I, like many am an allergy sufferererer.  I don’t have them all the time like some people do, but when I do have them they are just miserable and there’s only a handful of stuff that I can take that works and actually presses pause on my HooverDam nose.  And yes, I did just use HooverDam as both an evocative metaphor and as a naughty word.  ”HooverDam-it all, where the fuck are my keys?!” should be a household phrase by next month, no doubt.  Anyway, there’s only a handful of stuff I can take that will usually work and only one will definitely work and that’s Benadryl…or to use its street name, Roofia Minora.  Well, I say it works but really it just makes you pass out so completely and definitively that you don’t know or care what allergies are for the next 4-8 hours.

Well, about ten years ago when I had first moved to Knoxville it was about this time of year and my allergies were horrible…so I took some RM (that’s the new slang for it since the last paragraph).  Now, I have to take Arm (new slang…) a lot and so I’m able to withstand its effects a little bit longer than your average ArmHead and this particular night I was winning the war for quite some time—well into sunrise—before I lost the war drastically.  I was hangin’ with my room mates, drinking and playing Risk…which is a great way to lose friends, Risk.  That game gets a little dark!  Not to mention, Risk takes for-fucking-EVER to play so sleep deprivation is a factor after a while, too!

I managed to stay alive in Risk till about 6am whereupon I lost all my armies and soon after all my ability to hold my eyes open.  I wished everyone good night and went to brush my teeth and go to bed.  So at this point I have to mention that I had just run out of toothpaste and had forgotten to pick some up on my way home from work, but, “No worries!” I tell myself, “I’ll just use Curt’s tonight and get some tomorrow.”  I reached into Curt’s drawer and pulled out a white tube with green lettering that I think is one of those stupid hippy toothpastes that taste just plain awful…like, it tastes like Tom put baking soda on his balls and then hiked down from Maine, swiped the excess baking soda from his balls to his toothpaste mixer and grinned his filling-less smile while saying, “It’s natural!”

So you know how you should like, utilise caution and stuff and like, read the labels of things before you put them in your mouth and stuff?  ’Member learning that lesson?

This shit tasted horrible!  I mean, I could barely taste any mint, despite the green lettering on the tube, and it felt like chewing on cocaine-filled vaseline.  EWWWWWWW, it was gross!  But I didn’t stop.  I knew I had precious few minutes of consciousness left and HooverDam-it, I was gonna brush dem teef!  And a little seed started to take root at the back of my mind:  I was gonna give Curt so much shit for how awful his stupid, hippy toothpaste was in every way.

A week goes by and since I ran, not walked to the store the next day I had been using my preferred toothpaste.  I was hanging out with Curt at one point after that week passed and I remembered somehow what I had vowed and cut Curt off in what he was saying to say, “Man, your toothpaste fucking sucks!”

He was confused and said to me, “What are you talking about?”

“That hippy-dippy fucking toothpaste you have in your drawer, I had to use it last week and it tastes like a bunch of dicks!”

“Uhhhmmmm, don’t know how to tell you this but I’ve been out of toothpaste and using yours for the last week…”

Things start to dawn on Curt and Me at reasonably the same time and he runs to the bathroom to see what the fuck and proceeded to gut laugh for the next forever years and walked out holding the vaguely familiar tube saying, “Dude, this is generic Bengay!”

<:::sigh:::>

Ronnie

the record sounds great and i am truly honored to have been a part of it!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/solar-maximum/id468894298

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/chadvolkers

01) WINNER – OCTOBER: A middle-aged woman wearing clothes much too trendy and expensive for the “economically challenged” grocery store she’s in is holding up the line at the only open cash register, insisting on writing a cheque for four quarts of premium ice cream, except that she can’t write the cheque for having to repeat to the cashier how good the ice cream in question is. “I wouldn’t know,” says the cashier in a bored tone, rolling her eyes. “I can’t afford it.” Eventually, the woman pays for her cream of ice (her only purchase), sashays out to her double-parked Cadillac Escalade out front (naturally), and nearly hits another woman minding her own business on the way out.

02) WINNER – SEPTEMBER: A thirty-something couple is walking through a municipal park with their young son (who appears to be about 4). Though the son is clearly more interested in checking out a small pond (with fish, etc.) nearby with a correspondingly small dock, the parents are attempting to explain that it’s time to go. The boy protests enough to win a few last minutes at the pond before leaving. After indulging his son for a couple of minutes and beginning to walk away (with a clear note of irritation), the father calls back to his own small-ish child: “Come on, you douche!”

Unfortunately we had to leave damn-near immediately after playing so we could get back to Knoxville in time to play a wedding so we didn’t get to stay and enjoy the rest of the show…strangely enough we ran into a couple from Cincinnati at the wedding and they had just come from Midpoint the night before as well…small fuckin’ world, eh??

Two shows into our new, new, new setup and I’m already super-pumped about it!  Don’t get me wrong, I liked the sound we got with the laptop/tracks playing with us but now we are able to do so much more with our expression and dynamics and time-feels that..well..that it doesn’t feel like we’re playing to pre-recorded tracks anymore!!  I’m working on making my bass nice and evil, evil, EVIL and we are all working on our different sounds to fill out the holes that the tracks left…Sarah’s been doing some really cool shit with looping recently, Curt is working on a triggered drum setup to allow him to play some different/cooler sounds atop his normal acoustic drum sounds and Jason and I are working on a mutant hybrid combination of his Moog and my bass which, by the time all’s said and done should be more delicious than Paula Dean’s panties!

We are still working on our online store, never fear my shorties!  Delays are inevitable I’m afraid, what with five different work schedules and all, but don’t you worry, we are gonna sell the shit out of our stuff online!  In the meantime we are finally accepting credit cards at our merch table so don’t fret if you left all your cash at home, we will still be able to help you help us.  Thanks, squareup.com!

We will have new show updates on our site and FB very soon, my friends!  Until then…

Ronnie

01) This involves strangers stabbing you in the ass with a needle.

02) Holy hypodermic, Batman! It burns! It burns!

Come see us at the Midpoint Music  Festival in Cincinnati this Friday at 9 pm and decide for yourself if this qualifies as performance-enhancing drugs or not!

If you don’t have a full weekend pass or a day pass Below Zero Lounge will be selling tickets at the door for only $15.  Here’s some stuff you can touch and click!

The Schedule for Below Zero Lounge is as follows:
9pm Shortwave Society
10pm The Black Shades
11:30pm White Birds
12:30am Asobi Seksu
Here’s a link!
http://mpmf.com/venues/below_zero_lounge

Here’s another link!
http://mpmf.com/

Here are some more links!!!
http://asobiseksutime.tumblr.com/
http://whitebirds.bandcamp.com/
http://www.facebook.com/TheBlackShades?sk=wall

Contact Below Zero Lounge at (513) 421-ZERO (9376)
or visit http://www.belowzerolounge.com/

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=206055176127961