, they were all there to see Everdown. And thank The Good Lord some shirtless moron heehaw with a Super Soaker was there to spray people at random--including people on stage next to open electrical equipment. Another shirtless guy with bongo drums around his waist called the Super Soaker a "blessing" and thanked him for "cooling us all off".
So yeah..."generally unpleasant" is about the best description: Straw and mudholes, too many people, greasy hair, uncomfortable clothing, there was a guy who kept screaming for us to play some "Psychadelic Super Jesus" song, and they stopped our thirty-eight minute set four times to pray for someone in a Nine Inch Nails shirt who fell and broke his thumb. You get the idea. After the fourth prayer break we decided to end the show with a nineteen minute lone "Goody's Headache Powder" remix of "Big Fat Guitar". It would've been longer but the Everdown guys unplugged our equipment. So that makes one "warm up" version of Helmet's "Bad Mood", one really rough version of "Satanic Bird", an angry "Dead Wagon", four prayers, and "Big Fat Guitar". That ended our one and only fictional tour. As we left the stage Tim kept forcing people to read his XXXL Tweety Bird "I Got Up For THIS?!?" shirt. One guy with an NHL visor pushed his way to the stage, grabbed Tim's pantleg and yelled "Dude I LOVE Looney Tunes!" Everdown took the stage next. They kicked through some old stuff, covered three ONYX songs, and then the vocalist slipped on some Super Soaker water and had a fecal mishap in his baggy jean shorts. While he attended to the matter, a gigantic man in an Oakland Raiders jersey got on stage and did accapella vocals from an old Snapcase track, changing instances of the word "fuck" to "Buick". He then obliviously pled with remaining band members change their collective name back to Crawlspace. There was a lot of dumb banter and the guy must have thought the band enjoyed having him on stage. Later the drummer countered this assumption by telling me something like "I wanted to shove my snare up that shit bastard's fat ass". He was on stage a long time, long enough for a change of baggy jean shorts. When Ricard Zubaz returned, he looked around and asked "Who de frig is this?", to which the gigantic man's marijuana dealer answered with a distant shout of "He's a child of God." David Cross finally ushered the man off stage with a makeshift cow catcher devised out of posterboard and glitter, but the show had by then lost all energy. There will be no T.S. Eliot reference, but Everdown finished its sweet chewy career with two b-sides and a half-hearted stage trashing. Just like Fruit Stripe gum. The whole incident prompted Tim to write the song "Merry Christmas, Raiders Suck".
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