Ten Quick Questions With Eddie Spaghetti of The Supersuckers
Today's question-answerer is a founding member of one of the most kick ass rock and roll groups to ever exist, The Supersuckers (we reviewed a Supersuckers albums here, and a show here).
1. Who are you?
Eddie Spaghetti. International ambassador of rock, co-creator of the Supersuckers, husband, father, actor, model, author, artist, renaissance man.
2. Zombies - undead monstosity or the next logical step in human
evolution ?
Or how 'bout "Yet another sustainable, renewable food source for todays free thinking carnivore". Let's turn the tables on these undead fuckers!
3. Young Elvis or Fat Elvis?
Yes!
4. If you were a superhero, what would your name be?
"Captain Apathy" or maybe, "The Gluttonous" or "Mr. Anonymous"
5. You are the last man on earth, and it is your job to perpetuate the
human race, whether you like it or not. Your choice of potential mates is
between Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman, Super Girl or Hilary Clinton. Which
one do you choose?
Wonder Woman. Does anyone ever choose anyone else?
Or: You are the last woman on earth, and it is your job to perpetuate the
human race, whether you like it or not. Your choice of potential mates:
Batman, Superman, Wolverine or Stephen Hawking. Which one do you choose?
My wife says Stephen Hawking. Go figure...
6. What was your first car?
'72 Volkswagen Squareback. Tan. "The Toaster Machine". Saved up two years of paper route money to buy it when I turned sixteen and quickly totaled it. Sad.
7. If you were going to show me around your city/town, where's the first
place you would take me?
To your hotel. Where I'd leave you until it was time to go out. Then I'd make you meet me at my favorite local bar, The Sunset Tavern where we'd get hammered and I'd walk home, leaving you to figure out how to get back to the hotel on your own. I'm a terrible host.
8. What's the last album you bought?
Jerry Lee Lewis - "The Last Man Standing"
9. Do you have an arch enemy? Would you like one?
I used to, but I defeated him. I reckon I could use a new one. They're kinda fun.
10 What's the title of the movie they are going to make about your
teenage years?
"A Staggering Waste Of Potential" or "How I Killed My Parents' Hopes And Dreams: A True Story"
Thank you, Eddie, for participating in TQQ. We are kinda big, big fans of Supersuckers here at FTTW and if you are back in NY anytime soon (looks like Nov....), we'd like to buy you a drink.
The Supersuckers are currently on tour with the New York Dolls as part of Little Steven's Underground Garage Rolling Rock n Roll Show.
The Clash, Misfits, Bowie, Blondie - they like it all, which makes me swell with pride. I try not to get my hopes up too high, though, since they also dance and sing along to a purple dinosaur as if he was the second coming of Elvis.
I was slapped in the face with a cold case of reality when I realized that I had made it more than half way through the song without turning it off. And not only was I listening to it, but I was into it. There I was, with no children in the car, singing along, clapping my hands, stomping my feet, and, had it not been for the fact that I was strapped into the driver's seat of a vehicle going 70 along the highway, I'm quite certain I would have been jumping in the air.
Tonight the family and I were wandering around the neighborhood, checking out the Halloween decorations on peoples homes and dodging kids hopped up on sugar and anonymity. We tried to take the boy trick or treating, but he lost interest not long afterwards. I guess he’s just used to people telling him he’s adorable and giving him candy. We ended up back at the house fairly early and I ordered a pizza from the place up the street. A few kids came to the door and I asked the boy if he wanted to give the kids some candy. I can’t tell you how excited he got by the prospect, so the family and I sat out on the front porch as the steady stream of kids came through. The boy got to give them candy and I honestly think he enjoyed that so much more than trick or treating himself.
He was also in a foul mood, because two nights earlier he’d gotten into a fight at the train station. Another guy on the platform had been fighting with his wife for a bit when he finally hauled off and smacked her, knocking her to the ground. The kid had stepped in between the man and his wife, telling the man to knock it off or he’d call the cops. As payment rendered for his Good Samaritan services, the man socked him in the mouth, breaking off one of his front teeth at an odd angle. It’s been digging into his bottom lip for the last two days and generally fouling his mood. With no bartender to flirt with and a grill that looked properly broken, the kid decided to drown his Halloween blues in Specials all night long. 
