Beating on a Hollow Log with a Bone: A Conversation with Indie Rock Veteran BillyDave Wammo

By Bob Freville

In 1997 I was fishing through a used CD bin at my local record store when I came across an album with song titles like “Homage to the Ramones,” “This May Sound Kind of Weird” and “Children of the Corn Nuts.”

As a lifelong Ramones fanatic and fat little weirdo, I was immediately drawn in, both by the song titles and the wild cover of a snarling, bearded face emerging from the chest of a boy in a Batman costume. The album was Fat Headed Stranger and the artist was Wammo.

The bizarre and relentless melange of indie rock, thrashing guitar cords, wild verbosity and general dissonance had my head spinning over and over again. It got to the point where I wore my CD out from having it in constant rotation.

Alas, the Fat Headed Stranger was the last time I would hear from Wammo for quite some time. It wasn’t until years later when the Internet grew into the encyclopedic behemoth that it is today that I got another taste of the man and his maniacal brilliance.

Thanks to platforms like the once-great Morpheus and then YouTube I discovered Wammo’s other projects. As it turned out, Wammo had continued to churn out a variety of raw jams with the aid of Asylum Street Spankers, an Austin rock band that blended blues, folk and other weirdness into a humorous stew.

In 2011, they were honored with the 10^th Annual Independent Music Awards’ Gospel award for God’s Favorite Band, a title whose irony couldn’t have been lost on Wammo and Co. The band released 16 albums between 1995 and 2014 before Wammo called it quits.

Since then I had gone searching for the Fat Headed Stranger on YouTube and similar sites, but the most my searches yielded were a few clips of drunken live performances, each of which made my black heart yearn for more of the man behind Faster Than the Speed of Suck.

Fortune smiled upon me when I recently punched his name into Soundcloud on a whim. My bloodshot eyes were met by a strange sobriquet…none other than BillyDave Wammo. What awaited me on his page made my fat heart swell to the point where I had to pop an extra Metroprolol with my mid-afternoon lager.

The Fat Headed Stranger was, indeed, alive and well, kicking out the jams like they raw dogged his best friend’s sister. There are so many saucy tracks that I don’t even know where to start (“Smokey & the Band Itch” obviously), but I’ll lead with this—BillyDave Wammo is muse-sick at its finest.

“I Couldn’t Be Happier” finds the songwriter losing his shit over his inability to choose a stripped down approach to crafting a simple song. In it the listener gets all of Wammo’s trademark manic energy along with a humble tribute to the musical greats of old.

“Trash” is another example of proto-Wammo weirdness with an acoustic intro spazz-out that segues into electronic Gonzo, eventually delivering some of his smoothest vocals to date.

“I Never Liked Bob Seger” recalls his debut album’s meditation on the superfluity of Charles Bukowski while “I Got Your Pipeline Right Here, Pal” evokes Beck at his early, crunchy best. It is also one of his trippiest and most savage joints since Fat Headed Stranger.

The refrain of “More me and less of you” perfectly sums up the agenda of America’s leadership. “BURN ALL COPIES” is equally weird and relevant in its send up of our times.

There is something decidedly bohemian about Wammo even while he lampoons the bohemians and the bureaucrats alike. His lyrics and spirit drip with a good-humored sarcasm that seems to betray a very authentic patriotism.

The austerity of the songwriter is evident in his choruses, especially when you crank “Smokey & the Band Itch” and he jaws about the simple things in life, like knockin’ boots with ice cream sandwiches.

Whether riffing on the golden age of blues or the syrupy sounds of Sly & The Family Stone, Wammo takes us on a thrilling trip through the Great American Songbook with attitude and humor to burn.

 

That attitude and humor is a mainstay with BillyDave, an awesome cloud that never lifts even in conversation. As I noted when we finally sat down to shoot the shit, Wammo is always fired up.

Bob Freville: So first things first, I fell skull over skater shoes for your album “Fat Headed Stranger” when I was a teenager and it’s one CD that was on such constant spin that it literally scratched itself up, as if to tell me to take a break from your particular brand of madness. Would you say the spirit of that first album is a through line in all of your music to date? I feel like your Soundcloud track “Trash” is definitely cut from that same cloth.

