I Need To Do Something About This...

As 99.9% of anyone who will ever read this already knows, I play in a band. We meet twice weekly, every Monday and Thursday. Our rehearsal space is one of many inside a Costco-size warehouse just east of the highway 101 overpass on Cesar Chavez (or, as it says below Casar Chavez on the sign "(army)") street. We have occupied this space since Q4 of '07.

Compared to many rehearsal spaces in San Francisco, ours ain't bad. It's got high ceilings, decent ventilation; it's not huge, but it isn't cramped; it's not disgustingly filthy, and it's not located in a gross part of town (just a dismal part). It has other things going for it, but they're all too dull to mention. All's in all, it's totes decent. I have nothing to complain about. Except for... (above).

Fortunately, no one in the band can take credit for these; they were there when we signed the lease. However, a realization I find alarming -and possibly telling- is that between Q4 of '07 and Q2 of '10, it hasn't occurred (outwardly) to anyone in the band to paint over these total bummers. They were briefly obfuscated by a large poster of a photoshopped slut, but through some form of Dark Lord intervention, or gravity (we'll never really know), it tore off the wall, and now we're back to staring at these jenkem-inspired cave paintings 4 hours each week. That's 208 hours per year, or roughly 9 days per person per annum. With the exception of Ryan, our marvelous drummer, whose back is facing this wall most of the time, each of us has spent what amounts to the month of February staring at these. That means, collectively, we've spent at least 6 months branding these images onto our retina. We should be ashamed.

Take a moment and really look at each of these. Obviously, I don't need to. I can draw an exact replica of each from memory. What's worse is that you don't even need to look at them to feel their negative energy. If I stand in the room with my eyes shut, I can feel their retarded Ju-Ju encircling me. It informs each of my 9 million flubs, and 10 million terrible film, band, sketch comedy, startup, fashion, food, etc., ideas my friends have had to suffer through. Put it this way: They are 100% to blame for why our band is not opening for the original lineup of Guns n' Roses on the European leg of their reunion tour.

The first one (top) is the kind of thing that dumb kid in science class, the one whose Step-mom let him drink in 4th grade, who always got sent outside (not for being funny, but just for being lousy), who turned you on to Iron Maiden, and who smelled a bit like what you now refer to as Homeless Guy Smell...it's the sort of thing you would see penciled onto his book cover; right next to the Powell Peralta rat and the Stussy "S". It's not the sort of thing grown-ass adults form a semi-circle around.

The next one (center) I actually kind of like. No, take that back, I really like it. Were it not for its association with the other two, I would say it should stay. Sadly, it is an accomplice in Operation Mindcrime, and it too must suffer the same physical and spiritual erasure as the others. I imagine this is the product of some parallel universe, where at the critical moment, Picasso's dad pulled out, skeet-skeet-skeeted into the petri-dish Picasso's mom held ready; which he then popped into the microwave for about 10 seconds on high, before using to inseminate Mom. This would be the sort of thing that guy would draw. To me, it's an abstract depiction of a boy sleeping on his side, with someone putting what I interpret as two stinky fingers (judging by the one eye popped open) under his nostrils. It's says so much using so little.

The last one (bottom) really bums me out. To me, it's a a pre-op' Iggy Pop smoking (is that Mr. Grinch?) pot joint while giving Kareem Abdul Jabbar (who's wearing an invisibility cloak) a handjob. Sharing a room with it on a bi-weekly basis drains from me any notion of future happiness.

On a subconscious level, I've taken comfort in knowing that something external was to blame for any disappointment I have with my internal life; that's it's not the poor choices I've made, but my constant exposure to something so painfully lame that has put me in my current standing. It's very convenient.

But I know, now that I'm 30, that I really need to embrace a more proactive approach. I can't accept my life as is, as predicated by my proximity to this bullshit.

I need to buy a can of spray-paint.