The Return of Colonel Foz

Last night I donned my new red shirt to debut a disgraceful new endeavor in cooperation with Sean Flannery, who is a fellow slave to drink.  Sean hosts the popular monthly catalog of dissipation known as The Blackout Diaries at The Beat Kitchen in Chicago.  The Blackout Diaries features real living humans – like you! – telling stories of drunken humiliations that would make their mothers weep if said stories ever were aired publicly.  We did a little dress rehearsal for Colonel Foz at another Beat Kitchen Institution, the Tuesday night Chicago Underground Comedy show.

There was a good deal of amusement.

Colonel Foz is Olde Foz’s cousin, a country music singer who has spent years on the road collecting innumerable tales of drunken debauch.  Colonel Foz has so many great drunk stories to tell that he cannot play any song all the way through without stopping to tell a story about losing his yellow ’94 Corolla at an IHoP, swimming into his hotel in Tampa, spitting up his communion grape juice in Chuckatuck, or finding his girlfriend’s vomit in his shirt pocket – the shirt he’s wearing now.  Colonel Foz also plays guitar, which was quite an accomplishment for your non-guitar-playing bloggist. 

So plan on coming out to Blackout Diaries this Saturday night, June 30 at the Beat Kitchen, 2100 West Belmont, in Chicago.  The show will be hosted this week by the lovely Puterbaugh Sisterz  , and features Ever Mainard and Nate Simmons, both of whom are Cole’s old timers.

But first come to Cole’s tonight at 9:00 and Foz will explain the twisted family connections that brought Cousin Colonel back to town.

Things are about to get weird.

Abe > Ike > McCarthy > Dahmer > Walker. The Connection!

When I was a kid I was unaware of the now generally understood fact that President Abraham Lincoln purged the young Republic of Vampires during the Civil War and even before.  He did, as we now know, actually dispatch a number of them personally by decapitation. 

Received History, the kind of narratives that The White Man spins to kids in school, failed for many years to reveal this – at least when I was a kid.  The reason for this was deeply rooted in the Cold War, and there is really too much confusion there to go into it deeply.  Let’s just say that Ike had a lot more on his plate to deal with than golf games and The House Un-American Activities Committee.  Also, you can’t blame Lincoln for the 1956 public decapitation of HUAC Chairman Joe McCarthy in a Racine Bordello.  But somebody was President of the United States then, and vampire killings in The Cheese State decreased significantly between the death of McCarthy and the election of Governor Scott Walker in 2010 (and Walker, as we all know, cannot account for his whereabouts during the period 1988-1991 when the patsy, Jeffrey Dahmer was allegedly killing and eating a bunch of people in Milwaukee).  Ike was up to something.  I’m just saying.

What was the point I was making?  Oh, yes!  Jeffrey Dahmer and Scott Walker.  Fer crying out loud, just look at them side-by-side!  They were both in Milwaukee for a while, they both killed and ate a bunch of people, and they were both, according to Wikipedia, Governor of Wisconsin [citation needed].  What more evidence do you need?

Which brings us to Cole’s Comedy Open Mic.  It starts at 9:00 tonight with FtH: Vampire Hunters, and continues with a great list of comics at 9:30.  Adam Burke will host, unless Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin ties him naked to a bed and drills holes in his skull while he is still alive and pours hydrochloric acid into the holes in order to ensure that Adam will remain young and sexy for his perpetual sexual exploitation.  In that event, Kenny Witzgall or Rhea Butcher will host.

Straight Dope on the 70's

First, it is Cole's Birthday Party Hoedown tonight at Cole's.  All Cole's-based bands will be playing, including Your pals, Foz the Hook at 12:45 tomorrow morning.  We close the show, so you'll have plenty of time to warm up for the With Drunk Astronauts sing-along.  Now.  Down to the day's business.

I forgot to mention this before, what with all the other culturally significant milestones we have seen lately, such as face-eating-zombie-dudes (naked), and the President of the United States coming out in favor of equal protection under the law for everybody.  So I have been alive for those two historic events.

