Everyone I know is gonna be Famous........... Ice Coffee is my new Life Partner....... Rhino's on TV are Big, Sexy and Lethal

I had the best thing happen to me the other night. I almost never wake up in the middle of the night because waking up is stupid and I try and only do it once a day. Well, last night I woke up at two in the morning and I was mad thirsty. I needed water because I had sodium mouth like a skank and simply could not handle the dehydration in my Sahara throat. I went and got some water and then could not sleep so I turned on MTV. Luckily MTV was showing videos and not Super Sweet Sixteen. That show is a brutal case study in the life and times of spoiled brats and it makes me want to fling dookie turds at rotten little kids. Either way, a super hella fly jam came on the TV and it was Lil Mama "Lip Gloss." This song is so red hot and it reminds me of when Punky Brewster used to rule the world and it was OK for a young man (maybe named Brian) to have a Lisa Frank trapper keeper with bright neon green Nike dunks.

So as I am watching the video, about 3 minutes into the thing, I see a woman (in the video playing the role of the classroom teacher) and I am like "I KNOW that woman!" It is crazy, that is our manager's super fly wife Malissa Hunter. She is in the most blowing up video of the moment and we could not be prouder. She is so nice to us and comes out to a ton of our shows and tells us we are cool and even allowed us to go to her wedding (despite the fact that we looked like lame douche bags with mismatched suits.) So congrats to Malissa, she is gonna be the R&B/Hip Hop Queen of 2008 and we will still be guys with Lisa Frank binders.



I officially have a new summer addiction. It is Iced Coffee from Starbucks. It makes my brain work incredibly fast. I no longer drool on myself and I am a better person for finding this new obsession. Don't make fun of me if you see me walking around with this shit super sized. I REALLY REALLY like it.........


After I watched the Lil Mama video, I slowly retired back to dream land with a nature channel special all about Rhino's in Africa. They are really such majestic beings. They are fat, but somehow sleek and mysterious. I would like to drink Iced Coffee out of their tusks......... Is that illegal?

We are gonna destroy the month of July by playing eight million shows in 34 days. This tour is hot so come and see us, and don't give us some excuse about Warped Tour being in town or something because Warped Tour is fucking stupid and Bro Rock is going down hard in 2008. Lisa Frank forever!!!!
-brian

Failure is ALWAYS an option.........

um............so go ahead and just forget that last blog post.
-brian

An illness in the House of The Ray............... I am going to smoke my dog's skull............... Gummo is a better movie than Citizen Kane

Friends-
A great death illness has cast it's dark cloud on two of us Ray Rays. Only god knows how many more of us will have to succumb to the power of this great disease. It has now been three days since I have been afflicted, John has been ill for seven (possibly more) days. What is the disease that hangs over our heads? What could possibly drive me to the verge of total insanity and then push me over the edge with a humiliating laugh? The disease I speak of is actually the tortuous process of hell hounds that I call QUITTING SMOKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why Why Why did I ever start up such a horrible habit?

Or wait.....the habit was great, I love smoking.....

Why Why Why did I ever start to give up such a horrible habit? Now that is the question. I feel like I am letting everybody down by giving up smoking. It had always been a dream of mine to influence a whole new generation to light up and smoke a cool drag. I feel like kids really looked up to me when I was smoking. They thought "Now there's a guy who is really going places." Now that I don't have cigarettes kids just look at me and laugh and say "That guy has a beard like my crazy uncle Jimmy." Well Fuck your Uncle Jimmy because he is probably cool enough to smoke and he probably did not chew his bottom lip raw within the last two days.

I think I might smoke my dog's skull. It totally looks like a cigarette in some warped and twisted way. It probably smells like strawberry tobacco from the hookah bar when his head is on fire.

The only thing that can make me feel any better right now is the theatrical trailer for my favorite movie of all time.... GUMMMO. This movie is jacked the fuck up and DON"T WATCH IT because I don't want anyone to be all "THAT MOVIE WAS SO DISGUSTING!!!" I don't care. This movie practically raised me. John and I watched it so many times in high school that it was like a baby sitter to us. We would cuddle up with a bottle of Hooch and our virginity as our blanket and watch this bitch from start to finish, pausing only once to check the nipple shot on Chloe Sevigny in the bed jumping scene.



Honestly that movie made me a better person. Kids these days don't understand the power of totally pretentious art house cinema. Without these arty films of the mid 90's there would be no Napolean Dynamite. And without Napolean Dynamite there would be no Bench Warmers........ and without Bench Warmers there would be no...no.........no....FUCKKKKKKKKK IIIIIIIIII WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNTTTTTTTTT TTTTTOOOOOOOOOO SMMMMOKKKEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!
DDDDDDDDDDIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!
-brian

Tour Antics ...........SLAYER!!!!............ Pirates of The Carribean was confusing

Hey All-
We just got home from our nice little jaunt with our special new friends Siren's Sister and Cavil At Rest. It was a big old band love session with all involved and I wish I had some crazy stories to tell you from tour, but sadly there are just no crazy stories to tell. We were fascinated to slowly learn that Siren's Sister have a hidden passion that rivals even their love of playing music........these dudes REALLY like swimming!! I don't mean swimming like "Hey, lets go back to the hotel after the show for a dip in the pool" I mean swimming like "Hey we found a great local swimming hole in Yakima, Washington and the water is like 38 degrees. Come for a swim with us before the show." It should come as no suprise that the Ray are pretty strongly opposed to the outdoors, but we did our best to keep up with these crazy earth children. We even went camping in Oregon for a night!!
The whole camping thing basically went like this........we got to the camp grounds at eleven at night and were greeted by the most beautiful sight I have seen in a long time. Our black van and trailer were silouetted by a bright full moon and a huge lake that we were parked next to, on a brisk summer night. We sat next to the lake for a good five minutes trying to muster up the words to capture the beauty and grandeur of nature in it's finest setting and then John said "This is pretty cool, I am gonna go play Halo in the van." It was perfect. I could not have agreed more.

This tour featured a lot of driving in the desert. The desert is really hot right now. We made a little movie to help everyone understand what it is like to tour in the desert during the summer time.


That movie is way trippy right? I have to go coat my acid tongue in milk for like ten minutes after that shit. I have so much more to write soon,
-brian

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