“You scumbag little motherfucker!!” he yelled. I whipped my head around to see what was going on. The Vest was three quarters of the way over the bar, and about to land on what looked like a prone figure on the floor. Then I realized that the prone figure was wearing the same shoes as the kid. At first I thought that maybe The Vest had popped him one and the kid was on the floor as a result. But The Vest was a big guy and one shot from his meaty paws would’ve killed the kid. So the kid had to have already been on the floor when The Vest yelled at him. Just then I noticed that the table next to the jukebox contained nothing but young, pretty girls. In long skirts. On barstools. 
He came down hard after he came over the bar and picked the kid up by his neck. I bid the cook a hasty farewell and headed down to the other end of the bar. Not terribly fast because if the kid got socked, he deserved it. But he didn’t deserve a serious ass kicking and I now I’d have to talk The Vest into putting the kid down so we could get the hell outta there. “I’ll oughta fucking kill you,” The Vest bellowed, “right fucking now!” I walked a little faster. “Hey,” I yelled, just to get his attention, “He hasn’t wronged you. Let your girl take a shot at him if you’re both that pissed off. But put him down. He can’t breathe.”
1. Do you daydream about being interviewed for your favorite music-related magazine? Like, run the interview through your head...
One night while playing a gig in Idyllwild, Ca., the waitress walked up to me and said "Billy wants to play now". I said "And…" She said "Just ask Billy to come up and play". Ok, whatever, I thought. "Ok, Billy, it's time for you to play" and Billy proceeded to come up to the drums and sit down and just started rippin on the drums. This is cool I thought. When does someone ever play well that you call up from the audience. Not very often. Anyway, he says "Do you guys know Sunshine of Your Love?" Oh, hell yes. So we rocked it. We had people standing right up in front of our faces screaming and singing and shit, it was awsome. A total rock and roll moment. The harmonies were perfect and nobody screwed up the lyrics. It was cool. I was really impressed by how well this Billy guy knew this song on the drums and so, of course, I had to look out into the audience with that "Wow, he's really good" look on my face. So we rocked and everybody cheered and we got off the stage and somebody walked up to me and said "Did you know that was the drummer for Steppenwolf?" I, of course, said "oh bullshit!!" And they said "No really, he comes in here once in awhile". Then I got thinking about it and while we were setting up he came in, sat at the front table and bought the whole band a drink. Hmmmm....I thought.....holy crap.....that was the drummer from Steppenwolf!!!. You can imagine how embarrassed I was. I felt like a true moron. The only one in the place that didn't know who he was and I was singing with him! I appologized immediately, over and over. Although, I think he got a real kick out of it! He autographed the snare and accepted my apology, I still felt like an idiot, but it was so cool! So my real retard moment on stage was accomplished by me you could say!! 
As I waited in line with two friends, I began peering at our line companions. I realized that this was not the same sort of crowd as my other concerts. Those were dominated by people in their twenties and younger. This was a line dominated by people in their forties and fifties, with a small minority being in their twenties and thirties. This was not my home crowd.
Young, competent, confident, he and his band launched into a set of soft rock, soul-tinged love songs that bordered on easy listening. And the crowd loved it. At this point, there were approximately ten to twelve people hovering up by the stage. I watched the band as they started their first song, but then my eyes were drawn down to the base of the stage and two of the middle-aged women who had been standing up front.
A hipster in his thirties rushed onto the dance floor, grabbed his temples and started swinging his head back and forth, as though the sheer brilliance of the music was tearing apart his mind, shredding his very sanity. Another woman with a mullet started swinging her arms back and forth, snapping her fingers, dipping and twisting in a manner that could snap bones.
