Thought of the day

President Obama is full of more horseshit than the paddock at Churchill Downs.

This thought of the day has been brought to you by the letter "D," for "Duncan." As in, Arne Duncan, the fool and scoundrel nominally in charge of implementing Obama's awful education policy, which is worser than Bush's, even.

Yeah. Let's send a bunch of Chicago Democrats to the White House. What could go wrong?

POSTSCRIPT: It's amusing (in an "I want to bash my head against a brick wall" way) to see the Obama Zombie crowd at Daily Kos following their leader ever-deeper into the wild wasteland of Reaganism, praising the school district's union bustery. I used to think Obama was a crypto-Republican. I was wrong. He's not keeping it a secret at all.

This bloggggg is moribundddd

But maybe I'll write something later today.

In the meantime, amuse yourself with Ozzie Guillen's twitter feed: http://twitter.com/OzzieGuillen. I know I am.

Examples:

Iam tired from bad very bad golf

3 day of Spring Training and im already boreddddddd

what I saw on the field today was a lot of grass...

Bed and bath I love this places

Looking for tickets to go to wrestlemania, I need help with that, they r way too expensive

I love what I'm doing now,Followers, don't worry, I will be here for all of you.

Although I'm more interested in spending my online time today hunting for more pix of the Canadian women's hockey team's sexysexy drunken on-ice champagne & cigar celebration.

Gene Vincent Post

This video rules in at least 30 ways and you should watch it immediately.

Another blog theme song to throw onto the stack of them

"I'm tough as dirt! I'm mean as blood!"



Big Black - Pete, King of All Detectives

(Ignore the two minutes of silence at the end of this ... if you get that far.)

Miracle on Slush

Due to total lack of interest on my part, I am not watching the winter Olympics, but I just saw a headline that said the men's downhill skiiing competition was postponed because of a slushy course. My first reaction was, what a strange and wonderful banquet indeed would be one that included a Slushee course.

I can imagine a snooty French waiter lifting the big domed lid off of a silver platter to reveal several frosty paper cups full of swirled, froot-flavored goop. "Rad or Bleu?" the waiter would ask ...

Meanwhile, no word on the status of the men's uphill skiing competition.

Developing.

As shocking as a dead battery

So Obama is essentially planning on being a one-termer. Makes sense. He should have enough time to wreak enough destruction on the squashed cigarette butt that is the remainder of the middle class. His function really has been (and note I'm saying "function" rather than "job" -- because as mathematical and biological scientists have shown, you don't need an intelligent designer for certain patterns to emerge) to effect a smooth transition from Republican to Republican, with more Republican in the middle, while throwing a wet blanket on whatever left-leaning (if sadly incoherent) sentiment had welled up over Dubya's eight years.

In an interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek on newsstands Friday, Obama said a presidential budget commission needs to look at all options for deficit reduction - including tax increases and cuts in spending on such programs as Social Security and Medicare.

To misquote Bruno Kirby in Spinal Tap -- "Yes, we can, if Lloyd Blankfein says it's OK first. Because Lloyd calls all the shots."

Meta: The state of the blog

OK ... no big speech here. Just me saying that I'm tired of the "white text on black background" look. So I might be attempting a redesign shortly. Or not.

Good grief, Google messed up the Blogger editing interface while I was on sabbatical. I can sort of understand why software engineers hate users (and all other humans), but I'm not sure that taking their generalized life-frustration out on everyone via punitive designs and randomly malfunctional applications is helping anyone's cause. Unless they are in league with the Computerized Hive Mind to kill us all. In which case ....... touché.

Right. Also perhaps in the offing: Some actual writing. No promises.

They aren't called "Nice Polite Republicans" for nothing

Good old "liberal" NPR.

[Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting] has a new Action Alert about All Things Considered's obituary of historian Howard Zinn, which "balances" the praise of Noam Chomsky and Julian Bond with a substance-free attack by far-right activist David Horowitz.

Sure, obituaries always feature rebuttals. It's very common to get someone on there to argue that the deceased, in fact, sucked. I can only imagine the chorus of "con" arguments ATC aired when Ronald Reagan died. That is, I can imagine that totally not happening at all.

