What is wrong with Hollywood?! The off base depictions of Las Vegas after the blast is really starting to bother me, like diner food. Have you ever noticed that, post some catastrophe or another, Las Vegas instantly turns into the Sahara Desert? Sure there’s a Sahara Avenue but there is no way Vegas will become Lawrence of Arabia six months into some zombie apocalypse.

Sure, this is not a very typical Zano post, but I have to have some fun. Here’s an image from the movie Resident Evil: Retro-reflux or something and a 2^nd image from the SyFy movie 10.5 Chocapocalypse…or something.

Look at that dune behind the Statue of Liberty? It reaches the eighth or ninth floor of CityCenter! Where is that sand coming from? At least in the bottom image the Luxor seems right in its element. And look at how white that sand is! I haven’t seen anything that looks like that since that time I partied with the former Mayor of Toronto over at Marion Barry’s place.

I live in the southwest, most of the Mohave and the Sonoran deserts simply don’t have many dunes. I’ve seen a few dunes in Death Valley, some sandy patches north of Vegas in the Valley of Fire, and there’s a fair amount a couple of states east in White Sands, NM (where the movie Them! was filmed). They also tested WWII nukes there, which is probably why they had a giant ant problem in the first place. In general, there’s dust and dirt across the southwest, not endless Sahara-style dunes waiting to take back our cities.

Enter exhibit one, the ghost town at Goldfield, NV.

I have been here. Many of these structures have stood abandoned for 70+ years and they don’t seem to be anywhere close to being swallowed up by sand. But here’s the Hollywood version.

THIS is what the desert surrounding Vegas looks like:

I know….because this is where I crawl away and pass out until “Vegas Great” Bald Tony decides to come and collect me. You missed three important hints Hollywood, The Sands, The Dunes and The Sahara are all closed!

Oh wait, I have a theory. Maybe the sand came from the volleyball court over at the Monte Carlo? Oh and, sorry, oh Great Bald One for that room damage at the Riviera. Wait….hmmm, there’s probably dozens of volleyball courts in Vegas and if they all to decide to work together…

Power Rangers unite, form of sand!

That is some sandy sarcasm for you, but if I see one more messed up version of the coming apocalypse I’m getting on my horse, riding over to Vegas and then I’m going to shout at the top of my lungs…

Damn you, you duned it up! Damn you all to hell!

The following occurred at the Pepsi Amphitheater at Fort Tuthill, Flagstaff Aug. 26-27, 2011. The names have been changed to protect the irrelevant. Lit were awesome! What a great show! Alright, I’m lying. I didn’t see them at all but that’s OK because I don’t care for their music and I was at the venue for less than two hours and I only saw 1 1/2 bands and I got in for free.

In fact, I could probably name 62,784 things off the top of my head that I would rather do than see Lit in concert, such as: clean the oven, cut the dead skin off my toes, talk to myself, watch the paint peel, have a root canal without Novocain, or go to bed at 7:30.

I had a friend who lived in Flagstaff about 10 years ago who, although he was a pretty close bro, I have to admit had certain personality quirks which were a bit … well … douchey. Like listening to Lit.

He’s the kind of man who would put his pinky and index finger together, lick the tips, place them on his forehead, and splay them apart, thus grooming both his left and right eyebrow at the same time.

He’s the kind of man who listened to a radio station like the Q and watched the WB channel every night before going downtown so he could talk to college girls about subjects they were into. I don’t think all this was just to get laid; I think he actually enjoyed this stuff. He did get hella laid though, probably because he was young and thin and outgoing and good looking and worked at a bar.

One time we were at The Joint (he was serving me drinks and I was drinking them) when Lit’s current hit single “My Own Worst Enemy” came on the jukebox. He broke into a wide smile.

“Ah, here’s my song!”

“Really?”

“Yeah dude, this song is totally me.”

“Really?”

“‘Can we forget about the things I said when I was drunk’ … hell yeah, that’s me all over.”

It sort of bummed me out. I loved this guy. One night he and I stayed up till 5 AM getting ripped on tequila and looking up every disgusting sexual practice we could think of on Wikipedia and reading the entries aloud. He was that kind of brah.