This is one of the most obvious so let’s get it out of the way first. Made in 1973 and still scaring the hell out of viewers, it’s on everyone’s list of classics. There must be a reason for it.
characters. This movie is hardly regarded as a great one, and I’m inclined to agree with that, but there are scenes in this movie that are definitely worth watching if you can stay awake long enough. There is a shock value to this one that makes it a contender. For example, there is one scene that was cut to avoid a complete banning of the movie – don’t worry, they put it back in later.
I haven’t seen the remake yet so I ain’t going there. Suffice it to say that although this movie has been slagged over the years, it was one of the greatest movies to present the devil incarnate to the people of this earth. Not exceptionally gross or disgusting, it has held its place because of good direction and a good story. We all know it.
This movie hardly ranks as a horror movie at all. At all. It’s more like a mystery, like an X-Files or Millenium episode. Having said that, I know you’ll like it if you want more from a horror movie than bloodnguts – yes, that is a word.
This one was directed by Alan Parker, whose credits include Pink Floyd: The Wall, Angela’s Ashes and Mississippi Burning. All good movies and all different genres, so you know this guy has his head screwed on right. He makes his mark with this one and I don’t understand why it’s not a lot more popular. Angel Heart stars Mickey Rourke (who does a fanfuckingtastic job, I don’t care what you think of him as a person), Robert DeNiro (as Louis Cyphre, also doing an excellent job) and Lisa Bonet (from The Cosby Show, but only for a while after this movie was made. Seems Bill Cosby wasn’t exactly enamoured with Lisa doing a nude sex scene with a white dude while blood rained on them from the ceiling - yeah, that’s a different world alright.
22. Big day! your mom will call and guilt you into spending the holiday with her instead of your spouse's family. She has volunteered you to host the holiday.
That's a lot of sacrfice to make. It's a lot to take on. The drive here, the moving into a place sight unseen, the starting over with a new job, the two teenage kids I have. Not to mention the cat. The cat's a pain in the ass.
We walked around South Philly for hours stopping at all the spots where CJM and Jane might go. “Maybe they went home…” CJM lived right around the block from my house but I knew if I went back home now my mother would either lock me in my room or have my bags packed on the front step, “I can’t go home right now dude…..Yo, is that Ickie?” 
Adam and Justin were two skins you needed on your side; they had so much loyalty they would kill anyone who fucked with one of their own. Justin, a tall good looking skin of obvious Nordic decent, always wore a black U.S. Army beret and carried a cane. The cane didn’t help him walk, it helped him beat people. Adam was a real ‘clean cut’ skin; all about the Fred Perry’s and polished 14 hole Ox Blood Doc’s. He was a union steel framer in the city who very much looked like he threw steel around all day. Justin initiated CJM a few years before so he kinda treated him like a younger brother. 
Butcher looked right at me, “Fuckers tried to take my boots! They’re not even Docs!!” He kicked India’s still, bleeding body, “Fucking whore….” John had no problem trying to get the rest of the story, “How did you find her alone….Where are her boys?” Butcher looked at John like he was next, “Fuck you John, you think I can’t handle a couple of pussy DC skins?” John actually looked worried, “No dude, I just don’t see-“ Butcher cut in, “I’ll go the fuck down there right now and kill every fucking one of them!” 
Favorite Album:
Album Least Like My Expectations:
Best Surprise:
He was gearing up to whiz past when, suddenly, a small, pink form darted right into his path, followed by a snot-nosed Gypsy boy.
What the hell. Wait. No power strips. We had no power. What the fuck now? I stopped the whole set up. I was on a beach and had nothing to go on. We didn't know it was a beach. We just didn't know. We were billed on the wedding and we couldn't fuck it off. We just fucked up. This show stopped. Walking up to groom to tell him we couldn't play because, well because he was on a fucking beach. Some girl came up with a guitar behind me and listened to me talk. She pulled me back. She said she could do this. I looked her up and down. I asked her if she was sure she could do this. I mean fuck, this was getting bigger by the second. This was getting out of control.
