by Idaho Chubbs
Be careful what you wish for fair Colossus. You’re road to physical, spiritual, and psychological redemption is a long one. It has been a sage's journey for you, your lungs, liver and perspiring spiky haired brow. The cool Magnolia sea wall, full of glacier rocks and foamy wave majesty, saw your sojourn begin in the fickle swirlings of a birthing Spring; leaving behind the lifeless, ailing Winter. New York with it’s iconic admirable arrogance, hipster panache, and wafting Williamsburg/Vice magazine aromas seeped into your New England state-of-mind. EPIC-osity landed in the form of CASPIAN!!! The throw-back battle tank, full of video game fixins' and Vicker’s mullet hair would carry on through the depths of the southeast where your iphone informed me that palm trees were growing in your present. This is most nutritious food for the soul, ahh but short-lived. The swampy, hospitable sundries of the south’s Tennessee compound would inspire your humanity, providing a truly safe-haven for one’s road-stricken yearnings. Onward and Westward the Post-Rock Smoke Monster flowed, laying ground at the FAME ROAR known as THE South by Southwest Festival. AUSSSSSSSSTIIIINNNN, what a strange and diverse web you weave of world class sport and artistic Wes Anderson/country western shirt breeding. Could I wear skinny jeans in a Texan summer? I truly hope to find out one day. The Daniel Johnston hamburger with a side of Linklater curly fries satisfied the cravings of your pizza doe encrusted gullet as the bearded hair van be-lined to Dean Moriraty’s favorite hot spot city, where Colossus finally discovered what it is to be fashionably ironic (bless his soul) in the form of a t-shirt that would leave A.P. Ryder speechless. Brain slurping eyes, worn tired by this sojourn so far, so much more yet to be had. More ADVENTURE, more sleepless nights, more thoughts of divine ampy sonic booms flooding the cerebellum’s space time cogs. I imagine only Prinz Freddy’s positive energy of “Good, goods” and permanent facial smiles would get the merry band of mythic Man-children through the next surge of their war on normal hair styles and AA participants. My own soul could use a “good good’…but I digress.....
(dance beat --lyrics in AQUA male vocals voice) Nnce, nnce, nnce, Laundry, Laundry, Laundry, LA-la-la-la-laundry--L.A. Laundry--L.A. Laundry--L.A. Laundry--DIRTY LAUNDRY!!! Feeeeeeeeeellllllll ITTTTTTTT!!!!! The Mighty Laundry emerges from another hiking adventure in the Santa Monica Alps clad in all forms of "delicate knit" goodness. His new, lean Celtic form (achieved through 40 day wilderness fasting = cheering for the Celtics?) and freshly shorn handle-bar mustache, greets our weary musical friends as they enter the city of plastic smiles and broken celluloid dreams. Hollywood is a toilsome, hellish hole for most who attempt to wish but for a taste of it's immoral superficial nectar. Our "spin cycled" compatriot possessed this knowledge (fighting against thoughts of a Fred Savage directed Oscar Nominee, his two recently acquired hobbies of collecting rare blank Cds, trying to travel back in time to save The Dharma Initiative...just ONCE more, and his new-found faith in The Church of Buster Blooth) as he raged his anorexia towards the heavens, exulting in the intimate post-rock pleasantries that fine eve. As though on a heavy dose of "tumble dry", DL's heart gave way, causing him to scream into the epic sitcom van of "Five Guys clad in Black and Denim" as they journeyed south to ole' Temecula----San Diego at dawn.
SIDE-NOTE TO L.A. : Colossus later informed me via twitter that he disappointingly did not win a role in Sir David Lynch's new film biopic based on the life of Billy Ray Cyrus playing his son Trace due to the production running out of "Josh Hester wigs" and his lack of actually being Naomi Watts.
*** "There's a MAN...in BACK of this place. He's the ONE whose doing it. I CAN SEE him through the WALL. I can SEE HIS FACE. I hope that I NEVER see that face, EVER, outside of a dream." ***
RRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The band lost Laundry after a few days and boomeranged back east through Joseph Smith Loving country, car trouble snow storms, and tobacco inhaled frost bite--once being so close to their Sea Lawned home, that Colossus could almost smell the dust gathering on his old stash of precious Pearl Jam bootlegs-- SUDDENLY, waking up to find themselves staring into the bronzian worn eyes of Michael Jordan's self hatred and regret. The show in Chicago would climb to fanciful heights; the venue holding as much ear altering prestige as a house filled with Glass children, dead or alive. Guests stars, included sweet Jezebel, Penelope Joy, The poet formerly known as "Soccer Face Bonilla", Sayid's NAAAAAAADIAA, and a bong distortion pedal disguised as a brown baggin' bag of freshly salted popcorn.
Westward and upward Mogwai's apprentices traveled, hanging with the Vancouver Olympian burnout, Portland Hippies who lathered Foreman Jonny's beard with PBR Patchouli, and people who totally believe Anton Newcombe is Jim Jones reincarnated as Robert Smith's dream of John Lennon. The Big Filthy, dubiously saintly, Dirty Laundry rejoined the band for high tea at the earthly version of Mt. Olympus to see them off to their next "Old World" voyage.
