Joe Buck Yourself (By Myself) Part 1

I like traveling alone, because I always get into adventures. I recently drove 4 hours from Wilmington to Salisbury to be in my main man American Matt's wedding. Lucky for me, I found out that one of my favorite musicians would be playing in a mountain town that night, just one hour away from the wedding.


Once the reception started winding down, I got in the Mustang and drove the hour west to a town called Morganton. I had only ever been to Morganton once, 25 years earlier, to eat steak. (You never forget steak trips no matter how young you were.)

When I pulled off the interstate and into Morganton, I saw the only thing Morganton is famous for: Broughton Mental Hospital. It was scarier than I had heard. It sits way up on a hill with highways circling around it. It looks scarier than The Shining. It's an old castle looking place with tons of window - windows that are all blacked out. It looked vacant, but I know there were thousands of people inside that were mentally anything but vacant. Hell, I knew that place was full of people with mental over-crowding.

I kept going and got to a gas station to get directions to the show that was listed as being at a place called "Night Owls." Some short country boy on a moped gave me directions that were hard to here because his voice was muffled, due to the fact that he never took his helmet off. I could tell he told me to take the "Bahh-Pace." (Bypass.)

So I took the bypass and parked across the street at some auto place. I walked into the bar, and for some reason they didn't ask for my ID or for me to pay to get in. This seemed weird, since everyone else had to pay and everyone else got ID'd and everyone else had to wear a Budweiser bracelet. And one other thing: everyone knew each other.

I was regretting rushing to the show, because the man I now realized the man I came to see perform would not be on until 2 metal bands went on first. So I bought a 23 ounce Bud Light for $2.50 and seemed to shock the bartender by tipping her $1.50. Apparently in Morganton the beers are cheap, and the customers are cheaper.

I decided to stand up against the wall in the back to not make myself get noticed. I did this, because I knew that everyone knew that I wasn't from there, and was naturally suspicious of a seemingly normal looking guy coming to Night Owls. This wasn't working.

If I moved to far to the left, I was intruding on a game at the one pool table. If I moved to far right, I was standing over this hot girl with big boobs in a low cut white shirt. Being low-profile was gonna be tough. As I danced left and right between the pool table and the boob-girl, I became perplexed by the clientele. It was mostly country boy metalheads with bad mustaches and black t-shirts of underground metal bands, and girls that were pretty and seemed to only mild Southern accents, if they had them at all. I decided there must be a college nearby.

With people whispering too loudly about me, (not rudely, just inquisitively,) I went outside and sat in the grass behind a car in the parking lot and chain-smoked, while cleaning out old voice mails and pictures on my cell phone. I decided I would pass the time until the man I came to see perform went on stage. Then I looked up and there that motherfucker was!

I know he's nobody to anybody else. But I am a huge fan of Joe Buck. (Not the baseball announcer, the Hellbilly Rock Star.) To see Joe Buck in person was the craziest thing. He does nothing to look scary. He just is. Marilyn Manson can put all the make up on and stupid contacts in that he wants and he doesn't look one-tenth as scary as Joe Buck does in jeans in a t-shirt.

That's what makes Joe Buck scary. He's being himself. He's about 6 foot 5. Lanky as shit. Pale and freckly. His eyes look demonic white. And he has a loose long red mohawk. The thing is, and this really didn't surprise me, I watched him being the most genuinely friendly redneck to all these Morganton rednecks. You see, he may be Hank Williams III's bass player who gets to live the high life, but when he travels solo, he actually seems most at home in weird towns like Morganton that are only known for mental institutions. He chain-smoked and chatted with the occasional fan that would speak to him in the parking lot. And I noticed he laughed and smiled at the shit they said. This didn't surprise me because most metal people are very nice when they're off the stage, since the get their demons and agression out when they're on it.

I decided not to talk to Joe Buck. I just don't want to meet heros. And this guy was the only one of my top ten favorite musicians that I had never seen live. I didn't want to ruin the show for myself.

As I watched drunks coming in and out of the tiny bar to smoke in the parking lot, I noticed Joe Buck mostly stayed outside and smoked. Then it clicked. I suddenly knew he was a junky. A cleaned up junky. He was not drinking, he was obviously sober, and he wasn't disappearing for drug-breaks like most musicians do before shows. I thought, "That's odd. Since all his songs are about drugs and the devil. This man isn't on drugs and he's anything but a devil."

