Anders Gives Our Recent Tour A Harsh Review

What's that Anders? You have magic binoculars that allow you see the whole of history as if it were right in front of you?


Yes Ben Lee. Yes I do. And yes they can. I can see that you and your friends have been busy of late.

Well, I mean, we just got back from the SECOND HELPING DESIRED, REQUIRED 2007 UK and European Tour. It was five weeks long. A lot of stuff happens on the road.


I can see that. And I must say I find your behavior downright repulsive. ALL of your behavior.

Oh, come now. The Blood Arm, we're grown adults. We're allowed to do some things and say some things that kids your age just plain aren't. Like snort goofballs and say 'shit' and 'damn.' Them's the brokes.


I understand this, but your recent activities would shame a person of average moral constitution into confession for thirty years. Shame--have you none? Do I have to detail your offenses for you?

I dare you to. I bet you can't name three.


Here are dozens. Heaven forbid what I'd have found had I REALLY looked:

Dyan Writes From London - In which the piano player exposes her bare arms and ankles for the world to see, tempting married men all over the globe to reconsider their vows of faithfulness and monogamy.

Intentional Accidentalism; Glastonbury, Southside Festival
- In which you reduce the masses at Glastonbury and the Southside Festivals to quivering blobs of Jello, then use the Jello as lubrication with which you forcefully violate the Euro Tunnel.

How We Roll: The Hurricane Festival - In which you sully the sacred name of Eddie Vedder with the flowers of a thousand German virgins.

We saw the Brementown Musicians and... - In which you photograph a ghostly Zebastian with spunk in his eye.

Innsbruck is Alive with the Sound of the Blood Arm... - In which you repeatedly douse the lovely Weekender Club with golden showers in the name of the Rolling Stones.

Some Festival Pics... - In which you vainly encourage the Internets to look at you, you, you.

Hard Up in Gay Paris - In which you glorify the desecration of the most beloved Disney character and wholeheartedly endorse necrophilia in public places.

The State of Our Hearts is IN LOVE with Wiesen - In which you bowl without using balls or pins and fornicate in large groups without mind or heart.

Our Sovereign State of Love - In which you manipulate the Abart and Hafenkneipe clubs into believing that the baby ISN'T yours, thereby allowing your hellspawn to continue to parisitically suck the years off their lives.

Paris is Sexy and Underage - In which Paris tells you she's sixteen, but you swear she's twenty-three and thrust yourselves upon her like a pack of starving wolves.

Les Ardentes Festival, Weinheim Party - In which you treat children's toys as if they were made for adults, forever tainting their structural integrity and youthful innocence.

Every Day is the Greatest Day Ever - In which you talk up your extravagant lifestyle so high that everyone's else's seem little by comparison. I mean really, jet skiing?

Bastille Day on Fire, London on Fire, The Blood Arm on Fire - In which you slaughter the sanctity of childbirth by celebrating Dyan's exit from the womb a full day before its actual anniversary.

A Thunderstorm of AWESOME - In which you ride on the coattails of MUSE into a huge sold-out arena and attempt to play Prometheus to their Zeus.

Obstwiesen Festival is Possessed by Devil, Wholly Embraces The Blood Arm - In which you accept the sweetest affection from the beast solely responsible for every last drop of human suffering.

Art Sonic Festival = Buckwild - In which your Zachary offends everyone who has worn clothes EVER.

How We Roll: The Death Star - In which you make a belated stab at giving credit to perhaps the most important member of your entourage, further drawing attention to your earlier negligence.

Shall I continue? I mean, your base vulgarity physically hurts me... tell me you don't see it!

Okay Anders, point taken. Why don't you forget about this for a while and let me buy you some ice cream?


Eat with you? You make me ill! I'd be surprised if the cream didn't curdle and sour as soon as you approached! You are cholera! The plague! A human stain!

Let's calm down a little. Take a deep breath. Think some happy thoughts. Say, why don't you focus those magic binoculars on something happy?


...............

Anders?


...............

Anders?

Quiet please, I am trying to heed your advice.

Well, what are you looking at, then?


THE END

How We Roll: The Death Star

See that guy above? The one with the 'stache? That's Ed Stringfellow, he books our tours. Sometimes he gets a little rough. We like it rough. When he says Innsbruck, Austria to Paris to Wiesen, Austria in three days, in that order, we say, please master, may we have some more? We get off on this sort of thing.

Of course, we have a little help getting it up along the way--a fluffer, so to speak. This is where the DEATH STAR comes in. The DEATH STAR is our big blue bus, the lubrication to make the hardships of the road slide along a little more smoothly.

