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With Ourselves: Shag Carpet

I was spanking Doldruth's bottom with a metal spoon, because it always seemed to go over so well since our bass player at that point was a woman who looked like a man dressed as a man dressed as a woman. Yes, all very Blake Edwards, but it never stopped the cheering, because there was always a lot of sexual tension to wank off on those Saturday nights. Bold, the drummer, was even being an ass by sticking or I should say wrapping his drumsticks in condoms. When he went into a heavy metal roll, they were like Jello bouncing up to the low lights sometimes, but if he missed a beat, and there was only the bass to back us, it sounded artistic most of the time and we got away with it.

It was the second year of Shag Carpet. We were playing With Ourselves. Yeah, I know, ha, ha, well, that's what the guy who owned but didn't run (didn't do any fucking thing!) it thought because he used to be a drummer in a band everybody's heard of but no one wants to repeat, and he loved the joke it made on bands. He didn't care that the audience never ever seemed to get it, but when you come up to a dude and say "Where you playing?" "We're playing With Ourselves," he answers, well, it just made the old rich asshole's day 7 times a week.

We'd been making some good money. Had two CD teasers out. They weren't full CDs but they cost around $7 and they sold, so I guess no one cared that we couldn't come up with anything over 20 minutes per recording. Anyway, it was the first time we'd been to With Ourselves, and as I said, the spoon went over great. They all wanted to rape Doldruth. She took on as many as she could privately, individually. The two rooms in the back for bands were too flimsy to keep out any interesting sounds. The shoddier the shag, the worse she played though, and there was a time there I went into an immediate and blustery depression whenever I saw a real wart looking guy sneaking into her private realm. So we matched. I sang lousy, and she couldn't keep up with the thrashing chords.

We had some fights. And this was back when we had no keyboard, it was just two of us on guitars. Other guy - and I can't even remember his name now, it was so many people ago; I'll just call him Person for this lesson - would get in on it. The kind of guy who gave you his opinion whether it mattered or not. Or whether he was asked. He had that straight kind of stare black people use to straighten their hair with. So sometimes, when I complained about a bang she had, we would bitch and scream and "fuck!!!" until it drove the audience half crazy for us to get out there on stage.

After we'd done half the set that night, I was still fresh from one of our screaming episodes. Doldruth had a really lousy lay that night; I guess the guy had come before she'd put her pick down and he wanted her to do something really nasty with a can of Play-Dough he had with him which really got her armpit hair up. She was all ready, and all she got a pick full of promise.

I was yelling because she should be more professional. She was yelling the usual about minding my own Jesus Christ business. Person was on her side, with the freedom of speech and act thing, and Bold was hopping between my side and the majority, wishing we could "get through all this negative energy".

Well, it seemed like we were going to go at it all night if we had to, because I kept saying I had to take a wicked one, and it started up a whole new argument about what if I wasn't allowed to take a wicked one before the next set because it might interfere with my voice. And I came back with "I wish my opening was that large!" but it didn't help, and soon we were all in the bathroom, staring at something weird until all the voices died down.

First came laughter. Then I shook the door to the pay toilet, and when it didn't come loose, I shook harder and we all stopped laughing.

"They're going to pay us?" Bold said wrongly. "I mean, make us fucking pay?"

There was a lull in things, until I heard the audience starting back up. Seems like the M.C. was promising something we weren't prepared to deliver. Well, I didn't even think about change. For the can. It was the principle of the slavery to me!

Still, the second half was about the rockin'ness you can get if you need to know the truth. All of us jumping around, the piss making us angry. Really having to go, each and every one of us.

After a half hour, I took off the guitar from around my neck, and signaled to the old drummer sitting in the dark.

"Gimme an expensive account."

"You know the rules," he said with extra air escaping, like I was insulting him. "Did I tell you about when I blew soap bubbles for the Grateful Dead when -"

"Yes!"

God, I had to piss!

I looked around. The other Shag Carpeters were huddled together like they were expecting some kind of flash flood. I turned my gaze to - yes! The customers' bathrooms!

I signaled the band over, and we crouched down for a cool second to discuss matters. Breaking, we all went into shadowy corners. Then we crawled along the wall until we came to a door. We met in the bathroom.

"I think it's some way of getting out of those free drinks he's owing, and in the contract," Person said.

Then I suggested something stupid as they were all heading for separate urinals. What Doldruth was going to do, I had no idea.

"Come on!" I waved them to a crapper that had a lock on the door, and we squirmed in. "For revenge. Stuff the scarves down. Do it!" You see, we all always carried a scarf on our person at that point in our career. It could always be seen by the audience. Why did we do it? Did anyone ever notice? I would say "who knows", but telling you that we dropped that gimmick soon after this episode should tell you it mattered like shit to a vacationing priest, and to our careers.

I took all four scarves and stuffed them down the toilet. The water was uncommonly clean. Well, uncommon for clubs full of smokers, and the blob was already doing its magic. I flushed just to make sure.

Bold tried the door. It jiggled. It didn't come open. I jiggled. It didn't come open. We shouted, and now it was three to one against me for a change, and I was getting a headache from all the sound, if you can believe that.

I had to shit really bad a half hour later. By the dim light of the faces of the rest of them crowded next to me, I could tell this was a thought shared by all. No one squatted. We were too shy to do anything about it.

The man who swept the floors came in about 4.

But he was a lazy bastard, and didn't bother with the men's room that night.

6 a.m. I tried to fart without doing damage.

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