BillyDave: First of all, thank you for listening to my work. In this age where everything everyone creates (or even anti-creates) is so instantly accessible, it means a lot that anyone is paying attention to what I do. The roots of “Trash” date back to my old band, Clang, that performed around Austin in the late ‘80s.

Don’t look for any recordings. We cut a 4-track demo once but I don’t think you can find it anywhere online. There was another band called Clang that showed up later. Maybe they have some recordings you could listen to and think of me.

As far as Fat Headed Stranger being a “through line” for all of my music, I don’t have the foggiest notion. Making that record was such a strange experience. The head of the record label was constantly and aggressively trying to edit my writing throughout that process. I love that record but I had to make quite a few compromises and cut some of the songs and/or poems that I thought truly belonged there. That doesn’t take anything away from the finished product, I still dig that album.

Obviously you were part of the 90s music scene in Austin, a place that’s still recognized as an aural hub today. When did you decide to leave that scene and why? I understand you live in Pittsburgh now.

I left Austin in 2011 because my wife (at the time) had a business in Pittsburgh and my band had broken up. Now she and I are split but my daughter lives here, so here I stay.

How does the music scene in PA differ from Texas? Is it better or worse in any ways?

There is no local music scene in Pittsburgh, as compared to Austin. It’s pretty much impossible to make a living in this town as a musician, unless you work for the symphony. It’s very much a sports town. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some cool bands from this town, it’s just that most of them aren’t getting paid shit.

I knew you as Wammo back in the day, but now you go by BillyDave Wammo. Was there a conscious rationale behind the name expansion?

Yes, there was…

Another of your more recent tracks that stands out to me is “I Couldn’t Be Happier.” It seems to be the one Wammo song, save for your Batman tribute from years ago, that really serves as a tribute to the musical greats of yesteryear. How did this song come about? I’m very curious to know more about your creative process, especially as it concerns a song that’s so self-deprecating about that process.

I belong to an online songwriting group, we get a prompt once a week and we use that prompt in a song. It’s a lot of fun. That piece came from the prompt, “looking for a fight,” plus you got extra credit that week if you screamed. I recorded all of the vocals for that piece in my car.

I was in a CVS parking lot when I got the email containing the prompt, so I improvised all of the vocals right then and there, sitting in the driver’s seat. The funny thing was, there was a cop standing outside the drugstore. He was looking right at me while I was screaming like a maniac into my phone. I thought I might get busted for being a lunatic. He looked rather concerned.

Some of your newer stuff is a little darker and more savage than your earlier work. I’m thinking of “I Got Your Pipeline Right Here, Pal” and “BURN ALL COPIES.” Is that just symptomatic of the age we’re living in or was it a choice you made to mix things up?

Everything I create is a reflection of where I am at a specific moment. I don’t do a lot of editing. I make choices on the fly. Pretty much everything I do stems from improv. I am very much a “lightning in the bottle” kind of guy. Burn All Copies came from a collaboration I did with my buddy, Bruce Salmon, who played guitar in Clang. He’s the one who got me into the songwriting group, then we collaborated on “Burn All Copies” for that group. See how things come full circle?

I know you’re big on impromptu performances, having caught a couple of your live gigs on YouTube. And your music has always smacked of a certain spontaneity, but you also strike me as a dude who’s way too smart for that not to be at least a little bit artifice. Do you really sort of riff and freestyle or does your music take time to incubate?

First of all, fuck you for making me look up the definition of “artifice.” This is the part of the interview where I would write “LOL”, if I did that sort of thing.

I improvise a lot. When I actually write things down, the words usually come to me in a flurry. I very rarely edit my work. Usually I am taking dictation from some twisted voice in my brain. As far as writing music goes, I have quite a few different processes. Sometimes I’ll get an idea and sing it into the voice memo app on my phone. Sometimes I’ll open up GarageBand, record something real quick and set it aside for later. Other times I’ll start and not stop until the deed is done.

What is the worst gig you can remember? Please describe if you can.