Check it out:


That's what she looks like from the outside.

Here are her innards:





So yeah, that's how we got around for the past few weeks... on the backs of alcohol and DVDs and a big blue bus.

A full tour synopsis is coming shortly.

xxxooo,

Ben Lee Handler

Art Sonic Festival = Buckwild

The last date of this Second Helping Desired, Required 2007 Summer Tour was a muddy extramarital affair. (Muddy because it rained and rained on the dirt. Extramarital because they let you marry extra in France if you're into fancy cheese.) We went so buckwild that our avocados grew shrimp, Tour Manager Chalkie grew a mole, and Zachary lost a pant leg.




The show was all kinds of brilliant, though all photodocumentation has been exported to the States. (My re-entry has been forbidden; Germany is my home now.)

Tomorrow I'm going to give you a belated tour of the bus that carried us, the next day I'm going to to give you a tour synopsis.

I love you in German,

Ben Lee Handler

Obstwiesen Festival is Possessed by Devil, Wholly Embraces The Blood Arm

We should have known when the sign of the beast appeared on Zachary's new snare head yesterday that the Obstwiesen Festival was going to be special, but we carried on like it would just be a regular day on the job. It WAS NOT a regular day on the job.

First, a savage appetite overtook us, and we ate the lovely Au Revoir Simone for dinner.


They were delicious. Normally we would feel a tad guilty after such a binge, but the feast filled us with a curious rage and all-enveloping horniness. We were very horny.


When this happens under ordinary circumstances, we usually find the nearest member of the Hidden Cameras and take him in the angry demon position.


Things weren't that different from usual, I guess. But after we were finished, there was still something to be desired--one might say our horniness was superhuman. We needed something to absolve this, and we needed it BAD. Then out of nowhere, lo and behold, our hero appeared.


It was just the miracle we were praying for.

We're in Briouze, France now, and I'm off to drink more...

With eight arms to hold you,

Ben Lee Handler

A Thunderstorm of AWESOME

See Zachary down there? No? Look a little closer, that's him right in the center. Still no?

Well this is what he looks like up close:


Oh yes, I forgot to mention... We opened for MUSE the other night at the Nimes Arena in France. (That's Matt and Dominic with Zach above.) It was the best night of our lives, basically.




Stuff happened after that, as well. A unicorn. A parking lot. A thunderstorm on Zebastian's clothes.






No one's gonna take me alive,

Ben Lee Handler

Bastille Day on Fire, London on Fire, The Blood Arm on Fire

We went to Paris a few days ago on Bastille Day, and it was good. There were fireworks outside and inside and under the sheets. Then I puked, lost consciousness, and fell out from under the sheets, and it was a little cold. It was good, messy fun, and we fell in love all over again with Jack Penate and his band.






Then we went to London, where Keith Top of the Pops took us under his wing and showed us how to really party. The show at the 93 Feet East was grand, especially as it gave us an opportunity to celebrate the day before Dyan's birthday.


Now we're at some massive Roman Arena in Nimes, France, waiting to open for MUSE. I'll tell you how it went tomorrow...

I love you more,

Ben Lee Handler

Every Day is the Greatest Day Ever

Every day is the Greatest Day Ever for the Blood Arm on this Second Helping Desired, Required 2007 European Tour.

We went to Dortmund, Deutchland the other day and did a show, drank the German beer, German-kissed the German people, said to ourselves, it can't get any better than this, hopped on our big blue bus and waved goodbye with tears of longing in our eyes. Thanks for the memories, we whispered, then prayed in our bunks for some mishap in the cosmic time continuum that would allow us to relive that day over and over for the rest of our lives.


Instead, our big blue bus took us to St. Tropez on the French Riviera. We were given golden all-access tickets which not only entitled us to drinks on the beach, but jet skiing and golf-carting as well. We went jet-skiing. We worked on our tans. We made love with each other in the sand, and, almost miraculously, the coarse granules didn't get everywhere. The show took place fifty feet from the beach. We kissed the ground and crossed ourselves, convinced we had died and gone to heaven. Heaven is in St. Tropez, we said, please let this be our eternity.





Then we woke up on a stage in front of 25,000 dancing people next to Lake Aix-Les-Bains at the Musilac Festival. We schmoozed with Frank Black, oogled a topless Johnny Borrell, stood in awe of Muse (perhaps one of the best live bands we have ever seen, and definitely Zachary's favorite group), and were serenaded by Mumm-Ra on the way to the bus.






Okay, this is getting sort of ridiculous, we said. Then this morning we woke up in Paris...

I love you a little more every day,

Ben Lee Handler