The Rock n' Roll Ranting Of A

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Welcome to the dump where Jeff Kerby lives in his Pinto and swills mind numbing alcohol case after battered case. I have been assured that every couple of weeks I will receive a column from him undoubtedly written on one of the torn up bags which he uses to house his malt liquor. It seems this poor guy lives with all that society throws away only to find solace in a bottle of fire. Here it is, Kerby’s 40 Oz. Of Hell. Be glad you only get to visit -- he has to live there. – Ed.

Today’s Episode: New Year's Rockin' Eve My Ass. Dick Clark is the Antichrist

I fucking hate January.

I’ve had absolutely no motivation to do anything. This isn’t exactly new behavior for me during this time of the year though. I know why it is. See, the holidays always create these ridiculous expectations for happiness, joy and affluence that most of us -- me in particular -- are just never going to attain. Despite the fact that I am confronted with this rather depressing personal realization every single day of my pathetic life is bad enough, but somehow around the end of each year I allow myself to get sucked back into the whole media mirage which suggests that I am the only loser bastard on the face of the Earth who isn’t hanging around a lot of beautiful people and having a wonderful time on New Year’s. Face it -- it’s a stupid holiday. If your life sucks before December 3lst, it’s going to suck afterward too. A million lame ass resolutions aren’t going to change anything either. When you break it down, they’re all just empty translucent promises made to one’s self signifying nothing. I’ll tell you what, you just go right ahead and try to lose your weight, try to cut down on your cursing, try to work harder. Fuck that. My only rule for the upcoming twelve months is to just do whatever the hell I want regardless of the potential negative repercussions on my life. Not only will I do each and every one of these things, but I will do them twice as often. In the end, I know it’s all useless -- nothing’s going to save me—just like the new super duper George Forman chicken rotisserie you got for Christmas isn’t going to save you either.

Every single New Year’s Eve has essentially been the same for me. They all involve 40’s, TJ Swann or women with the type of severe emotional problems that Dr. Ruth can’t even identify with. When you’re life resembles mine, Dick Clark becomes an enemy. I hate his smile. I hate his hair. I hate the fact that he’s a hundred and twenty years old and probably still doesn’t have to pay for pussy like I do. Every year when the clock used to hit midnight and the guns used to get fired in the trailer park, not even the loud reports from a .44 could wake me from my cheap drunk nirvana. This year wasn’t like that. No, this year was worse. Shouldn’t have surprised me though, this past Christmas was close to the worst day of my life. Dammit, when I say that, you know that’s a helluva statement. Of course it all started with a woman. After finding out that my good friend the shrink had declared me incompetent to stand trial, I thought that the worst I was looking at was maybe, MAYBE a year or two in the state hospital. That meant that I was eventually going to get out. That gave me hope -- I should have known better.

A few days before old St. Nick was set to make his appearance all over the Earth -- including county jails, I was led to believe -- I procured a bottle of apple wine from the inmate in charge of delivering periodicals. Although the homemade concoction cost me twenty bucks, it still basically looked like lumpy piss. Tasted like lumpy piss too. It didn’t matter though, I was happily euphoric and starting to get a slight buzz when I let the holidays overtake me. Visions of the trailer park and Sweet Annie and those chickens made me believe in my life. Melancholy feelings of love wafted through my speakers as I listened intently to my carelessly abused copy of Monster Ballads. I decided right then that it was time for me to declare my love for my newly found soul mate. All I would have to do is simply let the power of metal move me. My pen would be my instrument. She would be powerless to do anything other than swoon like a groupie by the time I was through.

For God’s sake, what man your age writes love correspondence to a prostitute while making it a special point to toss in every single title off of every single track on the entire Monster Ballads compilation?

