It’s always one of those late November afternoons-those nasty gray days-that I’m up in the attic, searching for those goddamn holiday decorations.
Bloated from the gluttony of a long Thanksgiving weekend, reeling from far too many birthday toasts launched and sank, I inevitably find myself dizzy and set back on my haunches in that dusty crawlspace clutching a hopelessly tangled ball of Christmas lights:
a Medusa’s head tipped in green and red.
Along with the lights, hastily ripped down and thrown in a garbage bag at the start of this year, I find a short note I wrote at the bottom of the bag.
It is a note that starts out as simple instructions for putting the lights up again (start with female end-duh!– on northwest awning. Don’t use the extension ladder, you’ll kill yourself!) —but the scrawl soon turns introspective, a letter to my future self.
I write these notes on a morning just after the new year, time to pack away the holidays and get on with the business at hand.
These little messages tend to be as much a plea for moderation-Let’s keep away from the Jager this season-remember the Christmas party and the duck pond, hmm? – as a wishlist of sorts for the coming year.
The gentle admonishments soon turn to snarky commentary:
Yer not still working at that hellhole I hope? Sheesh, this year was a bitch!
….and howsabout laying off the pasta tubby?!
And that band, ya still playing gramps?
And then the note ends, as always, with an order to get those lights up and adjourn to K.C. Branigan’s for four Imperial pints and a fatty corned beef sandwich: Mercy at the last.
Heh.
And so goes another year past with your old pals.
So before we rip down the tinsel and get ready for Lent, let’s look back at the thing we shall know as 2012:
The year started off slow and easy, a couple local gigs and then the gala OC Music Awards.
Finally! –they’re gonna reward our genius, is that what yer saying?
Sadly, no, but they saw fit to recognize our dear friend Rodney Bingenheimer with a deserved award, and we were lucky enough to play a song in his honor.
A one song set and free beer & sausages backstage?
Known in the busness as a win-win!
The vernal equinox comes and goes, and we are surrounded by dozens of raw eggs standing on tiptoe as Record Store day arrives in Seal Beach!
It’s at the dear departed Left of the Dial that we set up shop, and although they no longer grace our sterile community they have found new, far more hospitable digs at the Santana location–go see em, ya nuts!
Record stores became a recurring theme to our year, and we are now veterans at playing to disinterested bums under fluorescent lighting and sneaking booze around in Gatorade bottles.
Many thanks to our pals at TKO Rcords in the Valley of Fountain, as well as Fingerprints in the LB!
Speaking of records, guess what? We made one!
Yeah, I know by now you are sick of seeing our shameless self promotion,
proud as a newly toilet-trained toddler stumbling through the cocktail party with a freshly birthed poo in the bucket….. but c’mon!
We don’t do this often, let us have our fun!
Many thanks to scrappy Hostage Records for working with us on the new release, and putting up with our outrageous demands for fresh cut lillies in the studio each day as well as a nacho cheese fountain for Alf…!
The touring was easy, simple 4 or 5 nighters that left nerves shattered by their concentrated intensity.
Texas, Louisiana, Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, etc– these are the places that put up with our hijinks for the agreed upon hours, and then rightfully kicked our ass across border, someone else’s problem now.
Good times…!
Weekend of the year award, though, must go to a nutty little jaunt we took midsummer up to the wilds of Winnipeg.
Long had it been sice we visited that hearty outpost, and our return found the place to be in fine spirits indeed!
Great to catch up with Mark Stretcher and Matt the groupie, and although we had to help them up the stairs a few times and cut their food for them, they seemed to be holding up fine….. for gentlemen of that age!
Our tour of the finer Injun drinking establishments made for a busy weekend, let me tell ya!
Alright then, let’s crunch some numbers, shall we?
In terms of the ol blog that lights up the smudgy ipad yer holding in your grimy paws at the moment, we had a wacky 21 thousand visitors to the page.
And –again!- not one of you could be bothered with clicking through and buying a shirt or even a sticker for Mom’s minivan—c’mon now!
The most poplular entry for the year was our in depth look at the religion of of Ramen, again showing that the CH3 audience is ironic or cheap, probably both when it comes down to their food porn.
In other statistics, we played a measly 27 shows for the year, traveled 12 thousand miles, drank 510 gallons of shitty domestic pilsner and ate the sodium and fat equivalent of half a herd of wild swine.
Whew!
And now we stand at the edge of a new year, a year full of hope and promise.
Fresh as a clean PeeChee in September, graffiti-ed not yet by the scribbled diagram of peni nor mammary that will surely befoul it by graduation day.
It’s time to drag that pine needled cactus out to curb and unplug the lights.
And this year, we’ll take down the decorations with care and package them gently as a favor to our older, wiser selves of December 2013.
…..nah, fuck that, lets get this shit down and hit the bar, got me?
And when we jot down our note to be thrown in with the lights, thoughts and hopes to be sealed away in that dark triangle upstairs for another 4 seasons, we’ll write a hopeful p.s. at the bottom:
–and that band — Ya still doing it or did ya finally grow up?
The CH3 Blog 