She's Got the Herp

The first time I told my girlfriend, Tina, that we were working on a song called "She's Got the Herp", she asked, "Are you guys really going to write a song about that?"

That's my girlfriend, Tina G from the SPC!

I nodded my head and smiled. "You know it!" I said.

The poor lady thinks me and my friends are crazy. She's probably right! I suppose all artists are crazy in some way. We see the world differently than normal people. We look at the mundane and make art of out it. We hear symphonies when we put a seashell to our ears! Artists also think differently than regular folk. We take an idea, an intangible object, and we bring it to life. We make the intangible, tangible. Period. Simple. We take an idea for a song titled "She's Got the Herp" and make it a MP3 file you can download on Reverb Nation for 89 cents and play on your cell phone! That's what we do!

Speaking of MP3 files, here is a link to She's Got the Herp on SoundCloud!

Believe it or not, I can say this with a straight face, all of us at Bubba & the Government Cheeze are artists. We are more than just musicians. We are, in fact, artists above all else! I suppose this might sound funny coming from a guy who thought writing "She's Got the Herp" was a great idea!

Here's how the song came about.

One day, Bubba and I were hanging out at my apartment and we were bouncing ideas off each other for new material. Bubba whipped out his iPhone and started playing recordings of ideas he'd been working on. One such idea he played for me was chorus for a song titled "I'm Gonna Fuck that Girl Like a Tubesock". Yeah, that we pretty much it. It was a recording of him singing those lines. When he played it for me, I burst out laughing.

"That would be a funny song," I said when I stopped laughing, "but I'm not sure I want to put my name anywhere near that song!" I was still a little worried about my reputation back then. A lot can change in a few months!

"I'm always recording stuff on my phone," he said. "When I get an idea, I record it. I could be anywhere. I could be doing dishes, I could be laying in bed, I could be in the bathroom when an idea hits me and I just record it. Hell, I come up with some of my best shit in the bathroom!"

"Literally," I said laughing.

"You never know when you're going to get inspiration," he said.

The next recording he played me was "She's Got the Herp". Just like "Tubesock", it was just him singing the chorus of the song. It tickled my funny-bone.

"We could do that song," I said. "It reminds me of an AC/DC song."

"Instead of 'She's Got the Jack', 'She's Got the Herp'!" laughed Bubba and then he began improvising by playing drums on my kitchen table and free-styling some lyrics. It was funny stuff.

"Do you think Chad will want to play that song?" I asked.

"I don't know," said Bubba. "We'll ask him."

Then we worked up a rough draft of the lyrics.

Since writing, performing and filming "Hell Street", Bubba and I had been jamming with Chad. One time, he invited TJ Hubbard to play with us and he was a perfect fit with for our little group. The first time we played with TJ, I knew I wanted to keep playing with him.

TJ is an excellent guitar player and song composer. He writes some awesome music! I dig it! Also, he is one of the easiest guys to work with, he doesn't have a big ego and he has the same sense of humor as Bubba, Chad and me! He's a very creative guy and I enjoy bouncing ideas around with him because he always has something cool to add.

"We need a blues riff," said Bubba to TJ while we were horsing around in the studio, "like something AC/DC would do."

"Like this?" asked TJ as he rattled off the riff that would be "She's Got the Herp".

"Exactly like that!" said Bubba enthusiastically.

"Okay, what's it for?" asked TJ.

"A song called 'She's Got the Herp'," Bubba said with a smile.

We played around with the riff for a little bit. TJ showed me what he wanted me to play and Bubba worked out his drum part. Chad played along with us and came up with the intro. Then we showed Chad the rough lyrics we came up with and we jammed the song out!

At the end of the night, Chad began working on the lyrics. He started by reading what we wrote while trying not to laugh.

"What if I sang it like Bon Scott?" asked Chad as he sipped his rum and Diet Pepsi. Then he did his best impersonation of Bon and we all laughed. I swear that Chad was channeling the spirit of the former AC/DC front-man.