Dude. There are so many. Listen to “Gig From Hell” by my old band, Asylum Street Spankers. I wrote a major chunk of that piece. https://youtu.be/kyDndwALGMg

As a fan of your diss tracks where you take people like Bukowski and Bob Seger down a peg, I’d love to know who you think would win in a cage match – Hunter S. Thompson or Ted Nugent?

My friend and fellow poet, Danny Solis and I used to play that game all of the time. “Who would win in a fight between Godzilla and 50 foot tall Shelley Winters?” As far as Gonzo vs. The Nuge goes, it really depends on what they are allowed to bring into the cage. If firearms are allowed, it’s pretty much a dead heat. If they are armed with only a pen, I’ll take Thompson by a mile.

As far as “diss tracks” go, I usually don’t give a hard time to anyone who’s work I don’t respect in some form or another. Sure, I might give Bob Seger some grief but I also dig some of his songs. I really took the piss out of Billy Idol on Fat Headed Stranger but that’s because it was the punk rock thing to do. In my generation, it was uncool to express admiration for any artist that made obvious moves to gain commercial success.

Don’t get me wrong, that first Generation X album kicks ass. It still holds up as a great rock ‘n’ roll album. I just couldn’t say that after Billy became a solo hit on Mtv. Check out the Gen X album, BBC in Concert (11 May 1978). Man, they sound like cousins of The Damned.

I can talk about it now but there was a time in Austin where everyone was so punk rock, anything you were excited about was treated with disdain by your peers. You couldn’t say, “I love Black Flag” or “I hate Black Flag” or even, “Fuck Black Flag.” You could only say, “Black Flag.”

You’re one of the most colorfully literate rock songwriters I can think of. Would you say literature is as important as music? Should millennials be grabbing an eBook of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” instead of downloading Yeezy’s new album on iTunes?

I haven’t read that book and I’ve never heard that artist’s music, so I am at an extreme disadvantage to that comparison. That being said, both music and literature are equally important. There really is no way to measure one against the other. They flow together and fight and make love and piss each other off and make up again.

There has always been someone trying to get attention by pounding rhythm on an instrument and there has always been someone trying to get attention with whatever verbal bullshit they can come up with. You know there had to be a caveman, who was trying to get a cavewoman to sniff him out by grunting whatever syllables he could muster and at the same time, there was another guy beating on a hollow log with a bone, vying for the attention of the same cavewoman. Of course, it might have been the guy painting on the cave walls that ended up winning her burning glance.

Are ice cream sandwiches really one of life’s simple pleasures? Are they enough to sustain life?

I don’t know if one can live on ice cream sandwiches alone and I don’t think I want to try but they certainly are a wonderful invention.

What would you say your proudest moment as an artist has been?

That’s a tough one. Once I brought a child into the world, I experienced pride in a different way. There are so many incredible moments I have experienced as an artist, it’s difficult to say which has affected me the deepest. Some that come to mind are: coming 0.2 of a point from winning the first National Poetry Slam I ever attended, finishing the two-year recording process that became Faster Than The Speed Of Suck and receiving an award for a drawing I made in second grade called, “The Meanest Man In The World.”

What have you got going on right now? Are you putting out another album or doing any interesting collabs at the moment?

I’m doing a lot of acting at the moment. I just finished a play here in Pittsburgh and I will fly out to LA to do a TV show in January. It’s really difficult for independent musicians to make a living nowadays. Music is essentially free but that’s not gonna stop me from making it. I play and write music every day and probably will continue until I die or go deaf.

I make a lot of visual art but I try to keep that out of the public eye most of the time. It’s really personal to me, which strikes me as funny. I have no problem making an ass of myself or bearing my soul on stage but when I paint, it’s usually just for me.

Thanks for flappin’ jaws with the Motorist, BillyDave. I’m diggin’ the new stuff, brother!

Thank you for listening.

Like and share this post and your future will be full of ice cream sandwiches.

