How I Got Into this Mess, part 2

Art by Chris Rini

In part one, I laid out my lifelong history of being obsessed by fighting and combat sports of all kinds and threw in a free theory blaming it all on my place of birth and raising, Borger, effing, Texas.

My career, such as it is, can be blamed entirely on the place of my residence since 1988: Austin, Texas….with some credit due a five-year detour in Washington, D.C.

The morning after high school graduation I woke up with a stomach full of panic, dread, and anxiety. You see I’d managed to parlay being a National Merit Scholar into….nothing. No college scholarships, not even a college admission.

Don’t ask me to explain how I pulled that off or why. I hated Borger, Texas so much I decided to spend an extra year there working in a tire and supply shop assembling bicycles and putting batteries in cars. 

On the credit side, I learned how to play guitar a lot better. On the debit side, I firmly decided that I was going to be a rock star….well if you consider Husker Du rock stars…that’s what I wanted to be. 

I wouldn’t find out until nearly a decade later that being a “rock star” on the Husker Du level meant committing to a life of brutal poverty, living in a van and unceasing travel. 

Once I finally got to college in the fall of 1988 – I chose the University of Texas at Austin because they had no essay requirement on the admissions application at that time. This was a bad sign for my fall-back career – Great American Novelist.

I did fine at college for the first year, not great but I passed all my classes and got a couple of A’s. But then I tried LSD which triggered my first-ever full-blown manic episode. 

If you’re not bipolar, count your lucky stars. If you are, you’ve got my sympathies and solidarity. 

For six weeks I was on top of the world. Talking loud. Talking constantly. Talking to strangers. 

For the next six months I was in a deep depression. Dropped out of college. Worked four hours a day. Slept 12 to 18. 

Intramural softball was the highlight of my life over the next 18 months as I slowly clawed my way out of the slough of despond..

Eventually my friends Greg and Danny moved down to Austin and we finally started our band. 

Our ambition was to be the next great Texas hard rock group. We saw our lineage as 13th Floor Elevators, ZZ Top and the Butthole Surfers.

Sadly, Pantera had already found Phil Anselmo and was beginning their long climb to exactly where we had hoped to end up. 

Regardless, I learned a lot from the experience of being in a band called The Nipple 5. 

And unlike Dimebag Darrell I’m not dead. Had we “made it” there’s a 100% chance I would have followed my idol Brian Jones into the 27 club.

But that’s neither here nor there. Let’s get back to the things I learned trying to promote my band.

The fact that we didn’t go to high school in Austin, didn’t live in one of the cool co-ops or squats, hadn’t played in a dozen other bands in Austin, meant we had to do a LOT of work to get ANYONE to our shows.

The fact that we were attempting a high-concept classic rock parody on top of a Melvins meet Sonic Youth style art-guitar attack meant the few people who did attend our shows mostly fled in terror and revulsion.

After several months of playing empty clubs on Tuesday nights, sharing our flop sweat with our girlfriends and no one else, I switched up the approach. 

I started a fanzine. Those were little photocopied magazines we would make and leave in record stores. Mine was called Massage Parlor. 

It was a great way to meet other bands….and get them to book the Nipple 5 as their opening act. 

The other trick I used was finding two bands with different crowds but similar sounds. Booking the Nipple 5 in the middle of a stranger sandwich meant most everyone thought we had a crowd of our own.

Finally, I managed to weasel my way into booking bands at The Blue Flamingo. This was an impossibly seedy gay bar on 7th and Red River in Austin. That was the corner, just a block down from the police station where crack dealers sold their product. 

The Blue Flamingo was also about the size of my living room. No stage. Finally, a bar we could pack. 

It took me about 2 weekends to figure out that my personal taste in bands, my friendships with other musicians etc meant nothing. The only thing that mattered was booking bands who drew crowds and sold beer. 

Eventually after self-releasing two singles and touring the west coast with the infamous Fuckemos, I quit the band and went back to finish college.

Next time, I’ll tell the tale of how I became an internet communications professional specializing in public affairs and political campaigns and how that led me to found BloodyElbow.com