It only took a few nights to record the song. We did it over the next three weeks. It went a lot slower than the recording of "Hell Street" but it was well worth it! We were learning a lot about the recording process for Bubba and the Government Cheeze and getting used to each other.

When I was recording my bass part for the song, it took me a few tries to get it right, after all, I hadn't really played the bass in eighteen years!

"Do you want to do another take?" asked Bubba.

I looked at him and said, "Dude, this is a song about herpes. How much time do you really want to spend on it?"

I'm impatient and the recording process for "She's Got the Herp" took longer than I expected. I just wanted to wrap the song and get working on the video, which we never got around to making.

Watch the Behind the Scenes video on YouTube

We put together a Behind the Scenes video on YouTube after we recorded the song. We took some video on Bubba's iPhone and strung the scenes together. It didn't take too long to do. I like the video because you can watch Chad improvise the lyrics and make it his own.

Bubba and I did have a rough draft of the original lyrics. We wrote it down the day before we brought the idea to Chad. It wasn't in finished form by any means and we wanted Chad to put his own signature on it so we intentionally left a lot of room to be covered. I love his vocal track on the song. He sounds like Bon Scott and it's funny!

When we were recording Chad's vocals, he wanted to keep doing more takes. After eight or nine takes, Bubba said, "I think we got enough." Then he mixed it and viola, the song was done!

I also love the intro for that song too! Chad come up with it because there wasn't much to the main riff (it was kind of repetitive). He played the intro for us one day and we recorded it. We didn't practice the song much as a band. We learned our parts, said 'Good enough for government work' and recorded it. Both Chad and TJ did their guitar solos on the song in a few takes and Bubba was able to put it all together seamlessly.

We did plan a video for "She's Got the Herp". Chad wanted to go to Portland and film regular people singing the chorus line.

"Who's going to ask the people to sing?" asked Bubba. "I'm not doing it."

"I'll do it!" said Chad. "I'll just explain to them it's for a music video. Hopefully we can get some hotties in bikinis down in the Old Port."

"Imagine some old people singing it," said TJ. "That would be funny."

"Maybe we could get a retard to do it," suggested Bubba.

"I think that's going a little too far," said Chad.

"We gotta get a hot chick for this video," said TJ.

"I've talked to a couple of chicks about it but they all say they don't want to be the chick with herpes," said Chad.

"But that's kind of the point," said TJ.

This would become a reoccurring discussion topic whenever we talk about filming a video. There always has to be a hot chick! Whether or not we can convince a hot chick to do a video with us is another whole story!

One idea that Chad had for the video I really thought was cool was to set up a kissing booth with a girl with herpes. He wanted to put make-up on her to make it look she had the herp on her lips. It was a good idea but it was summertime and it was hard for all of us to get together to film the video so we never filmed it. Maybe someday!

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ATTENTION CHEEZE-HEADS... Please read the following!

ATTENTION CHEEZE-HEAD NATION:

Thank you very much for all of your support! Me and the boys really appreciate all of you! Thank you for watching and listening to our stuff! It's amazing to us that you really dig our music and videos! Words cannot express our appreciation enuff!

Now, with all of that said, we are going to ask a favor of each and every one of you Cheeze-Heads out there. We have received a great response from our music video "Satanic Seagull" on YouTube but the video is not climbing the charts as quickly as we hoped. As a result, we are going to ask for your help with promoting the video! If you like us and want to help us, please share the "Satanic Seagull" video on your Facebook page. Below is the link to YouTube. Please click on it and then share it with your friends! It would mean a lot to us if you did this!

Please share this link!

Again, thank you very much for your support and encouragement!

-Bubba

http://youtu.be/Q3EM1chFB8s

Hell Street

Watch the Hell Street Video on YouTube

Bubba as Satan

The idea for the song came to us on the way to Lippa's house one morning. As I was driving to his house, I passed Mitchell Road and for a split second, I misread the sign. All I saw was H-E-L-L. I quickly realized that wasn't right and then I saw the rest of the street sign. I laughed and told Bubba, who was sitting in the passenger seat, about what I had just seen.

