Welcome to October

"Welcome to October," said the man with the hat. We were traveling for weeks, and both me and my traveling partner, Sean, were not only dehydrated, but completely unaware of the proceedings of Eastern Standard Time. We had bounced up and down the East Coast as self-declared groupies of Prognosis Negative, a three-piece cowpunk-meets-skaterock-meets-Eiffel Tower band from Duluth, Missouri.

Prognosis Negative had managed to book a tour by sending demo tapes to clubs. These tapes were actually tapes of Cheap Trick covers recorded by my grandmother on her 4-track. When I found out about this, I contacted this band and threatened legal action. We reached an agreement where I could follow them on tour in exchange for 30 percent of their nightly intake. Unfortunately, Sean and I have been stuck with the job as PR men.

I can't decided whether I want hot tea or root beer right now. I thought I was going to swear off high fructose corn syrup; I was fed up with that sweet coating that it leaves in my mouth. I've seriously cut down my high fructose corn syrup intake, though I still indulge in some Dr. Pepper every so often.

Tea it is, and the tea bag soaks and I sometimes get really neurotic about steeping my tea for the exact amount of time, and if I go a few seconds over the recommended time the tea tastes too bitter to me. I know it's psychosomatic, but I can't help it. This weird apple-cinnamon tea that I bought once had a steep time of only 45 seconds! Crazy.

I wonder if fakejazz head honcho Jim Steed has ever thought about changing his name to Jim Steep, cause it would make him seem taller. People associate Steep with steeples, or steeplechases. I don't know what a steeplechase is, but I guess Jim is pretty tall already. Sean (my traveling companion) used to be taller but he has some sort of spine curvature from years of bad posture.

The man with the hat is wearing a hat to look taller, too. His arm is extended and he's holding a bunch of cards. He sorta looks like the guy on the cover of the Blue Oyster Cult's Agents of Fortune record, only he's wearing a hat. The hat is blue. He is quite tall.

We walked past the man with the hat and came to a tower that looked just like the cover of the Blue Oyster Cult's Tyranny and Mutation album! This was just too weird.

Monday night I was watching a documentary made by the US Government about the Tennessee Valley Authority dam (The River, 1938) and I started fantasizing about riding all the way from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico on an inner tube. I could take a bag of chips and pretzels to snack on, and float down through the major artery of this fine country. By slowly raising my sodium levels while moving south, I could pass through New Orleans (birthplace of jazz!) and into the great, wide sea.

It probably wouldn't be anything like the old Nintendo game "Toobin'". That was a pretty great game, despite being made by Tengen. Actually, I'm still undecided about Tengen. They never got official Nintendo licensing but they said "fuck that" and reverse-engineered their own games in funky cases. I think that's cool, but "RBI Baseball" sucked and so did that "Vindicators" game. "Gauntlet" was also like the hardest Nintendo game ever.

Sean once got some girl to go to bed with him because he told her that he beat "Gauntlet." Now, "Gauntlet" is 100 levels. There are many different exits on some of these levels, and they make you jump around. You never play every board, but there are six boards you have to play, and you have to beat them really quickly to get a puzzle piece. Without all six pieces you can't beat the game. The highest board that any password will take you is 79, and I got that password once, and it was so damn hard that I can't imagine beating the next 21 levels AND having all six puzzle pieces. It's the absolute most difficult Nintendo game I've ever played, even harder than "Section Z".

This October is going to pass so strangely, with us being on tour and everything. Usually I spend October completely drunk or high, but this year I'm just in an altered state from the music of Prognosis Negative. I'd say that they're the band to watch in the upcoming year, but they're planning to break up after this tour and become whiskey labellers for the Korean Gentrification Police.

I know that "Gauntlet II" was an official Nintendo game because it came in the regular grey plastic shell.