|
 THE
CHOPPING BLOCK
By Ronia Blake
I
rarely back-pedal. I’ll admit, in the past there may
have been one poorly thought out move of mine that required
an apology or a retraction. More often, however, I’ve
done things that just end up being “unpopular”.
Though I stood behind them 100%, the heavy social consequences
used to make me ask myself if it wouldn’t be easier
to take it all back so I could enter bars through the FRONT
door again. But all that would do is make me an asshole AND
a coward. So these days, as long as I can still look myself
in the mirror, I simply don’t give a fuck.
I
received a really broad range of reactions to the last TCB.
Some people were amused, a few were grossed out, and about
15-20 bass players were worried as shit. Mission accomplished.
A couple of people were even pissed off. Even better. Alas,
it was a Pyrrhic victory. Turns out that most of it was due
to misinterpretation. I’m NOT taking any of it back,
but apparently I need to explain how this column is going
to go from now on. Hopefully this will shut most of you up
in the future and save everyone, i.e. – ME, from wasting
precious drinking time.
•
Quit fucking asking me the names of the people I’ve
nailed in my column. I’m not gonna tell you. End of
story.
• Any time I DO use names, I am either joking or the
person has given me permission to use his/her name. Case
in point: I used someone’s name in the last issue,
because I WAS JOKING. Apparently, my humor doesn’t
necessarily translate to print. How was I supposed to know
that some people wouldn’t find the idea too far-fetched
that my email inbox could really be full of death threats
for Larry (heh, heh).
• I won’t pursue stories about my friends or
colleagues at Rank and Revue. This column is a self-serving,
unfair, skewed vehicle for MY opinions and MY observations.
I refuse to corrupt its integrity by being fucking objective.
Plus, I talk about them behind their backs enough as it
is. Any exceptions will be subject to the aforementioned
permission rule.
Can
I get back to my Margarita now?
Now
here’s something you won’t see every day. I want
to CORRECT a buzz about what went down at The Red Eyed Fly
recently. One busy Saturday night (how convenient), the liquor
Nazis (TABC) swooped in and shut down the bar at The Fly due
to alleged liquor tax evasion. Of course little information
was available at that particular time, so you can imagine
how quickly, on a Saturday night in the heart of Red River,
the incident took on a life of it’s own. Well, before
things morph into a fantastic tale of deceit, espionage, and
moral corruption, let’s set the record straight. From
the beginning, I figured there had to be some kind of mistake
It’s well known that The Red Eyed Fly runs a pretty
tight ship. Being a prominent live music venue during the
city’s current anti-live music tyranny, I’m sure
they’re being especially diligent. As usual, I was right.
There was no mob-run money laundering outfit. No barnyard
pornography bootleg ring. It was just the Big Boys wasting
your hard-earned tax dollars again. No biggie. (!) Yes, The
Red Eyed Fly paid their taxes. Yes, they complied with the
rules and regulations set up for upstanding business owners.
Yes, they got screwed for no other reason than lazy-assed
government employees failing to communicate. And, ahh yes,
they had to suck up the income loss for having to close for
that (Super Bowl) Sunday while our fair city’s finest
passed the buck for responsibility. Business as usual.
Public
apology time. In a nutshell, a friend had a terrible stomach
pain. I made fun of her for being a drunk with probable alcohol
poisoning. I told her to suffer so she’d learn her lesson.
The next day she called FROM THE HOSPITAL to say that she
had to have emergency surgery to remove a NEARLY-RUPTURED
appendix. Yeah, acute appendicitis. That shit you can DIE
from. I can’t get over the fact that I think I almost
killed her. She says I’m being melodramatic. Since that
is utterly impossible, I’m making a public apology.
What’s worse? I had another friend that had appendicitis
just a week or two ago. I didn’t even make the “raging
tummy-ache that came out of nowhere” connection. I AM
SO SORRY I AM A JACKASS.
|
