recording
day 1 & 2

underneath side notes and scribbles, song titles and question marks, is the date

this sort of floors us.

yet last night after a typical 45 minute drive away from our jobs, wives, obligations, and dusty practice room - we finally have a product that is near completion.

all parts in place, almost almost almost

almost done

a year and nine months of next Tuesday we'll record then the Tuesday after that we practice
a year and nine months of next week we're out of town so we have to take a week off okay?
a year and nine months of next Tuesday we've got to practice for the show that Thursday
a year and nine months of next Tuesday we record then the Tuesday after that we record some more

a year and nine months we don't really feel has gone by

not really

really?

no
seriously

a year and nine months and still some more months to go…

but soon

soon

we swear

( ;

for mike

we cautiously scrambled around picking up the scattered dollar bills. it was raining. the fifties soaking wet. the tens falling apart. pieces of glorious cash. money. sweet, sweet money. the cars on the side of the road sped past us sending waves of rain-soaked gravel, glass, and pavement dirt. we were oh so dirty. we talked about how it could have happened. maybe just the rain. maybe an argument. maybe an elephant. all in the middle of the road. we could envision it; the tires swerve from the slick, the anger, dumbo. all in the middle of the road. how on earth did the cash car tip over? how on earth did they get out alive. how much money was still out there? or was it just a wallet emptied out by the wind? we wished we carried that kind of cash. we wished a lot of things. after mom’s disappearance, and then sudden reappearance as the rocket ship smacked back down into the driveway - we hosed her off with a fire extinguisher we found in the garage. it spat out sick globs of white foam onto her inflamed nightgown. she laughed and told us she had been gone for three weeks and was happy to see us again. we sobbed a bit, but no more that anyone who had just watched their mom explode, emerge and cackle as the skin on her face turned a sweet red color. the black around her eyes made her look like a raccoon returning from ski lessons. "three glorious weeks in space and not a single problem. I suspect you boys are hungry? I brought back some space food that I gathered from space." she giggled, still with suds dripping from her nose. her left foot’s sock still on fire. the bunny slippers were now disintegrated. nothing left but a tiny orange flame flickering fast in the fall wind. as it caught her eye, she snuffed it out with her naked right foot. "oh my-my-my - space flames. I remember them well" she looked to the sky reminiscing about something. something impossible. her two minute, three week time trip. we coughed to get her attention, led her back into the house, and then it was peanut butter jelly time. years move us away, time makes us patient. we found ourselves in the mountains climbing rocky paths made by yetis hundreds of years ago. it led us to the top where a cave was. we didn’t go in - but my how we thought about it. it could have been warm, or there could have been bodies in there - but we weren’t hungry right then. we trained as ice warriors for five years, traveled back home, forgot about our obligations and spent some time in jail. years later, after three court hearings and seven letters of recommendation, we thought back upon the years before said jail time to the days at home with our mother. "you boys like the peanut butter? I brought that from space" we bought it from Kroger. since then, everything has been space with her. she’ll even go so far as to pick up a fork, smile at it, and rename the fork - "space fork". at least she didn’t make up her own language. at the lake in the summer - dad would grill lamb and the wolves in the nearby forest would stalk our family. the smell of sweet meat, light bits of prosciutto on the side of the mesquite wood fire grill - it made our family smell like dinner. perfect five star wolf dinner. we got so tired of fighting them off every night we put up an electric fence and burned the neighbors’ cat up real quick. we were the worst neighbors. one night dad got up and decided to sleep walk into the fence. by the time we found him, he had super powers. bolts of lighting would shoot from his fists at will. he had conquered the pack of wolves, and stray rabid dogs in the late night hours. he could make his head glow and used it as a lantern. halfway through his killing spree he lost a bit of momentum and decided to touch the magical gate again, and sure as hell it vamped his powers back up to full capacity. like in a fucking video game. his blood thirst caused him to find passers-by and melt them down to the ground. he had pretty much lost his mind by sunrise. we found him laughing with his hands stretched out in front of him. like he was counting his fingers. all nine, looked crippled from electric shock. he screamed at us as we ran toward him. "stop, I don’t want to melt you!" he showed us his powers, we oooed and ahhhed. then the sirens started in the distance and we felt heat on the back of our shoulders. our fathers eyes glowed electric green. he looked over our heads and pointed. he spoke hoarsely "did I cause that?" behind us the forest was whipping in the wind, covered in flames. the trees made the morning sky turn to late afternoon. we stared, mouths open as behind us the cop cars and fire trucks pulled up. our faces then turning a sweet red color. dad was gone. mom said he used his electric powers to hoist himself up off the ground and into space. she pointed at a cloud and jumped up and down a tiny bit saying "there he is! he’s right there!"

