Steve on the phone #2 [J Roddy Blog Archive]

This post was originally published on the old J Roddy Walston & The Business blog in 2007. It was written by Steve Colmus. I’m reposting it here for archival purposes.

OK, OK…it’s been a thousand, million galaxy years since I – or anyone from the band – updated you on our whereabouts. What was the hold-up? Got me – if it didn’t involve Price is Right or Chocolate Chex, I probably didn’t hear about it. Anyhow, I wanted to give you a brief recap of some things we did this summer. Smell me in my hood:

This is me and Rod on Folly Beach in Charleston, SC, living The Dream. We had just run into some drunken high school chicks swimming past who were telling us how they got a construction worker to buy them vodka at 11 in the morning so they could drink before they went swimming, and how none of them were wearing swimsuit bottoms. Then a crowd of skeevy 50-something dudes moved in and it got real weird. I guess the whole thing left us feeling really triumphant, or something. Then we had to walk back to the van like this.

This is Billy, Zach and I honky-tonkin’ with the good gentlemen of Hot Pipes. Somehow we ended up in the only New York sports bar on the block – can’t get enough of those…I guess. This is a pretty good representation of the lights on the main drag – it’s like a country music theme park, or someone throwing up a Lite Brite set. If you’re from Baltimore, you better be able to appreciate the charming side to tacky, and this had it in spades.

This is the hardest working, most beloved and probably the cleanest member of the band – our 1997 Ford Club Wagon, lovingly known as “The Diaper” (because she holds all our crap). We bought it off a church in Alabama awhile back and left the decals on as talismans against both cops and robbers. The shotgun seat doesn’t recline, the air conditioning is spotty and the speakers are blown, but she always carries us through the storm.

Wanna know how I know Billy’s gay? This is him playing “Rhinestone Cowboy” with Soul Asylum on his 28th birthday during our show with them in Raleigh. They asked for someone to come up on stage at the end of their set and Billy’s drunken sprint past security ensured this opportunity was firmly seized. They strapped an axe on him and let him loose with a basic knowledge of the chord changes, he promptly went about prancing and cock-strutting like Angus Young drunk on bleach. He was whipping things up so hard, security threw him off stage before Dave Pirner pulled him back up. The highlight was any one of Billy’s ripping solos or him blowing kisses to the crowd after Pirner got them all to sing “Happy Birthday” before the encore. It was all too much to take in. Here he is taking it for a ride:

But the real story of the Spring wasn’t the shows we played or the people we met or even the record coming out, really. Because, years from now, when I think back on March of 2007, I will only remember it as The Month Zach Westphal Became A “Man.” Zach’s hitherto barren face suddenly sprang forth in a river of molten manliness right before our very eyes, and luckily, I was able to catch our caterpillar becoming a gorgeous butterfly:

Here’s Zach near the end of March, just a scant two weeks into the voyage. As you can see, it had promise from right off the bat. His toothless sneer has now become a thing of real menace. The God-given talent was clearly there, but was he willing to work for it?

Here’s Zach a week later. He’d been subjecting it to a rigorous training, consisting solely of combing it down with his fingers 8 million times a day (henceforth known as “The Westphal Method”). The results were really starting to show. When I see this picture, I like to think of him lording over his Guitar Center with an iron fist, slowly being corrupted by the power of his upper lip. “I don’t think you understand, lady – you ARE buying this guitar!”

Barely a month in and now we’re shitting whole grain oats! You can almost sense the manliness oozing from his pores. Aging bikers and city bus riders were paying their respects, and he stopped having to look over his shoulder during every Amber Alert. But his saga wasn’t over by a longshot…

Gentlemen – we have achieved Kick-Ass! Man in bloom! With those golden ringlets and that lip warmer, all boundaries have been obliterated in a tsunami of raw puberty. Its even more glorious now…I’d take a picture but I’m afraid I’ll turn into a pillar of salt. For the real stories, come out to the shows and say hi. The list is to the write. I mean, the right. Buy the damn record. Holla back, Steve