How To Make A Stink.

[Note: I wrote this last night. I'm posting it now. Yar.]

It's 3 in the morning, I have to work at 8 in the morning but fuck it, I woke up at 6PM yesterday. Fuck it. I haven't worked in almost 2 weeks, I'm growing a beard, life is hilarious.

I was in bed, trying to sleep like a fool when I began to think of Cleveland. And smoking. And shows.

The Dark/Halcyon days of smoking at shows in Cleveland... you guys can make the call on whether it was 'Dark' or 'Halcyon' and I might tell you that you're WRONG.

I remember when I was in 7th grade --not anywhere near the enlightened, righteous dude I am today, mind you-- going to shows at the old Peabody's in the Flats. Cryptkicker shows. One thing I remember --besides the sick strobe light mosh-- was the smell. It was B.O., not normal B.O., but Show B.O. There's just something different about it, like the sheer weight of angry, white retards (and that one random black dude with the swastika tattoo) created a whole other breed of stink, like coal being squeezed into diamond, 44 karats of stench.

B.O. wasn't the only ingredient in the alchemy of show stink; beer was another key additive. Spraying all over the place, mixing up on the floor with the dirt and the ash into a slurry which along with the heat and B.O. got a garbage vibe going on; beer was key.

So now you had monster B.O., heat and beer. Sort of a hot yellow/brown, if you were to begin attaching a color while disregarding the piss/shit connotations of the combination, because it wasn't piss or shit: it was a Show.

All of the previously-mentioned is perfectly available at a show in this day and age --though one would hope you were going to better shows at better venues by now-- but again, we're missing something: cigarette smoke. Lots of it, so much that you didn't even think you could breathe or see or begin to even think about watching another minute AND IT'S ONLY THE 3RD BAND OUT OF 7. [To any younger readers who never caught a show at the old Peabody's: Yes, even 10 years ago at a different location Peabody's had shows with 18 billion bands, it never changes.]

With the smoke you could see the lights, see the air shift around according to the action, see all kinds of shit. It dulls the stink, sharpens the stench, GENERATES SOME FUCKING AMBIANCE.

Then someone --I don't know, maybe the black dude with the possible W.P. ties?-- lit a Black & Mild, and the whole thing got sexy.

... I try-ee-i-ee-ieddd to quit smoking for today and lasted about 2 hours before I realized 2 things:

1. My hand-me-down nicotine patches expired in 2003. How in the fuck did I quit with them in 2007? Ultimate argument for the placebo effect, I suppose.

2. I'll quit smoking when I'm in Prison, Pregnant or Perished. One of those Possibilities are definitely going down, the other is Pretty imProbable and the other? ImPossible.

Yeah, I got that pXe. And I have to work in 3 hours. Excellent.