I resigned myself to saying a silent prayer that on judgment day, the gods of quality music would have mercy on his soul.

So yeah, Lit. I found it humorous that their biggest hits were on RCA and they were appearing at the Greedy Corporate Bastards Amphitheater headlining an indie music festival.

How in the hell did they stretch this into a two day event? I’d never heard any of the other out-of-town bands on the bill, but then again I don’t listen to the Q. The local bands were fairly solid and I suppose this was good exposure for them. Deepa are nice peepa and I hear Dave McGraw and Crow Wing are pretty swell as well.

Anywhoo, the reason I was there was because Frankie C’s band got called up at the last minute to play on Saturday afternoon and I had the day off and they put me on the guest list and I figured what the hell, this should be an interesting sociological experiment.

Frankie’s combo plays hopped-up Who/Kinks inspired rawk and rowl just the way I like it: with lots of Keith Moony drum fills and reverb guitar and fuzz bass and songs about how good chicks look. Drummer Stewart is an actual British person who rides an actual Vespa and that accent of his is so damn charming that I almost want to take him to bed every time I hear it. Guitarist Rocky is a cop and he scares the living hell out of me.

Just kidding, Rocky’s a great guy. We do have to hide all the cocaine when he comes over, though.

I arrived at Fort Tuthill ready to rock the lawn with two lovely ladies in tow. OK, one was Frankie’s wife. And the other was Stewart’s. I’m a real happenin’ dude.

This was my first visit to the former Pine Mountain Ampitheater (still can’t seem to use the new name) and it was pretty sweet, just the kind of large but intimate venue perfect for Ween or Willie or Weird Al. Too bad there were only about 30 people there.

The lads were onstage setting up, so Mrs. C and I went for refreshments (Fat Tire for me, Blue Moon for her) and I noticed two very bored-looking girls sitting at the Fight The Quiet merch table, right next to the guy frying burgers.

We returned to the grassy knoll. The MC introducing the band made some smarmy comment about the sharp dressed men onstage (their uniform is: black tie, white shirt, blue jeans. Pretty snazzy really, guess they weren’t wearing enough black for him) and then it was rockin’ time. The ladies and I debated moving up closer, but decided watching them from the lawn would be a more pleasantly bizarre experience.

The sound was fairly loud and clear, but they had that problem where all of the drums and cymbals are individually miked and the sound guy doesn’t know how to make the whole kit blend together. For example, the rack tom was mixed about 3 notches higher than the snare and floor tom, so every time Stewart did one of his Keith Moon snare/rack/floor fills it sounded like this: dudududu DADADADA dudududu. The cymbals were pretty much nonexistent. Other than that, it was OK.

At one point, Stewart said something clever and British into the mic and I told Mrs. S about the time Stewart told a joke onstage at the Monte V that involved a cookie jar, only instead of saying cookie jar he said biscuit barrel, and she and I giggled like schoolgirls over that.

Biscuit barrel. See what I mean? That’s just sexy.

Some MENSA reject in the audience actually yelled “Free Bird!” at the band (I was yelling for “Substitute” and “Pinball Wizard”) and the boys were on top of it. Frankie responded: “Why don’t we leave the stage and YOU come up here and play ‘Free Bird’?”, and Stewart chimed in with: “Sorry, I’m British. I don’t even know what that song is.” I might just steal that last one.

They played a pretty quick set (“My Little Red Book” sounded great from the lawn) and it was over. While they packed up the gear, I grabbed another Fat Tire and Mrs. C bought a pretzel but we had to wait almost five minutes for the guy to change the cheese bag and when she finally got it the cheese was all cold and glutenous. The FTQ girls hadn’t moved.

We hobnobbed with the band on the side of the stage while the next act was setting up. I noticed the singer had one of those flat bodied acoustic guitars like Dave Matthews plays and I thought “Uh-oh”. We told Rocky he should wear his policeman’s uniform at the next show just like the guy in 400 Blows but for real and he said he’d think about it. Frankie informed me there was free food and beer backstage and he went and got me a complimentary brewski.