December 31, 2018 by Silent Motorist Media

Golden Rod by Bram Riddlebarger – Book Review

Review by Ben Arzate

[Disclaimer: Golden Rod was published by Cabal Books, which is also publishing a novel by me]

Jack, a dishwasher obsessed with tea, has contracted a strange disease which turns his penis a deep yellow. After a stint in the hospital due to an attack by dogs, he decides to burn his truck and go to live in a cave in the woods with his dog.

While there, a number of other strange characters join him including a socialist revolutionary, a hippie girl, an Ethiopian who never speaks, some wood fairies, a pair of twins with breathing problems, an alcoholic dental hygienist, and a baby who seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

Before he met Jack, revolutionary ideas had flowed through the Revolutionary’s brain like tea from a samovar. But now, boots in the sand, things had proven to be more difficult. Food was hard to find. Love was not always free. No one in the cave really knew what to do. The lessons of history were before them.

Golden Rod is a mostly straightforward story with several quirks. In the beginning, we’re told that Merle Haggard is the soundtrack to the book, however, Merle himself also occasionally interjects in the action, especially when his songs are interrupted by other ones. Deer and guns talk, a monster stalk the woods, and ghosts occasionally show up.

The best way to describe the book is that it’s like it was written by a very disillusioned Richard Brautigan. Jack and his comrades want nothing more than to live a simple life in the woods, dubbing themselves “the Locavores” for living off the local land and after the monster that lives in the woods. However, they have no idea how to actually live off the land and are constantly starving and bumbling around for nourishment.

Their attempts to spread their ideals do nothing but annoy the people around them. At one point, they occupy a local supermarket to protest modern food production. The shoppers either ignore them or regard them with bemusement. All of this played for comedy, this is a very funny book, but there’s still a sense of futility. The modern world is an unstoppable beast.

This is especially true with the character the Revolutionary. He views living in the cave away from contemporary life through an idealistic lens. He even comes up with the ways to spread the message of simple living.

Eventually, his idea to shoot cars (most of which are already broken down) gets the law on the group. Despite that, the group splits up of its own accord. The Revolutionary decides to shave and go back to teaching. The forest rangers are far more interested in playing Risk than looking for the group anyway.

Jack himself is no idealist, though he’s willing to go along with the Revolutionary’s ideas. He’s simply sick and tired of his daily life and the disease that turned his penis yellow. He’s the only one who chooses to remain after all of his comrades get tired of living in the cave. Mostly because he has nothing to go back to. His few possessions are gone, he has no other friends or relatives, and he wants for nothing besides a simple life. He has no reason to do anything but stay in the cave until the bitter end.

Golden Rod is a funny, unique, and insightful read. Riddlebarger’s prose is simple but poetic. He paints vivid and surreal pictures of the woods and the strange cast of characters reside in it. He shows both the appeal and the downsides of returning to a simpler life and how the modern world simply won’t allow it either way anymore. I highly recommend this novel.

December 29, 2018October 28, 2021 by Silent Motorist Media

Films That Fell Through the Cracks: Easter Bunny Kill! Kill!

By Bob Freville

The following review originally appeared in Kotori Magazine on June 27th, 2010. It is included here as part of our Films That Fell Through the Cracks column due to its relative obscurity. Like many of director Chad Ferrin’s delightfully warped grindhouse features, it has not been given the attention it deserves. 

Easter Bunny Kill! Kill! is one of those glorious gruefests that leaves you to your own emotional/moral devices, unaware of whether you should laugh or cringe or both. Director Chad Ferrin is a cat who likes to press the buttons of the sensitive. He is an adept at it. And it is that expert flourish that makes EBKK more than a horror movie, more than mere shock cinema–something seriously fucking spectacular and every bit as seldom as a lunar eclipse.

The story concerns a single mother and her mentally-retarded son Nicholas, who suffers from cerebral palsy and flights of furry fancy in which he believes a caged bunny rabbit to be the Easter Bunny incarnate. Nicholas’s mother has fallen, quite inexplicably, for a greasy brusque criminal with mutton chops by the name of Remington Rashkor (and appropriately purulent name for the bilious character played with gusto by Ferrin regular Timothy Muskatell).

