The biggest mistake I ever made was getting my beard tattoo. I thought beards were cool and at 18 years old I wanted one so bad but just couldn’t grow one. So I paid handsomely for a full beard tattoo. It looks like shit. The tattooist told me I couldn’t shave for a week after I got it. It was only then I realized that to grow a beard you couldn’t shave. Yea yea. I know. But I just never associated those things. Big fucking deal. Turns out I can grow a full, healthy dark beard which I promptly did to cover up the terrible beard tattoo and have kept it ever since. A question people always ask me why I never aspired to be anything more than a dishwasher. Two reasons. One: I hate dirty dishes. Really. I don’t obsess about dishes being clean. I just hate it when they are dirty and I am a doer. I take action. So this is what I do. Reason two: Aspiring about a job is for losers. A job? A fucking job? Who gives a fuck. I work to live, man. I don’t see myself as an extension of my job. That is just what I do to make some scratch so I can pay the bills. Plus it is easy hours that allows plenty of time for band practice. You might be asking what is a 42 year old still doing in a band? He’s living. That is what he is doing. He’s making music. Making art. Trying to inspire the world. Getting blowjobs by drunk 20 something’s and sober 40 something’s. Maybe you have heard of us? Rickshaw? Named after our twin lead guitarist/lead singers Rick and Shawlington Rackmaninov. We have only been a thing for a little while. There is Mark on the keys, Rick and Shaw on vox and lead guitar, Steve Marijanian on Rhythm Guitar, “Puddles” Murphy on Sax, and Vasily Ruslan on percussion and backing vocals. You might say it is a lot of people for a local Rhythm and Blues band that is just starting up and you are right. We split shit pay too many ways and honestly we suck. I never claim to be the greatest bass player in the world but I have been playing for 25 years and been in twice that many bands. I can play. The twins have incredible stage presence but that is all they have. They are terrible people and the most narcissistic pricks I have ever seen. They look like the Nelson brothers from the band “Nelson” in the 80’s. We haven’t played a single show where they haven’t gotten in a fight on stage. The audience loves it because they can’t fight at all. The problem is they always end up rolling around on the floor then making out. Yep. Two twin brothers making out. They claim it is their cultures way of saying they are sorry but we are pretty sure they just like to kiss each other on the mouth. This has led to a very strange following we have. The hard as fuck bikers show up to hear some good music and get to drinking. These wannabe tough guy MMA dudes show up knowing they are going to see a fight and a bunch of homosexual men with brother fetishes show up knowing they will see two brothers make out. The bikers and MMA guys go nuts when the fight starts cheering and egging them on. “Use your fist like a man!” one of the bikers will yell. Without fail one of the MMA douchbags will yell “ARMBAR HIM!” at some point every single time. Then the making out starts and the gay guys start yelling and egging them on. “Use your fist like a man” one will yell. I don’t know much about gay subculture but I don’t think they mean the same thing the bikers do. The night ends and half the bikers leave with one of the homos on the back of their bikes. “Just giving this guy a ride home that’s all!” they say out loud to anyone who will listen. The MMA guys are left hanging because no self-respecting man or woman wants to go home with some dipshit who thinks “tapout” is a cool kind of clothes to wear and thinks taking fighting lessons is a good use of time.
I have played with pretty much everyone in the city. Vortex, Klown Kollage, Big Pete and the Glory Holes, Gary Delamore and the Hand Jobs, Hand Job and the Gary Delamores, Delamore and the Big Pete Gary Jobs, Matelika, Gams and Hoses, Writers of the Porn, The Dashing Blumpkins, Hank E. and the Codes, Labia, Uncle Touches and the Secrets, Mr. Brownstain, Tempest Fugit, Gary Busey and the Pew C’s…the list goes on. If they mattered l laid down the bottom end. Even if they didn’t matter. Most of the time they didn’t. I can’t say one band stood out really but my best work was playing with a drummer known as Alabama Slims. I don’t even know his real name. He was a 350lbs man who was about 5’7 in boots. We were the hottest rhythm section in town. We just had it man. He had a heavy ass foot and really came down on that bass drum. We could just feel each other and dance all night locking that groove in for the show offs trying to play a half decent guitar solo. We had a running joke about him trying to take home the underage girls. Just some inside ribbing. Turns out he was an actual pedophile. He got busted on that Chris Hanson show. Didn’t do himself any favors by trying to talk Mr. Hanson into some kind of double team scenario.
So here I am. Washing dishes by night and rocking by other nights. It’s hard to keep a band together. I give this one another few months. I have a side gig with ‘Plick Feinstein and the Accountants’ and a twice a month thing with extreme metal ensemble ‘The Retards’. I was upset that it took me 4 months to realize they were actually all retarded. I just thought they were on drugs. Turns out I was the only one on drugs. I am not an addict or anything. It’s just part of the scene. By that I mean part of both the music and dishwashing scene. As you can imagine washing dishes is rather repetitive and boring. Imagine what that is like 8 hours a day. Now imagine what it is like if you only remember ever going to work twice in your life. It’s like getting a free paycheck. The only evidence I have that I have a job is that I get a paycheck and I walk in the door and no one kicks me out. Quick huff of the whipped crème, a shot of booze to get ready for work and down go the pills. 16 hours later I wake up somewhere and carry on with my life. Life is perfect.
Tom “Dish” Washington
May, 2012