RF7
Weight of The World
Label: Smoke Seven
Released: 1982
Produced: Felix Alanis

Bass, Vocals – Robert Armstrong
Drums, Vocals – Walt Phelan
Guitar, Vocals – Nick Lamagna
Vocals, Producer – Felix Alanis

1. Kiss Ass
2. Violence
3. Government Science Fiction
4. God of God
5. Timebomb
6. Scientific Race/Perfect World
7. Mission Of Mercy
8. Satan’s Son
9. Low Class Girl
10. Weight Of The World
11. World Of Hate
12. Jesus Loves You

I loved Felix Alanis’ growling vocals from the first time I put on the Public Service compilation, and Nick Lamagna’s soaring hybrid metal/punk riffs have always been first class.

This album shows why RF7 is a first class band, and they are amongst the best that is still performing today.

If you get the chance to get a copy of this, go get it.

Rating: ** * two out of three stars

On to the story . . .

Have you ever in you life had a moment that was so pivotal that you remember every single detail? What you were wearing, where you were standing, who was around you, everything?

In the first week of November I was on the phone with my dad. We were talking about doing a Thanksgiving together the weekend after the actual Thanksgiving. He knew how hard I had always tried to coordinate the holidays since I got married.

My wife and I would stop by my mom’s for an hour or so, then my dad’s and lastly my in-laws. No family ever got as much time as they wanted, and we were running ragged. So, more times than not, I rarely enjoyed any of it. Wake up, get ready and start getting all the crap together for each stop. Ultimately, my in-laws would have preferred that my wife stop in earlier in the day to help with the prep work, but it didn’t always work out.

So, back to the original topic, my dad was living way the hell out in Lake Elizabeth, and had a new recipe for deep-frying the turkey and wanted to show off his cooking. Long gone was the tying up and driving nails into the bird. I liked the idea of celebrating it a week later. We bullshitted a bit about music and said “Goodbye.”

A week after that phone call I walk in the door from work, my wife is in the kitchen, my son, Lucas, who is one year old at this point, is scooting around on the floor.

I walked towards the living room. The phone rings my wife answers, looks pale and hands it to me.

I reluctantly take the phone. It’s my dad’s oldest daughter, my half-sister. She had been crying. She starts in by saying that dad’s missing. I say no big deal; he takes off all the time. One morning he decided he wanted to see the Green Bay packers play, so he drove to Oakland. He did these things.

She does this big gulp, and says they found him this morning . . . at the bottom of a ravine, dead.

My legs give out, I fall on the couch. My son crawls over to me, pulls myself onto my lap. I’m trying to keep it together, and not cry or anything, I don’t want to scare my son.

Then in the typical character of my half-sisters, she goes down the list of people that she thinks I should call and tell. I am in zombie-mode so I nod and write down phone numbers.

Over the course of the next three weeks until my father’s memorial, my two half sisters take my dad’s ATM cards and clear out his bank accounts. Take his car (Chrysler 300) that is paid automatically through his checking account, and drive the shit out of it until it’s repossessed.

My brother starts wondering about what is happening with my father’s estate, so he calls our older half-sister and they agree to meet at my dad’s place in Lake Elizabeth. They get there and our half-sister is acting weird. Everywhere my brother goes in the house, she goes somewhere else. The first thing he notices is that anything of value is gone, most electronics, my dad’s gun collection, movies, books, you name it.

Finally after following her around a while he opens a drawer and finds a deed to a house, not the one my dad lived in, but house that my half-sister lives in.

Turns out my dad bought a house for my half-sister to live in. It might not seem like a big deal, but my brother and I, his first two kids, were asked to pay for half of our own Christmas gifts a few years earlier when he decided to give us black boxes for our cable system. A bit of a kick in the nuts.

We go to my father’s memorial. I give my eulogy. My half sisters pick a half a dozen stupid songs to play, saying dad would’ve liked them. One sticks out, Basket Case by Warren Zevon. They said that was my dad’s song to their mom. WTF does that have to do with this service?

Needless to say our half-sister didn’t want us to know about this. She secured a lawyer very quickly. We go to court a few times, and my brother and I request that he becomes co-executor of my father’s estate, thinking that it might stop them from bleeding every once of what’s left of my dad’s belongings.

