Ice, Ice, Baby. (part two)

She laughs, "Your a really good screamer."

"thanks."

After Alice was finished with his sacrilege, the idol of all that is cool was returned to us.

"Whoo HOO!" I cheer.

"ok," she extends her hand in the cramped quarters, "You can give me a fake one if you want, but what's your name?"

Bewildered, "Why would I give you a fake name? Anyways it's Pif though that SOUNDS fake."

"Biff?!?!"

"No. Pif. PIF!, with a pee, pif." I go through the 'draw a 'p' in the air with my finger' routine and stare at her intently waiting for a sign of recognition, while drawing my little pee in the air. I'm not sure I'm getting anywhere. The band is loud and I'm probably, definitely a little drunk. Maybe this strange hand motion is confusing her, nonetheless it's all I got, so I keep repeating myself and making my absurd little pee. staring, peeing and repeating.

James chimes in with a devious grin, "You wanna know his REAL name?"

"oh man." I roll my eyes. I hate this move. Why do all my friends have to play it. And they all do.

I turn and try to watch the band through the pointlessly crowded pillar in front of me leaning one way, then the other, dodging and looking, trying to see something, whatever people are cheering at. I can see the guitarist. What's up the soul patch, I'm sick to death of the soul patch, uck. He didn't have that last time I saw these guys.

I turn back, James has done his worst. I will come out unscathed. That is the pif way. The way of the pif. I am determined.

"My name is Pif I swear."

She gives me a look where she is trying to believe me, with a bit of the 'why is this so important to him' analysis.

I turn and look for back-up. I got peeps. I need an outside man.

"DOOD!" I put my arm around a peep a-passin by, "What's my name?"

Mike (aka Dick) looks at me questioning my sanity and then again analyzing my inebriation. I look at her, then back at Mike. He gets it, turns to her and says, "Pif!" triumphantly.

"Thank you my m'man." I release him. "See!" I screech victoriously.

"Your going to be totally hoarse tomorrow."

"No way, I scream all the time, I learned it from my friend Mairi." Meanwhile, I am stunned by my own coolness and popularity. I without a bat of the eyelash seemed to pull a random human out of the crowd and demand justice, Oh justice is what I received. I felt vigorous, bold... unstoppable!

"I'm Angela." She extends her hand again.

Alarm bells ring maddeningly in my head. Red flags fly-up flapping in the furious wind, slapping and blinding me on there way up the pole. Amidst the cacophony of alarm and alert, my own book of rules is thrust forefront in my mind, spread wide to the page banned anymore girls with names who begin and end with 'a' then the page is turned to the addendum where highlighted and underlined it further bans all girls whose name have the now dreaded 'an' sound.

shit. double shit.

I must have freaked her out by my limp handshake and thousand yard stare. If I my life was a movie, which I'm not entirely sure it's not, it would have been the moment, when Ray Stanz sees Slimer for the first time and the cigarette hangs from his bottom lip.

Suddenly, I'm splattered by fake blood, it's flying everywhere. It snaps me out of it, I look into the spray. Alice cooper is wildly chopping up a Minnie Mouse doll filled with blood and guts with a large axe.

"Awesome! WHOOOOO! HAHAHAHAH! WICKED! HAHAHAHA" I scream.

This is why I come here. Nowhere else do you get this kind of entertainment. Some crazed maniac in tight quarters hammering an monster axe into a blooded disney toy on an oak table, wailing retro metal lyrics. Minnie our sacrifice, the bar table our alter, Alice Cooper our priest. Metal his benediction. The axe his wrath. Beer his love. The Seahorse is our temple. And the crowd goes wild.

I wipe the red muck from my eye, look down at my thin white t-shirt splattered in blood. Wicked. You know I was close to the action.

(to be continued... again.)


Today's Song of the Day is "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails off their/his 1994 album "The Downward Spirial."

Crazy Fact: In 1987, Reznor appeared in the Michael J. Fox/Joan Jett film Light of Day, where he played keyboards with a trio dubbed the Problems during a bar scene.

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