1. New Book: The Chris Farley Show....picked up the new bio on Chris Farley at La Gaurdia Airport today....it reads alot like "Live From Saturday Night", (another kick-ass read), in the sense that it's a person-by-person account from the people who we're really involved in this comedic icons life...I've always been a fan, loved the guys physical comedy and let's face it, when Saturday Night Live was really sucking there for awhile, you could always depend on Farley for a great laugh...from the guy that lived in the van down by the river to his knuckle-head interview w/ Paul McCartney...this books got it all...redemption, addiction, spirituality, (Farley was like alot of Irish people, a hard-core Catholic as well as a hard-core drinker), family problems, reeeally funny, funny stories from Chris Rock, David Spade, Alec Baldwin, John Goodeman and the list goes on....I read it between New York and Austin and couldn't put it down...it makes ya think about the evils of drugs and alcohol and how addiction spares noone....damn fine read, but what a great loss at such a young age.
2. Manitobas'...Handsome Dick Manitoba was the singer for the early New York punk-rock legends, The Dictators and he also happens to own one of the coolest neighborhood pubs in the city....located at 99 Avenue B....we heard the jukebox was one the best in the city and damned if we didn't hear right....Blues, Classic Country, Old Punk, Rockabilly, Ska/Reggae and a bartender who actually knows how to pour'em...we hung for a minute w/ Handsome Dick and I gotta say he's one hell of a host....out of all the great pictures on his wall he's taken of the NYC music scene, (and there's really timeless ones....Bowie w/ the Dolls...the Ramones...Blondie....etc...), the best one was of him and his kid @ a Yankees game....anyhooch, if you're like me and have had enough of the cool contest in the Manhattan nightlife, keep it real and go grab a drink @ Manitobas...it's as New Yawk as it gets. www.manitobas.com
3. Register to Vote! I was sitting in my hotel room in Bangkok watching the New Orleans aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and found myself getting more and more pissed....cussing and swearing at the TV....but like a wreck, I couldn't stop watching it....after touring in Thailand, I had just seen that the WHOLE world, (France, Germany, USA...every damn country you can think of had put poltics aside), had shown up within TWENTY-FOUR hours to help the victims of the worse sunomi/flood those people had ever known....where was our goverment during Katrina?....it took 5 DAYS before US trucks came in and we declined help from all of our allies?...are we talking about America or Haiti?....Thailand gets help in 24 hrs. and we're lolly-gaggin around for 5 days?....I grew up on the Texas/Louisianna border and have been goin to the Big Easy since I was a little baby boy, so I know that it's got the best music, the best food, the best architecture, the creole/cajun culture and what a true treasure it is....what happened?....now if you're gonna start paraphrasing these right-wing radio assholes, (if you're working class and make less than a 100,000 a year and you vote for them, you are a sucker, cause you do not financially register on their radar buddy...as Dylan would say, "You're Only A Pawn In Thier Game"), than lets' talk about real conservatives...not even Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan or George Sr. would of let this shit happen....but hey, you wanted W.? So have fun with your damn-near 5 dollar a gallon gas,(him and Cheney and their buddies or making a killing off of you un-informed macho-sheep...fact: Exxon has made more money in the last year than any company in the history of the world...google it!), for now, but hell even my most hardcore Republican buddies admit that the whole New Orleans fiasco is downright unforgivable...I'm not telling you who to vote for, that's your business....but we've lost almost twice as many kids in Iraq as we did people in the World Trade Center and the asshole who ordered those planes to fly into our buildings in NY, (I was just there yetserday...it'll break your heart), is hanging out on the Paki-Afghan border laughing at us and making videos for Fox News....come on ya'll, I'm a tobacco-spitting, baseball-obsessed, bbq-eating, bass fishing, George Jones-listening country twanger redneck from Beaumont TX. and EVEN I can see that we need a change....so please take your ID up to the grocery store, or the post office, or the local library and register to vote.
4. Deathtrap Designs....okay, for the money it cost to buy a brand new Harley, (you know, the ones that look exactly like every other lawyer, accountant or white-collar proffessionals...hey, nothing against those guys, not everybody is a 1% er, but you see the same bikes over and over), or a vintage Triumph you can contact my buddy Billy "Buckshot" Conover at
[email protected] and he will build you an amazing one-of-a-kind Chopper, Bobber or just a regular framed street bike for half of what a new bike would cost and you can still have whatever you want on it....rubbber-mounted Big Twin?...Springer?....English Flat-Tracker?...Bar-Hopper?....he's in Austin and he works solo....he's starting a bike for me...contact him at his email address and find out his info and he'll send ya pics of some of the most amazing looking bikes he's built and his website address.....vrrrrooooooom!
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Wille's Picnic - Luckenbach, TEXAS
