Time Pie

The thing about time is that it is a freaky weird kind of thing.  I mean, is it a real thing or not?  Historians remind us that normal people only had clocks as part of their lives when they started getting paid by the hour.  Before that, a calendar did very nicely for dividing up time into understandable bites.  People didn’t have appointments before the Industrial Revolution.  If you wanted your friend to come over for sex, you just said “why don’t you come over sometime?”  Then your friend would come over and the two of you would have sexual intercourse together.

Now, of course, we divide up time every which way.  How many clicks did I get on this post in the first twenty minutes?  Why didn’t my friend like my Facebook post until it had been up for 9 minutes already?  Why do I only get four minutes at Cole’s Open Mic?  Did they really give me the light at three minutes or was it two minutes and fifty seconds?  Why can’t I get my ten seconds back?  Why won’t anybody fellate me?

Only one of these questions has an easy answer.

It’s about time.

One time it was 1990, and Your old Pal Foz had a hangover.  I was living in Lawrence, Kansas at the time because of the higher education and the reasonably high quality ditch weed.   Also, Lawrence had a bit of “scene” when it came to music, with great local bands like The Homestead Grays, Kill Whitey, and Bobby and the Chuxx.  Good bands always hit Lawrence on national tours.  Pearl Jam played at the graduation party that year. 

So I had this hangover and I was doing what I did back then in the mornings, which was run on the levee next to the Kansas River, over on the north side of the river by Johnny’s.  I had a hangover because I was out late getting drunk the night before watching a great band from Minneapolis called Trip Shakespeare.  They were playing at the Bottleneck.  That was the bar where sometimes Billy Goat would play.  They were the band where the lead singer would defecate on stage.  Remember?

So I was running along the levee there, and I see a group of five people walking up the levee from Johnny’s parking lot, and it didn’t take but a second to recognize that they were Trip Shakespeare.  I had just seen them the night before, and even had this hangover to prove it.  I ran up to them – which they did not find scary because I was dressed for running – and said something like “Hello.  You are Trip Shakespeare."  They recognized their name and answered to it.  I said something like “Hey.  I like Lake.  It is the only song I know of about infidelity as seen from the point of view of a fish.”  They said something like “yes, it is.” 

They had a camera guy with them who was shooting footage for a promotional video.  The camera was very big because it was 1990, and the camera operator was a professional camera guy who they had to pay to take the pictures – again, because this was 1990. 

Anyway, he shot a bunch of footage of the band hanging out on the levee and rolling down the hill and so forth.

The other day an old friend pointed me to where the You Tubes had a video of Trip Shakespeare, and there it was – all the footage I watched them take.  I am not in the video when you watch it.  I am standing right by the camera watching what we are looking at live but 22 years ago – and hung over. 

We had a good time chatting, took our goodbyes, and then I ran away.

Did you notice the part where Elaine the Drummer says in a wispy and spiritual hippy-dippy way that her role in the band is to divide time and stuff.  Crazy, spacey thoughts.  That’s kind of the way Patrick Stonehouse, the drummer for FtH does it. Patrick divides up time in to any old origami swan, and leaves you laughing or crying at the way he whacks on the drums.  That’s what drummers are for.  That’s why we have them.  We don’t always have sexual intercourse with them.  They don’t fellate us (they don’t have to), but they do take some time, divide it up into bite sized pieces, and use it to make us move our asses around.  That’s a good thing about drummers.  There are other good things but I can’t think of them now.

If you want to hear a man make a time-pie that will move your butt around be at Cole’s tonight at 9:00 to hear FtH lead off an amazing night of comedy at Cole’s Comedy Open Mic.

Good comics understand time too.  Someday we’ll talk about that.

Me and International Football Game™

Well, folks.  That’s another one for the books.  Yesterday, July 4, 2012, will forever be remembered as “That one time when Cole’s wasn’t open and there wasn’t an open mic, because Cole was having a party, or whatever.” 

Lots of people met out in the woods for a 102 degree Christmas Party, hosted by Coleman Brice for staff and friends of Cole’s.  There was much to drink and eat.  We set things on fire, and used the fire to cook food.  There was plenty of beer and more ice.  Everyone was there. Sorry you missed it.

After several hours of sedate drinking and munching, somebody got the idea of having vigorous exercise in the European style.  That’s when Your Pal Foz, along with Patrick and Larry and bunch of other persons took to the pitch to play a bracing match of International Football Game™. 

