by Steven Bartholomew |
August 01, 2022
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Hello String Family,
Alright, we promised you no bullshit, so how about a True Story about my music career. For this, I’m gonna have to take you back to 2003, in kindergarten, when I was “persuaded” to take piano lessons. These were legit, like not Whiplash level, but enough for me to kinda stress about it, as a 5-year-old. Later on, I was signed up to perform at like a young child’s music recital, with about 200 people in the audience. Instead of playing the one song I’ve practiced 3000 times, I fucked up 3 seconds in and just froze. Mom stopped making me go to piano lessons, I’m not an entertainer.
I do respect the grind it takes to master an instrument. The hours it takes to memorize every cord or key is no joke. I can sympathize with these guys, you know how long it took me to play “Through the Fire and The Flames” on expert on Guitar Hero World Tour? Weeks, bro…
Fun Fact: A few weeks ago I went to Alaska and was in a Cab with Yanne (he owns the joint). A little early mornin’ rollllllin at this Local Jiu-Jitsu spot about 10 minutes into the city, the cab scooped us. Yanne sees a ukulele up front with the driver and asks if he can see it. “Bro, your ukulele is out of tune, let me tune it for you.” I think the cab driver was embarrassed. Yanne tunes it then starts playing Flake by Jack Johnson while we were underway. 25 minutes later, he and I were in a death roll on the mats. And, Yes, Gis were donned. Pretty casual morning, actually.
So shoutout to all the musicians out there. It’s not easy. Definitely not as easy as being creative enough to take the “T” off our name and make a Patch out of it just so I can tell you I fucking suck at Piano. But we managed to pull it off.
This Patch also has a neat matching Sticker!
Cheers, fellas and the one or two girls on this email list,
Steven
by Steven Bartholomew |
July 29, 2022
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Happy Casual Friday Ladies and Gentlemen,
This patch would have been so much funnier had we thought to include "buddy" up above, but it's made, and it's "fine enough", so we're just going to go with it.
Speaking of Buddy Fucking, here's a little story.
When you are working nights on a ship, good food is hard to come by, and not waiting in line for hours for said food is nearly impossible. But I was able to find a loophole in the system. I kept an FSA T-shirt in my rack at all times (Food Service Assistant). This basically gave me the power to put that on and walk right into the galley without anybody suspecting a thing. If anybody questioned me, I always said the same thing. "Sorry, I missed early chow."
I was eating goooooood compared to my not-so-innovative friends. But I knew if I told them how I did it, too many people would cause the whole system to crumble. So I kept my fuckin mouth shut and my belly full. See, the difference is we weren't in foxholes fighting for our lives and it wasn't like people weren't getting fed... so it was all kosh.
Before I left, I handed it down to the next person I felt worthy of such power. The way I see it, yeah I could have just waited in line every day with my homies, or, eat a fresh plate and catch up on some shut-eye instead of standing nut to butt, counting my brain cells as they died one by one.
Don't you judge me.
Best,
Steven (P.S. When I told my homies about it later, they said I was a Genius.)
by Steven Bartholomew |
July 27, 2022
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Greetings loyal subscribers,
I have no idea how to read Braille. My ignorance in this subject was made very clear during our meeting about this particular patch. I mixed up sign language and braille, telling a story about rap concerts I've been to where they have somebody up on stage signing the lyrics for the blind people in the crowd. It sounded convincing, but couldn't have been more off, as Yanne chimed in, "Well, no, sign language is for the deaf. I don't think it does any good for the blind." But, teamwork makes the dream work.
I've heard that when one of your senses doesn't work, the others get much stronger, giving one almost superhuman-like capabilities. Which would be an okay trade-off if those were the cards you were dealt, and, if you could learn to harness the abilities of your heightened senses, you could really kick some ass. I'm not completely positive about that, but I do know the streets of Hell's Kitchen have never been safer. (That's where Daredevil lives, and DareDevil is blind. As I had to explain to Yanne. I guess Netflix hasn't made it out to Idaho yet.)
So why not a patch in braille? Of course, we could have made it a little less inappropriate, but then it wouldn't be us. We did try a couple of different ideas, but "Fuck You" just had such a nice aesthetic to it. Plus, if this does get any backlash from you people, at least we can justify it with the fact our intentions were good. We don't leave anybody out of a chance on getting in on the fun.
That's all I got for now. Stay Classy, San Diego.
-Steven
