STEVERINO! \ FUCK PICHAS? \ CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

I had my friend Steve LaChance over for the first time. We were like sixteen. When my father came home at 1 am I introduced them. We were in the living room watching TV. I said to my father "This is Steve." When he went to bed I told Steve "in the morning my father will call you 'Steverino.'" He was like "No way." In the morning he got up to pee my father was at the dining room table. I heard my father yell "Steverino! Good morning."

My friends Gabe and Chris were over. We were eighteen and into movies. We were totally watching black and white 60's French shit like Francois Truffaut's "400 Blows." My father comes out of his room and walks into the living room where we're watching TV. He's wearing nothing but tightie whities. He sees the black and white movie and says "What are you guys watchin' fuck pichas?" Then he lit a Camel straight and sat down on the couch. He sat there smoking and when he was done he went back to bed.

My brother told me this story. It's fucking funny. "Creature from the Black Lagoon" was on later that night. everyone had gone to bed and my brother got up to watch it in the living room. Because everyone was asleep he turned the volume way, way down. It was basically silent and he watched it like that. He was afraid our father would see the light from the TV so he turned the tint down. He turned it way, way down. We were fucking scared of our father. He literally turned it all the way down and realized after a while he was watching a black screen with no sound.

DINOSAUR/MORE BUTTHOLE SURFERS

 In 1988 me and my friends saw Dinosaur live. They were still called Dinosaur, it was before the Jr thing. You know they were sent a cease-and-desist order from a band in LA called Dinosaur. That's why they changed it to Dinosaur Jr. I had a roommate in a band called Wild Eyes. They got a cease-and-desist order from another band in LA called Wild Eyes. We were talking about a new name for the band and I suggested Wild Guys. I realized it became gay immediately. They never changed the name. It all just went away though. Funny shit. Back when I saw Dinosaur, Lou Barlow was in the band. We saw them in North Hampton, I think, we were all going to U Mass. The show was at 1pm and it was all ages. I think the club was called The Iron Horse. They had put a rope down the middle of the room, one side for people old enough to drink and the other side for everyone else. I was not old enough to drink yet. When the opening band came out they were a hardcore band and everyone sat down at some tables that were set up. When Dinosaur came out everyone got up and moved up close to the stage. Lou Barlow had an angry look on his face and he said into a microphone, "We think it's lame when people sit down for the opening band and stand up for the headliner." Then they played all hardcore songs and only for 15 minutes, they were pissed. Lou Barlow totally moved around herky jerkily. The thing is I didn't know that J Mascis was autistic then (I think for sure he is autistic. I really think we all are kind of autistic. For awhile now I have thought my own encyclopedic knowledge of useless rock facts is on the autism spectrum. Basically anybody good at anything is autistic in some way. I think autism is just another way to be intelligent, but we don't get it literally AT ALL). I had dinner with J Mascis sometime when he had grey hair so not early, he had a helper, we went and ate Thai food. There was a group of us, it's not like I was having dinner with J Mascis I was just at his dinner. He didn't say a word, he drank orange juice the whole time. He had chopsticks for the food and he totally moved them around like he was doing a guitar solo with the chopsticks, does that even make sense? Irregardless it was pretty fucking cool. When I had seen Dinosaur a thousand years ago I didn't know any of this. Back then, for the last song they covered Guns N Roses "Sweet Child of Mine." J was not snarling or moving angrily, he actually looked happy as hell playing the solo in this last song. It was on the radio. Playing metal was anathema. You know the song is all octaves.

I realized I need to write down everything I know about the Butthole Surfers.

I remember when I saw them live, I saw the guitar player Paul Leary and thought, "that guy is Satan.'" I could swear he had cloven hooves in his cowboy boots. You know those MFers are from Texas, they had cowboy boots on. He was totally playing on his tip toes. Also I thought the singer Gibby Haynes had Down Syndrome, he had that look. He had no shirt on but he was playing one of those fucking 8 foot tall delay units -- they are like towers with a speaker on top and dials in the middle. That's how the vocals all sound like you're doing whip its. I still don't know the name of those things but have always thought when I see them, "you know the band is gonna be good."