When Remington coerces Nicholas into telling his mother they should all live together (with threats that he will break the easter bunny’s neck), Mom decides to leave Nicholas in Rem’s care while she scampers off to work as a candy stripe nurse. And this is where the demented whirlwind of craziness begins, having its end only when a series of sickos have met their maker at the hands of an apparent guardian angel in a bunny mask, a guardian angel with a serious axe to grind. Well, not an axe. More like power tools, ball peen hammers and anything other household item that can be wielded as a weapon.

As mentioned before, EBKK is a hoot, a really fun cinematic experience despite the touchy subject matter and gristly scenarios that play out. Remington’s song about hookers and cocaine is a tour-de-force, to be sure. And so, too, is the third act revelation. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Every review or interview I’ve come across regarding this little gem hoists major accolades at Timothy Muskatell for his hilariously perverted portrayal of Rem. But, strangely, nobody seems to have mentioned the Peter Lorre-worthy turn by David Z. Stamp as handi-capable sex toy-wielding child molestor Ray.

His labored breathing, Max Shreck fingernails and satchel of sex swag provide the first truly threatening moment in the film. It is Ray, not the equally menacing but already well-publicized Remington, who acts as the true catalyst that kickstarts the Hare from Hell’s battery of bloody outbursts.

There I said it. Props to Mr. Z. Stamp!

EBKK is a flick suitable for a drinking game. Take a shot every time something ribald is said or an eyeball is shed. You’ll probably be stone drunk by the time you hear Mr. Rashkor’s hilarious demand of, “Hey, keep the tops off! I got coke!”

The buzz saw scene is a tasty triumph of flawless editing and grue-oozing expressionism that will go down as one of the gnarliest kills of the decade.

The atmosphere when the hookers (you’ll see) are in the house is classic Carpenter, but Ferrin ups the ante with an awesome dose of absurdity as Remington beats the heck out of a man who has already suffered a similarly fatal bastinato at the hands of the Easter Bunny. And the unharmed whore makes an off-color and idiotic inquiry that will have you counting down to when, hopefully, she’ll just fucking die already.

Like the golden age of the slasher film each kill in EBKK is more fun than the last, with one in particular giving new meaning to the phrase, “Deep throat.”

EBKK is one of those flicks that words just can’t do justice (though we still try). When you refer it to a friend and they ask you what it’s about you tell ’em, “Just see the damn thing, it’s fucking nuts!” This flick is sure to satiate your funny bone, your blood lust and your thirst for wholesome good old-fangled midnight madness.

From Charlotte Marie as the hottest mom to ever don a nurse’s outfit, to Remington Rashkor’s ultimate handlebar mustache, Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! is a killer cult film experience that revels in the kind of unorthodox irreverence that is beyond refreshing in these P.C. times.

December 27, 2018 by Silent Motorist Media

The Unreprinted: The Consumer by M. Gira

by Ben Arzate

Welcome back to The Unreprinted wherein out-of-print books of every genre are spotlighted, dissected and, in some rare cases, eviscerated. Previously, we found ourselves in the fetishistic fray with Tim Lucas’s sublime novel Throat Sockets. Today’s installment finds Ben Arzate delving into the weird and exotic short stories of artist/musician Michael Gira.

Michael Gira is best known as the front man for the confrontational experimental rock band Swans. I personally became familiar with him through the band he formed when Swans broke up around the turn of the century, Angels of Light.

In addition to songs, Gira has also dabbled in writing short stories. His first collection of short stories, The Consumer, was published in 1995 through Henry Rollins’s 2.13.16 press. Now out of print, used copies go for some very hefty prices online.

The Consumer is divided into two parts. The first part, called “The Consumer,” consists of short stories written between 1993 and 1994. The second part, called “Various Traps, Some Weaknesses, Etc.” consists of pieces written between 1983 and 1986 and is mostly prose poems, flash fiction, and vignettes.

The sound of the Swans music is dark, brooding, and, especially in the earlier releases, harsh, abrasive, and violent. Gira’s fiction is no different. The reader is immediately hit with this in the very first story, “Empathy.”

