Fingerpistol Gig Diary #7: Green Mesquite BBQ, Saturday, May 4, 2002

Some nights you can just feel it in the air, you know? Like a couple of Saturdays ago when we played at Green Mesquite? It was just crazy--crazy with humidity. By my humble estimate I would say that the relative humidity was around 742%, give or take, but I'm an efficient sweater, so you might want to take that with a grain of salt. Up on stage in the glare of the spotlights, it was hotter than Hades, but the folks out at the picnic tables looked as cool as the other side of the pillow. There's something about witnessing the suffering of others that's somehow soothing, and even though we were burning it up musically, mostly everybody was just chillin', digging the groove.


Rather than appearing overtly interested in the show, some
fans play it cool and act like they're looking at the menu or
talking on a cell phone - even when they're not actually
holding a cell phone.

As I said, up on stage it was a little tepid, scorchy even, and as the sweat crescents from my armpits meandered and merged with the sweat saddlebag from my collar, I began to feel like we had the audience eating out of our hands. I started to feel euphoric and a little light headed. For most people this might signal the onset of dehydration, but being a Patio Pop Superstar, I mistook it for the high of "playing live."


For some inexplicable reason I started
screaming "Love me!, Worship me!"
Let's just say I should have drank more water.

OK, I was a little delusional. I'll admit it. It didn't help much when a pigeon swooped down and polished off Gretchen's fried okra right in front of God and everybody. Who knew such a modestly proportioned bird could wolf down such enormous chunks of food?


A voracious pigeon lets out a tremendous
belch after tearing through Gretchen's fried okra.

I don't have to tell you that Gretchen, me, and the rest of the audience were incredulous at the spectacle. Not knowing what to do, I looked over at Gretchen and whispered hoarsely that she should smack the greedy little sky rat with her mandolin, but Gretchen looked at me like I was out of my gourd.


"If you don't squash that fat little bastard bird,
I will," I hiss at Gretchen through clenched teeth.

Gretchen is a pacifist, a full on peace creep as it turns out. She never even took a swipe at the pigeon. I on the other hand, was looking for payback, so I tried to spit on it as it flew off. In retrospect, I realize that I was crazed with anger and vengeance, but it seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do at the time. Unfortunately, not everybody shared my anger and outrage, especially the people sitting at the table behind Gretchen's empty okra bowl.


Fingerpistol's original groupie Stewart and his friend shake
their heads in disappointment and disgust as I frantically
try to spit on the fleeing, pilfering pigeon.

After the pigeon episode I think it's safe to say that I wasn't winning any friends - at least not in the first few rows. The rest of the band, fearing an imminent lynching, put on a brave face and kept playing, hoping to turn things around.


"That's it. He has definitely gone over the edge.
We're done for." thinks drummer James Holditch.

There were some agitators in the audience who grew restless and began making threats, both vague and specific about what they might do with me if I spit on their table. I guess I can't blame them, but it did get my goat.

                              
Audience member Marcus Ollington
thumbs his tooth at the stage - a gesture
of disrespect since Biblical times.


Tony Kotecki explains how he
is going to "choke me until my
eyes pop out" while his normally
sweet and good natured son Isak
loads ice into his makeshift straw blowgun.

If only I had known that unholy forces were at work, trying to control me and the audience and force us to do their evil bidding. Maybe I should have noticed the skull of the horned beast that hung above the stage...


Harmless cowskull or gruesome symbol of the beast with two backs?

...or maybe the sinister satanic symbols scrawled on the paving stones...


You want Satanic? Check this out:
Every letter of the word "Fingerpistol" is
contained in this one symbol that I have
been told is a "Henryglyphic."

Like I said, it was getting hot and I grew more and more lightheaded. I felt like steam was coming out of my earholes and my head was about to explode, but we kept on rocking. Wait a minute? Rocking?


I didn't really notice we were rocking until the guy in the "red hat" shot
the Satan symbol at me. "Good God!" I cried "No! We're Patio Pop Superstars, not Deathrockers!"

I could really feel myself heating up. Really. I was about to explode with fury. I felt like that little girl in that movie Firestarter who can't control her rage and burns things up just by looking at them. And then I realized people were really staring at me. Really...and not in a good way. It just made me angrier. I sort of lost it.


"Damn you all! Damn you all to hell!"
I screamed from the stage. What was I thinking?

I guess you could say the mercury had reached the top of my thermometer. I felt like I was breathing fire, but it could have been the onions in my verggie burger. Anyway, to make a long story short, I collapsed.


"Uh...is he supposed to be glowing
like that?" asks a horrified Emily Schmidt.

Then I ...um...sort of...burst into flames. But it wasn't as bad as you might think. Really.


Gretchen lit up by the flames
of my burning corpse...like it
wasn't hot enough already.

Despite the grisly spectacle, people really seemed to enjoy the show - especially the part where the cook doused me with a fire extinguisher. I could hear the deafening roar of applause as the paramedics rolled me off on the stretcher. It was our best show ever. We sold a lot of CDs. A lot.

                 
Fans were so overwhelmed with our evil, deathrocking set that they swarmed the stage and bought CDs like there was no tomorrow.

Other than an excruciating week of salt baths and skin grafts, I think the whole thing went pretty well. I have experienced a truly miraculous scar-free recovery and hope to be in great shape for our next gig. I did learn one thing however: I need to make sure and drink more water. The heat can really build up. As for the satanic death rocking, it was OK for one night, but it's really not our bag, you know? We need to stay grounded and remind ourselves that we're Patio Pop Superstars and not  hair throwing emissaries of the underworld.

Hey, you can't have it all.
See you next gig, or maybe the one after.
Dan

 

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