 Also when they were on David Letterman for the song "Pepper." It was a huge deal, David Letterman wasn't allowed to say 'butthole' so they were called the BH Surfers. You know when M.I.A. played "Paper Airplanes" they made her take out the gun shot sounds so the song didn't actually make any sense. You know she was giving the finger to the camera when she performed at the Super Bowl, that's pretty fucking cool. The last thing is I have a friend. He lives in New York City and he was at a park with his kids. There was another guy there with a kid, they were both sitting on a bench talking. My friend realized the guy he was talking to was Gibby Haynes.

HOCKEY/FIRST SCHOOL SKIPPING

 I don't know how old I was. I was definitely under 10. I joined the hockey team but I only went to one practice. First of all, I realized I could not skate backwards which you totally have to do a lot in hockey. Secondly, in the locker room the other dudes playing were awful, I remember thinking, "These people are animals." At the end of practice the coach had us all stand in a line on the rink, he went down the line and yelled in each of our faces, when he got to me I remember he was yelling in my face and I could smell beer on his breath. I thought, "I can get this at home" and quit on the spot.

When I was in the 1st grade my school started having us show up at noon, the bus picked us up at like 11am. My parents were both at work by like 9am so I had to get out there on my own. I was waiting for the bus and I had to pee so I went behind a tree. At that moment the bus came, the driver didn't even slow down she just kept going and I realized I didn't have to go to school. I was fucking psyched. 

I went inside and watched Gilligan's Island and ate fucking cherries it was like a party. I filled my dog's water bowl with root beer, I knew my mother would be home soon so I had to make it look good. I cleaned the house. I remember I didn't know how to work the washing machine so I put clothes in it and left it like that. I put a cloth on the table and poured my mother a glass of wine, she had Chianti all over the house. I remember when she got home her and this woman she worked with named Mary Caggiano pulled up in a car, my mother came in, saw the tablecloth and glass of wine and went back out to the car, had Mary come in and showed her. That's all I remember. The next day I did the same thing, except I didn't watch Gilligan's Island, instead I went in the backyard and played, a neighbor saw me and called my father at work.  He said "Michael is not at school and he should be." My father came home. Years later, he told me he hated having to punish me over this. He thought it was funny. What the hell I was in the first grade and already skipping school. He reminded me about this like last year, he's fucking 85 now. My mother never told him I had been skipping school, we were kind of a team.

CHELMSFORD MALL

This sorry has an awful word I hate but totally used a ton until my 30s, still there's no way to tell this story without the word so sorry in advance.

In 1984 I was 14 and wicked into Ghostbusters. The theme song was a hit on the radio. I loved it. I also had the red and black shirt with the Ghostbusters logo on it. Me and my cousin were walking through the Chelmsford Mall. We were going to the big department store at the end, either Kmart or Bradlee's I'm not sure which. It was definitely not Caldor's or Zayer's. As we were walking through the mall this kid who was clearly younger than us yells at me, "Nice Ghostbustah's shirt yuh faggit." Me and my cousin mouth "fuck you" at him. In the department store at the end we go to the music section and start looking through the cassette tapes, there was no vinyl. At one point I feel a cigarette ash on my shoulder. I turn around and there is a kid clearly older than me and my cousin with a fucking cigarette and the beginings of facial hair, This was back when you could smoke EVERYWHERE. People fucking smoked on the bus and in elevators. It was nuts. The smoking dude was probably the kid's older brother. He puts his cigarette out on my shoulder and says 'What's up?' He and the five guys with him all have terrifying Led Zepplin shirts on (you know the bones font, that shit scared me when I was a kid). His friends were circling and laughing like the hyenas in that Lion King movie, one of them high-pitchedly chirps "We're gonna have a blood bath."  Me and my cousin start walking out of the mall with the gang of ruffians following us, cackling. As soon as we get to the parking lot we run across the street to another department store, called Rich's where my mother is probably stealing shit.