The judge assigns my brother as co-executor, but a few weeks later my half-sister and the lawyer go to my dad’s house with a u-haul and put everything in storage. The place is gutted.

Once my dad’s insurance and pensions are cashed out, my brother and I receive, before taxes, a thousand bucks each, his two daughters receive somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen to twenty thousand each.

While my brother and I are trying to deal with the grief and now the confusion of being left out of his will of sorts. The coroner takes over six months to make a ruling. On the scene of the accident there was another car and a motorcycle, when the officers on the scene were asked about the other car they became angry and said, “Who told you about another car?!” OK . . .

After the coroner finally ruled that it was death by accident, it was too late to file a wrongful death suit against the city. The coroner was, for the first five months, leading us to believe that is was suicide.

A week or two before my dad passed his beloved bulldog got cancer, and months before he told my brother if anything ever happened to his dog he’d go with her. We think he was joking.

The worst part of losing someone is not knowing what happened. Did he kill himself or was there an accident with another car and motorcycle? If the other vehicles were involved, why did the cops cover it up?

I’ll probably never get a straight, truthful answer. In the big scheme of things . . . I guess knowing won’t change shit.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: You can order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330.

Bad Religion
New Maps Of Hell
Label: Epitaph Records
Released: 2007
Produced: Joe Barresi

Greg Graffin vocals
Brett Gurewitz guitar, background vocals
Greg Hetson guitar
Jay Bentley bass, background vocals
Brian Baker guitar
Brooks Wackerman drums

1. 52 Seconds
2. Heroes & Martyrs
3. Germs of Perfection
4. New Dark Ages
5. Requiem for Dissent
6. Before You Die
7. Honest Goodbye
8. Dearly Beloved
9. Grains of Wrath
10. Murder
11. Scrutiny
12. Prodigal Son
13. The Grand Delusion
14. Lost Pilgrim
15. Submission Complete
16. Fields of Mars

This by far their best album since How Could Hell Be Any Worse? Over the years they seem to have lost a bit of their grit.

It happens when you become better musicians. But I have always been a fan of their old sound, and this touches on it.

It was kind of like bumping into an old friend you haven’t seen in thirty years, things are different, but they jog certain memories.

If you get the chance to get a copy of this, go get it.

Rating: ** * two out of three stars

On to the story . . .

When I turned forty-three I started thinking allot about getting older. Then one day my brother suggested I sign-up with Facebook. I’ve always resisted all these social websites, doing graphic design; I’m already on the computer far more than I want to be. But my brother’s point was I could communicate with my daughter, who is out of state, more often. And reconnect with people I went to school with. I thought cool, more contact with my kid, but do I want to see people from my past?

My brother runs me through the sign-up, and asks me to find a picture for my profile, etc. In less than a week, I’ve had twenty people ask to be my “friend.” And various people started uploading pictures of me from different occasions over the last handful of years. So, I guess I’m a pretty popular dude.

The weird part of this site is when you log in you’re bombarded with everybody’s headlines (your “friends”) on your landing page. And I swear everybody is fat and sick. I page down, and here we are in our forties and everybody talks like they’re ninety. Hospital visits, colds, temperatures. It’s terrible.

The one interesting thing about Facebook is when someone comes on as your friend you can look at their pictures on their page. This one girl wrote me and asked to be my friend, she was in my homeroom back in high school, and I confirmed her and I was browsing through her photos and found a couple of recent pictures of a girl a I “went with” in ninth grade. We split when I got into punk. Well, what a freaking let down, she looks like a Mack truck hit her, then was forced to live on the streets. I was about 150 pounds then, and now I hover around 200, otherwise I look pretty much the same, but some of these people just gave up.

What do I know? They could be online looking at my pictures and quoting my dad’s favorite saying: “He looks like barbequed bear shit.”

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: You can order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330.идея за подарък

Continental
Death of a Garage Band
Released: 2010
Label: Old Shoe Records

Rick Barton- Guitar/Vocals
Stephen Barton- Bass
Dave DePrest- Guitar
Tommy Mazalewski- Drums

1. One Long Hard Broken Dream
2. Wrecking Ball
3. Monday Morning
4. No Reservations
5. Great Big Sun
6. Truth
7. Stay With Me

Rick Barton (formerly of Dropkick Murphys, and Everybody Out!) is back with a good honest to god rock band.