Horowitz:

"There is absolutely nothing in Howard Zinn's intellectual output that is worthy of any kind of respect," Horowitz declared. "Zinn represents a fringe mentality which has unfortunately seduced millions of people at this point in time. So he did certainly alter the consciousness of millions of younger people for the worse."

Stronger Than Dirt:

"There is absolutely nothing in Ronald Reagan's political record that is worthy of any kind of respect," STDPM declared. "Reagan represents a fringe mentality which unfortunately seduced millions of people in the wacky-wacky 1980s. So he did certainly alter the consciousness of millions of dumb people for the worse."

There. Fixed.

Thought of the day that is too negative for a FB status update: A continuing CBRAT feature

I can't decide what's more annoying and moronic: "Who dat?" or "Da Bearsss." I think I'll just flip over all the cards and say the entire NFL is annoying and moronic. Thank the nonexistent invisible omnipotent-yet-emotionally-insecure giant sky father another football season is almost over.

"Let them see what is on the end of that long newspaper spoon."

THAT LONG NEWSPAPER SPOON was a xerox mag I sporadically produced between 1990 and 2000. The name is derived from a quote from Naked Lunch. I stopped working on it in the middle of putting together issue number 37, for reasons that have never been clear. Just lost the thread, or something.

TLNS started out being pure political screed ... rants, raves, and peeves. Then I started mixing in some fiction around issue number three, and by the teens, certainly by the twenties, it morphed into a serialized novel. Always to remain unfinished.

At present, I can't stand to read any of them — from the beginning to the end — but the cheap, shitty collage covers crack me up. So here are three more artifacts from the early days of "CBRAT — The Print Years," in the form of three unfolded TLNS covers (back cover appearing on the left, front cover on the right) that I like to think of as "The George Herbert Walker Bush Trilogy."

Geese Ausbie has nothing to do with this little politics blurb ... I just like saying "Geese Ausbie"

The Democrats are the Washington Generals of ... well, Washington. Their job is to lose, and they're comfortable with that role. I think they prefer being the opposition party, anyway, because then all the pols have to do is feed their constituents' anger, rather than actually deliver anything.

UPDATE:

Ahem. As I was saying:

The worst is that I can't help but feel like the main emotion people in the caucus are feeling is relief at this turn of events. Now they have a ready excuse for not getting anything done. While I always thought we had the better ideas but the weaker messaging, it feels like somewhere along the line Members internalized a belief that we actually have weaker ideas. They're afraid to actually implement them and face the judgement of the voters. That's the scariest dynamic and what makes me think this will all come crashing down around us in November.

UPDATE 2:

Now with improved correct spelling of Geese Ausbie! Same fun sound!

It crawled from the crypt ... er, vault ... no, crypt was right ...

As part of my gradual buildup to a relaunch, here's a vintage Colicky Baby production — the covers to issue number 9 of "That Long Newspaper Spoon."

I did this one back in my old law school digs in Urbana. The clerk at the Kinko's near campus refused to xerox it due to copyright problems. (I wanted to get the "key op" to copy them instead of doing it myself on the self-serve machines, because the self-serve machines tended to suck.) Anyway, I didn't let that small brush with intellectual-property fascism stop me. I can't remember where I ended up photocopying them ... maybe on the office machine where I worked.

I never did latch onto any kind of xerox or zine culture scene in Champaign-Urbana, though, like I did in DeKalb — probably because I was too busy being in law school. So I don't think I distributed many of these. Maybe 20 copies, possibly as few as 10.

Yeah, that'll show 'em.

Right now, there are still a few Democrats I might vote for this year. But every time a Democratic politician uses the words "perfect," "enemy," and "good" in the same sentence — in regard to health care "reform" or otherwise — I am scratching another name off the list of potential vote-getters.

CBRAT's Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss Says the Age of Mark Zuckerberg Needing an Atomic Wedgie Has Barely Begun

Every time Mark Zuckerberg opens his mouth, I want to cancel my Facebook account.

Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over

OK

This blog is dead, or at least dormant. No updates are planned.