A man living in a dilapidated house welcomes his sister into his home after she returns from an asylum. We learn that she’d been incarcerated for murdering their parents and she seems no better after her stay. He suspects that she simply wandered out. Despite that, he’s happy to see her and begins an incestuous relationship her, nailing his doors shut to keep the outside world out.

A number of the themes throughout the book are established here. Abjection as a means of escape, sexual deviancy, loss of identity, and the urban decay of Los Angeles. Almost all the stories either explicitly or are implied to take place in L.A. and Gira’s L.A. is like a post-apocalyptic hellscape. It’s full of horrible, broken people, everything about the city has decayed away, and there seems to be little hope for any sort of recovery.

This is especially present in the story “The Young Man Who Hid His Body Inside A Horse, or, My Vulvic Los Angeles.” A young speed freak murders his drug dealer and steals his money and speed. He takes the cash and drugs and rents a squalid room where he hides away and sniffs the speed endlessly. Soon, a massive riot breaks out which results in horses from a nearby farm rushing into the city. In his tweaked state, he kills one of the horses and hides in its guts for protection.

This story reads to me like a mix of Hubert Selby Jr. and Samuel Beckett. The former for its portrayal of the people on the lowest rung of society and the latter for its absurd and intentionally “pointless” narrative. The speed freak draws into himself more and more to deal with his surroundings and addiction. Eventually, he returns to the closet thing to a womb he can find.

The semi-titular story, “The Consumer, Rotting Pig,” is told from the perspective of an incredibly obese man obsessed with the degeneration of his own body, with growing fatter, and with the media. There is some pitch black humor here as he goes into detail about his sexual fantasies, which involves things like cutting out a rock star’s heart and using it as an “Acujack” (a masturbation toy).

The story is divided into five parts. The first part introduces Rotting Pig and his obsessions. The other four parts are notes written by him and go into what would be his ideal life, how he learned to speak, his sexual desires, and who he believes himself to have once been.

“My Prescription for Happiness” is the most fascinating part to me. Here, Rotting Pig expounds on what his ideal life would be. He imagines himself suspended in a vat of warm human blood, breathing and eating through tubes, and his eyelids replaced by small screens that transmit images directly into his eyes. His feces and urine would be allowed to fill the tank until he floated to the top and died.

Rotting Pig wants nothing but to consume, being nothing but a lifeless consumer until he rots away for good. This parallels a number of the lyrics themes on the debut Swans album, Filth. Consuming and satisfying base desires until it results in self-destruction.

The story I found most disturbing is “The Coward (II).” A drunk lives with his brother, sister-in-law, and their daughter with no direction in life. He believes his niece may actually be his daughter as he had slept with his sister-in-law around the time she would have been conceived. Despite this, he still neglects taking care of her, resulting in the young girl being raped in her own home.

This story shows a deep disgust both with the people who actively cause harm and those who stand by and allow it to happen, but it doesn’t feel preachy or moralizing. It’s simply an observation, and an extremely disquieting one at that.

“The Ideal Worker,” a prose poem, satirizes the Protestant work ethic by portraying a husk of a man who wants to be nothing but a pliable puppet at work because of his self-hatred. I can only imagine how shitty Gira’s job was when he wrote this.

“A Trap” is a flash fiction piece in a similar vein about a person seeking personal obliteration. A woman calls random men asking them to come over and have sex with her. When one agrees, she resists hoping to make him get violent with her. Instead, he loses his erection and leaves, leaving her frustrated and still wishing for obliteration through violent sex.

The Consumer is a dark and disturbing read, but an incredibly poetic and amazingly crafted one. The book is incredibly rare, but worth tracking down. People who are already fans of Swans should certainly read this, but I also highly recommend this to anyone seeking well-written transgressive literature.

December 26, 2018 by Silent Motorist Media

Things to Do on the Holidays if You Fucking Hate the Holidays

By Bob Freville

Photography by Jake McGee

For those of us who positively despise the gluttony and consumerism of this foul and pointless holiday, there would seem to be little joy to be had. I can see you sitting there, wishing some corpulent cocksucker with a beard would shove his fat ass down the chimney so you could blow him away with your Mossberg 590A1 Tactical shotgun before eating both barrels your damn self.