I saw these guys live about a year ago, and the coolest thing about their songs was that there is a feeling that even after only hearing these songs once you feel that they are old classics that you’ve been listening to for years.

The running theme seems to be heartbreak and disappointment, in other words . . . don’t play when out on a first date.

If you get the chance to get a copy of this, go get it.

Rating: *** three out of three stars

On to the review . . .

Way back in the mid-eighties, I was working at a record shop in the mall. Out towards Canoga Park/Woodland Hills area.

At this point of my wonderful record shop career I was considered a “third-key.” When the manager and assistant manager are not in the shop, I was the manager, when they were there I was the head grunt.

All together I worked for this company for about three years, made it to assistant manager, and was transferred to their Thousand Oaks location.

But while I was still in the Canoga Park/Woodland Hills area, the mall security came by one day with a memo letting all mall employees know that for the next week or so no one would be allowed to park in the back side of the mall, as the circus was coming to town.

I don’t know if there was a hidden hillbilly in me or what, but as soon as I heard this I wanted to be involved somehow.

So, that night I come home and tell my brother, “Tomorrow we are going to work for the circus!”

He looks at me like I’m crazy, and maybe it was a nutty idea, but what the hell, right?

We show up at the site at 8:00 am, just as the carny’s are stumbling out of their trucks. I walk up and say, “My brother and I are here to work with you guys.” The guy looks us over, and I’m average build, and my brother at the time was only a bit smaller than Tony Mandarich. So, the head carny shakes his head and takes us to the center of the parking lot, hands us a rope, and says pull. Inside of fifteen minutes we erected the main tent.

Then the HC tells us he will pay us six bucks an hour, but we have to be hustling the whole time. Best two workers will be allowed to travel to the next city. As he said this more and more circus zombies were staggering in looking for work.

I my brother and I were the only “volunteers” that had teeth.

After about three hours this guy comes up to us, he smelled of ass and bad tequila. He starts saying it’s a dream of his work for Circus Vargas, and something about my brother and I being his strongest competition.

As hour four approached we decided that traveling with the circus isn’t quite as glamorous and exciting as we thought. So, we decided at hour four we would cash out and go on home.

The boss man seemed a little upset that two of the strongest and, probably only disease free workers, were leaving him. He asked if we were sure that we wanted to leave, and paid us out in cash.

Just as we were approaching the car ass breath ran over to us, shook our hands, said goodbye, and asked us to wish him luck in getting a permanent job with the circus. We did and he scuttled back.

It was fun, but you have to have a completely different lifestyle to travel with a carnival or circus. After those four hours, I realized it wasn’t my life.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: A discount code was added, when you order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330 type in FGACJX53 and receive 10% off.

The Dickies
The Incredible Shrinking Dickies
Label: A&M Records
Released: 1979
Produced: John Hewlett

Leonard – vocals
Stan – guitar
Chuck – keyboards
Billy – bass
Karlos – drums

01. Give It Back
02. Poodle Party
03. Paranoid
04. She
05. Shadow Man
06. Mental Ward
07. Eve Of Destruction
08. You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)
09. Waterslide
10. Walk Like An Egg
11. Curb Job
12. Shake And Bake
13. Rondo (The Midgets Revenge)

This is a really good album, a definite punk meets rock feel to it. Their cover of Paranoid is great, it’s too cool. This is the best Dickies album I have ever heard!

If you get the chance to get a copy of this, go get it.

Rating: *** three out of three stars

On to the review . . .

Punk rock, like any other genre of music means something different to every person. My wife for example, was not into punk growing up but she knows most of the key figures, and bands. She has always pointed out a snobbishness that exists amongst people that have stayed into punk their whole lives. She always points this out whenever we see Henry Rollins on TV. He will give his commentary about music or politics, and you start to see a bit of this condescending tone emerge, as if you don’t quite understand the world unless you were a punk. I never noticed this until I met my wife.