Blogging resumes, for no particular reason, with a celebrity dream dreamt sometime during early morning July 11, 2009

I dreamed that I was roaming around the no-longer-in-existence Lakehurst Mall in Waukegan, Illinois, with Al Franken. We walked past some kind of hair salon where all the hairdressers and all the customers were old ladies, but Franken thought it was a front for a whorehouse, and he decided to go and see what kind of tail he could lay into.

This didn't appeal to me ... the place seemed kind of crusty and mildewy ... so I kept wandering. I turned down one corridor toward a region of the mall that I knew to be mostly deserted -- I think the consumer survey people had their facility there, and there might have been a "Balloons and Clowns" shop on the lower level.

But today the entire sector had been dressed as a gigantic set from a movie that was currently popular in that particular dream world -- a comedy that took place in the main chamber of the United Nations. Damon Wayans was there, acting out his role in the movie -- the smart-talking, funked-up Ambassador who kicks ass, takes names, and teaches the world's nations to get along and love each other.

I stopped next to a Fannie May candy store to watch the show for a while, and then Damon Wayans spotted me and called out my name. I was surprised that he knew my name, but I figured I had met him somewhere once and had forgotten about it. We had a nice conversation for a couple of minutes, and then I decided I should look for Franken, in case he was getting into any bad trouble at the granny cosmetician brothel.

Then I woke up.

Sox Blogging Returns: Alexei Ramirez Benched

Sophomore shortstop Alexei Nikita Gagarin Putin Ramirez has been slumping, so Ozzie Guillen has taken him out of the lineup for a while.

The Tribune reports:

"I’m not going to say this is the doghouse," Guillen said ... as far as we can tell.

Yeah, it's true that that guy is not easy to understand. Or as he'd say, "Dahgye ee noeez umstam. Nome saymg?"

Thanks, Trib, for translating, at any rate. Who says newspapers have no social value in today's market?

I imagine the actual interview sounded a little more like this:

Ayyayn sem dees no doghow. Hee no Smoopy omtop dere. Ha ha, 'Dis dark amstorm nigh.' Hey, Woobstog burr ... why I no hee curball nomo? Hawee gom weem gane?

Then, in an apparent mixup of Ozziness, Mr. Guillen screamed "SHARON!!!" and passed out.

It's, It's a Ballroom Blitz: Part Seven: It was 20 Years Ago Today

All right. By this point, in 1989, I was emotionally wrecked and exhausted. And by this point, in 2009, I'm more than a little bit tired and crabby. But, in the words of Samuel Beckett, "I can't go on, I'll go on."

As I said earlier, I'm telling this story from my point of view. And from my point of view, this story was over and finished when Pastor Dave canceled the Wesley Foundation benefit concert for The Public Address System.

It was the end of my direct involvement, at any rate. I was there, but I wasn't there ... if you get what I mean. My cash cow was dead from brucellosis, or bovine spongiform loose cannonitis. My crazy dreams of a big push over the top into publishing viability were dead. I had thought I had, within my imminent grasp, the capital infusion, and the big-time cultural happening, for Fame and Fortune ... and then that was yanked away from under my feet like a strip of wet terry cloth on a flooded bathroom floor.

My head hurt, and everything was foggy. So I don't have as lucid a recall from those post-cancellation days as pre. The next few days after the Obscene Rock Show Posters scandal aren't so clear. Luckily, JC Bureau Chief O.Ball has stepped up again to help out. But, first, here are my few recollections, as assisted by some things I affixed to paper and audio cassette tape at or near the time.

I was DJing a radio show at WKDI from 6 to 9 a.m. on Sunday mornings that semester. Probably the graveyardiest of graveyard shifts. The drunks were all asleep by then, and nobody with any sense was awake yet. I think I had approximately zero listeners.

Naturally, I let that allow me to do whatever the hell I wanted, from mixing Charles Manson folk songs with field recordings of the Jim Jones massacre to G.G. Allin played at 45 rpm mixed with John F. Kennedy speeches to rambling at length about whatever I felt that morning. More people, I am certain, have listened to my own cassette recordings, as captive audiences in my own apartments, of those shows than anyone ever did on their radios.

During my WKDI show for Sunday April 16, a certain No Eraser Head dropped by the Kishwaukee Hall studio for a visit. He later admitted to me that he was under the influence of LSD, but I didn't notice any difference from his usual self.

