Feeding The Hungry       

            Juan walked the city streets, wandering in the winter air. He had been in New York for a few weeks. It had taken a few months of work and effort to get there. His father had saved money. His uncle had arranged a construction job so he could get into the country. Juan had been forced to work long hours in Mexico running errands for extra cash, but here he was, slowly walking through New York City at about 8:00 A.M., lonely and still not used to seeing his own breath in the crisp New York air.

            Back home Juan imagined his father and his Uncle Pedro were drinking dark coffee with eggs and tortillas, getting ready for the day. They were probably talking about Juan as if he were a hero, out taking on America to make some money for his family. For sure his brothers thought Juan was a hero and his mother worried. Juan was working hard, getting fifty hours worth of work per week already. But Juan was not used to the city. He was unfamiliar with the streets, and got lost in the tall buildings. This was his day off and he was roaming around, nothing to do and no real friends other than a roommate from Venezuela who was busy working his own job. Raphael was his name. He was about thirty years older and was a nice enough sort but he liked to drink when he wasn't working. Juan just wanted to make enough to send a hundred dollars a week back home. A few months' cash would mean a fortune to his family. If this worked out, before long, Juan's brothers would be able to join him.

 Juan was cold and hungry. It was early morning and Juan was not used to the cold, to the streets, to the hustle of the people in the city that raced around him. Back home near Oaxaca, Mexico the streets would be flooded with kids trying to sell goods this time of day. Juan would be finishing his own eggs and tortillas. He would not be afraid of big buildings or crazy people rushing around. He would know the dirt roads, the people, and what to do. Juan's stomach growled like the subway that took him to work six days a week.

            Perhaps Juan's family had big dreams for him, but now Juan only dreamed of a homemade fire cooked breakfast. Juan passed a small diner. He had never been in one. There were no diners in Oaxaca, Mexico. He saw people eating, drinking coffee, reading papers. If there were a big fire pit in the center of the floor cooking tortillas and eggs, this place might pass for home. Juan walked inside and stood at the door.

            A pretty girl in a light blue uniform motioned to him to sit down. He took the first seat at the bar by the cash register. The pretty girl handed him a plastic covered menu. Juan could not read it. He looked at the pictures of the eggs and the meats. He looked for pictures of tortillas but found none.

            "Coffee?" The girl asked. Juan nodded yes. He had trouble with English but was working on it. Coffee he understood. The pretty girl had dark eyes and wavy black hair. She asked him something he didn't understand. He felt panicked. "It's fine." The girl said in fluent Spanish. Juan took a deep breath and felt the stress leave his body.

            "I am new here." Juan said timidly.

            "Yes. I can see. Relax. My name is Rosita. Where are you from?" Juan took a big gulp of coffee. She poured more. The steam warmed Juan, reminding him of home again.

            "Oaxaca." Juan replied, drinking more warmth.

            "San Juan." Rosita said, blushing a bit as she smiled. It made her seem prettier. 

            "My name is Juan." He said, his eyes dropping down.

            "Are you hungry, Juan, or do you just want coffee?"

            "Thank you, ma'am, I'm starving, but I really wanted tortillas and eggs. Are there any here?"

            Rosita nodded no and Juan shrugged. "Call me Rosita." She said. Juan blushed.

"Do you like beef?"

            "Yes." Juan replied. He loved beef when they could afford it.

            "There's a steak and egg special. The biscuits are great."

            "Beescits." Juan tried. Rosita smiled. She went back and placed the order. Juan enjoyed the coffee. It had great flavor. Perhaps it was better than Oaxaca coffee, certainly as good. Rosita returned with more coffee.

            "Try this." She said. She opened a small green container and poured milk into his coffee. Juan grimaced. "French Vanilla." She told him as she stirred it. Juan was uncertain, but was raised with manners. He tried it. It was the best coffee Juan ever tasted. Again Rosita smiled, which made Juan feel even warmer.

            Rosita returned with a big plate of food. Steak, potatoes, and fluffy golden 'beescits' overflowed from the plate she sat before him. Juan dug in. The biscuits melted in his mouth. Juan had never tasted anything like them. They melted in his mouth.