"Hell Road? That sounds like a song," said Bubba.

"We already have a song called 'Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow'," I laughed. "Why not write a song called 'Hell Road'?"

"We are probably going there anyway."

"To where? Hell or Hell Road?" I asked.

"Both," said Bubba. Then he started tapping on the dashboard and working up a melody for the song. "It could go a little something like this," said Bubba as he tapped away at the dash. "I'm going down to Hell Road."

"What number?" I asked.

"666 Hell Road," laughed Bubba. "Maybe it goes a little something like this. '6 6 6 Hell Road!' What do you think?"

"I think we should write a song, make a video and dress you up as the devil. That would be funny."

"I don't know if I want to dress up like the devil."

"Come on, Bubba. It would be funny."

We arrived at Lippa's house and went to the basement where we usually hang out. Lippa was messing around on his computer and had a home-improvement show on the television. We hung out for a little while before we started talking about the song again.

"Bubba came up with a new song in the car on the way over," I told Lippa. Then I explained about the street sign and misreading it for Hell Road.

"Let me see your guitar," said Bubba to Lippa.

"Here you go, man," he said as he handed Bubba the acoustic guitar. "It's way out of tune."

"I don't give a shit," said Bubba as he began to strum away. "I don't know how to play this thing anyway."

We laughed as Bubba sang and attempted to play guitar. I believe I have mentioned before that Bubba can't play guitar worth a shit and he'd be the first one to tell you that. Before the end of his little impromptu jam session, Bubba changed 'Hell Road' to 'Hell Street' and he did a sketch about Satan ordering a pizza.

"That's it, man," I said. "That's the what the song is about."

"What's the song about?" asked Bubba.

"Satan ordering a pizza," I said. Then I explained to Lippa about dressing Bubba up as the devil and the three of us planned out the video.

"Now all we need is a guitarist to play the part," said Bubba. "I want it to sound heavy."

"Who can we get to play guitar?" I asked.

"I don't know," replied Bubba. "Chad has been asking me to come over his place and jam. He says he's got guitars, drums and a bass."

"Maybe we should go over there and check it out," I suggested. "You should call him."

"He usually has Mondays off," said Lippa. "The dump is closed and he's usually around."

"I'll send him a text and see if we can go over next Monday," said Bubba.

As it turned out, Chad Robishaw was free that following Monday and the three of us paid him a visit. It was the beginning of a musical collaboration from Hell!

Chad's studio, which is now called the BGC Studio, was in his basement and stocked with all of the equipment we needed to record the song 'Hell Street'. We explained the concept to Chad, who was quick to accept the position of guitarist in our little group. We told him what we wanted to do for the song and video.

"We can definitely do that," said Chad.

He was on board with doing the song and video. He understood the concept and he had a sense of humor just like the rest of us.

We wrote all of the music for the song that day and the following Monday, we got back together and recorded it. It only took us four to six hours to record the whole song. We used Bubba's four-track recording machine for the instruments. Two weeks later, we recorded the video.

We convinced my girlfriend, Tina, to play the voice on the phone and we recorded her lines one night while she and I were drinking Allen's Coffee Brandy (a favorite of Bubba and the Government Cheeze). I didn't write down her lines, I just told her what to say. We had plenty of outtakes because she kept messing up her lines (probably due to the brandy). It came out pretty good though. I was happy with her voice.

I recorded my lines as the devil because my voice is deeper than Bubba's and when I spoke into a voice modulator application on Bubba's iPhone, it sounded really cool and demonic.

Once everything was recorded, Bubba dumped it into Audacity (a freeware music recording and editing program) and made the final mix. Then it was time to make the video.

Bubba and Chad from Hell Street

Bubba, Lippa and I arrived at Chad's house around 9 o'clock in the morning and got everything set up while Bubba put on make-up and got into costume. Lippa and I set up the lighting and worked on blocking with Chad. I stood in for Bubba until he came to the studio.

Chad had this old mask of the devil. He told us to cut out the face and Bubba could use that as a mask. Once he painted his face red and put on the mask, he looked like Satan.

