Give Death A Chance (2 page)

I said to Paul, “If I were to guess, I’d say the public is a combination of pissed, scared, and thrilled. But no matter what, they won’t look away.”

Paul said, “So, y’know, if we made a new album, it’d sell, right?”

I said, “Um, yeah. You might sell a copy or two.”

John Lennon was the only Zombie I’d ever met who
got
sarcasm, so I wasn’t surprised when Paul said, with all seriousness, “Well, a copy or two’s a start, y’know.”

Ringo asked, “You don’t think there’ll be backlash?”

I said, “Well, not right this second, of course. You didn’t leave any survivors to tell the tale.”

George interrupted, “We left one survivor, my friend: You. Because you know what’s happening out there. You know the score.”

I said, “Um, I really don’t know the score. Ringo busted my iPhone…”

Ringo said, “Sorry ‘bout that, mate. Errant
shuriken
. Occupational hazard. You know that.”

I continued, “So I don’t have online access, and aside from the two gas stops and that 7-Eleven run, you haven’t let me out of the van, so how am I supposed to offer any context as to what happened when I don’t know what’s happening? And remember, you didn’t advertise the show, so it’s not like a lot of people know you were there in the first place.”

Addressing the rest of the band, Ringo said, “You gents didn’t think this through very well, did you?”

George pointed at John. “He was the brains behind this plan.”

In a less explosive situation, I would’ve made a brain joke. Now, not so much.

Nobody said anything for few minutes, and then Paul turned around and asked me, “So the record would sell, yeah?”

George yelled, “Watch the road, Rings!”

After Starr narrowly avoided plowing into a blue Prius, I told McCartney, “Paul, you’re the frigging Beatles. Of course the record will sell.”

Paul asked, “Even though we’ve killed a person or three?”

George added, “Or a million.”

I said, “Yes, even though you’ve killed a person or three. Or a million. See, the public loves having their buttons pushed. I mean, look at Lady Gaga.”

John asked, “Who the fook is Lady Gaga?”

I said, “Wait—you guys haven’t heard of Lady Gaga?”

And then our conversation turned into an Abbott and Costello routine—that is, if Abbott and Costello were covered with orange, pus-filled, oozing, steaming sores that smelled like the industrial section of Elizabeth, New Jersey.

JUNE 16, 2009

Close confines make for strange bedfellows. And sometimes smelly ones.

It’s around 3:00 AM—and I say “around” because George (who is proving to be quite the technophobe) threw my nice new Tag Heuer watch onto the floor of the van, then jammed the broken shards inside his own ears,
sans
explanation, so I’m going by the position of the moon—and the lads are asleep, which, for me, is a blessing and a curse. The blessing part: The threats of bodily harm and taunting about my alleged “tiny mortal John Thomas” have come to a temporary halt. The curse part: You ever been stuck in a van with three sleeping Zombies? I didn’t think so.

When they’re awake, their undead reek—a combination of rancid forcemeat with a spicy hint of burnt thyme—is bad enough. But John, Paul, and George snore, and their breath could peel paint, so add that all together, and you’ve got one writer who would gladly cut his nose off, and believe you me, my face wouldn’t mind being spited. (Oh, Christ. Without waking up—without even stirring, for that matter—John just belched out a gray cloud that briefly came to life, and then he hocked a steaming green loogie onto my leg, and then he tried to eat my pen. All while he was asleep. Seriously, I have no idea how Yoko deals with it.)

John and Paul have been ragging on each other since we left Chicago; it’s a barrage of, “Fook your sheepdog up its arse, Macca” and “Nice paintings, Vincent van Shitehead.” And then there are the discussions/arguments, the crux of which is:
What’s the goal of our tour?—
a tour that John dubbed “Poppermost Over America 2009.” (Ringo calls it “A Bunch of Bollocks in a Van,” which I think would look considerably better on a T-shirt.) John wants to parlay the band’s inevitable success into becoming Presidents of the United States or, at the very least, “some cunts who wield some power.” Paul wants to make a quadruple platinum record or, at the very least, “Knock that tosser Michael Jackson off the charts.” (I didn’t think it worth mentioning that M.J. had seen the top of a chart since the Clinton administration. What would the point have been?) George wants to be left alone. Ringo wants to get laid.

Me, I want my mommy. And some nose plugs.

JUNE 19, 2009

The band’s strategy for booking the Poppermost Over America tour leaves something to be desired:

• Step one: Go to city. Park in front of random mid-sized rock club.
  
• Step two: Hide in van until headlining band finishes soundcheck.
  
• Step three: Bum-rush club.
  
• Step four: Kill, dismember, and disembowel headlining band, then chow down on their brains.
  
• Step five: Kill, dismember, and disembowel club’s owner, then chow down on his brain.
  
• Step six: Kill, dismember, and disembowel bartenders and waitstaff, then chow down on their brains.
  
• Step seven: Tell club’s sound man that they’re taking the stage at midnight, and, if he makes a “pig’s breakfast” of the mix, they’ll kill, dismember, and disembowel him, then chow down on his brain. (Fuck if I know what a “pig’s breakfast” is. I’d look it up on Wikipedia, but, as I believe I’ve mentioned several dozen times, my sodding iPhone is dust. And I had, like, a zillion paid-for apps on there.)
  

During the Kansas City bloodbath—while the Zombie portion of our traveling circus was doing dinner inside the club, i.e., chowing down on brains—Ringo and I were standing in a nearby alley, sharing a fatty. (That’s been the one saving grace of the whole mess: Ninjas grow the best weed, and Ringo’s connection in England was no exception. How he got three pounds of the stuff past customs is anybody’s guess. The dude is only a Seventh-Level Ninja Lord, but he’s got game.) After a long, deep toke that I felt in my toenails, I said, “Call me a crazy, Rings, but I don’t think this is the best way to conduct a tour. Might it make sense to hire somebody who knows what they’re doing to book the gigs?”

Ringo said, “On paper, probably.”

“It’d make your lives easier, it’d make my life easier, and it would significantly lower the body count,” I pointed out.

Ringo took another toke—he was
totally
bogarting the joint, but I wasn’t about to kvetch, because he’d picked up a new Masahiro Tsunami Nin-to Katana sword at the Ninja World outlet store at a mall just outside of Milwaukee, and had been talking non-stop about how he was itching to give it a test drive—then said, “Body count is the means to the end, mate.”

“What’s the end?”

He said, “Washington, I should think,” then he handed me the roach, shot me a peace sign, and wandered back into the club.

JUNE 22, 2009

I don’t know if I’m going to get out of this alive or what—contrary to his initial pronouncement that “The Scribe’s brain is off-limits,” John’s been making noises about turning me, but he only says that when he hasn’t had a brain in a few hours, and, as all Beatle-ologists know, John Lennon gets cranky when hungry, plus, since he’s the only Zombie who gets sarcasm, he might be yanking my John Thomas—so since I might be dead before my time, I’m not too concerned about the fallout of the following statement: