jeffbalke.com - words.pictures.music

This is the last photo I have of myself with my dad - taken Christmas 2006 by Katya. Our last Christmas together was spent in the hospital, so 2006 is the last time we celebrated.

Happy Father’s Day, dad. I miss you.

After tomorrow’s Houston Dynamo community day at Discovery Green, my band will have played three outdoor shows in the last month and four already this year. That’s more outdoor shows in the summer than we have played in our entire 5-year history. In the south, the tendency is to do those shows in the spring and fall rather than the brutal heat of summer.

There are many perils associated with performing outside in the summer including heat stroke, sunburn and ticks (get that country singer guy to check you for those), but people don’t realize the unique problems that can occur for the rock musician under these conditions. I’ll try to elaborate on a few.

Leather Pant Stickage

Being a rock star means dressing the part, but if you think that getting stuck to your car seats in the summer is nasty, try being wedged into leather (or, dear God help you, pleather) pants during an outdoor show. Sure, you look like the king of the world, but you feel more like a sausage stuffed in its wrapper (no penis innuendo intended…ok, maybe a little). What’s worse, if you get really stuck, it may require an Leather Pantectomy and no one wants that. You should see what they do with the retractor. Ouch.

Frisbee or Beach Ball Itis

This is the fear of being struck in the head by a Frisbee or slipping when trying to kick a beach ball back into the crowd. It’s not the pain of the fall or the hit to the head so much as the embarrassment that causes injury. Typical responses include getting really pissed and screaming at the crowd inanely or laughing like an idiot. Either way, you look stupid.

Hot Girl Interruptus

While we were playing last weekend, I spied a very good looking young lady walking towards the stage. As she approached, I did what all straight male musicians do - I looked over at my guitar player and mouthed, “Check her out!” When he turned, she walked by and the resulting sound from his guitar can only be described as that of a dying moose instead of the G-chord he was supposed to play. Not only did it sound crazy, but I could barely continue from the chokes of laughter that cut off my air passages. My instruction to women: continue to wear skimpy clothing and just expect we’re going to screw up because of you. Like cat calls, whistles and horn honks, it’s a creepy compliment.

Sweat Disfigurement

As a rock star, you work hard not just on what you wear but what you do with your hair. Few things are as disruptive to your sweet ‘do as sweat. Sure, you could shave your head like Rob Halford though that would probably mean a Leather Pantectomy, or cover your head in antiperspirant, but that almost always ends in hives. The best thing to do is shake your wet head wildly like a wet dog and spray bottled water into the air with your mouth. It makes people think you want to be wet when, in reality, you have hair gel in your eyes and it stings like a bitch. The good news is that the stinging makes you cry and you look all emotional during that power love ballad.

Wet T-Shirt Electrocution

When you have the terrible misfortune of being on a stage where they are holding a wet t-shirt contest (I know, awful, right?), not only are you forced to look at half naked wet women for what seems like hours, but you are subjected to the deadly prospect of wet t-shirt electrocution. This is when one of two things happens:

a. The guy throwing the bucket of ice water at the girl misses and hits you.
b. One of the girls grabs you to do a simulated pole dance.

In both instances, you’re probably going to die. In one of them, however, you won’t care.

Death by Water Cannon

Should be self-explanatory.

—

Hopefully, this will help open your eyes to the plight of the average rock star when it comes to summer outdoor performance. It’s not all glamor and fame. Well, it’s mostly that, but still.

The above is a screencap of the toolbar at the top right of my computer screen. Below are the explanations of each numbered item. Number 4 explains why I am the way I am.

1. iTunes Controller

This is used to fast forward through dozens of songs until I can find exactly the one I want when I have the shuffle feature enabled. I could just open iTunes and choose the song, but that seems like a lot of extra work.

2. iScrobbler Icon

This lets me know that iScrobbler, which reports the songs I listen to on iTunes to LastFM, is enabled thereby causing me to only choose cool songs for listening. I listen to Xanadu and The Bangles when it is disabled. Unfortunately, a certain photographer friend who shall remain nameless (Katya) listened to the same Billy Joel and Ben Folds songs about 1000 times in a row one night while processing photos and now everyone on LastFM thinks I’m the president of their respective fan clubs.