EUROPA: Loads of facad-al pizza-faced cathedrals beckoned the spikey metal tendrals flowing from Colossus' head to penetrate them with his essence. He quenched their primal architectural urges and slowly entered, exiting a TRUE MAN after sampling Cologne-like toppings. By now Freddy's Cuban Revolution hat had become one with his hairless(?) skull. His look was final. There would be no reinvention for him; at least not during this tour. But that would never ever put a damper on his jolly, macaroni loving aura. The Earl of Burke-Moran had made a valiant attempt at handle-bar stache glory, urged on by DL's facial hair artistry. Unfortunately he did not pull it off, although bested most human beings in winning the contest to "become a healthy bag of bones after quitting cigarettes". Who knew? His cheek bones could slice through my girthy insecurities they are so sharp. Or maybe they would be of better use as mullet and beard scissors for the Foreman Jonny/ Vickers duo who both (admirably) solidified hirsutely bold, self-fulfilling personal styles during this tour. Unfortunately that look won't fly when they return home and come back to work at Sterling Cooper Draper Price Chubbs. Or will it? We late sixties yet?
GREECE: Food scents wafted through the air on a warm democracy driven night full of mystery cheeses disguised as tonsil dripping cat fish smoked in fire drenched herbs that the Aegean sea would drown itself, in itself, for. Meaty filleted goat shin juices topped with leafy green holiness that would bestow health and vibrancy on any person consuming such wonder. These marvelous wine salads, cleansing these oh so corrupted internal palettes, prepared and executed to perfection by soft, worn, economically apocalyptic hands that had never known a day of real work past the age of 54.
TURKEY--RUSSIA: After witnessing a mosque-shaped wooden wagon drawn by twin brother yaks overtake a fiery red Lamborghini on the Istanbul Autobahn, most of the band decided that they had truly seen everything in the universe, had musically orgasm-ed to the point where hoisting a guitar or a drum stick compared to walking on Dogen daggers, and were quite ready to go home asap; where a week of hibernation = (the same life as on tour minus playing music + familiar human biblical relating) awaited them. Alas, Prinz Freddy had gone crazy with EVIL bass power brought on by a new Soviet general hat he bartered for at customs, making one Russian's life dream come true of owning a real pair of American dark blue Levi's and an audio cassette of "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats. His thirst for more travel and communist collectibles forced his hand in making Colossus literally scale the summit of The Kremlin in search of Trotsky's legendary secret stash of Magic Bolshevik Nectar that was hidden in the attic right before his flight to Mexico. Immediately after the Grail of Ancient Russian aphrodisiacs was successfully procured by Colossus's over-sized baseball mitt hands, Freddy ripped the liquid from them, voraciously gobbling the mythic goo, handing out shot after shot, ONLY to his newly formed motley crew of peasant-followers that even Raskolnikov would be ashamed to hang with. Prinz's Russian Sloor "Band-Aids" ran amuck all over Red Square causing trouble, even stopping at an internet bar to maliciously skype me for not being blacked out drunk on their destructive Moscow snow gum (The goo!).
FINLAND--HOME: The hangover was one for the moons of Idaho. Freddy awoke to find his new friends long gone, and his precious Trotsky juice fully drained as he realized, in a wishful ibuprofen haze of regret, that his body was completely chained down to the top of their Eastern Block tour van by trillions of extra bass strings as Caspian sprinted to their final gig in Helsinki. They had endured an Odyssean journey fraught with unparalleled goods, evils, siren songs, post-rock groupie temptresses, feasts fit for divine sacrifice, and alcohol imbibing parties that would make Dionysus blush merlot. Each of the five souls (even now, a pained and sober Prinz) wanted nothing more than to be home with their own version of Penelope. For most it was a beautiful lass, for Colossus, it was a roast beef sandwich. And so, after making one more city bleed euphoric light from it's collective brain, the five heroes of North Shorian myth arrived home to the sweet smell of full a blown Spring. The Winter's harsh breath long gone, giving way to joyful, green plumage overflowing the thicket-ed rural streets, guided by the cool oceanic sunlight that would be the main ingredient for the best flavor of Captain Dusty's ice cream ever. HOME--Job well done and dragons all slayed--Now REST...
FINLAND--HOME: The hangover was one for the moons of Idaho. Freddy awoke to find his new friends long gone, and his precious Trotsky juice fully drained as he realized, in a wishful ibuprofen haze of regret, that his body was completely chained down to the top of their Eastern Block tour van by trillions of extra bass strings as Caspian sprinted to their final gig in Helsinki. They had endured an Odyssean journey fraught with unparalleled goods, evils, siren songs, post-rock groupie temptresses, feasts fit for divine sacrifice, and alcohol imbibing parties that would make Dionysus blush merlot. Each of the five souls (even now, a pained and sober Prinz) wanted nothing more than to be home with their own version of Penelope. For most it was a beautiful lass, for Colossus, it was a roast beef sandwich. And so, after making one more city bleed euphoric light from it's collective brain, the five heroes of North Shorian myth arrived home to the sweet smell of full a blown Spring. The Winter's harsh breath long gone, giving way to joyful, green plumage overflowing the thicket-ed rural streets, guided by the cool oceanic sunlight that would be the main ingredient for the best flavor of Captain Dusty's ice cream ever. HOME--Job well done and dragons all slayed--Now REST...
