Close Call with Mordant Pall

Back home in Georgia...

Rat and I finished recording yesterday around 5 PM; we have five new TLASILA songs in the (virtual) can.



(Frank Falestra and hyper-animated machines, recording new TLASILA tracks at the Laundryroom, Miami Beach, August 6, 2006. Snap TS.)

Packed the kit, bade Rattus and his sweetie Veronica adios, then drove over to 43rd where I'd earlier scheduled a dinner date with a favorite ex-girlfriend. When I arrived she was off on an errand, so I used the opportunity to drop by Publix to stock up on vegan-friendly vittles. While stuck at a light on the Indian Creek drawbridge I was creamed from behind by a goddamned SUV. I quite literally heard the BLAMMM!, and thought for certain that my ride had been gnarled beyond repair. The impact really stunned me - it took a few seconds for my brain to return to normal. I got out of my car just as the driver of the SUV emerged. An attractive, rail-thin Latina, late 20s, exceedingly apologetic. She'd been fucking around with her dog when she collided with me, and was ready to write a check on the spot. (Did she not have insurance? Thoughts of this season's most memorable Soprano's homicide gag briefly flashed before my still-jittering orbs.) Surprisingly, the only damage I incurred was a bent license plate, and an interesting pattern of sawtooth wave scratches below the truck keyhole. I was doubly stunned... I checked the undercarriage, examined the hatch and associated mechanisms, looked for leaks... Nada. A scurrilous angel must have been looking out for my semi-satanic hide, as I walked away 99% clean.

We nonetheless exchanged info, and she offered to treat me to dinner, but at that juncture I preferred to get the fuck back to HQ for a shot of absinthe and sweet discombobulation. Of course, that cocktail was sitting beneath my office bar some eight hours distant, so I made haste for I-75 North. After making my way through the toll gate, I sped through Alligator Alley. A colossal thunderhead was boiling ominously to the west, strobes of lightning casting its upper, reticulated reaches in garish relief. Then traffic slowed to a lurching, drunken creep. I was relaxed, despite the jolts encountered an hour earlier - new drum and bass plates were blaring, and tropical dusk hues bruised the sky.

State troopers signaled our stalled parade to merge right, and then I saw the yellow body bag. Some poor bastard wiped out along the Alley - the car (it looked like a Pontiac GrandAm) must have flipped four or five times before coming to rest at an eerie vertical. The victim had obviously been ejected through the auto's windshield, and Death gnawed on another rack of ribs.



(Just before sunset at the first northbound Alligator Alley rest area off I-75, August 6, 2006. The accident site was a mere 15 clicks up the road...)

What a freakish, grisly afternoon...

Started to tire around Ocala, so I pulled into a hotel at 2 AM and just sat there for a while. Danielle Collins (the NYC couturier/playwright/starmaker now resident in LA) rang my cell a few minutes later and we spoke until 4... Didn't mention anything about my afternoon, for in retrospect it seemed rather less harrowing than that experienced by the unfortunate occupant of the upended vehicle, or any of the citizens of Darfur, Beirut, Kabul, Baghdad, Haifa, etc., who've been dealing with whole other orders of inconvenience.

Best,

Tom

Comments

Anonymous said…
ya, you and the chic were ok after the accident, but is her "dog" ok? :)
ommyth said…
I suppose... Her fucking truck was built like a tank. (Or, her tank was a truck...) It was a canine dog, not the bejeweled reggaeton stereotype certain of you goofballs may have imagined. She described it as a "half-Lab," and I saw it peering through the windscreen. It looked as freaked as I must have...

Best,

Tom
Anonymous said…
You coming up towards Boston on your Nov./Dec. TLASILA tour? Otherwise I will have to trek elsewhere to catch you at the beginning of Sept., perhaps.
ommyth said…
Hello... Anon, no Boston dates scheduled either for Aug-Sept or Nov-Dec. Maybe later in '07? Sorry. We've never had a lot of support in Beantown (at least none directly observable or measurable), and the promoters we've dealt with over the years have been largely incompetent. So, we've tended to avoid the New England corridor. I'd like to reverse this trend, however...

Reggie, I've only a few reggaeton compilations, and I'm as far from expert on the stuff as one can be. The Hits 2005-2006 2-CD collection is a good place to begin, I suppose. I've got it... A bit too hip-hop inflected for my spartan tongue, but I'm sure it's a delicious entree for a fuckload o' peepz.

Yankee Daddy seems to fulfill the r'ton stereotype for most Dead Meadow/Sentridoh/old shit-stained overalls/Big Takeover/power electronic mongrels... Oh shit! More goddamned profiling. Dear me, etc.

TS

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