the ballad of bobby-the-blade for "scared stiff reviews"

THE BALLAD OF BOBBY-THE-BLADE

i just finished reading michael willis’ pretty boy: the life and times of charles arthur floyd (1992) and it got me to thinking about heroes…..my dad was named after pretty boy floyd and after I finished reading the book, I called and left a message to let him know that I thought his parents gave him the koolest name of 1935……my homepeople were hard-scrabble mountaineers and there was no way in hell that, in the midst of the great depression, that there were going to name their children after some fucking president or politician……hell, my grandfather was named after jesse james, so the concept goes back for generations……and if you don’t know your pretty boy floyd, he was a depression era bank robber who stole from the rich (the banks) and gave to the poor (his friends and family and neighbors)…..he tore up mortages and became an icon for the common man…..when he robbed his hometown bank, the boys at the barber shop yelled “give ‘em hell” and his grandfather and his buddies hung out at the railroad depot chewing tobacco, swapping stories, and waiting for the show……and after the feds bushwhacked him on a farm outside of east liverpool, ohio, that same bank chipped in money to bring pretty boy’s body back home to oklahoma……20,000 people came to his funeral as women threw themselves on his coffin and men put cemetery dirt in their pockets as makeshift souvenirs (geno’s nana was there too---she peed her pants and made a one-legged boy-from-town dry her cooch off with his only sock)…..and that was 1934 and it’s 2009 now and it seems like we’ve run out of heroes……no offense, but do you think my son would call in 2049 to thank me for naming him, obama robinson?---I don’t think so…..like if I had to name my (future) children after any politician, I’d just as soon let the stray cat escape back into the woods……my point is: 2009 freaks need heroes too---the drug dealers, stoners, cokewhores, acidheads, speed freaks, day trippers, pill poppers, lesbians, nuns, fat kids, and the big handsome all need someone to believe in……I met such a man at my friend, nootie’s wedding…..his name: BOBBY-THE-BLADE……like I had never met the dude before, but I knew that he was going to be special when someone in the wedding party organized a pool for the moment during the weekend when/where “the blade was gonna crack” (with all the proceeds going into the honeymoon kitty)….i had “on the plane,” but aside from carrying a 6-foot bong in a guitar case with him everywhere he went (and going outside to hit it during the ceremony), the blade ultimately stayed in control (I assume out of respect for the bride and groom)……and this might be a short intro, because who needs to hear my bullshit when I could be telling stories of bobby-the-blade smoking a bowl in his law school class?---it made cnn and the charlotte observer, ya know?......how about the time bobby-the-blade and jonny fairplay (who lied about his grandmother dying on survivor: asshole island) were on judge mathis arguing about who-owed-whom money for bailing drug dealer, heavy dee out of jail?.....snorting oxycontin in the break room at work in front of his boss?----it’s there along with old chestnuts like “going nuts in the smoothie shop” and “breaking out of rehab”……i must admit that I am so in awe of the-blade’s skills that when I went on booktour for fat on the vine in 2007, I pretended like bobby-the-blade was my friend just for the fucking stories (and bobby, if you’re out there, pittsburgh thought you were a god)……more to the point: bobby-the-blade’s been doing this shit since 1990 and I kinda dropped off circa 2006 (when I came to iowa)……does that mean I sold out?---yeah, I think it does…..did wred fright sell out?----yeah……nootie?---you’d have to ask him yourself.....the big handsome?----apparently so, but then again, you can never be sure with the big handsome…….and rumor has it that bobby-the-blade might be headed to jail in 2009, so I just wanted to write this as a kind of tribute to him…..no one robs banks anymore and crazycarl doesn’t really have any hobbies per se…..and all that remains is the dream that there’s one more magnificent fuck-up left in bobby-the-blade (and that he’s doing it for all of us)……like I don’t want him to go prison, but I have no doubt that bobby-the-blade could turn it into his own version of a clockwork orange (1971) meets fear and loathing in las vegas (1998) with a little bit of pineapple express (2008) thrown in for flavor…..NOTE: before I begin, you should realize that I don’t really know this dude….most of these stories are 2nd or 3rd hand, so just imagine what the urban legend would be like if I actually did….there are no pictures of bobby-the-blade either, but if you believe and are walking along the beach late one night, don’t be surprised if the naked freak who rises up out of the ditch to ask you for a light turns out to be bobby-the-blade---and before the night’s over, you might just break on through to the other side