You will remember that game from the time you went to an Irish bar at 7 in the morning and fell asleep while everyone else drank Guinness Bloody Marys.  There was something on the TV.  You don’t remember.  It ended in a tie, and later all of your fiends were out of the skulls with excitement that Portugal had a point.  You had always assumed that Portugal, with its rich heritage of seafood and navigation, would merit a point in any case.  However, this morning, through your boozy 11-in-the-morning hangover, you learned to appreciate that Portugal earned a point by not scoring any goals. 

Anyway, we played that game for a while.  It was a100 degrees out! Don’t worry.  Your Pal Foz insisted on playing the position of Shade Cover.  It was my role in this game to make sure that whenever the ball rolled into the area where there was shade and a cool breeze, I would kick it out to the area where it was sunny and hot.  In that way, the ball was kept warm, while Your Pal remained as cool and sedate as soccer permits.

Sadly, soccer did not permit me to remain too sedate.  On more occasions than I care to remember I had to run, and that never ends well.  By the time I got home to my hot-box apartment to enjoy the local patriotic display of fireworks and gunplay my feet were killing me.  Thighs and calves weren’t bad at all, but feet and ankles barked all night long. 

I called Patrick and asked what caused this.  Patrick is a social worker and anti-AIDS activist, so anytime I have any symptoms I ask Patrick, “It is AIDS?”  So I called Patrick, and said, “Hey, my feet hurt from playing soccer.  Is it AIDS?” He said “No.  AIDS is a blood-born pathogen typically communicated through sexual activity or IV drug use.  Did you do any of that at the Christmas Party?”  I said “No.  I just played soccer. Did you see me use needle-drugs or have unprotected sex at the Christmas in July party?”  He said “No.” 

So I don’t have AIDS – or at least I don’t have AIDS because of soccer.  Happy Independence Day!

Gone to Shiloh

Babies,

As you know Your old Pal Foz has a real life job as a historian.  Since The People have demanded that I go to their Shiloh National Military Park this week to talk about history, I will not be at Cole's this Wednesday.

Strangely, neither will Larry or Patrick be at Cole's.  They have their reasons.

In the meantime, here is a picture of Foz and Patrick and Abe at AB(e)DUCTION: The Honest Abe Art Show at Cole's

So enjoy Cole's Comedy Open Mic this Wednesday night, and Foz the Hook will see you again on April 11.

Also, this is good.  See Elton John did a Shiloh song.  Everybody does it.  Why don't you?  Scared?

Nightmare

Children.

Monday night is Halloween, and any self-respecting drunkard will have already overdone it by then.

Therefore, consider a quieter, yet scarier evening for REAL Halloween.  You won't even need a costume.

Come to Cole's (2338 N. Milwaukee, in Chicago) at 8:00 for a screening of F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), the unspeakably creepy Dracula movie with no speaking in it.  Your Pals FtH will be there (sans bass) with a cool new score.  Yes.  That means that Foz and Patrick will be playing LIVE music to Nosferatu while you watch.

We will show the movie in short, 15 minute segments, separated by Scary Nightmare Roundtable.  That will be true stories of our scariest for real nightmares.  Foz and Patrick, and at least one or two other fine storytellers will be on stage, spilling our guts about our deepest fears, as described through our dreams.

I don't know about the others, but Foz's favorite nightmare is just plain creepy!

Why don't you join us.  You'll never see us the same way again!

How We Get Booked

Somewhere FtH has an energetic booking agent that we’ve never met.

I was recently perusing the Foz the Hook digital download page over at the old Bandcamp and noticed that FtH is scheduled to play The Milwaukee Ave. Arts Fest this coming Wednesday, July 20th, on the Coles’s Bar Stage! Yeah! We are on a bill headed by our friend Cameron Esposito with our other friend Adam Burke, both of whom have been featured on this blog before.

I was so happy to hear about this job, which I had nothing to do with booking, that I sent Patrick a “way to go” e-mail for booking us, and sought out Coleman Brice to thank him. Neither Patrick nor Cole knew anything about it.

I wonder if Cameron or Adam know about it?

There is, of course, the possibility that someone at the songkick,com web site noticed that the regular Cole’s open mic is scheduled for that night, and just gave it some free publicity. If so, great. If, however, we are headlining a major art and music fest in Chicago next week, please Internet, let me know the details. I’d hate to miss it.

So What is a Band Anyway?

Sit down and put on your smoking jackets, gents. Perhaps the ladies wish to mix themselves drinks and join us in the lounge for a philosophical discussion on the nature of music theory and practice.

Now, we all know that Foz the Hook's Monthly Freakshowcase scheduled for Labor Day will be so mind-blowingly amusing that the possibility of the audience ending the evening in chastity is just not realistic. Let's face it people, we're all going to get laid. It's in the cards.

