Onstage banter
Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:54 am
'you're doing it wrong.'
That is great.
Back in the 90s my band was opening for Lungfish or Bailter Space (there is no good reason that these two shows are confused in my head, but there you go) and about three songs in both guitars pop strings. Me, bass player boy, wanted to keep the show going with tempo, so I told a story of the first time I ever saw a grown woman's uncovered privates in the flesh. I was 9 and my great grandmother, a big boned old West Virginia mountian woman of about 75, was asleep upstairs at my grandmother's. I was supposed to be watching her because my parents and grandparents had gone out for some relaxation. They were worn out as they had been watching after the old lady subsequent to the amputation of her left leg (diabetes). For me watching her meant watching Bonanza. She was hopped up on some type of tranq and was supposed to sleep, but by and by a thud was heard from above followed by scratching and sliding sounds. When the sounds continued for a brief period I decided I had better go up. I crept the stairs listening to her shifting about on the floor, creepy as hell, and, just as I got to the top of the stairs, it stopped. I did, too. No more sound. I assumed she had managed to get back in bed and was surprised by a sense of real relief. I opened the door to her room and, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see her sitting on the floor next to the bed. 'Gramma Phelps?' She mumbled but I couldn't make it out. I turned on the light and the first thing that caught my eye was the nub of her leg sticking out from underneath her gown as if she had her knee pulled up, but instead of the leg beneath the knee there was a flap of skin like a chicken neck devoided of head and spine. I then saw coming toward me along the cracks of the hardwood floor a healthy brook of urine finding paths of least resistance. As I followed upstream I came to the junction between her saggy thighs and was faced by her naked, utterly spent vagina. It looked sickly and defeated and her facial expression was the same. She was huffing from the exertion of trying to get up and she sort of cocked her head to the side and looked at me, though it didn't really seem she saw me, per se. I stared for a moment, stepped back just before the piss hit my sneaker, turned off the light, shut the door, and crept back down the stairs to Bonanza. My parents and grandparents came home and someone immediately went upstairs and 'discovered' her. They came down and asked if I had heard anything and I said no. When they told me she had fallen and I asked if she was alright I thought to myself 'I don't love her.' I felt the assurance and ease of honesty and the nausea of deep guilt all at once, and I took $5 from my grandfather for watching his mother.
After the set at least a half dozen people stopped me to ask if the story was true.
Unvarnished. Warts and all.
That is great.
Back in the 90s my band was opening for Lungfish or Bailter Space (there is no good reason that these two shows are confused in my head, but there you go) and about three songs in both guitars pop strings. Me, bass player boy, wanted to keep the show going with tempo, so I told a story of the first time I ever saw a grown woman's uncovered privates in the flesh. I was 9 and my great grandmother, a big boned old West Virginia mountian woman of about 75, was asleep upstairs at my grandmother's. I was supposed to be watching her because my parents and grandparents had gone out for some relaxation. They were worn out as they had been watching after the old lady subsequent to the amputation of her left leg (diabetes). For me watching her meant watching Bonanza. She was hopped up on some type of tranq and was supposed to sleep, but by and by a thud was heard from above followed by scratching and sliding sounds. When the sounds continued for a brief period I decided I had better go up. I crept the stairs listening to her shifting about on the floor, creepy as hell, and, just as I got to the top of the stairs, it stopped. I did, too. No more sound. I assumed she had managed to get back in bed and was surprised by a sense of real relief. I opened the door to her room and, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see her sitting on the floor next to the bed. 'Gramma Phelps?' She mumbled but I couldn't make it out. I turned on the light and the first thing that caught my eye was the nub of her leg sticking out from underneath her gown as if she had her knee pulled up, but instead of the leg beneath the knee there was a flap of skin like a chicken neck devoided of head and spine. I then saw coming toward me along the cracks of the hardwood floor a healthy brook of urine finding paths of least resistance. As I followed upstream I came to the junction between her saggy thighs and was faced by her naked, utterly spent vagina. It looked sickly and defeated and her facial expression was the same. She was huffing from the exertion of trying to get up and she sort of cocked her head to the side and looked at me, though it didn't really seem she saw me, per se. I stared for a moment, stepped back just before the piss hit my sneaker, turned off the light, shut the door, and crept back down the stairs to Bonanza. My parents and grandparents came home and someone immediately went upstairs and 'discovered' her. They came down and asked if I had heard anything and I said no. When they told me she had fallen and I asked if she was alright I thought to myself 'I don't love her.' I felt the assurance and ease of honesty and the nausea of deep guilt all at once, and I took $5 from my grandfather for watching his mother.
After the set at least a half dozen people stopped me to ask if the story was true.
Unvarnished. Warts and all.