Chriss Angel "MindFreak!" Gets a Haircut............Italian Intervention...............To All My Baby Momma's

Uhhhhhhhhhhh........
So the longer we are off from tour, the less relevant this blog will become to actual band activity. Luckily, we leave for our next tour in one week. On that note, let the bullshit begin,

So I have been watching the best late night television of my life recently, and I must share in some of the nonsense I have seen in the midnight glowing apocalypse. I watched Conan the other night to see one very special guest. He just happens to be my favorite entertainer/illusionist/pervert/weirdo/guitar teacher/idol of all time..............CHRISS ANGEL MINDFREAK!!!!!!!!!!
This guy has been turning every day back to 1988 for the past couple years and I am just in awe of his oddness. How the hell does this guy get a television show? He is total car wreck footage for me. So, I am watching Conan to see him and when he is introduced and appears from the curtain I am blown away by the fact that MindFreak got a haircut! Look at this cut it is totally..........MINDFREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!

But here's the best part, he didn't just get a haircut......he turned the weirdo dial to 1995 and got the Rachel Haircut from "Friends!" I know that cut, my Mom had it and so did every girl in the nation. This guy is so mental. He totally did the supercuts commercial and went in with the Skid Row hair and said to the hair lady "Give me something my mom would like."

Love is Mindfreak and today is about Love so Love Mindfreak in 2007 just like you loved your Rachel bob cut in 1995.

Last night I watched my Italian people be degraded by the worst "Intervention" episode I have ever seen. Let me just say that not all Italians work in and operate pizzerias in Jersey with Caesar haircuts and bad jewelry. Well not only did the family on "Intervention" live up to all these stereotypes, but they also had a son who smoked mad crack and still worked the family pizza parlor for twelve hours a day. I am only half Italian so I must have just gotten that hard working gene and totally by-passed the Caesar haircut and crack smoking gene. Remember, crack is whack but huffing spray paint is just as fun as an adult as it was in eighth grade!!!

Last but not least, I would like to shout out ALL MOTHERS on this very special day!! Lola Ray has had many offspring across this fine country and I would like to holler at all the proud mommas out there. So raise your hand if Lola Ray is your Baby Daddy and put your hand back down if you think you are getting a dime off our broke asses for child support. This day is for you lucky ladies,
-brian

The Great Wall: A Quest for Manhood.

The Wall: A Quest for Manhood.

What is a man? Anatomically a man is defined by the nether-regions; the penis and gonads. Sociologically, a man is coined as being the provider, the strength, and the rock upon which a family is rooted. The idioms which flatter and galvanize us can also confine the potential artist that we all have lying deep within. Being in a band can often cause one to question their manliness, case in point…

Scenario: Loading in to ghetto D.C club.
Crackie #1: Oh shit! Is it gay night???
Me: Nope. Disappointed?
Crackie #2: Nice pants.
Me: Thank you.

Too often have we shyed under the shadows of masons and carpenters, marines and jedi knights, l.a.p.d. snipers and ultimate fighters. We musicians are as manly as any man, and it must be known! Although countless burly moments present themselves while on the road, i.e. driving through snowy mountain passes miles above sea level, semi-trucks screaming by with reckless abandon kicking ice and slush up into waves of Nordic murder. Really, there is no better way to comprehend the Manimal without becoming the Manimal. This is where John's and my vision quest begins… The Man Within.

A wall was to be built in the Lola Ray trailer. Schematics! We need schematics. Yes, yes…blueprints as well, we need those. Measuring tape, check…hammer, ballpene or claw? Fuck, I dunno. Thin-thread screws 3 inches with oxidation preventative zinc coating. Two by fours of Oregonian pressure treated Douglas fir. Plywood planks four feet by five and nine inches. Four testicles, two wife-beaters, one AC/DC record with powerful car stereo, cigarettes, sweat, sawdust and a touch of blood bourne of slight splinter incision. “If you build it, they will come” resonated deeply within our newly bastardized souls. Sons of no mother, we were now children of the greats…George Washington, Denzel Washington, Daniel Boone and Captain Kirk. No more did the Iggys and Bowies flow through our fickle girly veins.
With saw in hand, I began to hack through the dense fibers that once were tree as John installed the planks with surgical precision. We eyeballed, we cussed, we became elated in the pure ingenuity that must have filled the men of Egypt while they struggled to heave 5 ton blocks one by one up those pyramid steps. Hours disappeared, the sun turned its reign over to the slight gray moon, and yet we continued to work in to the coming night. Her thoughtful luminescence guiding our weary hands away from the blades and blunt crude tools. Tap tap tap, the whir of an electrical motor, tap tap tap. At around 9 p.m. the wall was completed with one final trigger pull of John’s craftsman built, sears bought corded power drill…18-volt bitch, wassup.
Standing back and admiring the finished product can only be understood, strangely enough, by a woman after birthing her first seed. A tear may have been shed but will never again be spoken of…real men do not cry. A hi-five was indefinitely shared, as were a few tall, chilled Millers.
You can look for us not up on stage, plucking frivolously at strings and singing songs of love and woe, but on the frontlines, M-60’s in hand and HOO-RAH’s tipping our tongues. Plugging away at anti-American vermin pouring oil into their oversized cereal bowls. I hope the Corp. can handle a few good men, even if they happen to be devilishly handsome musical visionaries, new to the world of drill bits and fucking for sport. Believe it, for we…are…man. Grrrraawwwr!!!!

