Have you heard of BLACK CONGRESS?

Have you ever wondered what a beard sounds like? I think a beard would sound like Black Congress.

Aaron Danger and I went to see them at a house show on Commonwealth & Nevada last night. Black Congress have the strange talent of making people excited by the mere mention of their name. You can say to someone, “Hey, Black Congress is playing tonight!” and both of you will probably be really excited, despite the fact that you’ve never heard of Black Congress, you have no idea what they sound like, and you don’t know a single person who is in that band.

Aaron and I were throwing confetti at them during their set. That was pretty tame. Then some guy crowd surfing kicked a giant hole into the ceiling. That was pretty hilarious. I feel bad for the guy who has to deal with the hole in the ceiling and confetti strewn around the house.

It’s strange but pretty cool how house shows are coming back to Houston. Well I’m kinda young so “coming back” probably doesn’t apply to me because I can’t recall house shows ever being popular in Houston. But putting a keg that nobody could find in the backyard and cramming a bunch of people into a bedroom that smells like weed will never get old.

Andrew and Morgan S. couldn’t make it, unfortunately. It was unfortunate for me, too, because the only person I knew at that place was a bearded Alekos that I hardly recognized. We talked about mustaches because my handlebar mustache looked exceptionally well-done that night.

One thing that’s gonna be killing me for the rest of my life was this blond girl I saw at the show. She was kind of short and looked exactly like Morgan S. She acted like Morgan S., too. I found myself thinking, “Is that really Morgan? Is she playing a prank on me? Is she wearing a blond wig?” But I determined that it wasn’t Morgan. I thought she was trying to look for a bathroom because she was looking in all the rooms like all the bathroom seekers were doing so I asked her if she was looking for a bathroom because I could point her in the right direction. She didn’t say anything but she smiled pointed into one of the rooms. She knew where the bathroom was but she looked like she was still trying to tell me something. I was wearing firearms grade earmuffs to protect my ears from the harsh rock’n'roll music so I lifted one of the earmuffs up and stepped a bit closer to her and signaled her to scream whatever she wanted to tell me in my ear. She smiled and put her hand up and signaled the “nevermind” dealie. I left to go outside to take a phone call and came back about 10 minutes later and stood in the doorway again. The blond Morgan S. doppelganger was gone. I looked around the room to see if anyone I knew had shown up. About 10 minutes later, the doppelganger came back and stood next to me and then sat down in a chair next to me. Fuck, just thinking about her is gonna kill me because for the rest of my life I’m going to wonder if she had something important to tell me.

Teenage debauchery

Morgan turned 18 last week and she held festivities at her house. She drove me to her place after school and I checked her mail; her copy of the Science of Sleep came in. I went to sleep in her room while she did her economics homework. She woke me up a few times by yelling across the house so I could help her out but my help was apparently no good as every question I helped her answer was wrong. Oh well.

I was woken up by Ben D. and Nick D., boys I hadn’t seen in a while, along with JB. We’ve all known each other since middle school and it was like a lunchtime reunion. It was like Rachel Hirsch’s house all over again.

The Science of Sleep was playing on TV and we all talked about how pretentious some of the scenes were.

Here’s Nick lifting Ben up.

Blake picked up some toys at the store.

One of the things we learned that night was Nick’s amazing abilities to sculpt things out of Play-Doh. He made a dog, a bird, and a fish and they were all really fucking good. None of us expected him to possess such skills.

He pulled some needles out of a pin cushion and used them to reinforce the neck and wings of his bird. He made a special announcement that informed everyone that the Play-Doh bird was full of needles and that they should not crush it with their hands or step on it.

We also learned that Blake Miller looks a lot like Conan O’Brien.

And he can also stretch his neck to amazing lengths.

Andrew Sainz came by around midnight. He brought along with him a bunch of Peking duck from the Chinese restaurant he delivered at. I showed everyone how to wrap the crepe around the duck. I could go for some Peking duck right about now, actually.

Here’s Fletcher and Wallace. Braden and Sarah also unexpectedly came by with them. Nobody really knows who Wallace is or how he got there but we do know that he went to Pei Wei with them and ate a bunch of noodles.

Lucas and Julia came by and played music with Jake. They were rehearsing for their show at the farmer’s market in the morning. When they came into the house I asked them if they were cool with the fact of me taking pictures of everything all night. Lucas said that he didn’t want me taking pictures of him because of his trashy mustache. Having a mustache myself, I understood perfectly.

A little after midnight, most of the people ended up in the backyard but I hung out in the kitchen with Ben and Nick. We all started talking about old times and we asked each other questions about how our lives were going so far. I noticed that this year was the first year that the question “What are you doing next year?” really meant something. Any other year before this would’ve had the answer, “I’m going to school.” This time the question is open-ended. They could be working or not working or going to school here in town or going to school out of state or traveling the world or sleeping until noon and playing guitar everyday. Then they started asking me odd questions that I barely understood. I remember them asking me “Where’d the black guy come from?” and “Do you think it’s weird that that girl over there is calling people ‘Papa’?” and other strange questions. I still don’t know what the hell any of those questions were about.

