Bitchin' Camaro
(aka The Dead Kennedys Distillery Show or How Sooper Troopers Is A Documentary)

This show was Saturday. November 1st, 2003 at the Distillery. Featuring The Trouble Makers, the Pumpkinseeds, No Kill I, and the Dead Kennedys.

I'm typing this at my monkey's butler job. The joy of working graveyard at the monkey lab. Some drunk sorority gal just rolled her new car out front and walked away. It's pretty foggy though, so maybe she's dead and her body is buried in mud. But since it's bar closing time, and God smiles on drunks, I'm sure she's off at 10-Forward toasting her wrecked Camaro with Rigelian Brandy. Hopefully she called it in stolen while the CHP loots the car. Well one is "salvaging" and the other is running the peanut gallery on the pa. And it ain't even a good, funny, peanut gallery. The cop looting is just a late night pick-me-up. It's cold and what they don't take, the tow crew will. Those two look like they were in Sooper Troopers. Really.

I'm listening to KVMR out of Nevada City. It's a weird radio station I've listened to since junior high. Right now they're playing some sort of soft jazz only with a Duane Eddy super-reverb type guitar. It's horrible and not weird in a good way. I mean, soft jazz with twang? It's recorded at a live show. Maybe it's Lynrd Skynrd after most of 'em croaked in that plane. It's kind of like listening to a Ventures song in muzak at the grocery store.

Back to the important stuff, as written by Stephen Hawking. This is the show where the Dead Kennedys opened for us. No wait, that's not true. But there is DK involvement. William Shatner, uber alles. Or would I prefer There'll Always Be a Moon Over MyHammy?

Okay, stuff I, The Gorn, (read "I, The Jury") remember from our show at The Distillery. We played with the Pumpkinseeds and the Trouble Makers. It was originally set at The Blue Lamp, but Cap'n Kirk got drunk there once (in a bar, no less!) so they cancelled the show. A show that was booked in July, they cancelled in October three weeks before we played. You know, I don't really get it. At most of our shows, the bars sell about a zillion dollars worth of beers with no damage done to their club (ourselves, yes, but rarely to the club). But The Blue Lamp doesn't want No Kill I spending all the money they'd pay us and drinking their bar dry. That's what happens when 4 dollars will drink your bar dry.

So just like I was saying pre-wreck like, Pete got hitched, so me and Old Man Foster from the Trouble Makers showed up at the reception. I had a fistfull of margaritas, once again blowing my chance to play just a little drunk instead of Standard Issue Black Out Drunk. That would be Scotty's just a bit drunk, instead of Yeoman Rand's so-drunk-they-fire-her drunk. I have a problem pacing myself that you've probably noticed. It used to be "drink till I puke" and then I realized you can puke and continue drinking, so it became "drink until you pass out". A few years after I done gradyated college, and some brain death later, I quit drinking like that. And sadly, with the anti-seizure drugs and working 7 days a week, I don't drink much at all anymore. OM Foster dropped me off at home, I grabbed my bass and me and my upstair's neighbor Jax walked over to the bar. We got to the door and I said, "I'm Old Man Foster from the Trouble Makers and this is my guest Summer". They said okay, and we walked in. Foster and Summer had to deal with that later.

Then somehow, someway, I started drinking again. Good thing for me. The Trouble Makers played dressed as the Mummies and covered Mummies songs. It was pretty good, although they opened with Stronger Than Dirt, when they should've closed with that one. Just like Jax said. We snuck on stage so the Pumpkinseeds could headline. They're pretty good. No point in us playing before them.

My bass wasn't working, and I was super drunk in typical No Kill I fashion. I should've sucked down an anti-seizure pill before we played, but I forgot to. So if anyone out there takes 750mg of Keppra twice a day, feel free to skip doses. No seizures for me! I'm invincible. I don't remember playing, so no story for that yet. East Bay Ray, from the Dead Kennedys came up and played guitar for a bit, so our next flyer will say "No Kill I (featuring ex-Dead Kennedys)". East Bay Ray, although married, came up with his date, Naughty Nettie (aka Not His Wife) all the way from Frisco. Okay, it was Nettie who came up and brought Ray with her. Which Ray? That's East Bay Ray. I don't remember EB Ray playing but now I can say I played with him. Although I probably stumbled around without having my bass plugged in. The Dead Kennedys are (is?) one of Abe Lincoln's all time favorite bands by the way. I think the other is Herb Alpert.

