Please my favorite.

So. That was little Ventacloth. See what I did there? Clever. Right. Damn straight I was the first one to do that. No respect these days.

I was thinking about doing something chronological. Give you a little bio of how Pete and Jack grew up, how we met, what he did after that. I changed my mind. You don’t like it? Well, tough shit. You’re going to read this anyway, you bastards. Be grateful.

Most of the songs you hear him do are cowritten. It’s pretty impressive, really. A little Jack, a little Pete, a little red wine, and some other random shit. I’ve always admired that. Bastard doesn’t even know they’re separate. Still. It always been that way, though. Sometimes its one or the other.

That little ditty “Please My Favorite Don’t Be Sad” was one of the first. It didn’t actually start out as a song. True story. A little bit after they came up with idea for World/Inferno, Jack and Pete got together some songs and some friends and did a little show. Damned if I remember who was on stage with him. I was in the back somewhere. Can’t stand the front. Even then, it was the kids crushing each other. Hurts me too damn much.

Tangent: The first real Inferno show - real meaning twelve people on a tiny damn stage - I went up front. Give them some support, you know? But the fuckers kept elbowing me in the back, pushing me against the stage, that crap. No respect for their elders. So I reached up to Pete for some help. Only problem was, it wasn’t Pete up there, it was Jack, and he was shitfaced. So there I was, this older guy, reaching up at Jack from the front. And I’ve been writing all my life, you know, and maybe I hadn’t been taking such good care of myself. My fingers can’t really go fully straight anymore. They get a bit bent, especially when I’m stressed, like I was then.

Starting to sound familiar? Yeah, that’s right. The fucker was playing Tattoos Fade, and there I was reaching up at him, fingers crooked. Right when the chorus started. All these kids, they thought I was doing some kind of gesture. They did it too. Right then, right there, the first group of drunk bastards did “The Claw” and surged forward. And all because I was being crushed in the pit.

Think about that next time.

But that’s not for now. What was I… got it. Right after that first show, the prenatal formed Inferno gets an encore. And Pete gets up there and you can see him hesitate for a second, and then Jack takes over. Bastard looks like he’s been doing this for years. He grabs the mic, sways about, and says his little schtick. Next week he put it to music, and there ya go. He had a brand new 30 second song.

Good to know, huh? Damn straight it is.

(He’s writing in spurts again. But what Jack said (supposedly) was: “After all those years of living in fear I stopped worrying about the bomb or the other shoe dropping. After all those years fearing for my life I started to enjoy myself. I started to enjoy myself and the only people who have suffered from it have been the landlords and the creditors and you know what? Fuck them. If they want an apology they can have it, for any inconvenience I might have caused
But the butterflies in my stomache have flown up through my throat and learned to love the open air, open air. Sorry guys sit down and have a drink but i'm not sorry.” Just in case you weren’t sure. –Eric)