I don’t think it’s just punks that feel this way, I think anyone who has had the misfortune of being on the wrong of a cop’s Billy-club, or in the wrong end of a cop car, knows that things aren’t always what they seem, in other words, peel off a couple more layers off of this onion and get a better look at the core of this.

Friday, December 17, 1982, Long Beach: Once we got to the Galaxy Roller Rink, there were huge lines to get into the place. The Long Beach police were frisking everybody, and waving handheld metal detectors over everyone in line. They didn’t have female officers for the girls, same group of male cops for everybody. And standing to the side were a couple of officers holding back German Sheppard’s on leashes. Finally after fifteen or twenty minutes I got waved forward, immediately the metal detector goes off as the officer waved the metal detector over my leather jacket. The cop gets this look on his face, and my eyes bug, because I have no idea what set it off. One cop comes over to check my pockets as the other holds my shoulder. The officer pulls out a pocketknife with a razor blade tucked into the blade. I almost crapped. I became the very stereotype these cops were fighting. The other officer was now holding both of my shoulders. The first thing that came to mind was that I was going to be arrested and have to call my mom, and have her drive an hour to get me, and this was going to be all bad. So, I decided to bargain with them. I said, “Would you like to keep the knife, I don’t need it.” The officers look at each other for a minute, and told me to get moving. Whew, I was safe! Would you believe these items were part of an art project? I was supposed to draw the knife and blade and have it turned in after Christmas break.

March 15, 1984, two days after my 18th birthday: I cut school with a friend of mine named Doug. Doug invites me to breakfast. He says he missed his bus from Inglewood and says his Dad’s girlfriend loaned him her Mazda RX7. We pull out of the parking lot, turn left on Balboa, right of Vanowen. Doug runs the red light, and instantly sirens blare. A cop runs to my side of the car and pulls me out and slams me to the ground, pulls out my Velcro wallet to check ID. I hear the other cop, who was on Doug’s side ask him to tell him the name on the auto registration, Doug hem’s and haw’s, and can’t identify her. I’m lost, I can’t figure out why he won’t say her name. A second cop car arrives; they pop the hatch or the RX7 and start pulling out car stereos. I end up blurting out “Doug, tell them your Dad’s girlfriends name!” The cop closest to me yells “shut up!” and draws his gun. I’m thinking this is all pretty heavy for a red light ticket.

Doug is thrown into the back of one car, and I’m thrown into another. I’m taken to the Van Nuys station, with two pairs of cuffs I’m fastened to a bench for four hours, a revolving line of detectives I’m questioned about stealing

Finally I am released. Doug was seventeen; he did a year in YA. Turned out his friend stole the car, but where Doug grew-up you never snitch.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: A discount code was added, when you order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330 type in FGACJX53 and receive 10% off.

Henry Rollins
Eric the Pilot
2.13.61 Records
May 5, 1999

1. “Eric the Pilot (Part 1)” – 11:05
2. “Eric the Pilot (Part 2)” – 10:13
3. “Eric the Pilot (Part 3)” – 8:27
4. “Eric the Pilot (Part 4)” – 9:31
5. “Eric the Pilot (Part 5)” – 6:01
6. “Eric the Pilot (Part 6)” – 11:13

Henry has a kick ass story here. The older Henry gets the funnier he is.

Eric the Pilot is the eighth live spoken word album from Henry Rollins, released May 5, 1999 on 2.13.61 Records. The CD contains a one hour-long story about Henry trying to get to a show in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This story, along with the second disc of Think Tank, was recorded during the same Australian tour in October 1997.

Here is Henry’s description of the story: “Greetings. Some of you may remember this story from a few years ago. I found myself in Australia towards the end of 1997 and had not told this story for quite awhile. I let it rip one night and Randy had the tape rolling. I mixed this during the time I was editing material for Think Tank. I figured this was a cool way to release this story. Thanks for coming to the shows after all these years, I don’t know where you get the strength.”
-Henry Rollins, May 1999

If you don’t own it, give it a listen.

Rating: ** * two out of three stars

On with the story . . .

