S(p)itting In With The Band
A couple of weeks ago I let a guy sit in with us. I never met him before, but I could tell by
the way he talked that he's been around, and he was respectful when he asked if he could
get up on one of out breaks and play my acoustic.
So I told him he could do two songs, and he did, and he was good too.
I got to enjoy the guy's playing and see what my guitar and PA sounded like out in the
crowd. So after being convinced that he didn't suck, I let him play out the rest of my break.
He was a big fat hairy guy and he began sweating like a pig as he played.
When break was over I thanked him, he thanked me, and then he handed me my guitar.
It felt like he'd sprayed Pam on the friggin thing!
It was all buttery and greasy on the fret-board and sticky on the pick guard like he'd just
jacked-off a mule or something.
So I took a huck-towel and wiped it off.
Luckily, I keep several huck-towels around on stage.
I go to the auto parts store and buy a big pack of those towels you wash your car with.
They're perfect for when you're singing and you have to huck one up.
I've seen BB King do this for years. He's always hawking and hucking between and even
during songs into these towels.
He may be the King of the blues, but he's also the Headmaster Of Hucking.
He's great at pretending he's just wiping up sweat with them, but one time at Lowell
Auditorium I saw him cough up a lizard or something. Then he looked at it, and it moved.
Anyways... I wiped the Pam-glue off my Gibson and went back to work.
THEN in the middle of the first song my lips brushed up against the foam windscreen on my
microphone... And I felt something gooey!
I pulled my head back and looked.
The bastard had spewed up a clam! Right there on my microphone!
It looked like a cross between some sort of chowder or a batch of ostrich sperm or
something.
I knew I must have got some of that on my lip, and it made my stomach curdle and my skin
shrink.
I forgot where I was in the song, flubbed up the chords, forgot the lyrics, and spazzed out.
I retched, and then I ripped the foam wind screen off of the mike and threw it on the floor.
I had to resist the urge to stamp on it like a cockroach.
Grabbing my trusty huck-towel, I gave my mouth a good scrubbing and sucked down an
entire scotch and soda with one gulp to kill the bugs. I had to finish the set worrying about
where that fat bastard's mouth had been.
It was horrifying!
It was almost like I had been making out with the guy!!!
God knows what kind of hoof and mouth disease he might have given me!
During the next break I took the wind screen into the men's room and washed it in hot water
and some of that squeezy soap for about five minutes.
When I got back that hairy sweaty spooge-mouthed hippo asked if he could sit in again.
I told him there was an agent in the room checking us out, "sorry."
So remember to be careful who you let sit in, and bring a spare microphone and some
Lysol to every gig.