no one was ever the same after that.

not a one of us.

(a)therapeutic lessons

alcohol and you

so you finally wake up. that taste of stale hops and barley on your swollen, newly pierced tongue causes you to immediately try and recall the end of the night. your sheets covered in sweat and lying next to you a large water mammal that must have been dead before you brought it home. before you tucked it in. before you even turned out the lights and took off everything except your valentines day, heart covered, pink underwear and a lonely striped sock . you feel like a detective as you lounge about the room wondering what took place. you can tell you brushed your teeth, but used your dog's toothbrush. it stares up at you from the bottom of the still wet sink, saying out loud to you, "how the hell did you pick me up? your toothbrush is still in its holder. what? did you fall and see it next to the dog food? what kind of moron are you? I bet that tasted horrible. Oh what…you gonna throw up? Pansy." the carpet in the living room has circles of what you truly know is your urine. you found out, already, that you urinated on the side of your bed and your work clothes and now, to your surprise, the living room is nicely drenched. the computer won't turn on anymore either. you're scared to find out why. you walk outside to have a smoke. it's what you do. rough night 'n' all. there on the lawn sits your car, of course. its paint job ruined from…you don't know what. it could be paint thinner. yes. it smells like paint thinner. good. whatever. you search your jeans and find a full pack of cigarettes, that's one thing you always seem to have. as if your pockets are magical. yet. you know that no matter how wasted you got…the minute you ran out of smokes, you got some more. somehow. you pull out a lighter, a small black one that you didn't own before the night had started. your lighter was metal with light blue jewels lining the top of it. you loved that lighter. now you hold a lighter that carries no fond smoking memories with it. just a small, black, impersonally defined bic lighter. it doesn't even work well. nice. very nice man. good job on the crazy night. you smoke and the first drag tastes like hell's asshole. you gag and inhale again hoping for that sweet cotton candy taste followed by a slight buzz that you can only compare to the feeling of being high. you stare at the morning sky. you have nothing to do really. you should clean. you should shower. you should do laundry. you have to dig another hole in the backyard to bury the large water animal stinking up your bedroom. you should drink less. but none of this. none of this you will do. come 8:00 tonight you will find yourself just then recovering from the headache and water filled stomach pains - so much so that you feel almost - fantastic. you'll hit the bar. during the night you make trips to the car to smoke a joint and maybe even just sit there, and listen to one of the many great songs you have on your ipod shuffle. you float back to the bar and get another drink. a shift begins to happen and you start a tricky climb to disaster. at first you divulge a little more information on subjects you would usually pass by, choosing not to comment. things you don't know about. things you're actually secretive about. they'll just pop out. you'll be amused with yourself, but to what cost? answers to questions to vulgar responses. it's all in good fun. at one point you'll take a trip to the bathroom just to laugh at how awesome you are in the mirror. you love you. later on things will blur, you'll find yourself on a ship out in the middle of the vast dark green ocean, hunting large water mammals. you'll catch two this time. you're really good at it. it might be a calling. you'll drink with the captain to celebrate and from that point on you just walk around peeing on everything. you'll have a good time you won't remember the next morning. you will run out of smokes, and the captain will park his large ship in front of the one stop. the two of you will stumble in and urinate on the ice chest and buy a pack of your favorite brand. lucky strikes for the captain. the two of you will climb into the boat and spark your way back down the street to your small, dilapidated house. maybe the captain will carry you inside, maybe you'll try to walk. how the rest of the night goes/ends no private detective could ever uncover the facts. missing shoes, and other articles of clothing, your wallet, your hat and matching scarf that your mom gave to you for Christmas, and you'll now have someone else's phone, and the damn thing keeps ringing. pick it up. they might know what you did. no. no. no. you don't need to know - turn the phone off and if you get the urge, use if for drunk dialing. make sure to use a fake voice - pretend to be the opposite sex. at some point the end of the night will come. it may seem impossible but your bed will feel your weight. your dead drunk weight. it's never that bad thought, right? right? well whatever. maybe…possibly deep inside us all lies a powerful being able to withstand the effects of a cornucopia of alcohol consumption. but how you move and glide from room to room, pissing the calories out into the washer and dryer, is beyond us.