The video only took us a few hours to shoot. We did it all in one day. We used two different angles in the studio to give the video a multi-camera feel. Then we filmed Bubba playing the drums with the pig-head mask on. We went upstairs and recorded the opening scene and the end scene with Satan on the phone ordering the pizza. We used two different angles for those scenes. That was it! All we had left to do was edit the video, which didn't take me too long to do!

                                         The 4 Track                                                                              

                           

                                                    Chad working on the Hell Street Solo

That's me (Bubba) laying down hell St Vox

If you haven't seen the video, watch the Hell Street Video on YouTube!

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Where Chainsaws Hookers And Blow came to life also, where Hell Street and The Herp were mixed.

                                       My old project studio -Bubba

How It All Began Part Cinco

Okay, so I exaggerated a little bit! It didn't quite take Bubba three years to write the song... it took him about two years to do it.

Watch the video Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow

It was around December 2012 when Bubba told me he was finally going to write "Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow".

"Really man?" I asked. "Hasn't it been three years since we first talked about that song?"

"It's only been two years," replied Bubba. "Besides, I'm bored and I don't have anything better to do."

Bubba was out of work again. He got fired in June. He had been working at that job for a year and a half or so but he was suffering from the Gout and one of his managers gave him a hard time. Finally, the old Bub'ster had enough and he told the manager exactly what he thought of him. It went something like the following:

"You're a snot-nosed little brat who doesn't know shit about running a warehouse!"

I paraphrased of course but those are not choice words to say to your boss! If I've learned anything from years of watching WWE programming is "you don't cross the boss!" Just ask Vince MacMahon if you don't believe me.

Over the next couple of months, Bubba began showing me his work on the song. It progressed rather slowly. Bubba was doing all of the work by himself. He wrote all of the drum tracks and instrument pieces and all he had to work with for instruments were the ones he could program into his keyboard.

I liked the first two versions I heard but then he came up with this other version which sounded like something out of a Super Mario Brothers video game. Seriously, I thought there was a Nintendo game console playing in the room!

"Bubba, you gotta cut the Mario shit," I told him after hearing the track.

Lippa gave him a harsher critical opinion when he played it for him.

"This song has to have balls," I said. "It doesn't need the Legend of Zelda in the background!"

Bubba took our criticism and went back to work on the song. He removed the track and kept the music simple like in the first versions of the song I heard.

Then Bubba went to work on the vocals. He recorded the chorus first and it sounded great! There was only one thing missing and I told him what that was... Chainsaws!

"Dude, the name of the song is 'Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow'," I said. "Where are the chainsaws?"

"I could get some chainsaw sound effects and add them to the song," he said.

"Do it! It would be like that Jackyl song where the singer plays a chainsaw as an instrument," I suggested.

"I know that song! Yeah, that would be cool," he said. "I'll see what I can do!"

Bubba wrapped up the song in April and played it for me. I thought it sounded awesome! He did a really good job and I was impressed. He eventually made a video for it and put it up on YouTube. I liked the video too. At the end of the video, I noticed he named me as a Producer.

"Producer? I didn't really do anything," I said.

"Yes you did," he said. "You gave me advice on the song. That's what producers do."

"Okay, great," I said. "So I'm a producer now. What's next?"

Bubba and Dan 

"You could help me write some more material," he suggested.

Overhead, we heard a giant clap of thunder. It came out of nowhere. It was so loud that it stunned both of us. The lights flickered in my apartment. Bubba and I looked at each other wide-eyed for a moment.

"That has to be some sort of sign," I said.

"Yeah," Bubba agreed, "from Heaven above!"

And that is how it all began according to Dan!

Watch Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow on YouTube!

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Filming Equipment

Hey you Cheeze-heads out there, it's getting that time of the year where we are decking the halls for the holidays. As we get closer to Christmas it reminds me of a present that I got that we use to film BGC videos, my Olympus camera. If it wasn't for this little baby we would have to resort to using our cell phones as cameras, however there is nothing wrong with that we still use our cameras to add to the videos or use as behind the screen footage.