But what all of The Kids want to know about is my experiences on that fateful day, May 25, 1977, when Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope (known by the un-insufferable as Star Wars) was released.  Where was little Foz that day?  Where did he stand in line?  What was he thinking when he finally beheld the glory of a sub-standard western with puppets in space where the bad guy was a dude in a black hat?  Did it blow your mind, Olde Foz, the first time anybody ever thought of a laser gun or a space ship?  Has your brain ever recovered from the awe-inspiring cinematic technique of showing a little thing, and then showing a big thing?  Will you tell your children and grandchildren all about that fateful day?

The basic answer to all of the above is “yes.”  Stars Wars had a huge impact on my life.  It is why I do not have children or grandchildren – so that I won’t ever have to waste any child’s time blathering on about a pedestrian, “not entirely terrible,” piece of entertainment that has been successfully oversold for 40 years now.

Where was I when Star Wars came out?  Shut up!  How the hell am I supposed to know?  I didn’t care then and I don’t care now.  I only just learned that the movie came out in May of 1977. 

I did see it – later.  After a while.  The theater was maybe half full.  I remember thinking, “hmm.”  Then I turned to my friend – I am assuming I was there with a friend because I was eleven years old and was not allowed to go to the movies alone – and I said something like, “what do you want to do now?”

And that is my story of seeing Star Wars for the first time.

I will tell you this:  A couple of weeks later, my friend Dave told me that he had seen the movie twenty times.  I remember thinking, “Wow Dave, that’s a lot of times to see a movie.” And then saying, “I dunno.  What do you want to do now?”  Dave was the only kid I knew who went back to see that movie a bunch of times.

Later Star Wars was on cable.  HBO also started around ‘77-ish and they played Star Wars  a lot.  That is where I saw it most of the time, along with A Clockwork Orange, which is how I learned how to talk to girls.

Anyway, kids, that’s what the 70’s were really like:  Everybody thought Star Wars was just OK, and nobody liked John Lennon when he died.

Don’t ask about John Lennon.  I’ll smack ya!  

The Mayor Gets Some

This is the FozBlog wherein we say “Happy Birthday, Coleman Brice,” the impresario of rock and roll and funny and funny rock and roll in Logan Square.

Coleman founded Cole’s away back in 1967 when he took over a little storefront pool hall on Milwaukee Avenue called Dogs and Irishmen Keep Out!  I think that was the name.  That was what the sign said. 

A year later, at the famous demonstrations during the Democratic National Convention Coleman over-served Mayor Richard J. Daley and the Mayor got a little aggressive with the ladies.  Nevertheless, he managed to pick up Ann Margaret and Yoko for a threesome.  That guy was some mayor.

After that, all of the cops and all of the demonstrators came by and got drunk and sang With Drunk Astronauts along with Foz the Hook.  Neither Larry nor Patrick were alive yet, but they played OK.

So be at Cole’s tonight for the Big Old Comedy Open Mic featuring Adam Burke and/or Kenny Witzgall and/or Rhea Butcher, plus all of the comedians in Chicago.

Hey! Adam could not have ever played this room if Cole had not taken it over, and the open mic would have just been Kenny telling belligerent jokes in Polish while Rhea feverishly studied a Polish-English phrase book.

Foz the Hook (with a fully-grown rhythm section) starts the mayhem at 9:00, and the comics start complaining about their genitals at 9:30.

You’re there already, right? 

Eugene: The Naked Face-Eating Zombie Dude

Since this post will be in part about naked face-eating zombie dudes I worked very hard to find the prettiest picture I could find of my old pal, Cameron Esposito (From the Feast of Fun website).

The rumors are true.  All of them.  I don't even know how it came to this, that we should have to talk about it.  FtH loves Cameron Esposito, our joke-telling pal.  Didn't you figure that out yet?

Yes, FtH and Cameron Esposito have a thing going on!  We play funny songs and then Cameron tells jokes.  We even do it right out in the open.  Sometimes it is so obvious, it is like we are right up on stage, right in front of everybody, telling jokes and singing songs.  Really, the embarrassment should be on your part, with all of your ingrained stereotypes and assumptions about Lady Comics and Comedy Bands.  Blame society if you must, but the truth remains - somebody needs to open up their mind to new types of people and lifestyles and orientations.  Some bands are - you know - funny.  Some comedians are even - you know - female.