(a)therapeutic history
part 3
The End Of The Whole Mess - the constant undoing of a writer's block

some nights we remember back to the house where we grew up. such a lovely place. the graveyards nearby sent silent spooks slithering slowly south surrounding Sara's snail, Sam Somersby. the snail was not amused. the gloom was gloomier than before. before, when it was gloomy, we said to ourselves, "man it sure is gloomy out there" , but this time, as we said, it was gloomier than before. mom was building a rocket in the garage. simple tools made this mechanical calamity a beautiful decoration for the lawn around Christmas time. its windows made from doors. its doors made from windows. maybe we should've called the doors windows and the windows doors but this made for a more elegant way to describe the pile of trash mom called a rocket ship. its boosters were trash cans filled with an abundance of firewood, doused in lighter fluid, and scraps of the funnies that were not funny. like marmaduke and the family circus. also that one with "bucky cat" that's not funny at all really. cathy, of course - stupid as shit. there's more, and mom spent months shredding them up into nice colorful piles in the corner of the garage, telling us, "don't bother reading those. I'm going to set them on fire." we would nod in understanding. never saying a word. she made the lower half of the ship out of tires and duct tape. bits and pieces of the un-funnies had found their way to the sticky parts of the duct taped tires and managed to resemble what may be considered - decoration. the tires, piled on top of the trash cans filled with wood, met the tree house like center of the rocket. wood and nails and parts of our house made what could be considered - the control deck. the cockpit. mom's space station. our lawn chairs were taped and stapled down to the badly built cockpit floor. curiously, a cat slept on the faded green lawn chair, unknowingly knowing that it would soon perish in a hot mess of garbage enhanced flames. the tip of the rocket seemed to be the nose of a real airplane. where mom got the red and blue shiny new rocket nose, we never asked. we just tried to get the butane torch out of her hands. she explained how easy it was to climb into the tree house rocket cockpit. she explained that the fire would come out of holes in the bottom of the four trash cans and propel her lawn ornament into the sky. she explained that the fire would not go up, but down and out of the holes, and when in space, she can easily throw in more wood as the tops of the trash cans were open. and yes, on top of these blazing cans are paper encrusted duct taped tires and a wooded tree house with a cat in it. mom smiled and lost interest. she shuffled out the garage in her bunny slippers and casually took to over watering the neighbors flower bed. this was an ongoing task that confused the inhabitants next door. it did though, seem to make mom really happy. the rocket's lumpy shape of a shadow draped over us and we held on firmly to the lighter. the cat meowed and stretched, purring in the lawn chair. mom shuffled her feet back over to us, the water hose gripped in her hand - still pouring out an orange rusty liquid. "your father is going to be so glad to see us" she bit her nails as she spoke. we asked her what she meant by "us". we weren't going to climb into anything that wasn't a time machine. she laughed, and before we could say "dinosaur" we were cuffed to the fence watching the rocket burn a hole in the grass as it lifted up and away into space. we miss our mom. and that cat. that cat was cool. bummer about the re-entry though. when we moved out, the road called us but we didn't pick up. back then we didn't have a cell phone or caller ID so we never called back, yet, we think of the road often and have sent it a postcard of what our house looks like. yes. indeed. therefore. thus. and so on. ect. late nights we would stand up in front of the bed and look at the sheets, messed up in a way that only a real sleeper could make. someone who knows sleep. sleep so hard your pajamas fall off. only when someone's that into it will you find someone who can really dream. yeah. in dreams there's money, madness and holes in the ground. not just holes, fragments in space and time that make us feel as though we're always one step ahead of it. literally, as we walk and lift our back foot off the ground it crumbles to nothing behind us, to dark space and timeless emptiness. it's weird. it messes us up big time. we keep walking and the street behind us becomes a puzzle scattered across the universe. we don't know what it means but we keep walking. then, a giant green turtle turns to us tell us to wake up. we do. we listen very carefully to what turtles say. very fucking carefully. they'll fucking cut you! then there's music and we sail on a small boat upward into marshmallow fields and we drink from merlot colored rivers that taste like perfect, complex, spanish vino. the sky a purple vision of purple colored eggplants. waves with cappuccino foam flavored crests. chocolate bears.

around us, colors. all around. colors. all around us, colors. red and yellow. orange and blue.

green and purple. black and white. good night. good tomorrow. good bye.

good times. good times.

(a)therapeutic history
part 2
Sober Up Younglings.

in a cold flash the lake swarmed around us like a vicious family of killer bees stinging our appendages and forcing our arms to wave uncontrollably in underwater slow motion. we give up. we floated lifelessly down to our neighbor's dock and slowly climbed out of the water and said a happy hello to our neighbor Alice whom in later years would give us one hell of a hand job in our backyard during a dinner party where everyone drank too much. we walked, no, we sloshed, our wet legs over the trees roots and twigs with frogs and snakes hidden underneath the cloak of camouflage and whished we could go buy a CD or even just mull around the corridors of target for an hour following the numbers and moving with the crowd. as if the crowd and us where one. a solid mass of credit card digits and social security, a sad society searching for supplements, arguments, relationships, sail boats, and toy boats on sale. or something to that very affect. we sloshed. we sloshed up to our lake house porch and sloshed inside the door. we sloshed to the kitchen table where everyone was already having dinner. we sat down, slightly sloshing still, and picked up a fork. "how was school today?" our father would ask and we would start to cry. our mother would pat us on the shoulder wearing an oven mitt so as not to get lake water smell on her perfect hand. "did you have a nice float in the lake after dad threw you in?". we said yes and ate our mashed potatoes sniffing and holding back snot. thus was a typical Tuesday. we grow up. we get jobs. we make sounds. we work. we work. we work. we cater. there's clubs to be fed. women's clubs. there are hordes of them. it dates back to the 1830's when the city was adolescent. men would travel miles to participate in debate teams and the women, well, they weren't allowed to do anything at all really, so they formed clubs to talk about the growth of town, political stuff, and most of all - cakes, or so that's how we understand it. as the years passed by women everywhere were given the right to speak in church, vote, and bake whatever the hell they wanted. thus - these hordes of women's clubs slowly turned from renegade estrogen bitch fests covering topics from the war, women's rights, and recipes, to present passing tea parties. brunch clubs. everywhere. there are even buildings - everywhere - converted just so these women's clubs will have a place to meet. they hire caterers. they talk. they eat. they talk some more. they run this sad little town with their husband's sad little money and eat sad salads on Saturday mornings. or so we think. there's no real reason when the reason's are not real reasons or even real raisins. maybe someday in the future we'll have ourselves a cozy little spot in the Bahamas where we'll spend our days nursing beers and smoking dope while listening to the island's music and the sea ahead of us while slowly our brain develops a tumor and we start talking to inanimate objects and thinking that the government's after us and it'll cause us to slowly fall apart as we talk to - say - the wall - for - like - an hour. maybe someday friend. maybe someday we can have it all. like massages in the mall - even while you grocery shop for things like eggs, bread, ground beef, chicken strips, condoms, peanut butter, olives, pepper, chips, salsa, and lotion, as you get lost spinning in squares wondering where you can pick up a bag of weed in this bullshit super market you ask the sixteen year old aisle attendant on his knees straightening the cans of soup, the rolls of toilet paper, the embarrassing creams, the batteries, and everything else that you would never - in your young life - think that you would ever have to be in charge of - and fucking care how tidy it is. you ask "dude, where's the smoke?" he says aisle two with this look of shock and empty headedness and you move from aisle five down three and turn to find a large blue elephant telling you - wait - no - more like forcibly telling you, to stop this nonsense and get back in your hot air balloon - apologize to your next door neighbor for all the noise you been making and stop digging awkward holes in the backyard looking for treasure! dumb-fuck piece of shit asshole! it gets worse. when we were young, the high school campus was a dungeon. a dark, wet, grey, stone built, dragon guarded, motherfuckingly scary and moody as shit 17^th century black plague infested rat hole where we went to learn how to tame giants. yes. it's true. each day was shrouded in damp washboard clothes that hadn't dried overnight, and beautiful silver swords hanging from our belts made out of the highest grade dragon skins. we fucking loved our sword. what better object could be so amusingly phallic plus sharp and deadly all at the same time? seriously. it's awesomely phallic. you know it is. you know it. you know. you.

the world we live in. this place. the jobs we work. the fucking world all around us. is it a perfect place? is it up to us to make it one? do you have a perfect life? can you make it better just by making it better?

do we have any clue what we need to do?

question mark?

(a)therapeutic history

years ago, when we were young and stupid we left home in a fury of anger screaming things like "you don't know who we are at all!" and "we didn't do anything wrong!" in-between sobs and tears and snot and deep rooted psychologically damaging fears - we felt good about ourselves. Truly good. Almost too good. As if there was something wrong. We felt weird. Almost too weird. As if there was something amiss. We felt bad. Truly bad. Almost too bad. The kind of bad that is bad and not good bad. You know. Bad. we walked straight as an arrow or maybe more like a dart, we couldn't say which one really cause we don't know which is better - or even if walking straight is the thing to do anymore. we don't fucking know. when we were young there wasn't any crime. it was a utopia of magical creatures and animals that talked and could use complex sentence structure to write books about talking animal problems and how to properly train your human being. a world filled with toys where the only currency is bubble gum. delicious bubble gum to buy more gum. it seems silly but there was a government established and figuring out a way to exchange goods for other goods had to be resolved somehow. it seemed liked it was too good to be true. so we ran away and our subconscious took over at the helm. we walked into corners like a video game assassin controlled by a three year old. we talked to ourselves and learned of the deep depression within. we shot it dead. we watched it die. no longer mourning ourselves we had something of a tea party. only the tea was strong liquor - thus reviving the deep depression we shot dead. it's head lifting up from the dirty floor and softly speaking in tones so low we had to kneel on the ground to hear them. what? what was that? you think we look nice in this suit? thank you. what? you're sad? blow it out your ass, dumb-fuck, we shot you. really. truly. we shot you. there's nothing more to say. we grew up without car rides to the mini-mall and opted for train rides to the real mall. we walked and opted not shop. the moving stairs freaked us out and we drove away frightened of what was to come. the unenviable waste of space that we are not. the childlike innocence we ran to and from during our day to day, day to day. We felt oh so inclined. Oh so inclined. a shock of cold water to our face woke us up and there we were driving a stolen trolley. miles from somewhere we're sure, but to us we were nowhere. the passengers growing more and more angry like that of the passengers on one of those 911 planes - eager to live and willing to strike, but with quite the headache from the humming of fake natural air and pressure from the so called atmosphere. we stopped the trolley and let every single person off saying "thank you for traveling with us today - please don't be angry we were just involved in some sort of flashback like we were in Nam - or something - of course we weren't in Nam, though it would be cool to start suddenly screaming and calling everyone Charlie while slowly wetting ourselves in front of perfect strangers". overall it felt nice to be outside. the weather was pleasant and we drank during the day and had no clue what happened at night. was it sleep or had we been abducted? there were small memories of running around the town being chased by the cops, but it could have been a space simulation. couldn't it have been? couldn't it not have been? could it have not been couldn't it of been not and instead could it have been a couldn't not? hmmm. yes. it could have been. it really could have. the lake near our home was a dark murky green and our father use to come home every evening and ask our mother where we were. she would say "honey, no…not tonight. they just had this test and they're really quite stressed out at the moment" dad would smile. "they're in the basement aren't they?" and mom would laugh. she would laugh slightly. she would laugh to herself slightly. saying "dinner will be ready in thirteen minutes twenty-seven seconds and the table should be set in four minutes and fifty eight seconds thereafter" dad would walk down the stairs and find us hiding behind the water heater. we would run. he would slowly move to the right and we would crash into him as though he had become a brick wall. dad would pick us up as we would struggle to get down. kicking our legs around in circles and trying to move our arms, all to no horrible avail. he would climb triumphantly up the basement stairs and walk out the back door. he would journey casually through the open backyard toward the dock. as the lake ahead was getting closer we would finally retire and lay in our father's arms motionless. his foot steps breaking grass and then stomping over heavy wooden boards. each step we felt a thunderous jolt serge through our body. dad paused. the water moved slowly against the edge of the dock as the air all around us rustled and whipped our hair out of our eyes.