Out first video was bare minimum we used a a tri-pod that Chad had but had no head to put the camera on and could not adjust unless you unscrewed the legs. I had to make a makeshift head out of some spare parts I had in my garage. That little piece of equipment helped film Satanic Seagull too until we eventually got a real tri-pod. We will keep her in our hearts as we film future videos and who knows she might be needed in a pinch.

Our editing equipment is probably on every computer that has Windows, Movie Maker from Windows. It's a good little program to splice together to form videos but it lacks special features like other editing programs. We are in the process of learning a new program from Adobe that has a lot more features than the Windows program.

Our audio is pretty simple too, we use Bubba's iPhone's voice recorder to record any dialogue we use in the videos. We also use Bubba's 4 track for vocals and any narrative voices for the videos. It can be a little difficult at times to sync up the voices with the film.

All in all our equipment isn't the best equipment but being lifetime Yankees we use what we have and make the best of it. So remember when watching our works look for the quality of the content being produced because that will always be top notch.

BGC Behind the Scenes Projects are Underway!!!

Good news for all of you Cheeze-Heads out there, we are currently putting together some behind the scenes footage from Satanic Seagull and for a new song we are working on!!! There isn't an ETA on the delivery of these videos (we'll post them when we are ready), but I suspect it will be very soon! I reviewed the material for Satanic Seagull last night and there is plenty of it to put together for your viewing pleasure! I'm working as fast as I can to get a rough-cut to the boys for approval. In the meantime, I'm laughing my ass off watching the clips!

I almost forgot all about this video Chad made that Bubba used the audio for the intro to Satanic Seagull! It's definitely going in the Behind the Scenes video we are working on!

How It All Began Part Quatro

In the fall of 2010, I had just split from my wife and Bubba had been separated for more than a year when he moved back to Maine from Florida. Both of us were out of work so we had some time to hang out. We didn't really do much but party.

One day while we were hanging out with our friend, Shawn Lipps (aka Lippa), the idea for "Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow" was born inside Bubba's head.

"Tell Bubba about that song idea we had," I said to Lippa.

He paused, looked at me and titled his head. He knew what song I was referring to. "Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow"! The title is shocking. I can understand Lippa's initial hesitation.

"Before I tell you the name of the song," said Lippa after a pause, "I have to put it in context. Alright?"

"Sure, go ahead," said Bubba looking up from his iPhone. He was always playing on that thing.

"A few years ago, when the video game 'Vice City' came out," explained Lippa. "Are you familiar with the game? Do you know which one I'm talking about?"

"Grand Theft Auto, right?" asked Bubba.

"Yes, that's right. Have you played the game at all?"

"No but I heard you steal cars and shoot cops. Does that about sum it up?"

"Well, yes, except for the fact that you can kill anybody in the game and do various missions such as dealing drugs and shit like that. This one guy I worked with at the time was really into the game. When it first came out, a bunch of us were talking about the game at work. We were in the back of the kitchen. This guy gets all excited when it was his turn to talk. He said, 'Just give me a chainsaw, some hookers to murder and some blow to sell.' Oh yeah, you can go around killing hookers in this game!" Lippa laughed. "And that's how we came up with the song name 'Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow'!"

"Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow!" repeated Bubba. "I fucking love it!"

Then he started improvising a melody. It sounded just like what I had envisioned in my mind when Lippa and I were first talking about the song.

Without Lippa, "Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow" would never have been written. Incidentally, a few years ago Lippa fell out of a third-story window onto concrete. It was a miracle he didn't die. He was less than a foot away from impaling himself on re-bar! He was in a lot of pain but still alive.

"I can hear the whole song in my head," said Bubba. "I know exactly what it would sound like. One day, I'm going to write that song."

It only took him almost three years to actually write the song and record it.

To be continued...

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How It All Began Part Tres

Fast forward a few years...

"Life happens when you're busy making other plans," was a quote by John Lennon (I think). Anyway, it's fitting for the next entry.