10) BOBBY’S COLLEGE ROOMMATE: bobby-the-blade went to boston college (not too shabby, yeah?) and I believe he was pre-law…..any of you eagles remember him?---well, I bet his college roommate does…..ya see, bobby and his roommate didn’t get along, so one afternoon bobby decided to put 5 hits of lsd into his roommate’s drink----and the dude stonecold disappeared…..his roommate’s stuff stayed in their dorm room for roughly 3 more months and then one day, bobby came back to dorm and all of his roommate’s possessions were gone too…..bobby never saw his roommate again

9) BOBBY GOES TO REHAB: after smoking that bowl in his law school class (which I’ll get to later), bobby’s mother sent him to rehab in washington state……and no one heard from bobby-the-blade for about 6 months---that is until my friend, nootie got a phone call from the blade asking if he knew anyone who wanted to buy any (high dosage) methadone patches……it seems that bobby-the-blade and some heroin girl/slut that he met at rehab had broken out of the facility, but before they left, they successfully picked the lock to the hospital’s pharmacy and stole (among other things) over 30 methadone patches…..nootie never knew for sure, but he thinks bobby and the heroin girl went through all 30 patches in less than a week

8) BOBBY’S GREATEST JOB EVER: (TRAVELING) DRUG DEALER FOR THE BAND, DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

7) BOBBY’S LAST JOB (FALL 2008): I don’t know the particulars, but bobby was working as a salesman for some marketing firm that distributed brochures/videos for another company (that’s vague enough for you not to know what I’m talking about, yeah?)……anyway, bobby has a meeting scheduled with this businessman and throughout the course of their conversation, bobby keeps asking the businessman questions in stoner code (ostensibly to see if the businessman gets high)……bobby eventually decides that he does, so instead of giving the businessman a packet with promotional material from his company, bobby gives him the “other packet” (the one with the northern lights) and goes home…..the next day when bobby goes into work, there is a cop waiting in his office who wants to know where the marijuana came from----bobby feigns ignorance and tells the cop that “it must have been some kind of mix-up”……of course, bobby got fired, but as of this point, he hasn’t been charged with a crime (perhaps because the local district attorney is waiting his turn at an even bigger score)

6) THE DOMESTIC BOBBY: at one point, bobby-the-blade’s mom hooked him up with a swanky apartment at the beach (in the hope that he would turn his life around)……and after about 3 days of “exploring,” bobby discovered a secret door which lead to the roof of the apartment building (and there’s plenty of sunlight at the beach, ya know)…….anyway, bobby decides the next day to start transferring all of the plants that are in his apartment (25-30?) up to the roof…..and bobby (obviously) did this in the middle of the night, but over the course of a couple months, several of his neighbors saw him going up the stairs to the roof at 3 am with a variety of gardening supplies…..then, one day after about 3 months, bobby goes up to the roof and discovers that all his plants are gone…..and taped to the middle of the (empty) floor is a police sergeant’s business card with a note which read: “call me”…..of course, bobby never called and at this point, he hasn’t been charged with a crime (perhaps because the local district attorney is waiting his turn at an even bigger score)

5) BOBBY-THE-BLADE V. HEAVY DEE ON THE JUDGE MATHIS SHOW: did I mention that bobby-the-blade is a tv star as well?......it all started about 3 years back, when bobby-the-blade drove to virginia to bail his old high school buddy, heavy dee out of jail (and I could have just as easily done a top ten list for heavy dee who is perhaps most famous for double-crossing some (bigger) drug dealers who, after loading all of heavy dee’s furniture into a moving van, left him beaten, naked, and tied to a chair in his empty living room)……anyway, so supposedly bobby-the-blade puts up $3000 to bail heavy dee out of jail and then heavy dee refused to pay him back…..so what would your friendly, neighborhood drug dealers do in a similar situation?----they’d go on THE JUDGE MATHIS SHOW and (in the case of bobby-the-blade) bring jonny fairplay (a childhood friend) along as a character witness…..and I don’t remember the particulars, but at the end of the show, judge mathis called all of them “degenerates” and refused to make a ruling because he “didn’t believe a word that came out of any of their mouths”…..more to the point, bobby-the-blade, heavy dee, and jonny fairplay told all of their friends and family that they were gonna be on tv----they were fucking proud of it……like if you were a smalltown drug dealer, would you want everyone in your hometown to see the show?.....would you want your grandma to be watching as judge mathis called you and your friends “degenerate drug dealers” on national television?---I don’t think my grandma would have liked it at all (and she really is dead)