NEH took a seat in the news studio and strapped on a set of cans. (Headphones, to you non-radio-nerd types.) And we spent a good several minutes talking about what had just happened. Which I managed to preserve on tape, and which you can download and, if you so choose, listen to, thanks to the Internet (as part of the audio package offered in the footnote below).

The thing that stands out most to me now -- because I do hold a grudge -- is how unconcerned NEH was about the impact his and Squeaky's fun-fest had had on the newspaper. He was remorseful about fucking up Otis Ball's tour ... but I suspect strongly that that was because he had big designs on coattailery, and he didn't want to jeopardize that.

At any rate, I'm a passive-aggressive guy, not an active-aggressive one, so I sucked up the dismissal, the "Bah! The newspaper! That's secondary!" stuff. But I didn't really swallow it. That has stuck in my craw for two decades now. And it's kind of cathartic, frankly, to say so now.

Not that his feeling bad would have served any purpose. Other than for my fucked up ego. But if I'd felt better about things then, maybe ... well, speculation is worth little. Better to get back into what happened.

And what happened was that NEH decided to try to make good for Otis. And I thought that was fine, in general principle, but I still wasn't involved at all. It was very much an "OK, you take it" situation. And the last chapter of this story is what happened when NEH took it.

Time was short to accomplish any fixing, because Otis was heading back to Jersey very soon. So NEH, I don't know the details, set up a make-up show. He contracted with a local restaurant with a banquet ballroom in downtown DeKalb, Matthew Boone's, it was called, to serve as a venue. He called on the estimable Dr. Tulk (cannot praise Tulk enough, in any forum) to do sound. And he secured the bands from the original ill-fated Wesley show to play.

But, as I can recall, even after a lot of archive-digging and memory-mining, little or no promotion was done. I guess he was counting on word of mouth. The make-up show at Matthew Boone's was just a couple days away, on April 19th, and it was sickeningly obvious that that was not going to be enough time to get the word across, especially if promotional efforts consisted of nothing.

I still can't fathom the motivations. Was it to salvage some cash for Otis? Was it to save face somehow? I still can't see, hard as I try, how either of those things were going to happen, or how anyone could believe they would.

But, in spite of everything, the show went on. Hardly anyone showed up, and the bands, venue, and sound man all went unpaid, but there was a show.

That show has become known, among the cognoscenti, as The Ballroom Blitz.

I was there, but just as a spectator. I didn't have anything to do with anything. Didn't work the door, didn't work anything. Even paid to get in. One of the few. So, at this point, let's let Otis Ball tell the story of The Ballroom Blitz, itself.

Ready, Steve? Killer? Bouj? Alright, fellas. LET'S GO!

Twenty years on, it still took half a bottle of vodka to write this post. There we were. It was supposed to be the big homecoming show. But due to oppression beyond my control, it had been canceled. I was going back to Jersey on the 20th. The knuckleheads had less than a week to correct their mistake and book a make up show. To their credit, they did manage to get that together. Even suckered in Dale Tulk, soundman to the Dekalb/Sycamore stars. In hindsight, I wish they hadn't. He deserved better. But you play the Ball where it lies, so to speak. Or the Blitz, if you weel.

The big show was off. Apparently the Northern Illinois University campus was too delicate to withstand a promotion consisting of naked stick figures. They weren't even anatomically correct! But that post has been posted. Whether you're just joining us or you have been impatiently waiting for each new episode, I recommend you download the audio version of the backstory*

I suspect Stronger Than Newspaper Tom Lung may have some additional comments on this zip. I prefer to comment videologically.


Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah. April 19, 1989. A Wednesday night. Somehow, one Matthew Boone's event hall had been procured. I was tempted to say "rented," but that would have involved a deposit. Too bad about their lax business practices. It was an interesting venue for a rock show. To the best of my knowledge, it had never been used for a rock show before and CERTAINLY not since. (At least some of those involved learned valuable lessons on this day, though not all.) In hindsight, I'm sure it was nothing more than a dining hall for rent. But to those of us used to church basements, university commons and old man drinking clubs, it looked like a venue better suited to proms or weddings. My god, it was practically a ballroom! Disco ball included! (Which is not to be confused with a disco Ball. That would take us back to the late 70's and remove us from the story at hand.)