Bubba and I grew up and our childhood dreams of being rock stars faded into the mundane reality of the real world. Both of us went to college to study different things (Bubba studied audio production while I studied business). Both of us got married to different people at different times in our lives and started living our new reality of being normal people with normal jobs trying to raise our families. It's boring shit and not worth mentioning a whole lot. That's my personal opinion at least and since I'm the one writing this stuff, I guess I get the last word on that!

In the meantime, Bubba was married and living somewhere in East Butt-fuck (actually it was either Bridgeton or Baldwin, Maine but I couldn't tell you which one). He was working a few part-time jobs trying to support his family. One of his jobs was at a radio station where he was putting his skills at audio production to use. In his spare time, Bubba recorded a couple of songs and emailed them to me.

All I remember was one of the songs started like this, "When I was five, my daddy called me a cocksucker! Cocksucker!" Need I say more? No but I will anyway! I don't remember many of the lyrics but I can recall a couple of them. "When I was ten, he went and did it again" and something about a "Brokeback dance" are the only lines from that song left in my noggin.

That song didn't have a lot of commercial appeal. I tried to explain it to him but he just got pissed at me and hung up the phone. How many people are going to relate to a song like that? Can you hear many people singing "Cocksucker!" on their way to work? Maybe they will now. Maybe I just inspired a new trend. I dare you on your way to work to sing "Cocksucker!" over and over again as loud as you can with your windows down! Do you dare?

The other song I remember him showing me had an accompanying video. It was titled, "I Want To Rub One Out." Need I say more? On this one, I do. He put it up on YouTube back when YouTube was young. The year was probably 2006 or 2007. He made a video using images from the internet (similar to the video for "Chainsaws, Hookers and Blow"). The song was about masterbation if you didn't already figure it out. One site he put it on removed it for content violations. It was a fairly inappropriate song but it was catchy!

To be continued...

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How It All Begin Part Dos

Bubba was always creative. He was always coming up with funny ideas and songs. Over the next couple of years, Bubba recorded more music by himself on that four-track recording machine in-between recording with various bands. When he had his down-time, he would fool with the recording machine and come up with funny stuff for us to listen to.

I remember the first Christmas after high school graduation, we were still living around South Portland. Neither one of us attended college right after high school. Hell no, we'd had enough schooling for a while. It was time to live life for a little bit. So that meant we stayed in our hometown (well sort of, we were staying at an apartment in Cape Elizabeth - no big deal, it's just one town over) and did as much partying as we could. It was probably one of the funniest times in my life!

Anyway, none of us had much money (I think we were both working at Pizza Hut at the time) and it's not like we ever really bought each other Christmas gifts (though one year Bubba did give me an autographed picture of himself - which is up on the Facebook page) so I was surprised when Bubba gave me a wrapped audio tape present for Christmas. The audio cassette contained all of his funny songs up to that point in time. It was friggin' hilarious! Pardon my French.

The photo Bubba gave me!

I told you about a couple of the songs on the audio cassette already but by the time he made the compilation, Bubba had picked up a keyboard to play with. He wasn't very good at the keyboard at the time. He didn't even try to be good at it and that was what made it so funny! The best song on the tape was a Chinese version of a Christmas carol sung by Bubba and accompanied by Bubba on the keyboard. It started off like this, "Qua chi key qua/Qua chi key quo." Holy shit.

Up until that point in my life, I don't think I ever laughed as hard as I did listening to that audio cassette he gave to me for Christmas. My stomach hurt and I was crying because I laughed so hard. If only I still had that tape today! You know I would put it up on YouTube for sure! Hell, Bubba would probably even film videos for them!

It's too bad that audio cassette is lost. We can't go back and recreate that sound no matter how hard we tried. It was too spontaneous and original. To this day I haven't heard anything like those songs!

Incidentally, we've been talking about doing some Christmas music and maybe even a special with Bubba and the Government Cheeze. It's not anything we could have ready for this year but there's always next year! Can you imagine seeing "Bubba Claus" hosting his own Christmas special or singing heavy-metal Christmas tunes?

