“Do you have a license to drink?”

Duck looked at her like she was joking.   He asked her what she was talking about. She explained to us that “they” are a dry county.  I can’t help but snicker. Texas, the land of drive through bars, and shot gun holders in the rear window, actually has a county that you have to buy a license to drink a beer.  Fortunately, it only costs a dollar, and you get the license right away.  We finish our hearty meal and head back out on the highway.  We camp at some lake; we all get stoned, including Duck, and laugh at the stars.

 The next day we drive over to Oklahoma. This state is just ugly. We finally arrive at our destination.  A neighborhood that closely resembles any hood in Gummo.  One house seems to stick out from the rest. On its front lawn, if you can call it that, lay boxes of trash, and recyclable products.  An overwhelming moan courses through the van.  We park just up a head, and just stick to our seats.

 From out of nowhere, a red headed dreadlocked crusty guy, wearing some faded and torn punk rock shirt, and grey long johns. His bare feet aren’t so bare, as they are coated with a layer of grime that has started colonies on what is left of epidermis. He knocks on our window, and through intermittent spitting, he asks us in a twang that only a mother could love, “Are you the band?"

I take one look at him and realize that he is looks just like Solomon from Gummo if he were a crusty punk instead of a voracious glue sniffing', retard fucking, cat killing  sliver wear weight lifter, “Well, we are a band, but maybe not the right one”  I reply.

 We get out of the van and venture up to this hot bed of crusty indulgence.  We ascend up some stairs where we are greeted by a stomach retching stench of dog shit and cat piss. Two punk rock looking Gummo girls who look eerily like Red Dread stare blankly at us through sips of some alcoholic beverage in a can I have never seen before.

 I am approached by a small Pit Bull looking type of beast that looks at me like I can save him from this dump.

  We then travel through the “living room’. Dodging piles of excrement from who knows what, and piles of spit that “Solomon” keeps as his collection on the “carpet”.  A small radio that is attached to an extension cord  leading out the window to the neighbors house plays some indecipherable shit.

 Solomon tells us they cleaned up the house yesterday.

 We decline the offer of “wanna beer” and instead follow “Solomon” when all of a sudden my eye site leaves me for a few seconds. After it returns I realize I am standing in the kitchen. The refrigerator is disheveled, and looks more like an upright coffin. The stove has what appears to be petrified spaghetti sitting in a pot.  At this point we decline the offer of food as well.

 We trek down the stairs that are half broken, and barely wide enough to fit an amp down. OH yea, the last 2 steps are missing.

We are now in the basement, or the place we are going to play. A cold musty scent penetrates my nasal cavity, it’s not much better than the urine and fecal stench up stairs.

 “Solomon” keeps spitting, he seems to be going for a world record.

  A single, low wattage light bulb hangs from the ceiling, a microphone lays buried in the dirt floor, next to the mic, sits a white mouse. I start looking for an escape route.  The one and only  p.a. speaker sits on some shelf looking thing, and again I see the trail of extension cord running into the  basement though some hold in the wall, where a window could have been.

  I look at Duck’s facial expression. I know full well he is not going to agree to play in this cesspool.  We lightly discuss what we could do for a set, while watching “Solomon” spit on any part of the floor that seems to be vacant of saliva.

 We decide to leave and get some food, and politely tell them we will be back.

  We meet up with the other band that booked this “show” at some spaghetti house, and fill them in on the circus that awaits them. They don’t seem to believe what we are telling them. 

 We finish dinner and drive 13 hours to Colorado.

 A few weeks later we meet up with the other band back in L.A. they tell us that they played to a crowd of about 10 people, and that the drunk chicks were pissed off because we left.