I Am America's Next Top Modle – OR – How Getting Fired Was My First Step Towards Being In The Band Of My Dreams

Here is a short list of facts:

1) Goner is a band of badasses.
2) I got fired from bong.
3) I’ve gotten more sympathy from strangers and strange friends for losing a crappy bartending job then I did when my grandmother died.
4) Everyone’s grandmother dies.
5) My life has gotten noticeably better since my Wednesday nights have been spent doing yoga rather than bar tending at a dive bar.
6) I do yoga and I make fun of people who do yoga.
7) I make fun of myself for many reasons.
8) My friend Swampthing and I had a great conversation about music. It was such a good conversation that (now) we both have written about it. He wrote a lot more about it than I did.
9) I got a ticket after blowing donuts in a Home Depot parking lot, during a snow storm, after going bowling with Bearhead. I won at bowling.
10) Proof was playing in my CD player when I got pulled over, which is probably why I was speeding in the first place. I didn’t turn it down when the cop asked for my ID and insurance.
11) I’ve been told if I contest the ticket and then plead guilty to the judge, it will only cost me $45 and it won’t go down on my permanent record.
12) I’ve got a great collection of records but I don’t have a record player.
13) Swampthing and I did a photo shoot in Café Bong the day after I was fired. He is a great photographer. Esther, who is my good good friend, set it up since I couldn’t go in due to the fact that I was fired.
14) Esther is awesome. In fact, she is probably the most awesome person on the face of the planet, you just don’t know it because you haven’t met Esther.
15) You should meet Esther
16) The photo shoot was for the cover of the new Goner album, Rock and Roll Always Forgets.
17) Goner loved the shoot and is putting me, my fedora and my white sneakers on the cover. I look like Run DMC.
18) I have to go to the DMV to keep this ticket off my record.
19) I will be in the studio tomorrow morning at 9am to record some college kids singing Abba. That song always gets stuck in my head and I need to play Proof loudly to get it out.
20) I’m famous, or at least my back, my hat and my shoes will be famous.
21) It’s been a great week.



Photo and Design by Ian Merritt. See more of his photograpy at www.idmphotography.com