our father stood there with us in his arms looking out onto the green waves.

he smiled, breathed in deep breaths of life -

and threw us in the lake.

well well well

we guess on these long rainy days it's time to update you on the what's the haps.

the what's going down in the land of (a)therapeutic smile

not that you've asked but you shouldn't have to ask. this relationship isn't rocky or unstable in any sort of way that would make us feel so inclined that we have to - say - apologize for not calling and not keeping you updated on our day to day therapeutic lives. we're just here to entertain.

was that too wordy?

good.

most of the songs that you're hearing now are old old old but we know it's new to you.

we've kept so much hidden. like locked away in cupboards reminiscent of that little Indian and the Cowboy that broke his leg in that children's story that was made into a live action movie with green screen technology. hidden away from our mom and dad so they won't sell the magic to a little Chinese man with a dirty smoky little shop in Manhattan somewhere. such a place where you could find a little furry creature that comes along with three rules and responsibilities that stress you always do them or the little beautiful funny furry creature will spawn crazed clones that will do everything they can to break said rules and then become terribly gross green funny creatures that now follow two of the said rules but one of them to a more dangerous level and the other being the best way to keep them away and maybe kill them.

hidden away just like that.

did you know? that there is a full album about robots that was written in 2005/2006?

we've only showed two of these songs so far, but there's 10 more.

hopefully - they'll find their way to the practice room and become not just

8 track recorded keyboard drum songs.

they could become real.

or so we believe.

eventually the demo album will surface. we promise.

then maybe - eventually - the band will make a small homage to the demos called " the robot album "

plans plans plans

as we record "the collectors" we are writing and crafting our epic second album.

many of these songs are our show stopping rock songs.

the melt your face songs.

but do not despair

" the collectors "

our slowly being recorded first album is going to be a wonderfully good time and will be finished

when it's finished.

as for shows they come and go so quick that if you see one posted - you should come
we're working on having more - yet -

more is harder than it looks

so for now

as you sit in your easy chair and think of us trying oh so hard to please you

know that we are pleased with ourselves

kind of…

oh sweet little spider that wove it's web underneath the Target lights on our front porch

we do not like you

yet

we will live with you and consider the better side of this relationship

how the tiny bugs that have found their way past our screen door in the summer

driving us mad

making us feel dirty

are now your dinner, breakfast, brunch

are you hiding inside the Target lights right now waiting for a meal?

are you happy with your new home?

has the wind broke your delicate web and now you have to reconstruct what seemed only to take you less than a day in our time but may have been a full week or month in sad little spider time?

do you enjoy your time with us on the porch?

are you satisfied?

or do you want to kill us?

we worry about that sometimes

oh sweet little spider that wove it's web underneath the Target lights on our front porch

please leave

or don't

whatever.