What I did on my summer vacation -1987.

So, there we were standing outside of the Corner Tavern after another crazy gig by Dog Everything.  It was 1987 and for those of you who weren't in our scene, that was the Summer of Love, with all the trappings.  There were weeks that our feet didn't touch the ground.

This night, one of our fans decided that marijuana should be legal so he whipped out a bag during our show right there at the front table and began rolling and lighting joints.  The band was so far gone by this point that we barely noticed as we churned through lysergic versions of our tunes, Jimi Hendrix songs, and covers of our college radio favorites of the day: Camper Van Beethoven, REM, Killdozer.

This was our first gig with our new drummer and as it turned out, his only "official" gig with us.  He fell off his stool during the first song and his glasses flew from his face.  He spent 2 songs rolling around on the floor blindly looking for them as he knocked over all his drums and cymbals (no shit, all of them) in a rhythm that never quite matched to rest of the band, but still provided punctuation.  The guitar player got mad and tried to smash his guitar on the dance floor, but the old building was so decrepit that his guitar just went right through the floor and stuck in an upright position, squealing feedback for 15 minutes.  The bass and lead took turns making chicken clucking noises and mocking the minor third blues cliche' lick, occasionally yelling "I got the blues," laughing hysterically and the stuck Telecaster screaming away all the while.  The rest of the gig went similarly: blurry waves of fun and frustrating noise with a song thrown in here and there.

As we loaded out gear at the end of the night, one of the girls said, "Let's play porch monkeys."  That was a game where we got the bar to give us as much beer as we could con from them and then sat on their porch till the early hours making fun of every car and person who dared to meander by.  We always played.

The sun eventually began to rise and we decided to get out of Edwardsville before it came alive and head for the safety of the woods.  Many cups of draft beer remained sitting on the sidewalk and being thrifty and all, Rod decided to take them with him. While he was sitting in the car with the beers, waiting for his passenger, someone (me) decided it would be funny to write "Fuck Off, Pig" in the dust on the back of the car.  It was so jammed full of PA equipment that the driver couldn't see out the rear-view mirror, so Rod didn't know about the dusty signage.

That's when the police pulled up and hit the lights.  Sensing an imminent meeting, Rod neatly stashed the cups on the floor and passenger seat of his car and covered them with the trash that never seemed to get dumped and he jumped out to meet the cops before they could make it to his car.  The group of porch monkeys hanging out in the street were already talking and stalling, keeping the officer from exiting his car, so Rod hurried it up to the cop's window.  He was standing there answering the usual cop-to-musician questions (Are you a DJ?  No, are you a security guard you fucking asshole!) when he first noticed the "Fuck Off, Pig" sign.  Rod turned pale and began stammering and visibly shaking.  It was impossible to miss the meltdown.  He kept talking, trying to hold the cop's attention so that maybe the officer wouldn't look up and read the writing on the back of the car.  "What's wrong with you?" asked the officer.  "Long night and we're bushed...I have MS... Get in the car, Jeff."  Someone started snickering and then the rest of us began laughing partly due to our inebriation and partly as a reaction to the tension of the possible BAD SITUATION that was playing out in front of us.  I remember having to sit down because I was laughing so hard at the absurdity of the scene.  What are the odds that the damned cops show up just after I'd written that?

So Jeff jumps in Rod's car and lands right on the cups of beer and pops right back out screaming, "Fuck, I'm soaked. This car is full of beer!"  The porch monkey crowd erupted into screams of laughter that would have ensured any comedian that he "nailed it".  That was the moment Rod's hair turned gray and he swore off drugs and alcohol. 

I don't know how he managed, but at some point while the officer was searching the car Rod convinced him that Jeff was a drunk who'd spilt beer all over himself earlier and didn't know what he was talking about and there was no reason to hassle us hard-working musicians.  The officer never mentioned the scrawl and everyone except Rod thought it was one of the funniest things they'd ever seen.