So I had this teacher one time, right, who used to tell this story of back when she used to live on the farm. And they had this chicken or rooster or whatever (CITY SLICKER, I know) that they used to call Brain because it had gotten hit on the head shortly after hatching and you could see the tiniest bit of exposed gray matter under a little flap. David Yow ‘dances’ how I always imagined that this bird must’ve walked.

I’ve got good news!

…
I don’t have an erection.

Comes down to it, the Jesus Lizard were essentially a bar band. And while the DC kids were content to let their lock-step white boy grooves spiral into an ever-ascendant bleeding heart gusher of meaning; Shellac and these fuckers on the Midwest tip were more interested in taking the machinery just ever so much out of step, imperceptible at first but you, the listener, slowly bottom out into full-blown dementia should you care to actually consider it. Yeah, a bar band. But one that makes you think the teetotalers might’a been on to something; never has so bad a trip come from so unassuming a drug.

Thaaank yooooooo-oooouuuu, good people of Fairfax.

Speaking of demented, he’s like a child. One who’s mischievousness is just a thin cover for actual, scornful devilry. But as soon as he’s caught with his hand in the cookie jar he cops the whooooo meeeeeeeeee??? puppy dog eyes and you give in; not because he’s convincing but because it’s so whack it scares you. Ratliff got it right, he so totally goes full-bore JC pose when he leaps into that crowd and steals your shoes. (Why were you offering in the first place?)

I was telling the folks up in Philadelphia last night, some people may think of us as a rock band, la-di-da-di-da. Think of us as your life coach.

He’s the whole of David Lynch in a facial tick. The bass line is not the warm, blissed out flow of heroin-addled blood that so many bands trade in today; it’s a pulsing stream from a deep wound. The drums could kill you, so you’re damn right they gave him a Garth solo between sets. The guitar is a spindly Grimm’s fairytale without the whitewash, with all the creep and a side of pedo-stache.

Thank you, see you tomorrow in Baltimore. Although, I think Baltimore’s a little cooler than DC. *oooh, mwaw mwaw mwaw fuck you…*

Waiting for a second encore that never came, in the wake of a whimsical curlicue from the wrist with a top hat that wasn’t there and fingers daintily but threateningly through a greasy, thinning mass of hair; the talkative gent next to me remarked, “I get it now. Heath Ledger was just doing David Yow when he played the Joker.” He wasn’t wrong. And fuck him for making me reasses that patriarchy up-propping hosefest.

So a lady walks into a restaurant and orders the beef stew and some rice and the waiter brings her a bowl of rice.

…

Thank you.

Of course by the time I get outside it’s raining a rain of Biblical proportions, because G-d is as pissed as I am that they didn’t play “Zachariah.” The walk from 9th and V to 11th and T isn’t a far one except when the sidewalks make you think you’re on (again) a bad trip and they are melting away for the inch or two of water rushing down them. (Fuck Dali.) People were ducking into Ethiopian restaurants and hookah bars on 9th and a girl in a nice leather jacket and I almost ran into each other trying to escape but we both just laughed. I laughed all the way home and took a long hot shower and now I’m drinking a glass of Cold Gin so fuuuuuuck yooooouuu.