Dear Annie,
I have been Waiting For A Girl Like You my whole life, and I just Can’t Fight This Feeling anymore. All this time in jail has caused me to think about what a gut wrenching mess my life has become and you have made me realize that I need the Winds of Change to blow my way. When I’m With You, it’s Almost Paradise. When I See You Smile, like I did last week, it causes me to understand that the void in my heart has been so expansive that a thousand power ballads can’t even begin to fill it. I have lacked -- I have lacked -- an Eternal Flame -- someone who I could talk to and count on and know that she will always be there for me. I’m the one who wants to Be With You and I’ll Never Let You Go. It’s an odd thing to profess that you have found your ‘one and only’ while locked tightly away in jail -- people instantly start thinking about activities related to the anus -- thankfully, that isn’t the case here. Maybe that’s why God sent me here. Maybe it was his plan all along for me to meet the prostitute that I would eventually fall in love with while incarcerated. I don’t know. I can’t pretend to understand why all this has happened, but it has. I’m glad. Love is On the Way. This is definitely love that I’m feelin’. Honestly.

I’m completely overjoyed that I finally have Something to Believe In and have the utmost confidence that you can take me High Enough. Even though your name isn’t Amanda or Carrie, I still don’t believe that loving you will have me Headed For A Heartbreak. Not even The Ballad of Jayne moves me the way I am moved When I Look Into Your Eyes. Don’t Walk Away from our love because we all know that you Don’t Know What You Got, Till Its Gone. Only Time Will Tell if This Could Be The Night I realize that having Eyes Without A Face could be a scary thing. Speaking of which, please Don’t Close Your Eyes when you read this it will make it difficult for you to view my words and understand that they should Never Tear Us Apart.

Our future together will be Heaven. I am envisioning a double-wide trailer, you in short, denim cutoffs and some chickens. Chickens? Yeah, if that freaks you out, maybe we could get a puppy instead. The poultry isn’t mandatory. You are. I will dedicate The Angel Song to you on every station in town. Just Be My Baby—I’ll never need a Second Chance. We could be happy together. I promise…I will work full time -- you won’t. At least I hope not anyway if you know what I mean. I want you to be my wife. I would be as proud of you as if I was marrying a member of the cast of Friends. You will be the queen of my humble sheet metal abode. We will make children with smart mouths and bad teeth. It will be beautiful. More Than Words should be used to express this sentiment because I love you More Than Words Can Say.

Goodbye Annie, Please come join me in wedded paradise.

Your Future Husband,
Jeff

There it was. I stated my intentions plainly and succinctly. There was no way that she could help but read this without starting to feel the moisture welling up between her legs like a passionate rain forest of love. The fact that she never screwed CC was a sign. This woman may have been a prostitute to the rest of the world, but to me, she was salvation. The perception that anyone else had of her was of no importance to me. It just didn’t matter. I saw the rest of my life, and for once, I was motivated. I gave the letter to Lt. Dennis Major with a promise that he would deliver it ASAP. I spent the next two days in a delirium of joy and hope. It was an emotional place I had rarely ever visited much less felt that I could ever take up residence in. I should have known that it wouldn’t last -- two days later the guard delivered this letter penned on Motel 6 stationary.

Uh, Dear Jeff:
Look, I enjoyed talking to you a couple of weeks ago. It was interesting, and I’ll admit, I was more than a little curious about meeting the county-renowned “Elf Banger”. I was expecting some sex-crazed middle-aged apelike guy who had hair all over his neck and arms with a mullet draped over his head. You weren’t like that though -- you were soft spoken, and it was apparent to me even in the short time that we spent together that you aren’t what the papers have made you out to be. Maybe it’s because I know you somewhat and know about what you’re capable of that your letter disturbed me so much. Jeff, for God’s sake, what man your age writes love correspondence to a prostitute while making it a special point to toss in every single title off of every single track on the entire Monster Ballads compilation? Monster Ballads, Jeff! What the hell? That is a pathetic two disc collection. I could have understood if you would have just mentioned some of the more noteworthy offerings, but no -- you couldn’t even do that….No, you had to mention them all. Every last piece of shit single that contributed to metal’s long lasting exile was thrown up in your letter as some type of prologue to a certain pornographic mating ritual designed to appease your terminal horniness which you have chosen to thinly veil as a testament to your misguided love.