Back in 1993, Bubba appeared as Bubba Claus on a Public Access television show hosted by one of our high school classmates. The name of the show was Rob's Room. Anyway, Rob asked Bubba if he would play Santa Claus on his TV show one day at school. Bubba thought Rob was joking around but he was serious and asked him again.

"What do you want me to do? I'm not an actor, man," said Bubba. "I'm a musician."

"You can do whatever you want," replied Rob. "I just want you to dress up in a Santa suit and be yourself."

When Bubba walked out on stage dressed in the Santa outfit, the first thing he yelled was "Ho, ho, ho motherfuckers!"

He was the rock 'n' roll Santa and it was funny as hell. I was standing in the studio watching the whole thing.

Apparently before the filming of the show, Bubba asked what the deal was with profanities.

"What do you mean?" asked Rob.

"Can I swear? You said you wanted me to be myself and, well, Santa's got a bit of the potty-mouth."

"Swearing is okay. If you slip up and say a bad word, we can always go in a edit it out. Don't worry about it. You will be fine," Rob assured him.

The only time on the show that Rob tried to censor Bubba was when one of the studio audience was chosen to go up to Santa, sit on his lap and tell him what he wanted for Christmas. Rob picks this kid that we've never met from Portland who was a bit of a punk. He was a weird-looking dude and he sat on Bubba's lap and Rob asked him what he wanted Santa to bring him.

"I don't know," said the kid.

"Do you want Santa to bring you a bag of pot?" asked Bubba.

"Yeah! Yeah!" said the kid.

"No! No!" said Rob. "Santa doesn't smoke dope!"

"Yes I do," said Bubba Claus.

"No you don't," said Rob ending the discussion of whether or not Santa is a pot-head.

That was Rob's last show on Public Access television (apparently the content was not to their liking). I watched the first and only broadcast of that show. It was hilarious! I wished I recorded it on my VCR but like that audio cassette, that show is gone forever too.

To be continued...

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How It All Begin Part Uno

Everyone loves an origin story! Everybody wants to know where Superman came from or why Batman got in to the crime-fighting business. Well, I suppose this particular story isn't quite the same as the ones I just mentioned but it clearly details the birth of Bubba and the Government Cheeze.

Bubba and I have been friends for a long time. In high school, we played in a couple of bands together (we also played in a couple of bands with Chad Robishaw too). Bubba was the best man at my wedding and I was his when he decided to get married. We've been through good times and bad times and have seen each other at our lowest and highest points in life. He's like the brother I never had.

One time, when we were sixteen years old, Bubba purchased his first music recording machine. It was a four-track audio recorder (he still owns the same one today). With this machine, Bubba could record different music tracks at different times and then mix them together and it would sound like all of the tracks were recorded at the same time. It was a pretty nifty piece of technology back in 1993. So after he bought the machine, he was held up in his mother's apartment for a few days learning how to use it. When he emerged from the apartment a few days later, he played me a recording of some songs he put together over the weekend. I nearly pissed myself laughing when I heard the songs.

I don't know how to describe the music because it wasn't very musical but I'll give it my best shot. Bubba had found his brother's acoustic guitar with two rubber strings that were out of tune and he recorded himself strumming a tune. Then in the background he was banging pots and pans with a spoon. Finally, he began singing in an Asian voice saying something to the extent of "a hooka haka high ga ocha go oh oh high ga ho." Enough said?

There were two other songs but I only remember one. It was called "Leon". Bubba was screwing around on the guitar and was just making racket. There were pots and pans for drums and other sound effects. The premise of the song was Bubba singing about this Leon character who farts and green smoke filled up the air. The pivotal line in the song was when Bubba said, "Don't touch the loaf, Leon." 

The second time he played the songs, I was in the car with Bubba, Chad and Nizzy (the same guy who wrote Satanic Seagull back in our Missing Youth days). Nizzy was driving and I remember he had to pull over because he was laughing so hard. He had tears rolling down his cheeks.

To be continued...

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