Kissyfish was driving down from Madison, the Chains were in their various Chicago area locales and I woke up in Dekalb. With a grapefruit lump in my gut. I had a bad feeling about the evening show. Not only was it booked on a weeks notice, but given the circumstances, let's just say that there was not a whole lot of promotion. And it was a Wednesday night to boot. And I sensed another boot could well be imminent, if we didn't watch all our P's and Q's. And stick figures.

Enough beating around the bush. We knew it wasn't gonna be the best Otis Ball & The Chains show. Christ, we had a pretty good idea it wouldn't even be the best of the tour. And it wasn't. That would be the IMSA show, discussed in the previous post. But goddamn it! There was a job to be done! I spent the afternoon with the Public Address System crew, which is documented in the PAS 23 mp3s [linked in the footnote below]. We were all understandably nervous for our own reasons. They needed a successful make up show to print the next edition. I coulda used some cash to get home and make up for taking two weeks off of work for a no budget homecoming tour. Thankfully the Cover Me With Roses cassette and T-shirt sales were doing fine. I was far more concerned about leaving my Dekalb reputation in tact. God knows why.

So we loaded in that afternoon. Kissyfish showed up, loaded in and we spent the afternoon pacing. Which changed not one thing of the impending show. Doors opened. $4 admission. Seemed overpriced to me, but I wasn't promoting the show. My concern was what happened on stage.

Good thing. Attendance was light early on. Not only did I know everybody, but between Kissyfish, OB&C and the PAS crew, we coulda handily defeated em in a fist fight. And that is not bragging about our collective pugilistic skills.

Kissyfish opened the show. I thought they were fine. But Ryan was not happy. More than once he apologized from the stage. I dunno why. They sounded just fine then and now. They opened with an excellent Hava Nagila. An arrangement I would blatantly steal over a decade later when asked to play at my cousin's wedding. They did a decent amount of their hits and a couple new songs, but ended after about a half hour. They were clearly feeling as nervous and unsure as I was feeling. The smell of curse was in the air.

Up next was No Eraser Head. One of the PAS crew. An old Dekalb pal. Soon to join me in Jersey and roadie for the OB&C midwest tour a year later. (I'm sick of saying "that's another story." Figure it out.)

NE was a unique performer. Like BB King, he couldn't play guitar and vocalize at the same time. Unlike BB King, he couldn't even play guitar. But that didn't stop him. Nor should it have. He did what he did and there was no one else doing anything similar. Before or since. He choose to use the first half of his set to both encapsulate the story of the show and do a greatest hits of his stand-up routine. All in about 5 minutes. For his second song, he performed a Stooges song backed by an old vaudeville routine. Rather than go into detail, I implore you to watch his entire set that night.


Under any other circumstances, I would have thought this No Eraser Head set was the greatest performance I had ever witnessed. But for the fact that the owner and/or manager of the venue had appeared with her two young children. She was looking for her money. Ironically from this anniversary vantage point, there could not have been more than 20 people in attendance. I knew she wasn't getting paid. The PAS crew knew she wasn't getting paid. Fuck, she probly knew she wasn't getting paid. Meanwhile, NE was playing a solo guitar version of I Wanna Be Yer Dog while two other gentlemen explained the definition of "To come" and smashed 78 rpm lacquer records over their heads. Me? I was curled up in a ball in a shadowed door jamb.

But now it was time. Might as well get this over with. I guess if ya gotta play a show, might as well throw in for the handful of friends who showed up. So Otis Ball & The Chains took to the stage one last time.

I guess we all knew this could be it. And it was. While Otis Ball & A Chains would play with A Kissyfish one year later, this collection of musicians and old friends would never gather again. Not all at once. Some attendees would disappear, never to be heard from again. (Steve Laux! Phone home!)

If this was a movie, (and someday it may be! All copyrights held by One O Ball and Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss!) the show would have been amazing, properly documented and hundreds would have been streaming in after the big football game let out. But that is not what happened. The attendees who were attending were already attending. We knew this was "a major loss for the band." (You are watching the accompanying videos, aren't you? I didn't upload em for my health!) And the video is very poor quality. But a rock show is a rock show. There are a lot of things I am lazy about. But when it comes to show time, well, it is show time.