But honestly, I'm going to blame this one on my neighbor. She forced me into it, in much the same way UNICEF forces kids around the country to co-opt Halloween. It's supposed to be a day about grabbing fistfuls of candy and greedily shoving them in your mouth. Not about poor, hungry kids who need their shots. How dare the UN ask us to beg for loose change on this one time a year when we are allowed to beg for candy.
What you are gonna feel instead is even more stress trying to balance your mistress with your wife and kids and job and everyone will feel it and get suspicious and pissed and your old lady is likely to pull a Bobbit on your ass.
This guy is a rock with lips. Sharp as a bag of marbles. Just plain dumb. Fortunately for the guy, the receptionist laughed him off and walked away, telling no one but my wife of the incident. Besides being dumb, this guy is very lucky. A good rule of thumb: If she works in the same building, don't try to pick her up. Of course, that means trying to score somewhere else.
I have another married friend who was sitting down with his wife when the cell phone rang. It was the husband of the girl he was shagging. The guy made it sound innocent, and asked for the wrong name, explained that he found the number 'cleaning out his boss' files' and thought he may be a potential customer. Turns out his little fling was foolish enough to leave his name and number programmed into HER phone and hubby got curious. This brings up two other points: 1) if at all possible, find a married woman to diddle with- she has as much to lose as you, if not more, and is less likely to try to destroy your life: or 2) find someone who is content being the other woman because she is fucking several other guys at the same time she's fucking you.
It's just what I do. When I was little I would worry about the Russians and plane crashes and my parents dying in a horrific fire at the drive-in while they were watching Mothra. Yes, a fire at the drive-in. I was little. Even then, my imagination soared. I worried about school. I worried if my stuffed animals could breathe in my toy box. I worried if people liked me. It was pretty easy to let go of that worry once I realized they didn't. If only the Russians would have had the decency to ease my mind like that. 
I know when someone says "I'll call you in five minutes" and seven minutes later I start worrying about them, it's ridiculous. But they have to understand. My anxiety has a mind of its own. It does what it wants. I can argue with it and talk it down and tell it that it's being an ass, but its a force that will never give in. And then like a mental Ultraman, all these anxieties and worry and panic join together to form the most formidable opponent that serenity, peace and reason have ever known. Worst Case Scenario Girl has arrived.
You know, I really dislike winter for a few reasons, one is the cold. Brrrrrrrrr! And the other is the snow and ice… Hazardous driving isn’t it? Don’t you just hate having to scrape the windows in the mornings? I know I do. You know my poor car has been through snow banks, ice skids, collisions, and all manners of abuse. (Those car crashes were not my fault I swear!) The clunky boots, the multiple layers, Oh and WET MITTENS! These just make for bad winter seasons.
check and see who’s online when you are, see if they are cute and if the profile is something you’d be interested in, send an e-mail expressing your curiosity in who they are, just don’t harass them if they don’t get back to you. People frequently have no courtesy in returning e-mails to parties that are unappealing, so leave it at one e-mail, and leave it at that, there are plenty fish out in that great big ocean, don’t spend your time going after one white whale, we all know how that story went. Try to keep in mind that the idea of these places are to be fun and interesting, one or two bad encounters isn’t the end of the line, there are assholes everywhere, they‘re just harder to spot online than when you’re in a bar.
I look both ways. Then a cop comes up behind me. I’m ok - I’ve been legal to drive again for three years, I got nothin' in the car I shouldn’t have, I’m insured. Bitchin. Tags are good on the plates. But I’m in a quandary as to how to proceed up the hill with this cop behind me. 
I mean, I compare vanillia ice cream to a woman's menstruation cycle and you guys are telling me about some kind of Napoleanic type of war over apple pie. Fuck man. I can barely brush my own teeth much less spell Napoleanwhateverthefuck War.
Ok, ice cream. That's where I was headed with this.
Yes, these four simple sentences can be the key to getting a better job.