            "Told you." Rosita said as she brought him an extra biscuit.

            "They are better than tortilla's." Juan agreed, leaning back on his stool, stuffed. Juan could sleep now. He hadn't slept well since he'd entered the United States, but he

4.

could sleep now. First he had to find the post office and mail his family the $110.00 he'd already saved for them.

            Rosita gave him directions. "See you tomorrow?" She asked in English.

            "Toomahrow." He tried, smiling. Rosita smiled back. Juan walked out onto the sunny street feeling good. 'Tonight,' He thought, 'I will sleep, and I will dream!'

            Juan mailed the money to his family.

The 7 Year Bitch

-- Don Eminizer

A lonely picture hangs on the wall in my bedroom. It came with the house and I've never earned enough time to spend enough time to take the time to move it, there's always something I gotta' do, help a kid, feed a dog, fix some plumbing, write a poem no one will ever read or give a shit about. It's a dumb picture, obnoxiously bright and blue and orange. I think it's supposed to be a sun setting somewhere on a beach, a beach I might like to see someday, just not through the eyes of some Korean assembly line artist that never actually saw said beach.

It's a portal to somewhere lost and forgotten, this picture. I wonder if I took it down, would anyone notice it was gone? I wonder if I was to squirt gas and 101 proof rum on it and set it ablaze, would anyone notice that it didn't exist anymore? I wonder if I took the stupid son of a bitch down and bashed it over and over and over again on my neighbor's head, my buddy Jim, the stupid neighbor who plays Willie Nelson and Hank Williams records over and over and over again at 3 AM sharp, would anyone notice?

Well, it would leave a clean square outline on a wall chock full of dust.

Outside, the real sun disappears into the murky end of another long dreary day. I'm not sure where it goes. I'm not sure when it's this cold and misty and windy, why it even bothers to come out? It doesn't bring much warmth with it. I guess it has to make its hollow cameo appearance, wave at us cold assholes like it's royalty, do nothing and ride away in grandeur. Ta-ta, good chap.

In my cobweb filled mind I'm gone myself, painting a place I've never seen. Everyday about this time I stick the cold greasy barrel end of a snub nose revolver in my mouth. I've taped the stock and the trigger to fuck with the Police when they find my body, I'm a wanker even after the bitter end, but that's just me. I spin the chamber like its Russian roulette, only the pistol is full, so I guess its American roulette. I stacked the odds so it comes up a winner every time.

I slowly pull the trigger back. I feel the tension, click-click-click, like I'm stroking the most beautiful woman I'll never have, like I have it all right there at my fingertips, like it can get no better than this, so why push on? I am ready to see this supposed family I've been told about in bedtime stories and at holiday gatherings. I only remember them injected as fantasy ghost dreams. Grandma's and grandpa's who gave a shit about me, maybe a mother and father that actually showed up. I am about to meet people I'll never meet here, I am about to...

Click-click-click

Face the big fellah and tell him how much his workmanship sucks.

click-click-S-N-A-P--KABOO--- "Dad... it's time for supper."

My son sticks his finger in between the hammer and blocks the bullet again, brave little man that he is.

"I'm not hungry." I answer. "But thanks boy."

I get up and walk him to the table. The girls are already eating. Looks like it's waffles for supper which is fucked up but at least it's food and not one of the pets or a wayward neighbors kid. I get them milk in different sized cups for some reason I don't quite understand. Couldn't I just pour different amounts of milk in same sized cups? I knew I'd never use Algebra in real life when I wasted a year of schooling on it, but I did think I could fathom different volumes of milk in similar sized receptacles. It must be some suburban taboo I have become accustomed to.

In strolls the wife. Ah, joy of my doomed existence. She's just woken from her daylong nap after a rough morning of smoking dope and drinking coffee over gossipy talk shows.

click-click-click...