I don’t remember the name of the next group, but it was just as I feared: 20-something white guys playing limp hippie jazz/funk/rap/whatever. The singer enthused about how great it was to be back in Flag; they had all gone to school here and now lived in the valley. Super. They tried to muster up a little enthusiasm in the face of the poor turnout.

During one tune, the singer told the bass player to “get funky”; he responded with a slap bass solo worthy of the guy from Seinfeld. Right about the time they encouraged us to count how many beer references were in the next song, I started wondering why my formerly-good Fat Tire buzz was turning ugly and I realized the freebie I was drinking was Miller Hi-Life. I poured the remainder into Frankie’s cup (“But it’s FREE, dude!” So is botulism bro, and I don’t want that either). As I threw my cup away, the singer was rapping: “I took out my Steel Reserve and Nut Browned all over her face” and it made me physically wince.

Mrs. C and I were itching to get in the van and leave and Frankie was itching for more free beer, so we went backstage in order to be closer to both. Right before we did it dawned on me that the guy with the porkpie hat onstage was the band’s BEATBOXER and I wondered how one goes about landing a gig like that. Probably pretty easy in Phoenix.

Backstage, the percentage of really skinny white guys all in black with jet-black dyed spiky hair and that “I’m in a band” attitude went through the roof. I had never seen so many of them all together in one place before, it was like a big douchebag convention. At first I figured these were all the Phoenix bands, but then remembered how many of these dorks I’d seen around town and decided the look is pretty universal.

I was eyeing the free food tent when an official-looking meathead came up and semi-apologetically told us: “Steve says everyone backstage has to have red wristbands” and I almost responded: “Well, tell ol’ Steve to bust ‘em out then, let’s go!” I mean, what did he think we were going to do back there? “Ooh, there’s Fight The Quiet! Get their autographs, I’m too nervous.”

Almost on cue, it started raining. The douchebags were looking pretty bummed (all that runny hair gel) and we gladly jumped in the van and bailed. As we drove away, I reflected on my High Life In The Pines Indie Music Festival experience and came to the following conclusions:

a) Never start with Fat Tire and end with Miller Low-Life. It’s like going to bed with Salma Hayek and waking up with Elmer Fudd.

b) “Douchebag Convention” is a fantastic name for a band. Maybe they’ll be headlining next year’s festival.

At home, I felt so shitty that I was asleep by 7:30.

Step into the Wayback Machine, Sherman, and set those dials for the glory daze of Flagstaff’s punk scene, about ‘93-‘94ish. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Life in The Mothership with me, Dave N, and our rotating third roommate wasn’t all dance parties, cheap drugs, getting loaded with touring bands, casual sex with high school girls, and running down O’Leary street naked in the snow.

Many an evening found us sitting in our tiny living room, staring into space and bored out of our skulls. Money was scarce. Prank phone calls (in the days before caller-ID) were always dependable cheap fun, but after you’ve dialed the Village Inn and asked for the hair pie twice in a week, what’s left?

We had plenty of music, but the lack of visual stimulation was usually the issue. Cable TV was a luxury and the VCR worked about half the time. The internet didn’t exist (in Flagstaff, anyway). Dave and our friend Clea were aficionados of bad ‘80s movies, and I was fortunate enough to work in a store that had plenty of them for rent (free to employees, of course).

Fully enjoyable was the double feature of Grease II (starring Adrian “The Zmed” Zmed and the screen debut of Michelle “The Fife” Pfeiffer) and The Pirate Movie (featuring Kristy McNichol, the guy from The Blue Lagoon, and the onscreen rape of both Gilbert AND Sullivan), the pain set in around hour three of the Swayze film festival but that blind boy sure plays a mean guitar, I tell you what.

And when all else failed, there was good ol’ broadcast television. Yep, wrap them rabbit ears in aluminum foil and off we go. Flagstaff used to have TWO local stations (and we never thought in a million years BOTH of them would disappear): channel 2 was an NBC affiliate with Flag’s only local newscast (and we never thought in a million years we’d be living in a city without a local newscast), while channel 13 was a proud member of the Trinity Broadcast Network, known to us heathens as The Jesus Channel.