I was like, “No, but my husband is.” All innocent right? Inside I’m screaming at this wench and imagining wringing her neck. Sure, she was being nice, but I almost barfed all over my Antonio Milani black pumps. By the way, if you don’t have a pair of great four inch black pumps, stop reading this now and go buy a pair. Really, go NOW! Anything stupid you’ve done as a woman is totally null and void if you have great shoes. So this lady says to me, “No, silly, if your husband is in Z367, that means you are too.” By this point, I’m feeling really sorry for her and wanting to educate her on how to be shrew, but I realize this woman is totally happy with her life and why should I make her husband’s life miserable by informing her of the women’s rights movement? He’s a lucky bastard. I wish I had a wife like that. Who am I to mess that up for him? Haven’t we all heard ignorance is bliss? Bullshit concept, by the way, but whatever works for you.
So I was thinking about what I was going to write about this week, and had writers block all week long. I couldn’t write anything. All these ideas and then the old hard drive freezes. So then I went over a few notes I had made and couldn’t make anything out of them. What the fuck was I thinking with notes like:
Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Gets Girl Back.
You have seen the one where the cute animals makes that journey across the country to get back to little Timmy. Yeah, right. Tell that to the poor kid in Louisiana trying to get his dog back from some asshats in another state who ended up with his pet, but lost him because of the worst fucking natural disaster in history. That dog isn’t trying to go anywhere but to sleep all day. Google it. True Story.
Taking a shower in the boys' locker room was bad enough.I mean hell, there only 20 guys saw your lack of manliness (is that a word?) but to drive one of these cars around, you showed everyone you were going out to buy tampons for your girlfriend or that you like to watch TV court shows. While I might be admitting I have done both, let me swear to you that My Cock is massive and thinks ahead. It is a massive cock. It is so big I fear My Cock will sprout legs one day and leave me. After all, My Cock can do anything. It has been talking lately about running for President because My Cock thinks things are going down the shitter in this country. My Cock has a seven point program to turn this country around and My Cock is the one to do it.
The defense as a whole and their vet Numminen in particular, have been outstanding. Goal production across all lines has sealed the deal. It’s textbook hockey and it gets the adrenalin pumping. 
Redd Foxx parties became something of a legend in the houses Jonny D. and I lived in. All in all, we only had five of them. And honestly, I think we might have had four too many. Because sometimes you’ll end up at a party that you remember forever, and some parties end up living in infamy. A Redd Foxx party was different though. These things took years off your life and left you a huddled-in-the-corner mess for a week afterwards. Something that much fun and physically devastating could only be sprung from the mind of Jonny D. 
one by one, the rest of the people I lived with would disappear into the crowd and I knew I wouldn’t see them until the morning. Near the end of the evening, when it was just a few people hanging out and I was wondering where the rest of the housemates had buggered off to, Jonny’d put on the Redd Foxx standup albums that he’d copped off his old man and we’d sit on the floor and howl. The handful of people would eventually shuffle off and Jonny and I would survey the damage. Which was usually considerable. 
Those songs you sing in your car when you think no one is listening. The songs that make you think back to the days wearing your checkered Vans and six tons of hair spray and thinking that Thomas Dolby was somehow intellectual. 
Waiting for signs of the afterlife. Maybe the moans of the dead coming from inside the house, or a floating pig to appearing at the window. If the house was a freak show in itself, the kids roaming around outside it were just another ring in the circus. Drunk, loud and curious. Not a great combo there. Most kids would try to get into the house or vandalize it or pee in the bushes just for the hell of it.
I don't know. I just know that when I went to mom's house to check out her setup and I walked by the styrofoam headstone that had Cobain's name on it, I felt weird. I tried to explain it to my mom, but I couldn't really articulate it. "Gee that makes me feel creepy, mom," just doesn't cut it. I mean, she had her hero Elvis in there. She certainly wasn't going to care if I didn't like Kurt's pretend grave. So I let it go.