"SONOFABITCH... DO I HAFTA DO !@$#^%$&%$&^%$#&... *&(%(&^%^%%^%&... *&^*&^*&. AND THEN YOU BETTER &^%*&^%*$^%$.....OR SO HELP ME

(here it all sort of fades into a blurry screeching, like war must sound after two or three tours of duty watching your friends have their arms and skulls blown into jugular bits and pieces. The bombing doesn't scare you anymore and the bullets that whiz by don't faze you, the blood on your face and your crisp cool camouflage skin don't even feel sticky, its just business, you're simply waiting for it to stop, all of it)

&^%*^$*%$&$#^%$.... &^$*%^$^%$&%^$&%^$ OR YOU'RE ALL GROUND--"

I begin giggling and leave the room. I tune her out but she follows me to the bedroom like I knew she would and begins to bitch again. I dig it. I can see her mouth moving but I don't hear a damned thing. I begin to roar laughing, choking on my tears. It's the best laugh I've had in a long time. I can see the anger in her face. She screams loudly but now I hear a cartoon voice and I'm dying. I pick up a chair and--

"So what do you want me to get at the movie store?" My wife asks. I really don't care.

--I fucking roar laughing.

click-click-click

BAM-- right over the head. Feels better'n I thought it would so I do it again. Down, down, POW, right across the head.

click-click-click

"Hello, so what do you want me to get at the movie store?" My wife asks.

I really don't care. Do you really think a movie is gonna' solve our problems, my problems? I try to tell her this before it's too late, but I can't seem to control myself today.

"Uhm, I hate your fucking guts and yet I still want sex." I say calmly, but it comes out:

"Office Space would be cool."

She frowns and rolls her eyes. "Again?" She whines. I swear she has the most annoying voice you ever heard, like an un-weaned parvo infected puppy crying for milk. It shakes me awake from deep sleep with the shivers some nights.

"Why don't you just get whatever movie you want? It's what you were going to do anyway!" I answer. She rolls her eyes again and leaves, satisfied I'm sure. That worked out well for both of us.

click-click-click

I take a couple of Vicodines I found in my sock drawer that I forgot ever existed, follow it down with a pint of Jim Beam. I sit and stare at that stupid fucking painting again.

click-click-click

Wishing I was there so I wouldn't have to rise and face one more day here.

POW--

Maybe I'll leave a clean square outline on a wall chock full of dust someday, then again, maybe I won't.

The Christmas tree fiasco

By Don Eminizer

The crisp air nipped at me with its little cloudy tufts of breath dangling and darting at my face. It stung. I stared at the Christmas tree. I hated the Christmas tree. It was barren in splotches and crooked. The hand painted sign that stood next to it was such a cliché that it nausteated me violently. 'XMAS trees $25 and UP!' It read in crooked red dripping lines.

I wanted to leave but my kids danced around the ugly little naked fur tree like they had captured it and wanted to drag it back to the cave and cook it over an open spit triumphantly. "Oooooooooheeee--- canwe-canwe-canwe-canwe--DAD!"

I looked at the little girl in the mittens. Of course they had a little girl sell Christmas trees and of course she wore mittens. She probably wore mittens in the middle of July. They had a little girl sell trees so there was absolutely no way anyone could be forced to help you get the thing in the car. It was a hideous little racket, this Christmas tree business.

"How much?" I asked.

"That one's forty-five dollars, mister."

Of course it was.

My wife was to blame for this. Actually, I think she might be the one to blame for everything else, too, but she was definitely to blame for this. Twelve years of marriage, good years, I thought, thrown down the tubes. All those years we had that lovely little metal tree that was easy to take out, easy to put up, easy to take down and put away, but no. New house. New tree.

I settled up with the little Hitler youth in mittens and wrestled the tree onto the hood of the car. I rolled it onto the roof, it rolled off. I cussed. It laid there. The kids laughed, thinking Daddy was making a silly Christmas play. I bungeed the thing onto the roof trying to find places to put all the hooks, there were hooks everywhere from my radio antenna to my steering wheel to one of my kid's seatbelts. We got a whole half mile before it flew off the roof the first time. By the third time it flew off I'd had enough. I forced that little nightmare into the trunk and bungeed it down and drove twelve miles an hour all the way home getting cussed out by everybody in town.