TBN was founded by professional clowns and hypocrites Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker in the 1970s, and by the 1990s it was a flourishing industry, with dozens of affiliates all over this great Christian white-bread country of ours.

Dave and I would watch The Jesus Channel for HOURS and hours. It was our best entertainment value. We never got tired of the constant barefaced greed and arrogance, the bad music, bad hairpieces, bad makeup, bad sets … not to mention all the variations of TBN’s core message: “If you don’t want to go to hell, SEND US YOUR MONEY NOW. That’s right, God can be bought. Heaven is on sale. Eternal paradise is only a personal check away.” All you had to do was pretend these people weren’t real and it was more yuks than Saturday Night Live.

Dave always got a kick out of the fact that TBN’s logo sort of looked like the cover of A Night at the Opera by Queen. When the logo flashed on the screen, Dave would hold the album up next to the TV and we would laugh and laugh. Good cheap American fun.

The televangelists could get really grating, but it was a good night if we caught one of the faith healer yoyos who would bring up a member of their hillbilly audience afflicted with rickets or the gout and SMACK ’em upside the head to drive them Commie demons out. That will be $500, please.

Far and away, our favorite comedian on The Jesus Channel was a guy named Jeff Fenholt. He stood out from the other sweaty child molester types on TBN. Everything about him screamed aging head banger. He was well into his 40s, with a moon face framed by a curly blond rocker mullet. He looked like he belonged behind the counter at Guitar Center ringing up a strap lock and a dozen picks while cranking some Yngwie.

The Holt’s dubious claims to metal authenticity were: a) he played you-know-who in the original 1971 Broadway production of Jesus Christ Superstar (true, although his understudy Ted Neeley landed the movie role), and b) he was the lead singer of Black Sabbath for about two weeks in the mid-1980s.

This was refuted by Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, who stated he and Fenholt worked on some demos for a proposed Iommi solo album during a Sabbath hiatus, but that Jeff was never an official member of the band. Fenholt claims Sabbath manager Don Arden (Sharon Osbourne’s father) told him otherwise, and apparently that was enough for him to name drop Black Sabbath whenever possible on the air.

He had a “sexy” feud going on with some Wiccan priestess in Wisconsin. He would say her name and growl into the camera: “I’m coming for you, baby. Oh yes, I am.” He made a big deal out of actually flying to Wisconsin with cameraman in tow, but she went: “(Ding!) Restraining order!” and that was that.

Whether or not he was actually in the greatest heavy metal band in the world and renounced their hell-bound ways for a life filled with Jesus, one fact was inarguable: Jeff Fenholt was a douchebag.

One night Fenholt announced he and his Christian metal group (who never appeared with him on TBN, hmmm …) were touring and spreading the Good Word, perhaps even playing in your neck of the woods. We laughed and said wouldn’t it be great if The Holt was coming here? Then they showed the tour dates, and there it was: Flagstaff, Arizona. Dave and I stared at each other open-mouthed.

“No F^#ing way!”

[word “fucking” edited by the editor]

“Dude, we’re going.”

“Oh HELL yeah, we’re going.”

It should probably be mentioned at this point that Dave and I were singular in our passion for TBN and all things Fenholt. Most of our friends didn’t get it. “How can you guys WATCH this crap? OK, once in a while for a laugh, but EVERY NIGHT?” JRo would hole up in his room when we had it on. Clea gave it a shot, but couldn’t hack it.

Luckily, Primitive Tribes frontman and armchair anarchist Sasha Davis was cut from the same cloth as we, and was just as excited at the imminent arrival of The Man Himself to our shit town. Between the three of us (and several 12-packs of Olympia), a plan was hatched: on the day of the event, we would amass a battalion of local punks, get rip roaring drunk, righteously march into wherever the show was, and scream out the most obnoxious offensive blasphemous profanities imaginable at Mr. Bigshot Mullethead Jesus Rocker Guy and let him know THIS was the face of Flagstaff and that he sucked a big hairy gorilla weiner and so did his band and so did everyone at TBN.