Back in either July or August of 1997, I met an older guy who went by the name of Harley. He was an old biker. He looked like the mountain man from The Oakridge Boys. Long gray beard, long salt and pepper beard, it was hard to make out his age, late fifties, early sixties, who knows.

Anyhow, I met Harley within a week or so of getting to Pitchess Detention Center – East Facility in Castaic, California. He was the second in charge of the “white car.” The head guy was a dude named Red. Red was a shoeshine, so he was never around. He was always buffing the officers black boots.

In Red’s absence, Harley oversaw all the day-to-day drama amongst the whites, or as we were called the “Woods.”

Harley was originally sentence to nine months at Pitchess, but told the judge he wouldn’t be attending any meetings when he was released nor would he pay any fines. So, they gave him an additional nine months, then asked if he cared to reconsider? He told them to fuck off. He did the entire eighteen months.

Harley never wore anything, but the issued pair of orange pants, maybe some socks. At some point over the prior couple of decades ole Harl was involved on a serious knife fight that left a massive scar from his belt line up to the center of his chest. Looking at his stomach it made you think of a mountainscape in an old painting, all the lumps and crevices.

Harley took a liking to me, for whatever reason. I think he liked that I would read. A bulk of the whites that came through there were pretty sucked-up guys that were on meth. Then they would dry out, eat and then turn racist.

I didn’t care for the whole race trip.

Anyway, Harley had one book he was proud of, the M edition of the encyclopedia. That was his pride. He told me after a week or so that I could read it when I wanted to, and everyday, he would come by with some tidbit from the newspaper, one day there was an article about Phil Tayor from Iron Butterfly. Turns out Taylor disappeared in 1995, and one afternoon while Harley and I were locked away Taylor’s body was found at the bottom of Decker Canyon. Harley spent a good forty-five minutes telling me he was murdered for his ability to time travel. I listened, walked away and tried forget the conversation.

A month or so later, and bulky white guy in the next dorm was upset about the amount of time I spent around black people. I was a barber, so I was forced to work with one Hispanic guy and one black guy. Then we were forced to bunk side by side. Anyway, this guy Tommy thought I should have requested a transfer to get away from people of color.

Talked to Harley about it, and he said he would help me move bunks, I said I didn’t want to move. He seemed puzzled, I said these other barbers were cool to me, and Tommy was an asshole.

Harley withdrew his encyclopedia offer, and we rarely talked after that. Harley was deep in the race thing.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: A discount code was added, when you order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330 type in FGACJX53 and receive 10% off.

Punk History – Vol. 2
Various Artists
Liberula Barriguda Recordings
February 2007

1. Buzzcocks – What Do I Get (2:55)
2. The Lurkers – I’m On Heat (2:11)
3. UK Subs – Warhead (2:44)
4. Angelic Upstarts – Never Again (3:08)
5. The Rezillos – Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight (1:53)
6. 999 – Homicide (3:42)
7. The Adverts – One-Chord Wonders (2:36)
8. X-Ray Spex – The Day The World Turned Day-Glo (2:51)
9. The Dils – Mr. Big (1:44)
10. Generation X – Your Generation (3:17)
11. Stiff Little Fingers – Law And Order (3:16)
12. The Undertones – Teenage Kicks (2:26)
13. The Weirdos – We Got The Neutron Bomb (3:00)
14. D.O.A. – Smash The State (1:31)
15. The Dickies – You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla) (1:53)
16. The Germs – Lexicon Devil (2:05)
17. The Members – The Sound Of The Suburbs (3:55)
18. Angry Samoans – Right Side of My Mind (2:08)
19. The Mekons – Where Were You (2:43)
20. Resistance 77 – Advance Factory Units (3:34)
21. GBH – Faster Faster (2:57)
22. Cock Sparrer – Riot Squad (3:08)
23. The Exploited – Dead Cities (1:54)
24. Circle Jerks – Wild In The Streets (1:34)
25. Peter And The Test Tube Babies – Maniac (2:40)
26. Minor Threat – Think Again (2:19)
27. The Business – Harry May (2:13)
28. Plasmatics – Tight Black Pants (1:46)
29. Cockney Rejects – Here We Go Again (3:48)
30. Hüsker Dü – Indecision Time (2:13)

This is a great starter package for somebody who is just getting into punk, or for us old guys to listen to on a road trip.