I understand that deep-seated feeling of dread and loathing, but I’m here to tell you that all hope is definitely not lost. As a reader of the Motorist, you are more than likely to be suffering from WPPs (White People Problems) which is actually pretty good.

After all, things could be much worse. You could have the STDs which would mean eight crazy days and eight crazy nights of cold sores and genital warts. Or you could have ESP which would mean you’re Haley Joel Osment…and nobody wants to be Haley Joel Osment.

Yeszir, if you are a holiday hater like me, you have a wealth of options at your disposal and today we’ll take a look at some of the best ones out there.

LOSE YOUR KIDS

You’ve been dealing with their braying for months as they prattled on about all the Google Play cards and Minecraft accessories and Apple watches and GoPros that threaten to bankrupt you. You’ve bottled up your anger at their rude remarks, their terrible music and the disgusting things that they do in your bathroom when you’re late for work and you just want to take a shit in peace.

Enough’s enough! Take those zit-faced cunts to a shopping mall, point them in the direction of the closest distraction and bounce, son! Ain’t nobody got time for this! Antinatalism may not have been an option once your wife was into her third term, but it’s not too late to back out.

Sure, you can’t abort them when they’re already well into puberty, but you can certainly leave them to their own devices and let nature sort them out.

CHILL WITH A STRANGER

‘Tis the season to be depressed and lonely. But you don’t have to be; just because the suicide rate spikes during the holidays doesn’t mean you have to give in to the call of the void. Instead of wrapping your car around a telephone pole or chasing a bottle of anti-depressants with a pint of Jack, consider doing the one thing our parents told us never to do…talk to a stranger.

That old dude playing the sax by the boardwalk is bound to be a better hang than your extended family. And so what if he turns out to be a junkie and a pickpocket? He can’t be worse than your greasy uncle with the ugly personality that matches his ugly sweater. Shit, he might even turn you onto the wonders of skag.

SCARE THE LOCALS

Catching up with estranged relatives over stale fruitcake and under-cooked turkey can get rather dull. If you really want to liven things up, get your hands on some dismantled anti-tank warfare and share the sight of it with the locals.

Last year everyone was talking about the tantalizing glow of that Christmas Story leg lamp replica that your neighbor Barry stuck in his front window. Not this year, Barry! All eyes will be on your stunning piece of defense weaponry. Believe me when I say that Barry’s kids will not be fucking with your lawn display this year.

TAG A COP CAR

Who’s gonna stop you? Certainly not the pigs.

Let’s be real, anyone who knows anything knows that cops just don’t wanna be bothered around the holidays. It’s bad enough that they’ve gotta spend Christmas Eve clockin’ speeding drivers, but the last thing they want is to get stuck filling out a shit heap of paper work when they could be home horking some rum and eggnog.

TURN IN SOME CANS

Reality dictates that most people don’t spend their holiday laughing and prancing and kissing under the mistletoe. For all too many of us common folk, Christmas is one dark bacchanalia of buyer’s remorse. As your ungrateful offspring tear into their gifts and your wife rolls out the appetizers, your ass is calculating the amount of debt that the holiday will leave you in.

Better you skip dessert and head out to your neighborhood grocery store to clear your head at their bottle redemption center. Might as well get that head start on pinching pennies because the New Year is going to be nothing if not a daily struggle to keep your head above water.

BRO DOWN WITH SATAN

It’s always Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. The Son of God constantly gets his due, especially at this time of year…but the Devil needs friends too.

Instead of leaving the Fallen One alone with his thoughts this holiday, why not give him a couple pulls from your vape pen and ask him what kind of music he’s into. Give him a chance and he’ll wow you with his encyclopedic knowledge of early-90s ectofolk. Hey, you just might make fast friends while humming the bars to “What If God Was One of Us.”

So whether you’re bailing on your little brats or enjoying some neurofunk with the Prince of Darkness, there will never be a dull moment this fucking Festivus. Do what thou wilt and hail Satan!

Like and share this post to unleash your very own bowl of wrath.

Featured image by Justin A. Burnett

December 23, 2018October 28, 2021 by Silent Motorist Media