And that is where our story does take a turn for the better. You see, while the audience was sparse, they were all hardcore. So they all acme prepared for The Request Bucket. TRB. An OB&C mainstay. (Along with acronyms.) At most shows, I would put out the bucket. Fans were invited to drop requests in the bucket. Not Otis Ball song requests. ANY song requests. And we aimed to please. The very first time The Request Bucket was employed, we got a request for a Metallica song. Leper Messiah. Well, we did not know Leper Messiah. So we made up a song on the spot. Called Leper Messiah. THAT is how The Request Bucket works.

This fucked up show was a financial disaster. It was not to be anything resembling an ego gratifying homecoming show. But thanks to the fifth member of the band, TRB, it was a success. My buddy Jody had been making notes for months. She came to the show armed with at least two dozen requests. The Associations' Windy! New York, New York! You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman! Green Acres! And someone requested Ballroom Blitz.

So the show happened. Which is more than we expected at the time, under the circumstances. And I do have to say, despite the doom hanging about two feet above the dance floor, despite the fact that NO ONE was making any money that night, despite the fact that we might never see each other again, we managed to end the night with the most triumphant rock moment Dekalb has ever seen. Or not seen in this case.

For the big finale, we called up Kissyfish to join us. We chose two very special covers and an anthem to end the night, the tour and the very special friendship all those in attendance were bonded by forever and always. As I did that night, I would like to dedicate these three songs, this rock and roll encore of all encores to all those on stage that night, all those in the audience and all of you who have joined us in this 20 year anniversary remembrance.

From Otis Ball and Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss, thank you, friends.

And now, finally, it has been told.

To follow, perhaps, an epilogue or two. We'll see.

Thanks for reading. Thank you very much.

-- Mr. Newspaper aka STDPM

___________

* The backstory Otis refers to here is a combination xerox and cassette zine I made in April 1990 called "The Pub ic Address System 23." The audio consists of WKDI broadcasts, various musical interludes, and acoustic solo Otis Ball songs in reference to the event in question. It is available at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D6F1KOZB.

It's appropriate, I think, to relegate what I call "PAS 23" to a footnote. It was my first post-mortem on the fiasco, put together about one year afterward. It was also my first xerox zine. Here's the cover:



And here, from that zine, is my ... er, Mr. Newspaper's ghost writer's ... first one-page attempt at telling this story.



Plus, just for you, here is a little bonus. With each of the 23 copies I made of PAS 23 (about 16 of which were distributed to various very important people), I got Squeaky himself to draw a different unique obscene drawing in his own unique obscene style, and to number and autograph them on the back side. So, to finish this horrible epic, why not close with that? Here's one example of what made this all so possible, complete with autographed backside.

It's, It's a Ballroom Blitz: Part 6.1: It's, It's an IMSA Blitz

In the words of Chuckie Baby Barris, here we are, back with more ... stuff.

The big DeKalb show was dead, but the rock kept on rolling elsewhere. Specifically, about 45 minutes down I-88 in lovely Aurora. Thanks to Jersey City CBRAT bureau chief, One O. Ball, here's a multimedia sidebar. Since I didn't, unfortunately, make this scene myself, personally, we'll give Otis the floor to tell you all about it:

To is a preposition. IMSA is an acronym. Stands for Illinois Math and Science Academy. And home of the greatest captive audience you will ever find.

The first Otis Ball & The Chains show ever was at IMSA. April 11, 1987. Me, Killer and my drum machine. Couldn't ask for a finer debut. IMSA was a high school academy for the finest and brightest minds Illinois had to offer. A live-in high school for the cream of the crop of IL students. My on again/off again guitarist Steve was an advisor/counselor there. Thanks to nepotism, I was often invited to perform at the in house entertainment gala, Club Pseudo. (side note - I wanted to name my debut album Club Pseudo. But the label rejected it.)

I videotaped my Charles Manson's Birthday video at IMSA. We even played a New Year's Eve party at IMSA. (The students were home for the holidays and we had the whole place to ourselves.) I made some good friends at IMSA. The Dunham twins, Dave Cung and, of course, my webmeister extraordinaire, Derek Wolfgram. Derek started the Otis Ball website before I even had a computer. I owe that man more than I could ever repay. Plenty more IMSA goofballs, too numerous to mention.