Tonight Cameron Esposito is leaving us to go to California where nice people will welcome her and make her feel good.  There she will tell jokes.  Isn't that swell?  We'll miss her.  Join us tonight at Cole's to send Cameron away with class.  We will begin disgracing ourselves with maudlin caterwauling at 9:00, and Cameron will outclass the lot of us at 9:30.  After that it's your turn.

Speaking of class, the other rumor is true too.

We are naked face-eating zombies. What?  You couldn't tell?

My Synthesizer

I didn’t have a Mini Moog.  I had a Korg Micro Preset.  

It was a great little keyboard that I bought from The Dude Upstairs.  He sold it to me because he didn’t play keyboards.  He just bought it one day when he was high. 

Your Old Pal Foz was, what, eighteen at the time, and living here in Lawence, Kansas with Bobby Wendalo, lead guitarist for famed Chubb recording artists Bobby and the Chuxx. 

We used that Korg on a number of big hits we recorded in the 80’s, including 1984's Five Mile Hike and Welcome to the Happy Zone from the Nicaraguan Contra-inspired agitprop musical Cry Pepita, Cry! 

You no doubt noticed from the video that the Micro Preset has rich and beautiful tone that can be used for a number of great sounds.  I liked to use it for its ability to make the most annoying and weak sounds ever heard in pop music.  There was a sound like a person whistling it would do, and if you made a really soft attack it sounded like a little kid who just learned to whistle, but doesn’t quite have it.  That sound was specifically hilarious on Five Mile Hike. I must say, though, that the unconscionable screeching of that keyboard reached real genius in the cuts Eduardo (The Malefactor) and Eduardo (The Blaspheme) on the subsequent album, Time Slugs.

At some later date I didn’t have that thing any more.  Can’t imagine why.

We did finally borrow a Mini Moog, and it can be heard on Quincy is the Mosquito from the 2002 classic Waking President Wahid (Yes, buy it now).

See you tonight at Cole’s!  9:00 as usual!

William Tells All!

You know that normally we talk about our shows before we perform them.  We do this because we know that you like to actually see us perform something instead of hearing the rumors later.

Last night, however, was different.  Because of the historic announcement that Your Pals in FtH had convinced President Barack Obama to state clearly his support for equal application of marriage laws to everybody – people keep calling it “Gay Marriage” for some reason, but the official title is Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States – we were not able to get a blog post out in time.

But last night turned out to be a terrific show, titled “Foz the Hook’s Gay Marriage Fantasy!”  We did mostly FtH love songs like My Kind of Mess and Gin-Soaked Yankee, but we also did a few bits about marriage equality and bits celebrating love in other ways. 

Here is Old Foz’s bit describing his broad-minded support of intimate personal kinks, which was, as usual, a thinly veiled attempt to pick-up some of the ladies in the back room (unsuccessful this time, but soon!).  

You know your old pal, Foz is a ladies man!
  

Sure, I believe in gay marriage and gay sex and lady sex and man sex and intense, upsetting, screaming, howling-at-the-moon, squatting naked in the corner and weeping over a broken bottle of whiskey sex.
 

So if any of you ladies has a William S. Burroughs kink, just give a tug on Old Foz's sleeve.  All we need is a bottle of gin, a fistful of amphetamines, an apple and a handgun!
 

I know how to show a lady a good time.

Foz also talked about some stuff that was more, you know, not-as-funny.  No need to go over that.

Anyway, my only point here is that because of our president’s support of marriage equality Foz the Hook was able to demonstrate that making a joke about famous beat author William S. Burroughs blowing his wife’s head off while playing drug-fueled William Tell games is not as good a pick-up line as you would have thought.

It’s that simple.

Listen, I can’t get you out to Cole’s last night, but maybe you will come by next week.  Could be fun.  Bring an apple.  Make a friend.