What I wish to discuss is the nature of the act that will fill the B-slot on the program. I speak, of course, about Matt Slater and his insertion (see above paragraph) in the evening as a band. We all know that Matt is by nature a comic. He doesn't sing, play an instrument, or spin discs - as far as we know - so how is it that Matt shows up to the gig as a band?

Part of it has to do with the fact that Your Pals in FtH are backing up Matt's act with some music. Patrick, especially, is providing a pounding driving percussive intensity (See Paragraph 2) to Matt's mighty package of jokes. But that's a small part of the deal. Time, of course, is a major element of music, and timing is a major element in comedy. The two concepts are closely related. Old Foz argues that they are the same. There isn't much difference in the sensitivity to time, to silence, and to emotion required of a good musician and a good comic.

To paraphrase Clausewitz "Comedy is music by other means." Matt has a feel for this, and I wager that when he mocks Jamaicans or makes sexual advances upon your mother (spoiler alert!), you will find it all the more amusing for being accompanied by FtH.

So, make plans to join us on Labor Day Night for the debut of Matt Slater's Amazingly Amusing Music Comedy Set. You will also watch Mo Welch rock your world with her fab stand up set. And, of course, Your Sexual Surrogates, Foz the Hook, will rock your evening home with Drunk Astronauts, Gin-Soaked Yankees, Nasty Snowmen, and other cheerful songs about Shame and Disgrace.

Wear clean undies and bring protection, because there will be happy endings for everybody.

Now, let us mix another round and discuss Euclid and Dildos.

The Greatest Show on Earth!

For the record, I think Tod Browning's 1932 film "Freaks" is a poignant and jarring commentary on the skewed obsessions that people have with concepts like Beauty and Normalcy. Any lover of great cinema should put it in their queue and watch it seriously. That said -

GOOBLE GOBBLE!

Check out Patrick's fantastic poster for Foz the Hook's upcoming Freakshowcase. The inclusion of the Rev. Jim Jones as a member of the band stands as proof that sometimes ideas are still funny after you get sober.

Join Your Old Pals on Monday, August 2 as we welcome the great Cameron Esposito, along with the Band of a Thousand Names to FtH's first monthly Freakshowcase at Cole's Bar. As always, the show is free of charge - something Messrs. Barnum and Baily cannot say of their show.

There will be more. But for now get your details from Patrick's poster.

Come out to Cole's Monday night and be ONE OF US!

From Santa Cruz

Last Wednesday Patrick's friends came in from Santa Cruz on their cross-country "Away We Go" road trip. It was great to have a couple of new FozFans at the gig. But the room was smokin anyway. There must have been forty comics, and a fair number of Real People.

Not much else to say. Here is a picture of lovely Santa Cruz. Why Patrick's friends would want to move when they already live in the Galapagos Islands is beyond me. Hey, it takes all kinds.

FtH is back at rehearsal tomorrow. Who knows what we'll come up with? Not me.

Tomorrow It Seems

It seems we will play somewhere other that Cole's. Sorry Coleman.

Patrick arranged for Foz the Hook to play at The Long Room, 1612 W. Irving Park Road, in Chicago. Show starts at 4:00 and goes until maybe as late as 6:00. It's a fine little bar. I said little and I mean it, so be there.

Should be fun. Do you not get to come to Cole's? Do you go to bed early? Do you only watch live music next to a Popeye's Chicken? Then this show is for you.

Finally, up above you will see another version Eduard Khil's creepy masterpiece, that went viral after the last time I showed it to you. Naturally, the time for a remix was due. Watch this with friends because your head will explode, and they will have to mop up before your Mom finds you. Hat tip to Drakes Cakes.

Morning After

Foz and Patrick and Dan played an inspiring two-set show at Cole's last night.

Highlights included:
Downhome Christmastime is fast and funny, which is pretty much the definition of comedy.
Sex For Christmas had a good initial performance. It will tighten up when we play it a second time, but we could not possibly leave it out of this last performance before Christmas.
With Drunk Astronauts inspired a wild sing-along from the crowd of four (Three of them were not already friends). That's getting to be par for the course for this hilarious Bobby and the Chuxx tune with fantastic lyrics by thos. e.

All of the tunes from The Tennessee Williams Thing sounded great. That's going to be quite a project, with performance anticipated in February.

Then, as the music ended and the drinking continued Patrick and Leah started goading stories out of Dan to be used for future lyrics. Apparently, when Dan was once AWOL from the Army his friend rolled his car while they were driving through Beaver Nebraska, population 60, trying to get back to Fort Carson. Patrick scribbled all this own in his commonplace book. If we can think of enough rhymes, this could end up being a new song.