I got it into the house looking like a porcupine with a rash. Clearly the tree had won this bout. My wife asked me to straighten the tree and I laughed at her heartily and sat down

and watched Sportcenter. They decorated it, her and the other little hunter-gatherers. At the end, they stood there beaming at it proudly as if they'd done something. I was the one with permanent scars.

My wife climbed beneath the tree to plug in the lights.

"Owww." She shrieked, wriggling out from beneath the tree. She pulled a pine needle from her cheek. "It BIT me!" She cried.

Maybe there was some Christmas magic left after all!

Allrighty then... it's official now... The first ever taping of 99Burning's Electric Circus...

Almighty Senators

... Voodoo Blue...

... the 1st 99Burning reunion gig in over a decade...

... Dead Men Sway...

...Girls Like Cigarettes...

Also good old 99burning rock critic D. Appleget's band Skurj...

Sounds like a festival to me... but that's not even the half of it... There will be stand-up comedy featuring ...DC Benny... He's the 'How ya' doin Budweiser guy... funnier than hell and all over TV... plus one of the jock's from WIYY 98 Rock, Baltimore's largest Rock station who will be promoting the show... Hopefully it's Mickey Cucchiella from Mickey and Amelia, but that's still not all; there will be a few more comics, and when I say comics I mean comics... like stripper clowns... majorette's drssed in black twirling neon glow sticks... working on a sword swallower... some poets... our very own Mike Boyle, and seriously interested in anything weird or bizarre... except midgets... always with the damned midgets!

Anyway... for ticket info e-mail Don Eminizer

Tickets will be available at Ticketmaster within 48 hours now that the headliners are booked...

Hell yes, kiddoes, now its time for some real meat for supper, not just gravy and blood and bread... real meat for supper leads to real pudding afterwards, just ask Pink Floyd... so let us feast on some of the most creative music that Ive heard in quite some time. Let me say its fucking impressive to see in this day and age of brain cramping American Idol style pop culture, that a band of already successful guys in currently successful bands hid their identities and got together to create without capitalizing on their own marketability...

My God, they just got together to jam... rock for fucking rocks sake... & Ill be... its taking off with a life of its own...

Go figure... That Maynard guy in Tool & that Perry cat in that Janes band and that Lou Reed guy from that Velvet thing mustve been onto something...

Art and rock can get along, maybe even play in the same sandbox... hell, they might even be attracted to each other, perhaps they might even date, ending the night in some dark corner testing out the wallpaper in a prolonged grope-fest... only to wake up with kids... leading to the inevitable divorce... then theyll forget they were even married except once a month when they see a debit or a credit on their monthly bank statements... but Im getting ahead of myself, so lets get back to a perfect blend of art and rock known as: The Sound Of Animals Fighting... What the fuck kiddoes, I dig this band... a ragtag band of guys you didnt even know you knew, coming to a heightened consciousness in some random cubicle near you...


Introducing the band you already knew but didnt see coming: The Sound Of Animals Fighting...
By D. Eminizer


I began my preparation for this interview as I have most others... I found something that interested me, tracked down the subject through various channels, and did some research. What I found led to a feature quite different from all the others... In fact, I think this is our first sort of scoop here on 99burning, and I kind of dig that...

Lets begin at the beginning... As 99burning the band came back into play and has become a growing reality, I began to poke my head around to research the music scene... as Mike Boyle has pointed out to me on numerous occasions: Don, you stupid fuckhead, were old now and out of the loop... I havent even been in a club in over a decade...

Mike makes a good point, when getting ready to go back out and play the club scene after a few years off, its best to see whats out there, but I decided to search for what was different, not for the same old crap you see over and over and over again on emp-tv... I wanted to find what was on point, avant garde... a.k.a. rock and roll, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised that theres quite a bit out there, but nothing has caught my eye, ear, and creative inner childs attention quite like The Sound Of Animals Fighting... Normally I link to a band or book or whatever at the end of the interview, but in this case I am linking to the bands sites right here, so you can check them out before you proceed, as its worth a peep...

Go on... go ahead you little bastard, I know youre skipping because youre impatient just like me, but hold onto youre antennae grasshopper, it really is worth exploring...

