Sunday, January 25, 2009

You Are Useless


GimmeCookies, Bullet Hell, Bullet Ballerina, and Mean Bitch. They are Hard On. Harmonix says the name is not "classy."

We play nothing below hard difficulty, are one gig away from being a Rolling Stones Rock Immortal. Judas Priest's Painkiller is the last song for that playlist. It's an Impossible song with difficulty ratings all in the red. I like the challenge. I hate the song.

We had a bumpy start, Hard On and I. We barely 4-starred songs, hardly ever received comments beneath the completion percentage. "That was a terrible solo. Next time how bout strumming instead of crying on the amp.”

Pearl Jam's Alive killed me. "You're never getting a bus," Merch Girl said.

Normally I'd be pissed. Games don't beat me, I beat games! Exactly who I screamed this to, I don't know. I guess that's why I'm a loser.

I've played at Savile Row so many times people think I'm paying off a debt. "Play something other than Pretty in Pink you pussy!" Sadly, it’s not the fans but Bullet Hell who is telling me this.

I do play other songs, but only in Practice Mode, where I don't get to play with my Hard On.

You see, I like Practice not because I can change the speed of a song but because it loads much faster than playing in Tour - I've got to pick a city, a venue, a gig, at least 2 songs, and then I gotta sit through an autosave and a "communicating with the rock central servers" load. I’m the dude who likes his MP3 player to go from on to autoplay in one button press.

Part of it feels like I'm cheating on the band by not having them rock out in the background, and the other part rationalizes that I'm practicing for them.

Look, I know we haven't Toured in a while, but look at what I can do now.

I like to think when I 98% a song on Hard, Hell is smiling at me.

So by Practicing, we were able to get the bus. And a plane, a sound guy, and a world promoter, who I almost failed to impress.

"You must hate the 70's like you hate practicing with us," Hell says to me.

"I’m sorry."

"Yeah, a sorry sack. When you gonna step up and Expert some songs?"

"I can Expert songs."

"Besides Pretty in Pink, you pussy!"

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