Oh, and Smiller from the Bananas (Abe's other band) kept hollering "Where's Warp 11?" Warp 11 being Jar Jar Binks to our Han Solo. Or, in Star Trek form, Janeway to our Shatner. Some limey (hello England!) said "Oy mate, knock it off before I paste you one in the govenor" not realizing that Smiller was hee-hawing around. The Limey must've grown up getting his comedy from The Prisoner instead of Benny Hill, methinks. We ended up closing with Abe singing Moon River.

At some point, someone handed me 5 drink tickets which instantly became 5 beers that I tried to drink at once. Jax, luckily, liberated me of 3 beers. Trying to drink 2 beers at once also didn't work. My mouth is just a hole in my face.

I remember I liked the Pumpkinseeds but I don't remember much of their set. I never had a metal phase -- I don't even like AC/DC -- but people parodying 80s metal makes me laugh. Sorry Mister Pumpkinseed that I don't have a story about your set.

I stumbled home with Jax, Ken, Abe, Naughty Nettie, and East Bay Ray. Ken, another married sort, was hoping to get some action from Jax, but no luck. My only memory of EB Ray is me going "blaargh burrble asda" before passing out.

A couple days after the show, I get messaged by a guy I talked to at the show. I don't remember talking to him at the show. He said, "Hey, I have a drunken crazy sister who's a maniac. If I set up a blind date, will you go out with her?" Forgive me, Gene Roddenberry, they know not what they do. Is there anyway you can say no to something like that? I'll post about that if she says yes and we can work something out around my crazy schedule. I think I'll show up and say "Hello ma'am. Lovely weather we're having today, isn't it?" Then she'll invite me out for tea and crumpets and/or punch my lights out.

The tow guy is dragging the car up the ditch on it's roof, and I'm not the only one laughing. I wish I was riding in the Repo Truck again, although we never towed an upside down repo car out of a muddy ditch. The tow truck keeps stalling, and that Camaro's rear axel might be on the list o' items to replace, I knows that now. The rear window just popped. That's okay, it should've been broken when she rolled it, but it wasn't. Now he's re-chaining the Camaro in front of a crowd of CHiPs. Insert obligatory Ponch & John S&M bondage joke here.

It's being dragged across the pavement. My guess is, being a new car and all, it's totalled now. I'm sure some kid will buy it at the wrecking yard, slap a Deftones sticker on it, and we'll see it in action again. Car being flipped -- pop pop pop windows are busting all over. The cops continue salvaging, but what's the point? The tow guys will clean the car out by morning. It rolls the rest of the way, to rubber side down, and there goes a tire. Oh, they found a Limp Bizkit cd. Oh, happy times for the Sooper Troopers! Oh, joy! Oh, joy!

Without talking to a lawyer, I suppose I should say I never saw the cops take anything. Yup. Just doing recon. I'm sure the sorority Oiji Board is safe.

The cops leave, the tow truck leaves, and the sorority girl's dad shows up wondering if his daughter was dead. I said, "Hell mister, if she's even wounded the monkeys have eaten her by now. You best lock your doors." He gave me 50 bucks as thanks. They say on KVMR that was the Grateful Dead. Wow, that really was horrible. I don't think I've ever listened to them before. I switch to KDVS and listen to the Capricorns. I thought they were the Epoxies, but I was wrong wrong wrong. Part of this paragraph was made up, but I did think they were the Epoxies. I found $1.10 after they tow away the car. I'm rich!

As if written by Dave uh... "Smith" on this, the 8 day of November in the year of Our Shatner, two thousand and three.