Like I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

About a week before the showdate, fliers started popping up around town:

“LIVE! Former BLACK SABBATH vocalist JEFF FENHOLT!”

There was an eastside address and a photo of The Holt’s face leering maliciously at you through his curly blond mullet. Absent were the following words: God, Jesus, holy, church, Christian, Trinity Broadcast Network, and douchebag.

It was laughable, and we laughed. Did this guy think we were total rubes who just fell off the turnip truck and that we would be fooled by his clever ruse and show up expecting a rockin’ good Satanic evening and instead be hit BLAM! with the Lord’s healing power? What a dick.

I tacked a flyer up on our living room wall and The Holt’s glowering mug was immediately defaced with bloody fangs, whited-out eyes, a forehead pentagram, and a speech balloon reading “I Y Satan”. Again, we were REALLY bored.

The first seed of doubt was planted when I rode past the address on the flyer and yep, sure enough, it was a church. Dave and Sasha didn’t care: “Great! It’ll make our blasphemy more blasphemous. And hey, you grew up Catholic … haven’t you always wanted to be drunk in church?”

I had to admit I did.

The next seed of doubt came during our futile attempts to get ANYONE interested in coming along. “Uhh … you’re going to go into a church drunk and HECKLE some guy? Have fun.”

The great day finally arrived, and I raced home from work to find that our army of drunk punks consisted of: me, Dave, Sasha, Clea (our driver and always a good sport), and special guest Mario, undisputed king of the Flag Fiends, worshipper at the altar of Danzig and all things unholy, and future local musician. Oh, and our fuel consisted of a single 12-pack of Olympia between the five of us (did I mention we were really broke?).

These days you can get a pleasant conversation out of Mario, but back then all you got were two or three mumbled words and a silent devilocked glare through a haze of cigarette smoke. I believe on that fateful day he had just stopped by our house to see what was going on and Dave and Sasha hornswaggled him into coming along. The two of them could be quite persuasive.

We polished off the beer and piled into Clea’s little Toyota. The final seed of doubt was finding the church parking lot PACKED full of cars, and the thought “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea” flew across my mind. The church’s doors were wide open but no metal, Christian or otherwise, was emanating. Posted at the doors were the Sweater Zombies, and their eyes lit up at the sight of us.

“Hey! Thanks for coming! WOW! Here, let us get you seats DOWN IN FRONT!!!”

“NO!!!” we all shrieked. We told them we could find our own seats, thank you very much, and stepped inside.

The church was pretty full. I estimated the mean age of the crowd to be about twelve. They all turned around and gaped at us. I flashed back to my Catholic school days and thought, these kids probably have to be here. Well, they don’t HAVE to, but it was STRONGLY SUGGESTED by their parents and teachers that they attend.

The Holt was at the lectern and his spiel barely missed a beat. Some of the kids started giggling, but Fenholt ignored our arrival and spieled on, drawing the little ones’ attention back to him. The guy was a pro.

We stood frozen at the back of the church. Where was his band? We didn’t see amps or a drum set or any equipment normally associated with rock and/or roll. Just an altar, candles, the tabernacle that housed the Body of Our Savior … church stuff. This was unquestionably the last place on Earth I wanted to be. I said goodbye to the remnants of my two beer buzz.

Dave led us to a spot along the far right aisle, about halfway down. We tried to be inconspicuous, but it was impossible. Anyone who didn’t know we were there before did now, and the giggling started again. The first one in the pew was Mario and you should’ve seen those kids scoot.

Fenholt kept ignoring us. I can’t recall one word of his speech, but I can make a pretty good guess as to its content.

We were obviously the hit of the evening, or rather Mario was. He was definitely the only one present with a leather jacket or devilock. Kids kept turning around and whispering and giggling. Dave and Sasha were nonplussed. Clea and I were a bit shellshocked, but kept straight faces. Mario was slouched so far down next to me he was almost horizontal. He looked like he wanted his body to implode upon itself and collapse into a pile of smoldering ash.

After about ten painful minutes, Clea whispered:

“I need a cigarette.”

I whispered back, “I’ll join you.”