I ended up on the porch with Morgan, Ben, Julia, and Lucas. They were talking about the Holocaust or something. Eventually the conversation turned towards the Milgram experiment.

Most of the people left and the rest stayed at Morgan’s to spend the night. Morgan said goodbye to everyone and turned the alarm on. Blake and I spent the night in the living room. I slept on the couch and he slept on the sofa. He really looks like Conan O’Brien when he’s sleeping.

I had a tough time sleeping and I heard Elaine walking down the hall into the living room. She went into the kitchen and got a glass of water. We both sat on the couch and started talking. Blake was sleeping like a rock and didn’t wake up during our conversation. She told me Tori was going to pick her up and they were going to eat breakfast. When Tori got there, Elaine and I spent about 15 minutes in front of the alarm trying to figure out how to disarm it. I eventually figured it out and after she left, I turned it back on.

I was sleeping and I heard some ruffling in the room. It must have been 10 AM. I looked on the other side of the room and I saw Blake looking quite startled. He looked at his phone, sprang to his feet, and ran out the door. The alarm was blaring. He didn’t say a word. I walked over to the alarm and Morgan was running towards me. I beat her to disarming the alarm and she said thanks.

After everyone woke up, Andrew and I sat in Morgan’s bedroom and prank called people. He called Leah Gilman and told her that she was going to the prom with me. She acted shocked like she never agreed to such a thing and he asked her why. She said it’s because she hates mustaches. We were both trying really hard not to laugh. Then he told her that I was out buying my tuxedo and I even hired a skywriter for the night. I started laughing loudly and she asked him who was laughing. He said it was JB. She’s really pissed at us but it’s worth it.

Then we tried to cut glass bottles with string, fire, and gasoline.

Andrew and I were the last people left at Morgan’s house. I think we helped her clean up and then we left to go to Aaron’s new duplex to help him paint. Aaron is living with Illene and Teresa and the duplex is a block away from my mom’s house and a block away from the new Super Happy Fun Land.

Aaron, Illene, and Teresa were really flipping the house around. There were paint chips everywhere. All their stuff was there for some reason, though, so the house looked like something you’d see in Gummo. They even had mounds of roaches living in their walls. We decided to go see the midnight movie at the River Oaks Theatre. I was pretty excited because Harold & Maude, one of my favorite movies ever, was playing.

Andrew and I left to go eat at One’s a Meal before the movie. The host sat us at a table next to Carlos from the Young Mammals. Andrew had a gyro and I ordered something we couldn’t pronounce and the host was being so nice to us. He was this old balding Greek man with a mustache and he talked with a loud, firm voice. He spoke Spanish, too. He saw us talking to Carlos and said “Ahh, you boys know each other?” and I said “Yes, sir. We’re all friends here!” and then he patted me on the back. He gave us refills on tea and Dr Pepper with pats on the back. There were two cops sitting behind us and they had the same host. The host came by with their plates of food, but instead of walking to their table, he danced while singing an Italian opera.

Andrew and I went back to the car and prank called people. We told Harrison L. that we were stranded in Smithsville with a flat tire. Then we called Morgan and, after an indecision of where we should go before the movie, we drove to her house. Two minutes after we pull out the parking lot of One’s a Meal, we passed the River Oaks Theatre. It took about 20 minutes to get to Morgan’s house. It was disheartening as fuck.

At Morgan’s house we talked trash for a while and she read aloud some excerpts from the book she just got in the mail, the Art of Seduction.

Andrew drove us all to the theatre where we ran into Alekos. Well, Morgan spotted him. I didn’t recognize him because of his beard. He didn’t recognize me because of my mustache. I thought the movie was great but I was the only person that watched the whole thing. Morgan spent a fair amount of time sleeping with her head on my shoulder and Andrew spent a lot of time with his head tilted back and his eyes closed, asleep in his chair.

As we walked out the theatre, I saw Andrew talking to someone behind him. I turned around and saw that it was Bucky. We somehow got to talking about the soundtrack to the movie and I asked Bucky if he knew about it. Aaron and I were coincidentally talking about it earlier that afternoon. I told Bucky that the soundtrack was released on vinyl only in Japan and with limited numbers. Bucky added on that a majority of the records were destroyed in a fire and only 2 copies existed, one which was owned by him, with limited edition art by Mitch Clem and some other ridiculous stuff. Everyone laughed except for Morgan because she isn’t a loser like us.

We went back to Morgan’s and spent the night. I couldn’t sleep. I had a nightmare. I was really shaken up so I sat on the couch all night and morning until the afternoon. Then Morgan walked into the living room and yelled at me because she and Andrew thought I was sleeping and they didn’t want to disturb me.

I made mango pancakes from scratch and Morgan and Andrew thought they were the best pancakes they’d ever had.