4)DOCTOR SHOPPING: like I’m sure most of us have considered snagging the doctor’s prescription pad during an office visit, but did you realize that there was a crime called “doctor shopping” and that it’s a felony?----bobby-the-blade does……ya see, whenever the blade has some spare time, he likes to make appointments with different doctors just to see what kind of medicine that they will prescribe for him….and over the years, bobby-the-blade has done quite well for himself---like wherever bobby-the-blade is tonight, I’m sure the adderol,>zoloft,>oxycontin>vicodin is falling like rain…..i’m not talking the (low-dosage) adderol your 8th grader sells to his friends at school either----I’m talking a strain of adderol that could mellow your 8th grader right into a coma……anyway, on bobby’s last visit to the doctor to get his meds, the temptation of snagging a couple of scripts and forging dr nick’s signature was a little too much for the blade…..and the first four forgeries worked quite well----everything was fine with the 2 mail orders and 2 local pharmacies (that bobby had never used before)……unfortunately, when bobby returned to the 3rd local pharmacy to pick up his prescription, there were 2 plainclothes detectives waiting for him with handcuffs…..and they took him down to the station for questioning and fingerprinting, but once again, the local authorities have yet to charge him with a crime (as they wait their turn for perhaps the biggest blade-related score of all)……this one’s a pretty serious felony though, so it’s a good thing bobby still has a legitimate prescriptions for zoloft (as well as for adderol, oxycontin, vicodin and cat tranquilizers) in case things don’t go as well for him in court

3) BOBBY-THE-BLADE ORDERS A SMOOTHIE: one day, bobby-the-blade was thirsty and decided that he wanted a smoothie from the local smoothie shop…..when he arrived, he noticed that the girl behind the counter gave the customer in front of him free “money” (which turned out to be a $1 coupon that was stacked beside the register)……and when the blade announced to the girl that he wanted a free smoothie as well, the (confused) chick refused…….so what did the blade do?----he hopped the counter and proceeded to grab all the $1 coupons from beside the register……so what did the smoothie chick do?---she grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and the fight was on…….their argument spilled out into the parking lot and eventually the police were called…..when they arrived, the cops gave bobby the option of going to jail or having his cousin sign some papers authorizing them to take the blade to a mental institution…..bobby-the-blade ultimately chose the mental institution where he was held-for-his-own-safety for close to a month……surprisingly, there aren’t any good stories from bobby’s time in the mental institution, perhaps because he didn’t have access to any “really good drugs”

2) BOBBY-THE-BANKER: after bobby’s trip to the mental institution, his mom somehow managed to get him a job as a loan processor at a bank…..and, in general, bobby was on his “best behavior”----like if you were a hot chick and came in to apply for a loan, bobby would hook you up with the money if you agreed to go out with him…..then, one day, bobby made a lunchroom faux pas……bobby was sitting at the lunch table with his boss and coworkers when he realized that he’d forgotten to take his medicine…..so bobby takes a knife from counter, mashes the (prescription) oxycontin into powder, cuts it into lines with his driver’s license, and then proceeds to snort it in front of his startled boss and coworkers……and later that afternoon, bobby-the-blade’s boss called bobby into his office to fire him…..and i think the conversation went a little something like this: THE BOSS: “BOBBY, WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU SNORT DRUGS OFF THE LUNCH TABLE AT WORK IN FRONT OF ME AND ALL YOUR COWORKERS”?......BOBBY’S RESPONSE: “I’VE GOT THE PRESCRIPTION RIGHT HERE….DO YOU WANT TO SEE IT”?

1) BOBBY-THE-LAWYER: no doubt, bobby-the-blade is a smart cat…..and in his younger days, he was studying to be a lawyer at unc-chapel hill……bobby, as you can prolly tell by now, also likes to have a good time, so during the summers, bobby liked to go on the road with the band, drive-by-truckers…..and after one particularly good summer, bobby had some trouble readjusting to life at law school….and on his first day back, bobby kinda/sorta forgot where he was and PROCEEDED TO PULL OUT A BOWL AND SMOKE IT IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS LAW SCHOOL CLASS……and the lawyer-dudes around him tried to tell him to put the bowl away, but bobby wouldn’t let their “negative energy” harsh his gig……eventually some girl stepped outside and called the police who subsequently walked into the lecture hall and arrested bobby on the spot……fortunately for bobby, he had smoked all the weed before the police arrived and possession of drug paraphernalia is only a minor misdemeanor in north carolina….of course, the blade was expelled from law school and the dean personally guaranteed bobby that he would “never be allowed to practice law anywhere in the world ever again”……more importantly, bobby made the front page of all the north carolina papers that week…..and a few days later, he was named cnn’s dumbass-of-the-week (or whatever it was called at the time)……and for those of you who would talk smack about bobby-the-blade, let me just ask if you’ve ever been named cnn’s dumbass-of-the-week?---yeah, me neither……crazycarl says the drive-by truckers oughtta write a song about that dude