Stench Soup

I will start this entry by expressing my grief over Heith Ledger. Ok, I’m done. Not trying to be insulting. I’m not. It is sad he left behind a 2 year old daughter that will never know him. Yes it’s weird that person I just saw in Knights Tale on TBS is now deceased. I just don’t know how you can get all clamped up about the wasted life of the next in line Hollywood who ever to die of an overdose. We all know we will find out next week after the toxicology report is released he ate a barbiturate sandwich for lunch, scotch dinner, cocaine desert, bagged an Olson twin or two, took some sleeping pills to balance out the blow, set his alarm, but this time before he could start it all over again..it ended. How can you be so sad? John Ridder was too bad. This, not as much. You screwed up when your life began and ended during the lives of Mickey Rourke, Robert Downey Jr and Keith Richards. Not trying to make him out to be a junkie – but just wait to see what was in his system – and I did just hear they found a rolled up $20 by his bed? You don’t say.. It’s going to take a Britney Spears suicide, a Cher plane crash, Jimmy Fallon sky diving accident or a Kathy Griffin bear attack for me to get emotional over a celebrity. The above being extreme exuberence. All others after Farley just don’t hurt so much.


So shortly after waking up on a glorious Saturday noon, I made it to the living room, fuzzy eyed, with some oj and started watching the BBC Human Series that was a close reach for me in our DVD case. Fascinating stuff. If you are a fan of National Geographic, Nova, Planet Earth type shows, this is as good as I’ve seen. It is a seven or so part series that covers the science, tendencies and capabilities of everything about the body; speech, sight, hearing, touch and so on. I don’t know how available it is in the States, our copy came via a study abroaders visit to the pirated movie lovers paradise of China. Where you can get a hot copy of most box office titles for so cheap it keeps Will Smith up at night. 50 Yuan gets you the The Soprano’s box set, there are even Jerry Sienfeld copies of just about any movie in the theatres. (Down in front!!) Sure the cover of our Twin Peaks box set is in Chinese – turn off the subtitles and you have yourself a Beijing bargain. God bless the Chinese and their pirated products. Movies. IPhones. Soon to be Cars. Sure they are slowly trying to poison us with lead, but they also show things can be made and sold with out an 800% markup. I read an article around a year ago about a Chinese city that as a means of attracting tourism, on their city’s website displays an image of the Minneapolis skyline as their own. They’re pirating our skylines too!! They need to work on pirating Ziyi Zhang for this guy here.

Ok back to this Human Series – I watched the one on Smell. I was out cold about 20 minutes into it, but kept going after I awoke again. There was a part in it where scientists were attempting to concoct the most universally vile scent ever made. This smell could then be used as a means of crowd control. They mixed the primary chemicals that make up the distinctively putred smells of vomit, skunk, rotting flesh, Taco Bell, doo, and called it Stench Soup. Truly vile. Every tester almost passed out.

Well I am about to write these "scientists" a letter to tell them they can quit their day jobs and halt their research, for on Monday night I discovered the most pungent, crippling, debilitating smell one has ever come across. Here’s my Stench Soup. Two parts unbathed, sweaty, dancing hippie pit stench - one part roadie food for a week dancing hippie fart. I call it Agent Hippie. No joke. I was at the Xavier Rudd show Mon. He’s a rising hippie jam bander from Australia. I will not take the following events away from his performance – he was great - playing the guitar, drums, didgeridoo all at the same time. None the less the hippies crawled out of their hole for this show. So about half way through I got drug onto the main, I will call it Stench Pit in place of Mosh Pit, to stand next to a friend we went to the show with. After two 15 minute songs with a high school spaz in glasses, a beanie hat and a brand new GerryBear shirt in front of me – ecstatically freaking out over every reference of “trees” in a song, and constantly jumping up and down to every House of Pain beat he heard - right in front of my face (about 30 people deep removed from the others in the FRONT ROW doing this) and slamming into me, I was ready to either take his legs out from under him, or leave the floor. So I turn around and saw another buddy of mine behind me standing on a nice perch, right under the stairs. I go over to stand next to him. Sounds good except for the only way to get there I had to part a sea of especially sweaty hippies, flush from epileptically flailing themselves all night to the music of a stage they couldn’t even see because they were behind the stairs in their convulsing area. So I go for it, “scuse me hippie, scuuuusssseeeee me”. Half way there I get hit by a flying dreadlock to the face. AAAaaahhhh.. Sssssssss..it started burning like a snake bite. I then reflexively and mistakenly inhaled. Ooohhh..ohh… myy gaaawwwddd. The most pungent stank pit odor I have ever smelt. My buddy sees me, eyes watering, looking like I just licked a toilet and was a stunned sacrifice circled by a dancing tribal village. In the midst of feeling my way out with an extended arm, I got double whammied with a nose full of the most foul, moist, VW tour van grilled cheese peanut butter and banana sandwich diet fart ever. I mean this was so foul, the hippies smelt it over themselves and cleared the area. Ooohh my freaking gord it was awful!! I don't know how they survive their own stench. Spray some Agent Hippie on rioting hooligans in Chelsea and they'll call uncle pretty quick.

I miss cigarette smoking in bars and concert venues for this reason alone. Now you have to smell everyone else.. It's not always the sun children that stink, there are smelly people everywhere. But, hippies for the most part do smell. I think we all can agree on that. Nag Champa isn’t deodorant and bees wax isn't shampoo. I'm pretty sure there are natural deodorants out there if thats your beef. Seriously people, I’m not asking you to conform, but this isn’t 1969. Feel free to use some soap.

Lastly, a pet peeve of concert going once again happened, happens every time. First off I can't stand it when the majority of a show is spent by people shimmying by you and knocking into you. I understand people move around and get drinks - explain to me why on your way around me do you have to touch my back when you go past? Some even do the back slide. What the hell! Are you all on E and getting some contact high off my jacket? F-ing don't touch me. I’ll take a back or shoulder tap. Excuse me. Scuse me bud.. But don't slide your hand across my back as you go by. Unacceptable.