One day in early March, long after the divorce but not long before I’d decided to kill myself with the drink, my father rang me up. He and I hadn’t seen much of each other in the last couple of years and we were never real big about talking on the phone. We’d chit chat here and there but for the most part we’d only talk when we were around each other. He caught me totally off guard with the phone call and when I heard the tone in his voice, I immediately thought that something was wrong. He sounded really upbeat, cheerful in fact. My father, even in a stellar mood, never sounded as happy as he did on the phone that day. 
The week goes by in a mostly drunken stupor and late on Friday night I straggled in and packed up what I’d need in my old frame pack. That poor thing hadn’t seen the light of day in years and it felt really good to break it back out and fill it with everything I’d need for a week in the woods. The old man figured that we could cover the whole trail in the time we had and while I disagreed, I knew we could get through most of it. The simple fact was that it was 70 miles of rocky, mountainous terrain and I knew the old man wouldn’t be able to keep up as well as he thought he could. His emphysema had gotten worse over the years and there were some days when he just couldn’t go as fast as he had in the past. I didn’t want to rain on his parade, but I mapped another route, just in case. 
For some reason, my brain jumped from there to one of my other favorite films. Something I saw a dozen times when I was a kid, but really holds an entirely different meaning for me now. Most of you know how I met my wife. But nobody knows about the first date. 
We grabbed a couple of beers and tried to make small talk, but the simple fact was, I had no desire to make time with her in a meaningless, let’s shoot the shit kinda way. I wanted to kiss her and smell her skin and talk to her about records and music. If you know me at all, you’ll know that the last is very important. If I’m willing to sit and talk to you for hours on end about music, I’m trying to get you attention. It’s the only thing in my life that ranks up there with my wife and kid, so don’t try and bring that Rick Springfield shit. So we sat and made small talk until I mentioned a show I wanted to go to in a couple of days. And she immediately caught on. Band names started flying, guitarists we respected and lyrics we thought were cool. Serious nerd shit, but I live for stuff like that. We almost missed the beginning of the movie. 
Like atmosphere and story, for example. John Carpenter takes his time and builds up the suspense and tension so that you’re biting your fingernails down to the second knuckle by the end. There’s not really anything disgusting in this one, but again, they hold you by the throat until the end of this movie and that’s what it’s all about. As a matter of fact, they hold you by the throat after the movie ends, because you don’t know where the hell Michael Myers went! He should have died from his injuries, but he got up after that fall and walked away. Where did he go? Well, you’ll have to watch the sequel to get the answer to that one. 
We were to start playing at 9. So I met Djeef and his soulmate down there and we got our stuff unloaded and set up. That was about 7. We were usually the first people at a gig out of the band. So we sat down and had some drinks with everyone and went out by the bonfire and got social. About 8, one of us got up and went looking to see if Tam and the Kook had arrived. No luck. So Djeef and I goofed on some metal rhythm stuff, like Breadfan and Jump in the Fire. We both had a nice buzz going. This was because of the sheer amount of alcohol at the place. Someone had made a giant cooler full of Jungle Juice. Now, Jungle Juice seems to be different no matter where you are, but at this party, it was a bunch of liquor that was mixed with a bunch of fruit and left to marinate for a couple of days. There was also beer and whiskey and herbage. So, yeah, we had the smilies. 
We played for about 45 minutes, and then someone yells "The cops are here!" We stopped, right in the middle of the solo for "Comfortably Numb",. which actually had been going surprisingly well, because we were... comfortably numb by then. Someone pussed out and told the cops the band would only be playing for another 10 minutes. Total letdown, and then i was pissed, because if the Two hadn't been late, we'd have gotten our full time in. And I don't think i said much of a civil word to the Two for the rest of the night. I went back to drinking though, and my Li'l Bro and I headed out to the bonfire again and nursed our pints. Djeef retired to his truck with his soulmate after a while. Sometime around 3, I staggered out to the trailer i was going to sleep in, showed Li'l Bro his bed, and then I fell into mine and was out. 