It doesn’t work here, honey. No. Hell no. Do me a favor, and never mention any song by Warrant, Steelheart, Saigon Kick, Extreme, Boston, Danger Danger or Stryper to me ever again. It is useless. Each title by these string plucking poodle muppets just sucks by definition. I’m not writing this because I think you meant any harm by it, Jeff. The problem is that you just don’t think. I would have almost thought you would have had to have been drunk to have scribed something like that, but even I know that the only booze one can get in the pen are sick concoctions like apple wine, and I don’t even think that you are desperate enough to imbibe crap like that. That just means one thing -- dammit, Jeff -- do something productive with yourself. I know that you are locked up, but the guard told me about your diagnosis and has said that you are just looking at some time in a mental hospital. That, dear, just might be what you need.

I don’t know why you haven’t been able to find someone. You are at least average looking and you’re amusing sometimes too. Face it, many guys who are way more pathetic than you eventually find someone -- you can too. No midgets either. I mean a female of average height that doesn’t require periodic inflation. It isn’t that hopeless. I am extremely flattered that you would think of me in this way, but it just can’t be -- at least right now. There’s no way. I mean, how can a woman who does what I do every fit back into society -- be somebody’s wife no less? It just doesn’t happen. It is a sad thing when you look back on your life and the best thing you did was something that you didn’t do -- banging CC in this case. I even read your article after Dennis printed it up for me. I was proud to be in it. It made me feel sort of important. You made me seem kinda smart. You know, not like some cum loving internet pixie. I appreciate that. The problem is, you aren’t in love with me. You are lonely, and you are just in love with the idea of being in love. I know that I can’t live up to your expectations. You know, the picture you paint of us together -- yes, chickens included sounds nice. It all sounds nice. The only problem is that we both know deep down that this can’t be.

Listen, you won’t hear from me for awhile because I’m going to work my way down to Nogales, Mexico and procure some medication for a certain unidentified rash I seem to have contracted just recently. I’ll be back though, and maybe we can talk when you find out a little something more about the path your future will take. You try to figure out what you really want to tell me without the use of metal clichés, and I will try to forgive you for reminding me of the Nelsons. The Nelsons, dear. My lord.

Merry Christmas and a Little Love,
Annie

I was devastated. It was over -- at least if I was lucky, it would have been over. This was promising to be the worst holiday season I’d ever have to drag my tired, sorry ass through. During my long periods of solitary contemplation, I must have read that letter at least a hundred times, and I decided that she was right about at least a couple of her criticisms. I truly am kind of a waste, and I probably don’t think nearly enough. Check that -- that’s not exactly true. I do think, it’s just about things that most people don’t deem very important. Face it, most adults don’t spend extended periods of time contemplating which body parts of various heavy metal musicians would make the best Halloween decorations. I mean, you might think it’s funny, but how many of you would really want to have to depend on someone like that? She was also right about this collection of ballads. Hell, she didn’t even bash me as hard as she could have. Reo Speedwagon, the Bangles and Night Ranger were all contributors to this amalgam of shame peddled on cable stations nationwide. Annie deserved better. The eighties and early nineties produced many ballads with better lyrics and better sound than these sonic turds. If I was the one choosing the selections, things would be different. I could prove this to her. What the hell -- I’d never do it. It would require too much effort.

Face it, many guys who are way more pathetic than you eventually find someone -- you can too. No midgets either.

