The Morning Routine

Dearest American Public,

A recent poll shows that approximately every last one of you is quite curious about the day-in day-out of being in an awesome Rock band. With those stats in mind we, The Chop, would like to allow you a small window into our ever-so-busy lives, beginning, as most days do, with The Morning Routine.

Just like you fantasize, The Chop all live, work, and play together. We begin our Saturday morning with popsicles in a grossly undersized bed.


Next, we recover our senses slowly by relaxing in the glow of our beloved television, whilst reclining on our vintage, 1970's era sofa.


Quite appropriately, we are watching Hanna Barbera's "Wacky Races". Dick Dastardly and Muttley are winning.



That trickerous pooch!!

After sucking down a few more frozen treats and recounting the previous nights' grandiose schemes, it's finally time to wash away the grime of Friday's hard drinking with a trip to the bathroom.
With our first record so close to being done (a couple more weeks, America!) The Chop doesn't have time to take turns. We all go in at once!


But let me stress, friends: We are not all business. We too enjoy life, and although we have been known to manufacture laughter for our own sinister purposes, we sometimes do it without provocation!


Now that we're showered, shaved, brushed and scrubbed we launch into our day of unbridled, unparalleled, Rock-band fun. Isn't it just as you imagined?

Hoping to erase my most grievous errors with the help of a Wayback Machine,

Rob

Bomberos, and Other Stuff I Found

I'm standing there in Buenos Aires, purporting to know Spanish, and having no clue what is underneath this metal cover. For 8 days, I was carted around this sweltering little metropolis to awesome restaurant after awesome restaurant, then typically back to the first awesome restaurant for a third or fourth meal that day. The Italian food, particularly, was great. Everything was mind-bogglingly cheap, with the exchange rate being something in the neighborhood of 3.2 to 1. Cab rides typically cost 2 dollars or less.

Turns out "Bomberos" means Fire Department or, alternately (and awesomely as only an online translator would put it) Fire Brigade. At the time I just figured this would make for an awesome album cover.

Like Rio, they don't really start the night until about 2AM, and have little to no interest in punctuality or rushing anything. Unlike Rio, they have a great subway system, and no beach. No beach means no breeze, which means it was really hot there. It was hot enough at midnight for us to unabashedly rub ice on each others chests in public. We documented it. Ice Chests.







This is the back of a cigarette pack from Brasil. There's a whole series of them, with pictures of blackened lungs, people breathing through respirators, and all other nature of effed-up shit. This was easily the best though. I wonder when this trend of really sticking it to cigarette smokers with full color photos of their imminent pain and suffering will make it to America. It can't be far off.





Also note: Counterfeiting abounds!!

Isn't is funny how counterfeit is a word that originally meant "a really good facsimile" (and maintained a positive connotation) and now means something fake and even slightly sinister? Anyway, I hadn't been in Argentina more than 4 hours before being slipped a counterfiet bill by a cab driver. I kept it as a souvenir. It's actually a really good facsimile (!), complete with watermarks and holograms, and it's only failing is the paper it's printed on.


Apparently it is commonly known not to try to give 100 peso notes to cab drivers because always they're waiting for this opportunity to pass off a fake 50 to you, the foolish tourist. This can be tricky though because 100 peso notes are all one gets from ATMs. Naturally, I received this sage advice approxiamtely 1 hour too late. Drag. It's only the equivalent of about 17 USD, so no big loss. More interestingly, it sparked a pretty serious discussion about the place of counterfeit currency in the economy, and the nature of good and bad deeds. There was a contingent voting that I pass the bill off on someone else, based on the theory that money only has the value we assign it and that therefore a counterfeit bill is worth at least a part, if not all of it's implied value. I agreed in theory, but felt that it was inherently evil to pass on this bill to someone else, having them (eventually) feel the same sting that I did upon discovery of the ruse. Fascinating, yes?

Attention Loyal Reader:
I now vow to update this beast of words at least once a week. Get ready, America.

With my cadre of fanatics, consolidating power as we speak,

Rob

Sub-Equatorial Chop!

Hola El Mundo!

This Christmas, approximately 20% of The Chop flew south to escape the hurricane-like winter winds of San Francisco.

Yes it's true, I spent a full 15 days on that deviously hot continent that shares our namesake, South America.
Let me debrief you on my adventures:

I flew first to Rio de Janeiro, to spend New Year's Eve on the beach.
Despite the somewhat startling lack of English-speaking in Brazil, they retained a sharp handle on our style of Chop-related wordplay.




Chopp is slang for beer in Brazil (eerie, no?), and establishments that serve beer (read: all establishments) are known as "Chopperias". This place was approximately 20 steps outside my door, and provided an encouraging start to the trip.

Rio de Janeiro is a hectic town where red lights and turn signals are invariably disregarded, street-meat is prevalent (beware, fellows, beware), and lime is added to everything (including aforementioned street-meat).
It's definitely a beach town, complete with the intense sunshine, wanton shirtlessness, and public consumption of alcohol one would expect. On the other hand, a standard police pat-down involves a drawn weapon pointed at your back at all times, and they sure as shit aren't afraid to shoot at Santa Claus (click the picture to read). Don't worry...the image is a little misleading...Santa pulled through.




Also in Rio, and also Chop-related, stands Christ the Redeemer (Christo Redentor). Located high atop Corcovado, a huge mountain within the city, the soapstone for this thing was imported from Sweden and then hauled up this mountain piece by piece on a steep-ass railway built at the whim of some rich Carioca who wanted an easy picnic spot.




Iconic image, yes?

But now let's look just a bit closer as this truly revolutionary Jesus:




The Redeemer's Chop-hand is strong!
Catholicism has never seemed so appealing as when JC himself gives a shoutout to one's American ROCK and ROLL band.

Anyway, America, the rest of my time in Rio was spent watching fireworks go off for forty-five minutes while swimming in the ocean at midnight, panhandling with 'Janko' for a few Real, trying my damnedest to get a tan (no avail), and drinking from coconuts. It was truly an awesome time. Perhaps I will write and post more pictures in a couple of days detailing my subsequent adventures in Buenos Aires once I've compiled more stuff and gotten my head straight. In the meantime, Jennifer Sung (early Chop supporter/Yoshi/un-official band photographer) is still down there, and updating a blog regularly...so check that by clicking here:




I can say I am glad to be back.

in a Jefferies Tube of love,
Roberto