It's The End Of The World As We Know It...

Today being 6/6/06 I spent much of my afternoon awaiting the sweet release of the apocalypse. It’s about 4:30 PM as I write this, so I’m assuming that the four horsemen aren’t coming today. Then again, perhaps they’re just biding their time until 6:06. If the end of the world is really coming at 6 tonight, I’m going to be pissed. That would mean I suffered through a whole day of work for nothing.

I was scanning the headlines all day waiting for “The dead have arisen the seas are flowing with blood.” Because the second that news item flashed across the screen, I was high-tailing it to three places. In order they’d be:

1. The emergency kit in the trunk of my car.
2. A 6 hour alcohol-fueled, whoring, looting and arson rampage.
3. The closest church so I could convert and repent my sins.

I’ve got my priorities straight.

Seeing as how the end of the world is noticeably absent, I guess this means my rampage will have to be put on hold. Then again, maybe it’s high time I get a head start on the inevitable looting. Look, one way or another, I’m burning SOMETHING down tonight.

I’ve always been a bit of a morbid mother-fucker. When I was in high school I was convinced that it was my destiny to be a famous rock star and then die at 30. I used to joke all the time about my death. I had all sorts of scenarios picked out for it.

When picking a death for a rock star, it’s important to pick one that really sums up the lifestyle and upholds an impossibly cool image. Rock stars die all the time, but not all of them get it right. Here are the worst rock and roll deaths:

1. Elvis: Not even close. There’s absolutely nothing cool about dying on a toilet 30 years after your peak.
2. Terry Kath (from the band Chicago): the dude was a gun nut and liked to carry pieces of his collection around with him. Very drunk at a party he pulled one and held it to his head before uttering his final words, “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.” Fucktard.
3. Mama Cass/John Denver: Ham sandwich/own incompetence in piloting a plane. Either way, it’s not glamorous.

So I figured that when I died, it had to be memorable and very elaborate. Here’s what I decided on:

I would be playing a show to a sold-out outdoor arena. There’d be about 100,000 people rocking out under the sky. Suddenly, the stars are blotted out. Is that a meteor hurtling towards earth? The audience and the band are too locked into the music to care.

Meanwhile, a quarter of a mile away, the engineer on a military train succumbs to a rare tropical disease. He pitches forward and bleeds through every orifice, ruining the controls. The train lurches forward at a suicidal pace.

Meanwhile, 20,000 feet above on a cargo plan of exotic animals, all hell breaks loose when 2 rhinos, four lions, 70 king cobras and a great white shark manage to escape. The crew has no choice but to abandon ship. The plane lurches towards the stage.

The meteor rips through the plane's fuselage and the whole thing ignites.

The train jumps the tracks and hurtles towards the arena where an oblivious rock god is playing the greatest song ever heard: women weep, and tear their clothes. Men bow down and worship.

The animals, crazed by fear and smoke charge, leap, slither, or thrash to freedom.

The guitar player plucks the last, glorious chord and an instant before the audience can respond in adulation, the great white, two lions, the cobras and a rhino bite, maul, poison and gore him. Before anyone can rush forward the train annihilates half the stage. Emergency teams arrive on the scene seconds after the cargo jet levels the rest of the stage and ignites a nearby gas line. The fire ball is seen for miles.

Now that’s a death worth looking forward to. If the end of the world doesn’t happen first, that is.
Speaking of rock stardom, I’ve been asked recently about what direction my band is going in. I’ve stumbled on the perfect stock reply:

“Yeah, we’ve always tried to model our career after Great White.”

What can I say? I’m a classy son of a bitch.