Christmas Eve made its daunting appearance, and I spent more than an hour praying for a coat hanger or a very sharp paper clip -- some potential implement of torture with which to end my suffering. Instead, at 11:30 on the grayest night of my life, my old buddy Dennis came up to the bars in front of my cell and unlocked the door. “There’s someone who wants to see you,” he said quietly. I knew it!!! I knew Annie wouldn’t leave me in this miasma of misery all alone. My steps were invigorated with my new hope and outlook. He led me down the hall where I saw most of the other inmates asleep—except one—he just covered his head while his blanket undulated ferociously. The guard then opened a closet door labeled “cleaning supplies.” He instructed me to keep the lights off and told me that I only had a few minutes. Boy howdy, that’s all I needed too. Annie grabbed me the second I crossed the threshold of the door and sat me down on a chair. About a minute or two of high-suction oral sex was followed by some intercourse wherein I came pretty quickly while sitting down. No sooner than I had ejaculated my own special brand of lather over the closet, then the lieutenant grabbed me and pulled me out and into the hallway half dressed. I fell asleep with a smile on my face and the warm love of my talented prostitute still drying on my unwashed body.

Although Christmas brought an initial joy to my soul, the next morning had certain details of the liaison replaying themselves in my mind. Every hour came and went and during each long 60-minute interval, I expected one of the guards to come and get me for a visit from Annie. It didn’t happen though. As the day slowly ambled by, I got depressed and realized that I had no cards, no loved ones and this nagging feeling that things weren’t as they seemed. See, there had been this very odd smell in that closet the night before. I don’t mean cleansers either. It was a smell that I had invaded my nostrils before when I was younger. I just couldn’t picture where. Then, while my dick was being sucked, I couldn’t feel any teeth -- no problem, I just figured Annie’s technique didn’t require them. But when I factored in that there seemed to be more saggy skin and less vaginal moisture involved than I would have expected -- even with a prostitute who’d undergone a thousand cesarean sections, it caused me to become a disturbed. Shit, she kept saying “papaw” during the sex too—not just when she was cumming either. I was so despondent that I couldn’t even bring myself to put on my Monster Ballads discs because of the emotional baggage attached, so I stuck on Staind instead and put tracks four and eleven on repeat. After about two hours of this, the lieutenant came over and said, “What the fuck is the problem? You got laid last night didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“So, that made you happy, right? C’mon. Your days here are numbered. Cheer up. For fuck’s sake, please turn the Staind off already. Damn, ten million spins on the radio aren’t enough?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I can’t believe that she would do that to me y’know. I thought she was different….the whole thing was just weird. Don’t get me wrong—it felt good. It was just eerie. Shit, I mean, she kept saying “Pappaw”, “Pappaw”. Dude, what the fuck is that? “Pappaw”. It was like she wasn’t even the same person.”

That’s when I looked up and saw the truth indelibly configured on his mustachioed face.

“Spill it,” I said.

That’s when he told me that it wasn’t actually Annie that I’d been in the closet with the night before. Although it pained him to tell me, he finally divulged that I now owed my red raw wiener and feelings of discontent to a an elderly custodian named Maggie. I had known of her previously only because all the inmates around the institution called her “cockroach” because she did most of her cleaning at night and carried a flashlight while she walked hunchbacked though the corridors. “Pappaw” was just something she was notorious for saying when she had a job that needed finishing.

Fuck, I thought she was turned on.

My first impulse was to kill Lt. Dennis Major, but I knew he was just trying to help—sure, he was misguided as hell, but his heart was in the wrong place, which, of course eventually led to my dick being inserted into the wrong place. It was the worst Christmas on record, and I just couldn’t blame myself yet again for my poor circumstances. Nope, someone else had to take the fall for once. Someone had to be on the receiving end of all this vengeance. Dammit. The Holidays weren’t even over yet. Nope. I still looking at having to endure New Year’s. Sitting stone cold sober in a cell alone while harboring ill will toward all of mankind while everyone else experienced joy -- and beer -- was more than I could stand -- no, Dick Clark was the cause of my misery. There was no doubt. Fuck it -- I didn’t know how he was specifically responsible for this, but at that point I didn’t give a damn either. Since I have always found it cathartic to put pen to paper, I just let it fly.