If you don’t own it, track it down and give it a listen.

Rating: ** * two out of three stars

On with the story . . .

Another story of a misspent youth . . .

I went to a private school for half of seventh grade (I attended with pro skater Bert LaMar), and then went to a public school for eighth grade, using a fake address (met Linda Daniels, and started my descent into punk). Finally, it was too hard dodging the bussing situation, so my mom had my hearing tested, and I was hearing impaired enough to attend a local junior high, then a local high school, which both had small deaf and hard of hearing programs. This was very new to me; I didn’t know sign language, or anything about this culture. But it kept me from spending four hours a day on a bus.

One Christmas, towards the end of my final year in junior high my dad bought my Brother and me our dream skateboards: Sims Lonnie Toft deck, Tracker Trucks, and green Kryptonite wheels. Mine was a ten-inch deck and my brother’s was eight and a half. Allot of us punk guys in late ‘70’s, early ‘80’s rode skateboards constantly, I kept board in the trunk of my car until I was twenty-one, in case I broke down.

Anyway, I used to ride my board to and from high school, our lockers were too small to store the board, and so I used to put mine in the coat cupboard in my health class, and come back at the end of school and go home. This worked six months without a problem, until one-day two guys, Eddie and John Bailey, both hearing impaired, snuck into the class, and stole my board without the teacher noticing.

I came into the class at the end of school, and I was devastated. I looked everywhere, and a couple of kids told me who did it, but no one seemed to know where the board was. I confronted them, but they denied it. I waited until almost 4:00, and they just sat on a stoop by their lockers, and my only way home was a bus, and it was about to leave, so I hopped on and never saw my board again.

For those who think I should of wrecked these guys . . . listen to how their lives turned out.

A couple years after graduation John Bailey showed up at a former classmate’s apartment, a girl named Theresa (she was profoundly deaf), looking for a booty-call, he was being a bit forceful, they scuffled, and she ran, and locked herself in the bathroom. A few minutes later, Theresa’s roommate Troy comes home and John, mistakes him for her boyfriend, and they start fighting, John starts getting the best of him, and Troy grabs a screwdriver off the counter and stabs him. John falls dead.

A year or two later Eddie and his brother Caesar are on a motorcycle on the 101 Freeway, Eddie is deaf, and so he and his Brother are looking back at each other doing sign language. Right at this time a truck full of white-boy gangsters are driving by, and mistake the sign language as gang signs, so they throw their neighborhood at them, and Eddie and Caesar look at the guys, and give them the finger. The white-boys pull out guns, and shoot and kill Caesar, and leave Eddie with two or three bullets in him.

Once the story hits the news the white-boys flee to New York to stay with some wealthy relatives. Eventually, they are caught. Due to poor medical coverage Eddie still has at least one bullet in him.

Now, what’s the moral to this story? Don’t ever steal my fucking skateboards, karma is a bitch.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: A discount code was added, when you order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330 type in FGACJX53 and receive 10% off.

OFF!
First Four EPs
Producer: Dimitri Coats
Released: 2010

Dimitri Coats – guitar
Steven McDonald – bass
Keith Morris – vocals
Mario Rubalcaba – drums

1. Black Thoughts – 1:01
2. Darkness – 0:48
3. I Don’t Belong – 1:00
4. Upside Down – 1:13
5. Poison City – 1:33
6. Now I’m Pissed – 1:01
7. Killing Away – 0:47
8. Jeffery Lee Pierce – 1:21
9. Panic Attack – 1:01
10. Crawl – 1:15
11. Blast – 1:09
12. Rat Trap – 1:20
13. Fuck People – 1:12
14. Full Of Shit – 0:34
15. Broken – 0:49
16. Peace In Hermosa – 1:32

Let me start by saying this is pretty good. But my opinion seems to differ from everybody else as to how good.

Everyone I know, friends to musicians view this band as the return of punk and the album the Holy Grail. I like this, but not as much as everybody else.

If you don’t own it, give it a listen.

Rating: ** * two out of three stars

On to the story . . .