Finally, the show was about to start. I went inside, and Joe Buck sat down at his drum (he plays one) and tuned up his guitar. Then he started kicking the hell out of his bass drum and started belting out "Evil Mother Fucker From Tennessee," and the crowd formed into a way I've never seen at a show. All 50 of us were only three rows deep, and we were circled around Joe Buck, while he sat below us in a chair playing his guitar, singing, screaming and stomping his bass drum. It was odd because we were, stomping our feet and heading banging and swinging our fists DOWN at him. This 6'5" guy had a circle of regular sized people rocking out over him. We were so up in this scary man's business that I could have strummed his guitar and kicked his drum and he didn't care. When he sang, sometimes his spit would fly at us. And the music is some of the fastest hard rock hillbilly devil music you'll ever here. And forget everything I said about him not being scary in the parking lot. He was now scary again.

He finished "Evil Motherfucker" which is a song that introduces who he is to those that don't know:

"MY NAME IS JOE BUCK.

AND I'M AN EVIL FUCK!!!!!!!"

Then he broke into "Devil is on His Way." This was was one of my favorites, so I started jumping around and acting as retarded as everyone else - by myself, in a mountain town I didn't know, full of mountain people I had never met. At least during Joe Buck's set, I knew we were all friends and they wouldn't mind me.

(I'll edit and finish this later. Red Eye is on.)

Me and Her Part 2

Me: Awww, shit yes! I am craving some Taco Bell! I'm gonna get me a Meximelt and a Volcano Taco.

Her: Really? Again? Do you ever learn?

Me: Learn what?

Her: Everytime you talk all this shit about how much you love the Volcano taco, as soon as we get to Taco Bell and get our food, you eat everything except half the Volcano taco. And you say, "That wasn't near as good as it looked. Why did I get that?"

(2 hours later. At a Taco Bell. Me sitting across from her with a tray full of empty wrappers and one wrapper with half a Volcano Taco on it.)

Her: How's that Volcano Taco.

Me: Great. I just don't, uh, feel like eating it all.

Her: Riiiiiiiiight.

Me, Her and a Puddle of Mudd

Conversations that will make you glad I'm not your boyfriend.

Her: (Pointing to the radio, as a song comes on) Oh, gosh. Is that band with that dude, all he ever does is sing about blowjobs and stuff?

Me: Yeah, they're called Puddle of Mudd. They are an absolutely terrible band.

Her: I know! Who could ever like this shit?

Me: I like it.

Her: But you said they were an absolutely terrible band.

Me: They are. And I like them. Nobody should ever listen to this.

Her: But you do? Even though you feel you shouldn't?

Me: Yes. I love this song. It's so stupid.

Your Welcome. For your kids punching me in the nuts.

I am a parent's biggest dream and biggest nightmare. That makes me sound like some sort of super-wealthy child molestor with an early 20th century English accent and a cane: "I'll pay you one meee-llion dollars for one night with your child!"

That, of course, is not what I'm talking about. Here's what I'm talking about:

I am the King of All Children.

I'm not just their king. I am their earthly deity. For some reason, kids between the ages of 0 and 10 think I am the greatest freaking guy of all time. They think I am so cool. It doesn't matter if I am actually interacting with them or ignoring the hell out of them, they will follow me around and beg me to play every silly game imaginable on earth. I have some sort of magnetic presence that makes kids so hyper that you'd think they snorted 5 or 6 lines of Pixy Styx and mistook the Robitussin for Kool-Aid again.

They give me new names. They make me play impromptu games that they are inventing as they go along. They hand me musical instruments that I don't know how to play, and beg me to create songs. They even insist that I pick them up and throw them into things that aren't safe to be thrown into.

I know you think, "Oh yeah, Kids make me play with them, too." And I'm sure they do. But not to the degree that they harrass me. I don't even have my own kids. But damn, when somebody throws a family party full of people my age and a bunch of kids, my girlfriend has to explain to any of the adults we've never met, "Look, Roth Wriscey is not going to be able to talk to any of you much tonight. It's not his fault. He's like the Elvis of children. He could try to run from them, but they'll only tackle him. If you get more than one minute to speak to him tonight, you'll be lucky. He can't tell them to go away. They won't. You can't even tell them to go away, AND THEIR YOUR KIDS!"

And they never really believe her until about half-way through any party. And that's great. Because for the first half of the party, those parents always give me these boring tired-out jokes like, "Hey, if you're gonna wind up my kids, you should have to take care of them tonight when they won't go to bed." Sure, they sort of laugh, but they're really irritated with me. I try to explain to them that I don't have a choice: That the little girls are going to make me spin in circles with them, learn hand-slap games and let them climb me like a jungle-gym. And that the boys are going to shoot me with imaginary machine guns, throw every damn toy on earth at me and punch me in the nuts. I don't stir them up on purpose. I could never even acknowledge the existence of these children and they'd still think I'm the coolest guy of all time and scream their lungs out in my honor. I know I can't stop them. I've tried! So I've learned to just accept my role on earth as a real-life SpongeBob SquarePants and enjoy it.