I told Mario what we were doing and the three of us stood up and tried to walk over Dave and Sasha. They decided they needed one too. As we all filed out of the pew, Fenholt stopped mid-spiel and addressed us directly:

“Aw come on, where are you guys going? You don’t have to leave!”

Dave turned, looked at Jeff Fenholt and said loudly:

“Oh, we’re just going for a smoke, we’ll be right back!”

It was one of the funniest things I had ever heard him say and I started cracking up. The impudence in Dave’s voice triggered something in those kids too, and the whole church erupted in laughter as we trooped up the aisle wearing stupid grins.

As we exited, I heard Fenholt trying to get his captive audience back, saying those guys came here expecting some heavy metal, but the REAL heavy metal is God’s … blah blah blah. I thought, tomorrow these kids are going to have some great stories to tell their friends who couldn’t make it (“Dude, you should’ve been there, it was AWESOME!”).

Outside, we lit up. The Sweater Zombies had followed us, and they ran the Divide And Conquer. Dave and Sasha each had three or four of them buzzing around. Dave sounded like he was making some headway with his bunch:

“TBN and the Church always want your money, but look at all that expensive jewelry and stuff they wear. Doesn’t the Bible say ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ and ‘The meek shall inherit the earth’? You know, Jesus and the Apostles were dirt poor. They were fishermen and carpenters, they weren’t rich …”

“Hey … you’re RIGHT!”

We found out that Jeff’s band couldn’t make it, but out of the goodness of his heart he decided to come anyway and, you know, just TALK to the kids. What a guy.

I smoked and tried to put on my best “don’t come near me or I’ll kill you” face, but one of them spotted me, smiled widely, and approached with outstretched hand. About 3 steps in, his hand fell and so did his face.

“Hey, there’s a …”

I followed his gaze and observed Mario with his back turned to us, in the classic “man about to have a piss” stance.

“… restroom in the …”

Too late. All conversation stopped, and we listened to Mario pee for a few seconds. The Danzig skull logo stared hollow-eyed at us from the back of his jacket. The expressions on the faces of the Sweater Zombies were priceless. I was shocked, but I felt like applauding. The words “all right” may have passed my lips. Dave, Sasha, Clea and I met each others’ eyes and the same thought ran through all our heads:

“YES!!!”

It was perfect. Mario didn’t actually relieve himself ON the church, just by a shrub planted next to the front doors, but the effect was the same. I don’t know if his intention was to make it a big sacrilegious thing, he probably just had to take a whiz. Nevertheless, it was a fitting comment on the evening’s events. The last word, so to speak. I only wish The Holt could have seen it.

Our cigarettes were done and so was Mario. The sweater Zombies nervously invited us back inside.

“I’m not going back in there.”

It was Mario’s voice, and he wasn’t mumbling. The words weren’t loud, but they were quite clear. His statement was not scared or angry, it was matter-of-fact, like “It’s raining today”.

I decided I had had enough as well. I also realized at that particular moment I needed to smoke a bowl more than I ever had in my life. I asked Clea for her keys and said we would be hanging out by the car.

Our group split up. Mario and I walked to Clea’s car and got inside. I looked at him.

“Wow. That sucked.”

“Yeah.”

We sat in silence. I loaded a bowl and puffed away. A short time later the driver’s side door opened and Clea got in.

 “Let’s get out of here.”

“What about Dave and Sasha?”

“They’re staying. They said they were having fun.”

“Oh.”

As we drove away, I had a mental image of a group of Sweater Zombies in front of the church the next morning holding crucifixes and one of those incense things on a chain, uprooting the tainted shrubbery (to be burned and its ashes scattered) and dousing the ground with holy water.

Apparently after we left, our punker friends Chris and Matt showed up at the church drunker than hell and implored Fenholt to heal them of their alcoholism. It almost made me wish I’d hung around.

I lost my taste for the Trinity Broadcast Network. Seeing that those people actually existed kind of killed the humor.