On April 16, 1989, Otis Ball & The Chains returned to IMSA with Kissyfish. Almost two years to the date of the first show. By this point, the big Dekalb show had been canceled. There was no telling if another venue would be found for a make-up show. For all we knew, this might have been the last show of the tour. And I got pink eye. Literally adding injury to insult.

But this show was, without question, the best show of the tour. Both bands were well on top of their respective games. Kissyfish not only led a magnificent game of Bison, Bison, Yak, but held a dance contest with the winners awarded a date with a member of the band. They played all the hits and it was well worth the drive from New Jersey just to see them play this show.

But there was more. Otis Ball & The Chains were on the bill. And we rocked. The request bucket was full and Kissyfish were there to watch our backs. We played well over two hours, including an acoustic set in which I was backed by Kissyfish Minus One.

I could gush on, but a video paints a thousand words. In honor of the 20th anniversary of this IMSA show, I have posted almost 40 minutes of it on YouTube. But this is not quite the end of our story. Please join me and Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss this Sunday, April 19, for the conclusion of our story, It's, It's a Ballroom Blitz.

It’s, It’s a Ballroom Blitz: Part 6: Pastor Dave’s Vengeance: They Were “Gross” and She Did Not Like Them: “Very funny fellas. Who you workin’ for?”

Imagine how the students, faculty, and staff of Northern Illinois University must have felt on Monday morning, April 10, 1989. Imagine waking bright and early, as always, ready for another day of learnin’ and educatin’. Imagine rollin’ out of your fluffy dorm bunk bed and wipin’ the sleep from your innocent little eyes, or staggerin’ off the futon in your crappy boarding house room and kickin’ the cat shit out of the way, or joltin’ awake in your flea-bitten armchair in the clothes you were wearing last night and cursin’ the dawn in your firetrap apartment converted from substandard housing built for immigrant barbed-wire factory laborers in the late 19th century and draggin’ your dispirited carcass down to the heart of campus and bein’ greeted by ...

Penises! Tuchuses and nay-nays! Stick figure hermaphrodites! Evil, evil cartoons! Giant posters of three-titted and two-dicked freaks! Shameful, wicked, and disturbing images everywhere, all around! Why? Why?? And who and what? But especially -- Why???

There must have been hundreds, thousands of Munchian screamers running around in dazzled circles that morning in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Mall.

I can only imagine. I slept late that day, as usual. Or I tried to. I was shocked into consciousness around, I dunno, let’s say 10 a.m., by my most hated enemy, the telephone. The Stickler answered it, and I was able to tell tout de suite that it was not a happy fun call. This suspicion was confirmed within a minute or two, when The Stickler started crying.

It was Pastor Dave -- our man at the Wesley Foundation -- and he was not his usual cheerful self. Pastor Dave, in fact, was not happy at all. Pastor Dave was angry. Pastor Dave was disappointed, chagrined, and dismayed. Pastor Dave had had it with those crazy kids at The Public Address System.

The verdict came suddenly, and it was blunt. The Otis Ball & The Chains, Kissyfish, No Eraser Head, Dude, Slut Kings et al. show scheduled for Friday was off. No show. Canceled. Kiboshed. Plug pulled, with extreme prejudice.

Furthermore, there would never be another Public Address System show at the Wesley. Ever. Never, ever, never. The Public Address System and its irresponsible, untrustworthy proponents were banned from the Wesley Foundation for eternity. Excommunicated, effective immediately.

After all the other problems we’d had with our shows -- kids smuggling in booze and weed, kids fighting and stealing stuff, weird band names rankling various Christers and Christees -- the Loose Cannons’ promotional orgy from the previous night was the last straw. Pastor Dave was actually sorry to do it, he said. He said he knew The Stickler wasn’t to blame, but unfortunately she -- as The Public Address System’s main contact person with the Wesley -- had to take the heat.

Pastor Dave himself had been under the gun all morning. I’m sure he didn’t have a good day at the office at all. Not only did he have to field angry, yelly phone calls from the university administration, as well as angry, yelly phone calls from his employers, the Wesley’s board of directors, he was taking shit left and right from just about everyone.