Get this, I am not allowed to go to my girlfriend's house between 6 p.m. and 8:30. Why? Because she lives at her best friend's house. And her best friend has a 7 year old girl and a 4 year old boy. They love me so much, I could talk them into killing you. (Yes, you, you reading this.) And those kids don't even know you. And they can't drive. But if I asked them to do it. They'd google your address and steal their mom's keys and stop at a gun shop along the way to finish you off. All because I said to. They also think my name is "Mr. Potato Head." And Mr. Potato Head here had to ban himself from visiting his girlfriend during those hours of the evening, because that's when those two disciples of Mr. Potato are supposed to eat dinner and go to sleep. And if I even set foot in that house and try to walk straight to my girlfriend's room - Yeah, that'll be the day! When I do that, those kids run up and latch on to each side of me and beg me to eat their food. Not because they don't like the food, but because they think it would be so cool if Mr. Potato Head honored them by eating something that once touched their plate! Yes, they think I'm that cool. And once I'm there, those kids won't eat or go to bed no matter how much their poor mother threatens the life out of them.

So just know this: If I'm ever at a party and get your kids so wound up they won't go to bed after you get home, just remember one little thing. You got to have fun at a party full of adults for the first time, without being constantly interrupted by the taps of your kids telling you that so-and-so called them a name. They didn't bother you at all. They were too busy punching me in the nuts. You're welcome

You, get off the stage. You, get on the stage.

I did stand-up tonight for the first time ever while sober. I thought I'd be all like "Wow, I'm so much better sober!" Or maybe, "Wow, I'm better at this drunk!" No, it's entirely the same. And I'm entirely the same guy.

I didn't get into a habit of doing comedy drunk because I needed alcohol for courage. It just happens to be staged at a bar, and I lived down the street from that bar and could walk home. So getting drunk was just easy. Now that I live 25 minutes away from the club, getting drunk is not an option. But being funny was just as easy. I'm not saying I'm great. But I'm self-aware enough to know I can tell a dick joke and usually get the reaction I intended. That being said, let's get away from me and get to the others. Here's some crap I hate about the comedy club on each and every open-mic night.

First off, a lot of these guys who perform every week sit at the bar while the other comedians are performing, and they hold a pencil and stare at a paper and scribble over their own comedy notes. They had a freakin' week to prepare! If you feel the need to bring a Number 2 and yellow pad, then you shouldn't feel the need to get up on stage. You're not ready. And besides, it's just downright rude to be staring at a paper full of your own ideas, while ignoring a colleague who is making a fool of himself on a stage 20 feet away. In fact, I time my smoke breaks and piss breaks around guys who do this. If they can't watch some other guy, I can't watch them.

I also cannot stand these nerds who work their act out on me without my permission, while I'm sitting at the bar trying to drink and watch the guy on the real stage. I don't do that to my friends. Don't do it to me. I can understand running a joke by someone to see if it bounces; but to actually perform your act like you're on the stage to me, when you're not on the stage, and some other guy actually is, is fucked up. And I certainly wouldn't do it to other comics... especially while at the comedy club! That's like a musician singing a song to another musician in his dressing room, when the other guy didn't ask. Gay. Cut that shit out. Plus, my fake laughs are obviously fake. Don't make it awkward for both of us.

About half of these dorks base their whole routine around how they can't get girls. Let me tell you: if you can't get girls, then I can promise you one thing: you're not funny. It's a myth that funny guys don't get laid. Funny guys get laid all the damn time. In fact, some only ever get girls because their ugly ass is hilarious. Maybe they don't plow every girl on earth, but by at least some girls on earth. Give some ladies some credit: some of them are ready to wiggle, just so long as you make'em giggle. So if you really can't ever once land a woman, then get off the stage.

The other half of these dorks base their whole routine about how much pussy they get. That's even less funny than a guy who talks about how he perpetually strikes out. No one finds a guy funny who is up there talking about random girls. Don't get me wrong: dirty can be funny. I'm always dirty. But a guy who gets up there acting like a conquestor of coochies is boring. Not just to me, to everyone. The guys that do this are actually usually pretty good looking guys. They should realize that is why they get laid. Not because of their stagecraft. Get off the stage, you unfunny Adonis.