Young Elvis, of course. I don't see him as some sort of kitsch icon, but rather as one of the vanguard of early rock and roll, the blend of Chicago blues and Honkytonk country that revolutionized American music.
Hell, you’ve probably been to one - too many people, too many strollers with screaming, crying, cranky kids hyped up on candy from any one (or several) of the 50,000 candy stores (with homemade fudge, of course!) in the one square mile the touristy party of town encompasses. I’m sure there is a city ordinance or something that there must be a candy store every 200 feet and every 600’ there have to be one with fudge. Ugh. I hate these places. Detest them. These are the towns that that also have a bunch of those t-shirt shops where you can get anything pressed on. Oh! And the trinkets and Christmas crap shops. Criminy. I just want to walk in and smash every little feel-good glass dragon or glass Christmas globe or Christmas bulbs. I think you’re there now, in your mind, and you’re able to envision these little towns of sugary, money goodness that pretty on you with their trinkets and t-shirts and hand-dipped ice cream and putt-putt golf and ma-and-pa pancake houses. 
Some were scared but they all knew that no one was going to make it out of this alive. There's no going back and there's no getting out. The feeling at looking at someone and realizing this is going to be it, you know, that's a powerful feeling. There's just something to having someone look back and know this will soon be over for us and them looking at you agreeing. This is the end. It's just a matter of time now.
Maybe breaking a few windows, stuff like that. But in this community, that’s almost like destroying Aalderan. Parents looking at their kids like “why the fuck did you do that? We gave you everything you wanted!” And the kids looking at their parents like “But we just wanted your attention, man!” Yea, that screws up my Star Wars analogy, but I’m really fucking tired tonight. Insomnia is a bitch. It makes me screw up my metaphors and it makes me remember scenes in movies that weren’t really there, like Matt Dillon standing up at the meeting in the rec hall and saying DO IT FOR JOHNNY!
These days we get a couple of releases from friends in bands or from readers here and there. Like many people we steal music off the internet, to the tune of billions a year. I'm speaking just about ourselves, we stole about forty billion dollars worth of old novelty records off the interweb this year alone. Actually, I just listen to WFMU a lot. And steal records from thriftshops.
costumes without the teachers worrying that we were creating a hostile environment for any children who may be proponents of peaceful mediation of conflicts rather than the old “I’ll fucking cut you, asshole” way of doing things. We were bums (sorry, "displaced residents") and hobos (sorry, "frugal travelers") and witches (sorry, "alternative religion worshipers"). Now you can't even be a freaking ghost without the principal accusing of you being insensitive to Jenny, whose grandmother passed away four weeks ago. I'm just betting that somewhere in the student body is a person whose ethnicity is Transylvanian.
“Brody! Where the fuck are you man??” John was too busy looking for floaters, “Yo Brody!” – 
I wore heavy leather gloves and I was "on," that state where you hear, see and feel everything. See, not everyone who gets their house repossessed is happy about it. Some people are pissed and they trash the place, shit and debris everywhere, broken windows and furniture. Some showed attempts to burn the place down. Other people were really pissed that we were coming and set booby traps.
Years of receiving electric shocks teaches you not to react. If you make a fuss of getting a shock while at the top of a ladder, you've a whole world of hurt coming very soon.
The dead girlfriend zombie thing I could do without, but the rest of it was cool. Who wouldn't love waking up in the morning with a shotgun by your side. I'm lucky enough to find my shoes, much less a 12 gauge sitting on the floor. Maybe one day things will change, but for right now, I have to be happy with my chainsaw and 2x4 and non zombie girlfriend.
This is the thing about Gauntlet. It’s a cooperative game. You play with someone else and you depend on that person you are playing with to help you through the levels. Cooperation. Working together to meet common goals. Food, health, ways to escape. If the person you are playing with doesn’t have your back, you die. Simple as that. So you work together, looking at what your individual strengths are and figuring out how to best use each other’s skills to stay alive and move on to the next level. You don’t give up on each other. You don’t bail. Because you depend on each other. 