The Sound of Animals Fighting
...on MySpace
...on PureVolume

Ok... so I set up an interview with Rich Balling, a founding member of The Sounds Of Animals Fighting, and former lead singer of RX Bandits who left that band after two albums to... get this... finish getting an education so that he could become an English teacher... right on brother, literature is like the black plague in this day and age, we have to go deep underground on the web to explore it... it is awesome to see another rock musician interested in helping make this shithole a more literate shithole... By god perhaps we can spread the revolutionary idea that knowledge is the key to freedom, and that you dont have to buy everything youre sold on TV... wait... the founding fathers tried that and see what happened... oh well...

So after my car exploded en route to call Rich for the interview, I straggled in a day late with my tail between my legs and called the man to apologize and set up another time for the interview, and Ill be damned, he answered, was very friendly, and ready to go.

How you doing, brother? The cheery voice rang... not exactly the voice of a guy that drinks goats blood in a Wile E. Coyote mask, so there goes that theory... I apologize for my tardiness, he wishes me well with the exploding car bit,and we get to talking shop... I ask him about the upcoming House of Blues gigs... headlining the House of Blues chain is no small feat... Yeah were really excited about that... all of us are super busy which is making me nervous because I want to make it really intense with a lot of cool stuff happening on stage and its getting harder and harder to plan because theres just no time... but well make it happen...

What are you all doing between now and then?


Well Im working on getting my teaching credentials to teach high school english

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEchhhh.... Say what?


- & a lot of the other guys are busy touring with their bands?

ok... Ill bite... What other bands?


- Uhhh... Dead silence... I dont know. We laugh awkwardly as if the joke is on me and I dont know it... more silence... he continues... Ive heard that they hang out with Chiodos, Circa Survive, Rx Bandits... There is a pause and I reflect on the rumor that a member of Mars Volta is in the band... purely speculation... When we started out it was just to have fun and experiment and do whatever we wanted... but this album is more extreme than the last...

Its definitely different... I wanted to ask you how you guys write? Do you come up with an idea and try to put a song around it?

- There was more of that with this album, but with the first album everybody was so busy, there was no time to get together to practice, so the way I avoided all that was to record the drummer first, and the drummer didnt even write songs... he gave us a beat and we turned them into songs and one person would come in at a time without ever hearing the other parts of the song ever... By Syd Barret, I say, that sounds like a blast... so it was total improv, they recorded over what they heard the very first time and that was it... & this time was similar in thought but it was like, I really want an opera singer or an indian singing, so I did come in with specific ideas but other than that, the songs were still improv...

You dont get much more rock than that... Give me an opera singer... give me an Indian...


- Yes, its been a fun side project but thats what it is... better than the average side project because its selling and it wont go away, but who knows whats to become of it... Id say probably another recording and well see what happens with the House Of Blues... If we go off and the kids come out then we might keep playing live... otherwise, it might be the only time ever...
As a part of setting a mood, with the masks and the animals and the psychedelia, do all the animal masks & symbols stand for something?

- No... kind of the way the band came about was that my girlfriend said she heard the sound of animals fighting and I thought that was the coolest phrase ever so immediately we had to form a band... I decided the world would not be complete until there was a band called that and because of the name and the fact that we were all under contract to different labels, what better thing to use than animal masks... all of the legalities have been worked out legitimately, signed off on and everything, but still, nobody was interested in using the other bands to sell albums... We didnt want featuring such and such... we wanted to see what it would do on its own...

And that has gone?...


-The response has been a lot more positive than we thought to such extreme stuff and the records are selling pretty well... were very happy with it...

Its very different... one song sounded like an aural painting of a pagoda...


Yeah, man...


I gotta say that your stuff really stuck out and I think that the readers of 99burning will dig your concept... How has the music scene on the web helped you out?

That has been everything... thats how we spread the word, man, especially since were not all out on the road together... Guerilla marketing... you take the Internet and home recording... every band has that one guy thats learning how to record...

Too true, too true... or its everyone in the band to some degree...


- Yes... you record it yourself... throw it up online... hell, thats how record companies started...