3. Hamster Icon

Represents the hamster wheel that is used to power my CPU. That little guy can move.

4. Bloglines Menu

This is SUPPOSED to tell me how many new posts to my Bloglines feeds are currently available. Instead, I just saw it said “69″ and giggled like a teenager. Then, I screencapped it and wrote this blog.

5. iChat Icon

This is a thought bubble. Inside it in tiny letters it says, “No one likes you.” iChat can suck it.

6. Flag

I tried to change this to something from Europe to make me look cool, but a message came up saying that Homeland Security would be notified if I made any changes to the flag, so I left it and ate some freedom fries while wearing my flag lapel pin. God save the queen!

7. Volume Control

Mine goes to 11.

8. Thu?

What the hell? I think this is some kind of code for Thunderdome.

9. Clock

It’s 1:43pm in the afternoon when I should be working and I’m doing this. Now, it’s actually 2:16, which means I’ve spend more than half an hour on this blog post. This is what I do with my time.

10. All Seeing Eye

Steve Jobs uses this to spy on his minions and to check out naked chicks. Perv.

If there’s one thing I love, it’s email spam. When I say love, it’s really more like love/hate or maybe it’s just hate. In truth, it’s more like seething rage with a dollop of whipped cream.

While digging through my tortured souls bin (i.e. the spam folder), I found a few worthy of note simply for their titles and I submit them to you for your entertainment enjoyment boredom.

Become a fortunate fellow

I think this may have been Creedence Clearwater Revival’s original song title until they realized the song would probably only be popular with old, rich British men who wear monocles. It might also be telling me I can be a graduate student who just won the lottery and, if so, sign me up…for the lottery, not the graduate school. Who ever made any money from school? Pffft.

See her get instantly geeked

Look, I’m a big ass nerd and even I’m too cool to use the term “geeked” when it comes to a woman’s arousal. It sounds more like the response you might get if your girlfriend just found out you could speak Klingon or your cat’s name was Data - that’s assuming she’s doesn’t immediately call 911.

Upsize your pecker and Upgrade your penis

I don’t think “upsize” is a word, but “downsize” isn’t appropriate and I’m not even sure what “capsize” would mean in this context…oh, wait, yes I do. Anyway, I’m a big fan of the fact that they used the word “pecker” in the same sentence as “upsize.” It’s like the senior vice president of marketing also happens to be a big fan of Larry the Cable Guy.

And if you want to upgrade your penis, I suggest you consider going with version 2.21 (fewer bugs) or just try the robo penis beta version.

What a stupid face you have here jeff

Wow, so personal. I may have a stupid face, but you have a butt for a face, butt face. If you want to get into a 3rd grade name calling contest, bring it on cootie breath.

Pinky crustaceans

That’s just cute or maybe it’s the name of Pinky Tuscadero’s backup band in the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid. That had a chick rock band in it, right? Or was that the porn version - The Little Spermaid?

Lascivious costive

I looked these words up because I’m not really smart with book learnin’ and it basically means “lustful constipation” in German or Elvish or one of those other romance languages, which is weird cause I don’t think of lusting after constipation as being terribly romantic, although it might be Roman. That Caligula was one weird cat. What was I talking about?

I was watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin tonight and the main character, upon finally revealing his virginity to his girlfriend said, “All these years I thought there was something wrong with me because it had never happened. But, I realize I was just waiting for you,” or something close to that.

The first time I heard this line, being the incredible romantic that I am, I thought, “Jesus, if that doesn’t get you laid, what will?” Fortunately, Jesus didn’t answer my query because I think he may have said something I didn’t want to hear like, “Perhaps if you watched less tv and stop being a nerd, you would be getting laid instead of asking stupid questions.” Thanks, Jesus. Sheesh.

Anyway, it got me thinking that there must be other lines that are foolproof in acquiring sweet lovin’ from the ladies.

Here are a few suggestions. Please feel free to provide your own.

“I’m not really a stalker. Your life is just more interesting than mine.”

This doesn’t just get you off the hook when the cops show up, it tells the girl that she’s like totally interesting to you. Plus, she’ll see you have plenty of time on your hands for foreplay and chicks dig that.

“Your boobs are two totally different sizes. How interesting.”

