my tough titties: real thoughts on competition

the battle of the bands!

it was last night, and we lost. i really knew that was gonna happen. this is okay. the nervous part of me that didn't want to sign up was worried about the other acts, the people, being judged, and my final reaction to the judgment. the people were alright, in fact, mostly pretty cool. i got to hang with jake flaaten. and chris brown. and, of course, chris darling. the more time you can spend with these types and eli, the better. the other acts won it fair and square on their turf, you know?

i thought about it like this: if a haughty bird said to the fish, "you will never fly." and the fish were to be upset, he would be a dummy.

it's apples and oranges.

i had made a deliberate decision to do something i was very uncomfortable with. in the end i thought, "if we can win one heart..." then that would be okay.

while we played, while the judges tinkered with notepads, jotting things like - i dunno - "need better equipment, guy sings like he's shitting" and the people saw a band that probably wasn't what they wanted...i listened. no joke, the heart we won was mine.

i'd been so worried since, well - probably since charlie got all flaked out and the band started to suffer. one bassist after another. tour was a dirty fiasco. we were on these stages with the greatest bands. and fuckin' a - we sucked.

bad equipment. fuckin' TERRIBLE equipment. we didn't deserve to play with these bands i thought.

well, it was strange - and for the record i'm not second-guessing this statement, or any of these statements, although i'm usually the type to do so - the lights were on us and ten thousand eyes and the strangers we call, "fellow musicians," with their strange pop-sensibilities - and i forgot about 'em all. i could hear boots' great drumming and chris' driving bass and our vocals mixing and my vocals - which i never hear - and dammit - we were a great punk band. we win!

we would've deserved to play those shows on tour if we played like we did last night.

i feel good about losing!