Dear Pearly Toothed Satan,
My name is Jeff “Gonzo” Kerby and I am currently incarcerated in the Bernalillo County Jail awaiting a plea bargain regarding this sex crime I committed against a midget. Don’t worry though, they have found me incompetent to stand trial. That means I will eventually be let out again -- too bad for you, Mr. Clark.

I’m not writing you because I am some stalker or something. I’m not writing to say that I’m going to go out of my way to kill you either -- no, I won’t do that, but I do want to say that if you are ever, EVER walking on the street in front of my Pinto, I would definitely speed up. Yes, I would. Then, I would definitely make it a point to get out of the car and yank on your hair and pull on your teeth just to make sure they’re real and that you and Casey Kasem aren’t actually sharing the same dentures.

Why should I say this? Simple. You bother me. I hate your New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, and while we’re at it, I think I need to state that American Bandstand ate copious amounts of hairy ass too. If there was any justice in this world, you would be selling insurance and chain smoking through the hole in your neck left after your recent tracheotomy. Basically, when I see you, I see Carson Daly a hundred years from now, and I realize that I would speed up on him too, and then get out and step on his ratty, painted finger nails.

The only hope I have in my miserable life is the knowledge that on that wonderful day when you become part of my Pinto’s radiator grill, I will send you straight into TV personality hell where you can rub elbows with the other phony’s and hopefully be relegated by the Lord God Almighty to introducing Monster Ballads for the rest of eternity. As harsh as that sentence may prove to be, it will still be an improvement from that tripe you normally deal in. Think about it….DeBarge? The Jacksons? Damn, you even gave it up for that guy who sang that dumb ass song about the pina coladas. I have no more time for you, Dick. See you on the pavement.

Sincerely,
Jeff Kerby #NM87031

Three days after I sent this rather unfortunate document, I was called in to see the warden where he explained to me that I was going to have to go to the “hole” for seventy-two hours. It was a separate cell without windows, stereo or books. I had a lot of time to think, and I wrote about a million letters to Annie and was tortured by the mental image of her sucking off about a hundred itinerant farm workers on her way to Nogales. It was a bad scene. I don’t think I even thought about Dick Clark anymore after that. Blaming him was mostly just a way for me to play the role of victim for awhile. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like him, and I would most certainly accelerate if given the opportunity, but I might not be as hostile about it anymore. Regardless of whatever Annie had decided about me or her chosen means to acquire money, I thought she really did deserve a better ballad compilation as a testament to our love. Since I had three days to think about it, I thought I would try to get Dennis to burn these songs onto a couple of CDs for me to give to her. This was the track listing -- Annie, if you see this, these songs are for you. I love you. Happy New Year’s. I hope your rash clears up.

Disc 1
1. “Night Comes Down” Judas Priest
2. “Alone Again” Dokken
3. “Deep Cuts the Knife” Helix
4. “The Flame” Cheap Trick
5. “I Dream in Infrared” Queensryche
6. “Home Sweet Home” Motley Crue
7. “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” Def Leppard
8. “Nobody’s Fool” Cinderella
9. “Still Loving You” Scorpions
10. “Our Love” Krokus
11. “It’s Hard To Find A Way” Accept
12. “Please Dear” Faster Pussycat

Disc 2
1. “In My Darkest Hour” Megadeth
2. “Goodbye to Romance” Ozzy
3. “Sleeping in the Fire” WASP
4. “Jane Says” Jane’s Addiction
5. “Alone” Heart
6. “Screaming in the Night” Krokus
7. “Out in the Cold” Judas Priest
8. “I’m Leaving You” Scorpions
9. “House of Pain” Faster Pussycat
10. “Beth” Kiss
11. “All I Need” Motley Crue
12. “Paradise City” GN’R