A contemplative poem in retrospect of a great accomplishment.

Torrid burning sun
On our backs as we work
Building with wood
Love has turned sour
Our thoughts on nails
On hammers and axes
No tree is safe
We will build walls around walls
Until death greets us openly on the battlefield
Timber of heaven beware
There are REAL men in this place.

------Brian Beck.

The best day of my life!!!.......The worst day of my life!!....Ok, maybe that is a little dramatic

At the intersection of vanity and self obsession sits a little band called Lola Ray. When we are not at Best Buy looking for our own CD, we can most often be found near a laptop searching youtube for videos tagged "Lola Ray." Most often we just find live footage that proves the sad fact that we tend to play every song way to fast. This realization can become tedious and even disheartening. So you can imagine my blissful shreek when I found THE GREATEST LOLA RAY VIDEO EVER POSTED ON YOUTUBE!!! This video is a high school band performing Automatic Girl at their school's talent show!!!!

This band is called Mr Pansy and The Travesty!!! I fucking love that name! I love everything about this band! It honestly is the nicest thing to know that these guys took the time to learn our song and they took it to their school's show and fucking slay with it!! I am on goddamn cloud nine over this video!! It is all I have ever asked for in life to have a band cover one of our songs. When I was in middle school I totally covered Alice In Chain's "Would" at some talent show and it blew. I think I tried to rip some solo or something and just over exerted my unskilled hands and was forced to become an akward high schooler who lived vicariously through The Real World. OK, maybe it wasn't the talent shows' fault that I kind of watched way too much TV in High School, but it certainly didn't help the situation. I am glad these kids have bright futures and their band is good and they are probably totally well adjusted. Hats off to Mr Pansy and The Travesty (seriously the best name EVER!!!)

So the weirdest and saddest thing happened to me yesterday and I have to write all about it because it truly was odd. I was sitting in my new favorite internet coffee shop with my laptop and I decided to plug my sweet computer into the wall for a little battery charge up. I use my laptop and other forms of electrical relient equipment (lamps, blenders, power drills, etc) all day every day and I have never seen anything like what happened next. My battery pack was sitting next to me and out of the corner of my eye I saw a little flame come out of it!!! The flame was glowing and smelled like plastic. I swear it whispered my name. I nearly shat myself, it was so scary! I blew out the flame and the power box began sparking in a desperate attempt to re-ignite. I yanked the power cable out of the wall and sat for ten minutes with my heart beating loudly. No one had noticed the tiny little flame and I then began to sulk in the heavy reality that I will no longer be able to charge my fine Toshiba honey. Here is a dramatic photographic re creation of how the whole thing went down in my warped memory...




OK, I said it was gonna be dramatic. So my laptop is down for a little while and luckily John let me borrow his for a trip back to the scene of the crime and this little blog update. John has a fancy Mac so I am sorry about all the typos, but my fingers are not used to this fancy keyboard of the future. I am now terrified of electricity and have not watched television or turned on a light for two days. This means that I missed Gilmore Girls tonight and I am hence devastated. To bring this whole thing together, I blame my Gilmore obsession on my horrible middle school talent show! I also owe all my happiness to Mr Pansy and The Travesty! And without a tenth watching of their school performance video I would not have had to plug in my lap top with such devastating results! This whole crazy world is somehow interconnected and it is all coming together now isn't it?

I am sad and happy and sad and happy today...........I hope that you are having a wonderful day of internetting and I hope that you don't explode.
-brian