And soon enough, so were The Stickler and Mr. Newspaper.

It wasn’t long before the phone started ringing off the hook again. I sure wasn’t going to answer it. They didn’t want to talk to me anyway -- poor The Stickler was who they were after. It was the shitheels at the official campus newspaper, and they’d gotten The Stickler’s name from Pastor Dave. So it fell on The Stickler to do some damage control with the press, which I think she did about as well as could have been done, under the circumstances. And she had the advantage of being personally blameless, or very nearly.

Here is a scan of the story that ran a few days later (click on the picture for a larger, readable version):



Actually, I don’t remember if it happened that fast. I know for sure that the posters were torn down very quickly, and not too long after that -- possibly not until the middle of the week -- the show was shitcanned. At any rate, after the student reporter’s interview, the scandal was pretty much over with, as far as The Stickler and Mr. Newspaper’s direct involvement. Other than, of course, having to attend journalism classes for the rest of the semester under the disapproving gaze of their professors, TAs, and fellow students. (Mr. Newspaper still managed to graduate from the NIU Journalism Department with high honors, and today works at an undisclosed location in a relatively secure and punk-rock-free niche of the media world, but I digress.)

For other involved parties, the trouble was just getting going.

I did field one phone call during the ongoing fracas that week. I couldn’t dodge that one; it was meant specifically for me.

It was Otis on the line. And in place of “Hello,” what Otis said was “WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!?!”

“Homina homina homina” was about all I got out before Otis started laughing, and I heard the trademark deranged giggle of Squeaky in the background. Apparently No Eraser Head was there, too, but I don’t recall any direct audible evidence.

Squeaky and NEH were, understandably, afraid of possible discipline from the university, since it had been made known that Student Judicial Officer Larry Bolles (picture Dean Vernon Wormer as played by Bernie Mac) was researching the double-secret (seriously, nobody was ever allowed to see a copy of it -- I always suspected it didn’t really exist) NIU Student Judicial Code for possible charges and punishments. And, although I’m still not convinced they were capable of any degree of what reasonable people would call true remorse, they knew, deep down, that they were Guilty.

They didn’t want to get busted, but they wanted to see if they could make things better, if not entirely well. So they paid Officer Bolles a visit, incognito, to see if they could find out what any possible terms of surrender would be, without actually admitting anything, or even divulging their names.

NEH or Squeaky could probably tell this part of the story better -- or at least they could have 20 years ago, since they were there, and I wasn’t. But, by now, my memory of their description of this meeting is probably about as lucid and complete as anything we could get out of them today.

At any rate, Bolles wasn’t having any of it. And he saw right through their “we’re just curious noninterested third parties here, not any hunks of plastic explosive shoved down a gopher hole or nothing, just a couple of friendly squirrels” ruse.

“Very funny, fellas,” Bolles said. “Very funny.”

“We’re not saying we did it,” Squeaky and NEH bravely contended. “And we don’t even know who did. We’re just curious as to what the charges might be.”

“Well,” Bolles countered, “If you didn’t do it, and you don’t know who did it, then what business is it of yours what the charges are?”

Check and mate. But Bolles wasn’t finished.

“I will say that, whoever did this -- and I ain’t saying you did it -- is in a whole lotta trouble. A whole lotta trouble.”

Bolles still wasn’t finished.

“Now, are you `Otis’? No? Are you `Otis’? Well, who you workin’ for? Huh? Who you workin’ for? Are you workin’ for `Otis’?”

At this point, NEH and Squeaky had had enough of the third-degree fire-hose hot-lights treatment, so they got the hell out of there.

Eventually, it turned out that there was nothing in the Judicial Code to charge anyone with. There were no provisions covering obscene rock-show posters, or obscene anything, or anything else analogously germane to the bad acts in question. Once this became clear, one of our Loose Cannons ginned up the nerve to write to the official student paper, more or less fessing up and offering an example of his own inimical defensive style:



And by then, that was about that. The Obscene Rock-Show Poster scandal, along with the spring semester, was pretty much over and done with.

But none of this explains why this mammoth story has been titled “It’s, It’s a Ballroom Blitz.” For that, you have to tune in for Part Seven.