Battle To The Death

I have a friend named Pat.

Pat and I have known each other since around fourth grade. I remember the first time I ever played with Pat, he wanted to play G.I Joes. Well, I had never played G.I. Joes before, I was a Star Wars kid myself, so we decided to mix and match both types of action figures. We had a draft, and Pat mostly drafted his own G.I. Joe guys, leaving me with the Star Wars guys, which I felt had the upper hand in the battle, based on my vast knowledge of the movies. Little did I know that Pat was already a master of strategy even at this young age. He proceeded to bombard me with "depth charges" and I was powerless against his attacks, primarily because I had no idea what a "depth charge" was. His G.I. Joe's tactical advances and heavily armed vehicles made short work of the Force and my Millennium Falcon.

Later on in life, in little league, I was an all-star caliber pitcher. Probably because I was twice as big as all the other kids and I threw the ball so hard most of them just got scared and swung blindly. In a game against Pat's team he hit four home runs off me. In one game. It was the beginning of the end of my sports career. I remember him rounding the bases for the fourth time, giving me that Michael Jordan "I don't know how i do it either i'm just that good shrug" as I pitifully pondered what baseball coach would ever be so cruel as to leave a pitcher in the game this long.

Don't get me wrong, Pat is not my nemesis. Far from it, we're best friends. We just have a very competitive friendship. It's just very one sided as I always lose whatever the competition happens to be. He has always been able to hand me my ass at Super Tecmo Bowl, while I in turn could probably crucify anyone on the planet in that game. Besides Pat. On my twenty first birthday when we were drinking together, I was the one who came out with thirteen staples in my head, he remained unscathed. Even in a game invented by a bunch of fifth graders, "Man In The Dark", where one person was basically "it" in the dark, blindfolded and who had to tackle and identify the first person he could while being blindly assaulted violently, usually with whiffle ball bats (i'm trying as hard as i can to make this sound not gay, and i am failing) by the very people he was trying to arrest, a game that didn't really have any clear cut winner or loser, he would somehow win.

It came to the point where I decided to just not compete with him anymore. It helped our friendship immensely.

When we both started playing guitar, we jammed together. We wrote songs like "Lock It & Plug It", about locking the door and stuffing the rug under it when there was pot being smoked in the dorm room so as not to tip off the RA. Another staple of ours was "Out Of The Asshole And Into The Mouth", about a particularly nasty maneuver we had once witnessed in an adult film. Pat and I were sure it would gain national radio airplay.



Well Pat has once again one-upped me, with his new band General Election Engines. He's writing better songs than I ever could aspire to, and they're getting better with every new batch. With another long time friend of mine, Mike, they have recorded G.E.E.'s initial release 'Alexandria', named for the Catholic Grammar School we al attended together. It's a lo-fi masterpiece of worthy of the Mountain Goats, and he seems to be as prolific as John Darnielle as well. There are plans in the works for a full studio recording of an entirely new set of songs in the near future.

General Election Engines "Jump Up Fall Down"

General Election Engines "Even Still"

General Election Engines "Haunted"

General Election Engines "Political Science"

General Election Engines "The Shape Of Things"

General Election Engines "Tell Me Off"

General Election Engines "Cooler"

General Election Engines "Streets Of Gold"

General Election Engines "A Walk On The Beach With You"

General Election Engines "Life Isn't What You Make It"

General Election Engines "Days Of Rage"

General Election Engines "The Leper"

General Election Engines "Meet The Press" (Operation: Burrito version)

General Election Engines "Without A Sound"

And plus he let me play bass and sing some on G.E.E.'s side project, Operation: Burrito. Covers were covered and basses were crackled. A splendid time was had by all parties involved. I chose our version of the Goats' "Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Denton" because the story it tells seems eerily familiar to me. And yes the sound quality is poor, but at least we remembered to hit record. Always record, ALWAYS record.

Operation Burrito "The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Denton" (Mountain Goats cover)

So in honor of my good friends in General Election Engines, I have put together a music video for one of the songs on 'Alexandria', "Jump Up Fall Down". That's us and some of our other friends "rawking" out during the photo montage in the middle. Let's hope that Pat doesn't make a better video for it tomorrow, which he most certainly will.

General Election Engines Myspace