In 1997 it was revealed that in the late 1970s, Jeff Fenholt was a “boy toy” of the late Gala Dali, widow of Salvador. In her declining years, she was notorious for having a stable of young male lovers, setting them up financially in exchange for sexual favors. She paid Fenholt with several of Dali’s paintings and a million dollar Long Island house. Gala was in her 80s, Jeff in his 20s.

The resulting brouhaha caused Fenholt to disappear from TBN for several years. He eventually made a triumphant comeback, his sins forgiven and his mullet shorn.

Rest Area outside of Bullhead City—In an effort to cut expenses and help fund his second home in Bermuda, CEO Pierce Winslow has moved the entire Discord reporting staff into the old Winnebago his grandmother left him. No less than a dozen reporters, six children, eight significant others, eleven cats, four dogs, twenty-six snakes, a full bar with keggerator, an eight-foot statue of Yig and seventeen cubic-feet of crawdad traps will be living and working from a space roughly the size of Winslow’s guest’s guest bathroom.

When we tried to reach Mr. Winslow for an interview, he wouldn’t allow us into his office. I did hear him bragging to his secretary’s assistant through the door. “They think this is bad, if that thing breaks down wait until they get a load of plan B. Besides, it’s all part of this team building exercise I read about, or at least a slightly more sadistic version.”

Undaunted, the Discord team has tried to make the best of their situation. “We’ll be like pirates,” said Alex Bone, while strapping a six foot statue of Yig to the hood. “Only dumb ones.”

“Yeah, look on the bright side,” added Zano, “with the Ghetto Shaman in jail, at least we won’t have to deal with all of his chickens.”

The women appeared less enthusiastic. After pulling out enough hair to allow Bald Tony to join an eighties hair band, Cokie McGrath shouted, “All the women are relegated to, big surprise, the kitchen! I’ve already heard enough of, ‘well, since you’re there, Cokie, how about twenty sandwiches and a few pizzas?’ And that’s just Bone’s order. I would call them misogynists if I thought they’d know what it meant.”

I spoke with Mr. Tony Ballz, who sat with three cats on his lap between two adults and two small children on a couch. “I’ve had worse,” he said, before turning away to place an order with Cokie in the kitchen.

Since everyone is now housed in the same location, Winslow cut staff expense accounts even further. He rationalized this by sending the gang a Sam’s Club card with a note that read: BUY IN BULK. Alex Bone Is trying to subsidize the food supply by laying out his crawdad traps each night, but when he got arrested for stealing butter, morale fell to an all-time low.

“But at least we have some space,” said Zano. “That tall freak took up as much room as all the pets put together.”

What does the future hold for the Discord crew? Only time will tell. But as long as they can sponge enough money to keep gas in the tank, there’s no limit to where they could be reporting from next week…as long as you let them park in your front yard…and, maybe, use your shower occasionally. Yeah, that would be really cool. Tony’s starting to smell. Oh yeah, and do you have Wifi? This article needs to be sent to Winslow A.S.A.P. or we won’t get our next food allowance.

This is a review of a place I already love, but don’t get too excited—that usually means I ask for a set of keys, drink all your beer and then throw an endless house warming party for myself. This pub already evokes both a resounding Hear! Hear!, as well as a simultaneous what the hell were you people thinking! I am either off my bipolar meds again, or watching Colbert’s “Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger.” Stay tuned for a glorious rant, done out of love.

The Good:

I already like this place, a lot, and I’m an east coaster so for most restaurant reviews I immediately turn into a bitchy kvetchie, hard to please New Yawker. I immediately liked the layout as well as their mixed drinks, particularly their rhubarb old fashioned, but complaints are inevitable because, let’s face it, they’re funnier.

The Pork Shank Redemption: It’s wonderful. It’s really just called the pork shank, but I was just listening to Morgan Freeman narrate something on YouTube so… 

The Chicken Avocado thingie: You don’t call it this, but I misplaced the menu I stole.  Great sandwich, but I agree with Cokie McGrath on this one, it could use some better buns (but, hey, so could Cokie…).

The Branding Iron: A steak, mashed potato thingie. I asked for medium, it was well, but otherwise tasty!

The Chicken and Gnocchi: I loved it, but somehow this made the bad list as well. Stay tuned.