Some of these tards get up there every week and do the same five minute routine. Look, if you make a living at this, or are trying to perfect your act, I can understand that. But, if you're gonna do that, shop that shit around to different clubs. Don't do it to the same audience at the same club, every seven days. If you ignore my advice and still do, 1/3 of the people will step outside to smoke, another 1/3 will sit there and ignore you, and the other 1/3 will fakely polite-laugh. If you have lived your entire life and can only find five funny minutes of your existence to talk about, please get off the stage.

Now, by my bitching, you'd think I'm a rude asshole to other comics who struts around the place like I'm some big shit. Not at all. I'm actually one of the nicest people there. And I know I'm not big shit. I mean, it's jokes, man. Jokes. There's no need to be petty. I only ever compliment the other guys or keep my mouth shut if they blew chodes. But some of them, some of them, are catty little girls. If you do well, they will ignore the shit out of you or even try to make you feel unwelcome at the club. They do this to me all the time. I've even been shoved by other comics who acted like they didn't know they were doing it. How silly. I want all these dumbasses to do well. But many of them think that if one guy does well, that will dig into their own success. Not true. And if you think that, well, I won't ask you to get off the stage, since some of the petty little bitch boys are actually the funnier ones. But seriously, grow up and cut that junior high shit out.

The final person I hate is the guy who week-in and week-out tells me how good he'd do if he got up there. Fine, I believe you. (Not really.) Some non-performers show up every week and brag about how great they would be if they ever felt the need to share their fucking amazing observations. To these over-confidant armchair-comedians, I beg you: Please get on the stage.

Blowing Blows.

New Post: The entire story is fictional. Totally fictional. So let's just go with that one, okay? Otherwise, I'm not writing the shit.

A certain dumbass went to the Down/Melvins show back in September. The show took place in Myrtle Beach 1.5 hours from the dumbass's home in Wilmington, North Carolina. Due to the fact that he lived in a tourist town, Dumbass forgot that this was a holiday weekend. Shit - every weekend is a holiday weekend in Wilmington. Dumbass also forgot that the authorities announced they'd be doing DWI checkpoints all over the area.

So the show was great. It was great because Down rules, the Melvins rules, and Dumbass drank about 2 vodka tonics and 7 Miller Lites in three hours. The amazing thing about this dumbass is that he can drink a lot and not become legally drunk. (Two or three police tests over a lifetime have proved his incredible alcohol processing abilities.) Unfortunately, this streak of incredible metabolism was going to come to an end... by a hair.

Dumbass and his co-hort, Girl Who Knows She's Always Safe When He's In Control Of Anything Including A Car, saw a checkpoint at the state line. They dodged it. Unfortunately, another tinier, po-dunkier town was running a separate checkpoint. Dumbass wisely tried to turn around and hide at the Food Lion, but a more pussified citizen got behind him and wouldn't agree to turn around as well. This forced dumbass to go through the checkpoint.

Dumbass was the last person to get arrested. And arrested he was! And the chivalrous cops packed up and left the girl sitting alone in a dark parking lot in the woods by herself! Real men. Who wouldn't leave a skinny young blond girl in a skirt and tank top all alone locked out of a car and refuse her a ride to a safe place?

Dumbass doesn't regret driving. Dumbass regrets getting caught. The world was not spared an unsafe person that night. He even told law enforcement he could do backflips during their stupid test that he was ace-ing, despite the fact that he had never done a back flip in his life. Despite his bravado, Dumbass was charged with being .01 over the limit. (An amount that used to be legal to drive under.)

Fast forward 7 months later.

At court date 3, Dumbass's Attorney said to him, "You know that female officer that wrecked her car hot-dogging at 100 mph when she was trying to race her fellow officers who were on duty about two months ago?"

Dumbass said he was familiar with the woman.

The well-connected Southern Attorney said, "Since she administered your blood test, and now she's out with serious injuries and probably has lost her police career, I'm going to ask for a dismissal."

Dumbass said, "A woman never tested me. A big fat guy did."

The Attorney said, "Yes, she did."

Dumbass privately asked his passenger (who came to court) if she remembered the woman giving him a test. She said, "The only woman there that night was me. A big fat guy tested you."

Then dumbass realized that his attorney had a scheme that he needed to not sabatoge. Dumbass also noticed that the other officer in the case had suddenly disappeared from court... for the day. He said he "had a meeting he forgot about." And then the judge made jokes about the female officer's driving skills and dismissed the case while everyone in the court laughed (except the lone female officer who barked out defenses of the woman.)

Then dumbass realized that his expensive attorney's fees were being spread around. Thank God that some officer who couldn't drive and wasn't there to testify was the convenient excuse for everyone in the court system to distribute dumbass's money to each other and let him go free.

Acquitted and enlightened. Dumbass will never again bitch about dirty attorneys - they'll keep you clean.