The following is a letter to the persons I share a band rehersal space with...

Dear Friends of The Practice Space,

I am writing to urgently relay to you a warning to not drink from the bottle of Jack Daniels I left in the practice space with a note attached reading, "FREE WHISKEY! DRINK UP! (Lost the cap!)"

This bottle is full of pestilence. I regret not informing you sooner, but I am just recovering from an illness caused by drinking this vile alcohol. I have struggled hard and saved my strength to be able to type this email and send word of that wretched, infected bottle.

You see, on Monday Matt and I decided to share a pint of whiskey and thus ventured to Davis square in order to acquire one. Upon exiting the store I slipped on a patch of wet ground and in my bumbling grasp for balance let loose our mid-day treat from my hand. It twirled and spun in the air like a boozed up husky whore from The Other Side strip club located in Fitchburg, MA and landed square on it's head in the middle of a puddle! The cap cracked open and spilt forth whiskey into the streets, a hobo's dream indeed! -- but our nightmare. Quickly I snatched the bottle from the ground and managed to recover half of its contents. I hid it in my jacket pocket and returned to the space.

With my Les Paul slung over my shoulder I gulped from the bottle and pretended I was the man I look up to most, Jimmy Paige. However I noticed something a bit wrong with the flavor of me and my idol's favorite drink. It tasted somewhat of puddle water. Matt took a sip and agreed, but said not to worry since the alcohol would most likely kill any germs within. Upon leaving I decided I did not want to tote around a whiskey bottle with a broken cap so i decided to leave it for the next band to enjoy. I only wish I had thrown it away instead...

Without going in to too much detail I will say that after returning home from drinking the puddle whiskey both Matt and I became horribly ill. For the past two days I have experienced incontinence and vomiting and Matt has suffered a cold and swollen throat. There is still some contention as to whether or not the puddle whiskey was the cause of sickness, and be it coincidence or not, the bottle is a dark portent and has touched both of our cursed lips.

Please, if JJ Puff n' Stuff and The Lost Boys (or whatever that other band we share the place with is called) hasn't already imbibed the inimical concotion, I implore you to dispose of it as you see fit. I would suggest throwing it out into the sunlight as it will most surely turn into a serpent which will then slither down the nearest bildge pipe into the sewers from whence it came.

My deepest apologies,

-Anthony Vecchi

Hot Chowda?

If you haven't already, please listen to the first 5 seconds of this song:



To the uneducated undergrad ear the first line of the song could very easily sound like, "In December / Drinking hot chowder" especially if you're driving around the greater Boston area on a cold January morning with an empty stomach, much like I was when I first heard this delightful tune. Now, I know that in the world of misheard lyrics there are numerous far stretching accusations that don't quite make sense when a purportedly "misheard" line is perfectly intelligible, but I think in this instance I am completely justified in misconstruing an already abstruse lyric.

Horchata? How am I, the benighted day dwelling layman who can barely ask for a vanilla chai at Dunkin Donuts, supposed to know of a traditional Latin American beverage made from exotic spices I've never tasted? Nope! Sounds like HOT CHOWDA to me! And so, when driving to get a bagel with my girlfriend this morning I was quite confused as to why someone would want to drink their hot chowder instead of eat it with a spoon like a normal person.

Of course I couldn't just leave the subject alone and had to incessantly repeat my sentiments of confused disgust while my lady and I were waiting for bagels. "Hot chowder? Drinking hot chowder? What? Thats disgusting!" and so forth. Much to my lady's chagrin this revolving image of a man drinking chowder was starting to make her sick and even the woman behind the counter stifled a nauseas burp or two. Slurping hot chowder? Fine. Maybe even sipping it... but drinking it? Chugging it? The thought of the *glug* glug* *gurp* *gurp* sounds eminating from the throat of Vampire Weekend's lead singer as he takes down a hot cup o' chowder on a cold morning in December, throat muscles convulsing and straining to swallow creamy hot chunks of clam, white goop dribbling down the sides of his slightly stubbly cheeks. It starts dripping on to his ascot and then... well... uh... I suppose thats not what he actually meant in the first place because if you read the lyrics you'll discover the song takes place on the beach with crabs snipping at your sandals as you moon over some long lost tool shed.

You know what? I don't think I'll ever try horchata because of this song. I think Vampire Weekend should keep their lyrics simple and sing about tractors, love, and beer. If they want us to try horchata then at the end of the song they can add, "and yea, horchata is a pretty good drink from South America that you might want to try" instead of having to sing it with all the lyrical inflections and stylized syllabic adornments that do nothing more but confuse me, your regular every day chowder-minded Joe.