The Hummus and Falafel salad: This is wonderful! But the hummus is sold separately…WTF?! I will leave this in the good column if you promise to merge them together into a package deal. Yes, I added the hummus part to the title, but remember:

“One is the loneliest falafel that you’ll ever do.”

—Three Dolma Night

 

[“I’ve never been to Spanakopita” joke omitted by the editor.]

 

The Bad:

 

The acoustics are lousy. It’s not a concert hall so it isn’t a big deal, but it’s worth mentioning. I don’t know how to fix the acoustics, try to invite more librarians or dining mimes. Just a thought.

The gnocchi of the chicken and gnocchi makes the bad list too. I loved the gnocchi, but five? Really? Five gnocchi? My grandmother told stories from the great depression where you could get six gnocchi, free! …with each purchase of a carrot. The gnocchi were delicious, but they’re not scallops for Christ’s sake, they’re little balls of fried dough…balls of fried fucking dough! …and not of the cash variety.

 

[“Let’s make Gnocchi” joke deemed inappropriate by the editor]

 

The Zano:

 

The beer selection…it’s sooo Scottsdale. If you’re not familiar with Scottsdale Arizona, it’s sooo Hamptons. If you’re not familiar with either of these, you should really get out more.  Let me ‘splain.  Flagstaff takes its beer seriously and we take our coffee seriously…and you have brought us neither!

You must understand, Flagstaff has one fatal flaw: places that serve good food generally don’t serve good beer and vice versa.  We have a myriad of wonderful beer bars, wine bars, and coffee shops, but they’re all strangely devoid of sustenance. Aside from the occasional muffin, I could starve at most of my favorite haunts. To sit down with a nice steak and a kick ass ale is not easy to do, unless you employ the Zano sneak the shit in method (STSIM).

One year before this place opened I prayed each night to the porcelain gods, hoping beyond hope that an establishment would open that serves BOTH fine food and ale. Then I walked over to the tap system and I wept a little. The only IPA on tap was Lagunitas, which is not up to Flagstaff standards. It’s the Budweiser of IPAs, the King of Blahs. Seriously? Lagunitas? If this shit showed up in India via camel, the British troops would have sent it the hell back complete with a rude hump-day joke. They also went with two styles from Borderlands in Tucson, a place I tried to hit during my latest Tucson beer review here. The brewery choice isn’t the problem, it’s the styles: a honey kolsch, a citrusy pilsner, and a sweet porter? That’s fine if you have twenty taps, but six?

Oh, and your service is already in need of an intervention. I’ve notified Mr. Ramsay by posing as your manager…uh, and I called him dick, so batten down the hatches. To put bad service into perspective, Flagstaff is where several pioneers are still waiting somewhere for their sliders. Actually they just opened so I’m just giving them a hard time. I’m sure it’ll all work out and I’ve never personally had a problem. But, then again, I take off an article of clothing every five minutes that I have to wait, so I get prompt service everywhere I go. It’s like magic…because the alternative is anything butt.

The 2^nd A-Menument:

 

I ate here again before posting, and they have already implemented a lot of my suggestions! Okay, probably a coincidence, but cool nevertheless.  They’ve already stolen James from Cuvee, one of the best chefs in town, and the falafel salad now comes with hummus! No shit. I didn’t even post this yet… that’s the kind of Zen, Dr. Who-like fictional prowess that I wield! And I spoke with Tyler, the beer manager, and they already have a better IPA on tap, Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA. The Brits could have colonized the whole world with this shit…uh, okay, maybe not. The McMillian is also starting to get reserve Belgian bottles of gloriousness in stock and there’s already talk of expanding the tap system and a tap takeover. So far I’ve spoken to Tyler, AJ, Bobby, and James and these guys rock and this place is going to be a fixture in Flagstaff. So now I can fully endorse this place…uh, if you could just lift the whole ‘I’m banned thing’. Look, the waitress incident was not my fault and the men’s room faucet was like that when I found it. And I’m very sorry about the missing painting, but on the plus side it looks great over my mantel.

I’m looking right at the camera, but does that stop me? Never!