Back in 2001, I was unhappy with the way my daughter was being raised. Her mom dropped her off at my mother’s so she could chase after some Hispanic guy in Vegas. That attempt at a relationship failed for her.

So my daughter was living locally for a while. Everything seemed to be going well. Slowly my ex and my family starting fighting with each other over the phone, and one weekend my ex’s sister took my daughter for the weekend, but instead popped her on a plane to Vegas to her mom.

From Vegas they took a Greyhound to Florida, and never came back.

My brother and I had no idea she was out of state. We staked out any and all relatives on my ex’s side of the family with the police to try and track her down.

Three or four of our “raids” we eventually found out that she was in Florida. I was blown away. I had no clue that an out of state move was on the horizon.

My wife went to work in securing me a lawyer to get my daughter back. She hired the lawyer that handled divorce between Joan Collins and her husband. He represented the husband and bilked Joan Collins. My thinking was he’ll work hard for the “man’s side” of this.

I had to max out a credit card to get the $1,500.00 retainer to the attorney. Then every time we met with him, it was always another $500.00 bucks. My brother assisted as much as he could.

After months, the judge granted me custody. My lawyer told me to board a plane for Margate Florida, show local law enforcement my judgment, and they would come with me to my daughter’s place of residence and we would come back to California.

My brother gave me a pocketful of cash, and my brother-in-law, Richie agreed to come along with me on the trip. Richie was handy for two reasons, one the guy can fight like it’s nobody’s business, and secondly, he had the charm of a campaigning politician. I figured if the shit in Florida got too thick he could help me out one way or the other.

Throughout out our trip it was one extreme or the other. First night we got to Florida, we head to a Denny’s. The waitress starts hitting on Richie. Her arms are covered in meth scars. She tells us what time she gets off work, and asks where we are staying. When we ask where the bathroom is our waitress points towards the corner of the restroom, as she points some three hundred pound Bubba jumps up and yells at us, “So, what’s up?” We look at each other in confusion. Richie quickly defuses the situation by asking the guy if he’d like to eat pancakes with us. The guy looked more confused than us, sat down, and said, “No, it’s cool.” Turns out he was the ex-boyfriend of our tweeker waitress.

Next day we are at the Margate Police Department. They automatically hate Richie. He’s a bit darker than me, and it’s hard to make out his background, so they’d ignore him or get annoyed when he spoke. First time he asked about us serving the custody notice one of the cops said, “Why are you talking?” I got kind of pissed. I said, “He is my daughter’s uncle.” The cop fired back, “Well, uncle, this has nothing to do with you.” I really wanted to slap this hillbilly bastard, but my brother-in-law defused it. He said, “You’re right, in this town it has nothing to do with me.” The cop looked at him twice, and went to photocopy my custody papers.

After an hour of hanging out with the cast members of Deliverance, they finally said that they wouldn’t help us. They said it was a California case, and if we took my daughter without the mother’s permission they’d lock us up for kidnapping.

So, we needed a new plan. We went to Hooters for lunch. This was in the early part of 2001, and Florida still had smoking sections. So, Richie lit up. And some yuppie dad started to complain, turns out he smoking area was six inches to the left, so Richie held his arm over about a foot, and he was now in the smoking area. Our waitress comes over and says, “Some people have their head up their asses.” Then sat down and shared Richie’s nachos.

On the cab ride back we were driven by a man from the Dominican Republic. And . . . how do I say this delicately? He hadn’t showered in at least a week. We get into the cab, and almost pass out. Richie is coughing, I’m holding my nose. Richie decides to have some fun with the guy, and says, “Wow, your last fare really stunk up your cab, if I smelled that bad I’d kick my own ass.” The guy looked around real nervous-like, then said,” I’m Christian I don’t judge anyone, no matter what they smell like.” Too funny.

Later that day we went to my daughter’s house, and Richie served the papers, and said we could take her back to California today. My ex claimed that my daughter wasn’t in town, “Sorry.”

So, we had to buy tickets coming home for two instead of three. That Monday I called the lawyer and said that I need him to really buckle down and get my kid for me. I added that I’m out another thousand bucks after running around in Florida for no reason. Later that afternoon he called my wife to say he is resigning as my lawyer, saying, that “We don’t see eye to eye on this case.” Punk.