It shows her you are very attentive and captivated by her oddly misshapen bosom.

“Those pumps would go great with my foot fetish.”

This just demonstrates how much you have in common…with her feet.

“You have a great head.”

What’s great about this line is that it sounds dirty when, in fact, it is just a compliment about the giant melon on her shoulders. It’s like innuendo without the charm.

“You are really hot. You remind me of this porn star I watch on the internet.”

It’s a nice compliment and now she knows you are interested in sex…and masturbation.

And finally…

“You look so much thinner than you actually are.”

It will confuse her long enough for you to make your move…or run when she starts to beat you with her McDonald’s bag.

Let me know if any of these work for you because, I’m desperate curious.

Found this ad on MySpace.

To me, a better question would be:

Do I really need to take a quiz on the internet to figure out if I’m fat?

or

Is a Flash ad on MySpace really the best way to determine my level of health?

or

Does Jesus hate me because I’m fat?

or

Should I blog about this?

or

Why am I looking at ads on MySpace?

They all seem to have a certain relevance to them and, for at least one, the answer is clearly yes. Jesus does hate you when you are fat, so trim down or you’re going to hell, fatty.

Had a few conversations lately in which I thought what I said was pretty amusing. I’m certain it wasn’t to anyone but myself, but what other people think really doesn’t matter except when they disagree with me and then it TOTALLY matters.

A few samples:

Kymberlie (whose boyfriend - I did say boyfriend - Luis, is in Puerto Rico): I got a call from Puerto Rico this morning.
Me: Was it Luis?

—

Someone at the Caroline Collective party last night: You’re like internet famous.
Me: Is that a compliment?

—

Another at the CC party: This is Jeff. He writes a music blog on Chron.com and plays in this cool band, orange is in.
Me: That sounds a lot more glamorous than “he sits around in his underwear watching Star Trek Voyager reruns and posting comments on Twitter.”

—

Another at the CC party (a trend?): Do you play the stand up bass?
Me: No, that requires a certain manliness I don’t possess.

—

Friend: Your photon on the Chron makes you look 50.
Me: What?
Friend: I mean, you don’t LOOK 50.
Me: But I did three years ago when the photo was taken?

—

Me on the mic after a song at the Kingwood Music Festival when the few people there didn’t really clap: And my high school band director said I’d never amount to anything.

—

Some random internet person: I like your hair.
Me: Thanks. I grew it myself.

—

And no one can figure out why I’m not terribly popular. Or maybe they can and are just trying to placate me so they don’t have to listen to my whining. Why would you be that way? God, your totally mean.

..on the crazy interweb.

I am not a web newbie. I got started with my first Prodigy account back in 1992 (I’m old - shut up), so I’ve been around the series of tubes a time or two. I’ve had my life threatened by someone who mistook me for someone else. I’ve been flamed by all manner of nerd.

But, I’ve also made many a friend here, at least one girlfriend (that I know of) and got a very good business partner.

I realize the pitfalls of the web and I know that people exist for the sole purpose of messing with those online - usually veiled in anonymity. However, until today, I had not realized the depths to which a person would sink to deceive people.

I’m not going to bother with the details. Suffice it to say that I found out that there’s a jerkoff for every good person surfing the information superhighway, possibly more

And just to show I’m a good sport, here is me in all my overly trusting gullible black and white fabulousness.

Don’t bother looking it up. I’m the definition.

My favorite new t-shirt.

A friend of mine told me today that she is concerned about her highlights claiming her hair now looks like that of a “lesbian tiger ho.” I cannot confirm or deny this statement as beauty is clearly always in the eye of the beholder, however, in honor of the plight of all of us who struggle with bad hair days (shut up, baldies, no one asked you), I give you the following screencap from the King’s X video for the song “Over My Head” on YouTube.

On the left, you see my friend, Mando, with his shit-eating grin. On the right, that sasquatch looking ball of hair is yours truly. Granted, I was about 21 at the time, but still.

Thus, I re-name this video “Over My Sasquatch Head” and hope King’s X will consider a permanent change in my honor.

This frame was at 32 seconds in and I caught myself a few other times in the video - shot at Rockefellar’s in the middle of some weekday afternoon. It’s like Headbanger’s Ball without Ricky Rackman!