Of Two Fours and Rapture

Talk of the rapture was a hot topic all weekend.  No earthquakes, no multitudes vanishing in the blink of an eye.  Just a typical May long weekend.  The lads and I stood our ground and acted like good Canadians and socked into a 2-4 as it was the sacred May 2-4 weekend.

French, Sweaty, Pancake and I were all discussing the good times we were going to have on the new earth or in Heaven.  We are a bit sketchy on the details, despite years and years of Sunday school.  Mostly we talked about how we were all going to hang out and jam with Johnny Cash, Bono, and John Bonham.  Or how we were going write poems and roam around with Kerouac.  And I'd take my little brother out fishing everyday. We laughed, we toasted and clinked beers.  Then we'd launch into another round of which old saints we'd be pals with in Heaven.

Bruce Fish kept silent the whole time.  A little after 6:00 Rose stopped looking up to the sky.  No rapture. She'd been alternating between looking skywards or glaring at us.  She picked up her Bible, and her baby and stormed off  to their dump truck.

French asked him what was up with Rose.

Bruce Fish took a last swig of his beer and said:  "she just wants to meet Jesus".

French Fashion

Today's kids will head out to the mall and spend heaps o'cash on ripped jeans.  I laugh and tell 'em to "take them back".  You pay top dollar for pre-ripped and pro-ripped jeans.  It was so much cheaper, and more fun when I was a kid.

French and I were metal heads back in the day.  We'd see some crazy hair-metal band on MTV (back when they played videos), and they'd all have shredded jeans.  We tried all kinds of ways to rip them; my mom is still mad.  It was French who finally figured out the way to get them done right.

He'd hang our jeans on the clothesline and then we'd shoot out the knees with a pellet gun.  Sweaty, Pancake, French and I had the most hardcore jeans by far, and each pair was one of a kind.  French even started to provide this service, for a small fee, for the kids that didn't have a gun (girls had theirs done for free).

French told this to his guitar class...they all think he's lying...he ain't.

Phantom Shores

My cousin plays drums/percussion in a band called Phantom Shores.  They played a show last week at the Elmdale Tavern.  The same stage that my buddies in Graven played last month.  I was pretty keen to check them out.  French had a date with his on-again/off-again girlfriend: the Johnny Cash tattoo girl.  So I convinced Sweaty to go along; not an easy task.

He was concerned that these young hipsters would be swigging PBR all night and worst of all not play any rock n'roll.  To get him to go I had to pick him up, by him a pitcher of beer, and then drop him off...deal.

Sweaty came around.  There was no Pabst Blue Ribbon to be found, and he actually liked the band.  He thought that my cousin Dave was a "crazy intense drummer":  High praise from Sweaty. 

Sweaty took a shine to both of the girls in the band.  He found out what they were drinking and had a round waiting as soon as they were done their set.  I wanted to leave early, and miss the second band.  He stayed on at the Elmdale and chatted up the girls.  Can't hardly tell that he and French are brothers.