Because of the wonderful law enforcement in Margate County, and iffy lawyers, I never physically got my daughter. I spent fifteen thousand dollars and got custody on paper, but never maintained the physical custody.

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Greg Graffin
Cold As The Clay
Released: July 11, 2006
Epitaph Records

Greg Graffin – Vocals, Piano, Harmonica
Various – Guitar
Various – Bass
Various – Drums

1. Don’t Be Afraid To Run
2. Omie Wise
3. Cold As The Clay
4. Little Sadie
5. Highway
6. Rebel’s Goodbye
7. Talk About Suffering
8. Willie Moore
9. California Cotton Fields
10. The Watchmakers Dial
11. One More Hill

Dear God what did Greg do to us? OK, it’s like this . . . if Johnny Cash was retarded, and spent some time freebasing Prozac.

I like the first two things Bad Religion released then parts of the new album, but this . . . oh shit.

If you don’t own it, track it down and destroy it.

Rating: * ** one out of three stars

On with the story . . .

Some time back my brother and I were talking the other day about how my mom is coping with the very recent passing of her father. And we were talking about how losing a relative . . . Well, the grief comes in waves. One day you’re crying your eyes out then the next day you want to go to a party, then a week later you’re overcome by grief. Anyway, we were talking about how we lost our dad about three and a half years ago, and we got to talking about my friend Ray.

My friend Ray was a six foot, four inch, weight-lifting black guy who was my best friend in the later part of high school. We double dated, hung out, you name it. Hell, our mom’s used to say they wanted to trade sons.

A little while after we graduated from school Ray’s family packed up, and moved to Virginia. Ray’s folks were originally from Richmond and wanted to return.

With a stolen calling card number I received from an Italian hoodlum that I knew, Ray and I talked almost everyday, and in 1986 he came to live with my family. It didn’t go so smooth, I had a girlfriend, and he wanted to hang out like we were still in school. I worked, and had the girlfriend to entertain. So, he got annoyed. He moved back to Richmond about six months later.

Shortly after Ray went back, I came home from work one night, and I see my mom on the phone, crying. I ask, “What’s wrong?” She said, “it’s Ray, just let him talk.” I pick up the phone in the kitchen, and say “what’s up, Ray?” And he says, “My dad, he did it.”

I didn’t know what this meant, but it creeped me out the way he said it. So, he tells me this story:

Ray and his family move to Virginia. His father can’t find work. His mom gets work as a bank manager; Ray gets work as a teller there. Her job keeps her late, they carpool, and therefore they are always the last to leave. Ray’s dad starts accusing her of an affair, and Ray of helping her with it.

Now, Ray’s mom was the most soft-spoken strict Catholic woman I ever meet. Never an unkind word to anyone, let alone consider an affair. So, these accusations went on for about two years.

One morning Ray and his mom were getting ready for work when Ray hears his folks arguing. The he heard three or four loud cracks, he didn’t know it at the time, but they were gunshots.

He ran in the room, and his dad was walking into the shower. Ray got his mom out of the room, called 911, heard two more cracks, he ran towards his dad with a baseball bat, his dad was dressed in a suit heading out the door.

Ray had to stop his dad, his dad turned and pointed he gun at Ray and pulled the trigger – nothing. He had already unloaded the gun on his wife. Ray, puts the phone down, and starts whipping his Dad with the Louisville Slugger. Then it pops in his head, that if he kills him, then the cops will show up and find two dead people, and Ray with a bloodied bat, and think he did all this.

So, he drags his dad into the bedroom, and locks the door. Runs outside to his mom, who collapsed, and died hugging a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Cops show up as Ray’s dad is hiding his guns inside the wheel-well of his car and was preparing to leave.

The next day, I got the call from Ray. Every one deals with death in a different way, Ray’s pet-peeve he kept mentioning was people that said “I know how you feel,” to which he would say, “Have you ever watched your mother get killed, and have to decide whether or not to kill your father?” That shut people right up.

Ray leads a very quiet life in Virginia, with the daughter of a Pastor, no kids. He’s done his best to find peace.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: A discount code was added, when you order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330 type in FGACJX53 and receive 10% off.