I forgot how to load photos on here, so if this looks janky, deal with it. For those who don’t know, I am an extraordinarily gifted harmonicker. A constituent once called my playing “fascinatingly devoid of tone, yet highly expressive nonetheless.” This is my prize instrument, the Jos. Fischer “Moulin Rouge” model made in Germany (date unspecified). It’s fairly large for an harmonica which makes it sort of like a grand piano for my mouth, and that’s how I play it… grand. I’m a grand fucking harmonica player. I’ve seen John Popper play, and despite his covetous vests, he can’t touch my shit. I prefer to let my accompaniment settle into a groove before I start playing instead of trampling on the jam. You know, like really internalize the rhythm before I try to express my part in it, my part in God’s Big Band, so to speak. Much like my forays into hip-hopera, the harmonica is merely a means to affix modern urban music’s tropes onto, what some might call, an “antiquated” instrument, and somehow, in between and betwixt eras bygone and avant-garde, create a dialogue without temporal constraints. Plus, I’m sorry, is breathing “antiquated”? Because that’s all I’m doing when I play, breathing beautiful music. I don’t remember who called harmonicas “antiquated”, but rest assured, someone has or will. I cite no sources on Libby Fangaz, sissies.

Eeeeeverybody’s asking, where’s Liberace Fingers? Why are you so lazy? Yeah. Lazy. I wish I could be lazy and sit around all day not taking studio-quality photos of stuff that I find laying around, but I can’t because I have to hide from the lunatic dropping his sick fantasy Nostradamus art on my front lawn strip. You see what’s going on now? Fucking lions, dudes, feeding your children to fucking lions. That’s what the future holds for all of us. Africans, Mexicans, Asians, and I’m assuming honkeys, too, will be walking around with fake smiles on all day, so that our “friends” the bears and lions don’t rip us limb from limb. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. And if you think pretending to be Doug Popik will save you, Aglira, realize you’ll be the first one I snitch on to the lion king. And when he craps your skull out, I’ll be standing there laughing.

This is one of two pieces I have on my wall. I found it on the strip of dirt in front of my house that people walk on instead of the sidewalk. You might be asking why I am sifting through trash laying in the dirt. It is a hobby and nothing more. On the inside, the first paragraph reads:

When you look at the scene on this tract, what feelings do you have? Does not your heart yearn for the peace, happiness, and prosperity seen there? Surely it does. But is it just a dream, or fantasy, to believe these conditions will ever exist on earth?

I do, in fact, believe that one day in the very near future, the world will be a place where humans toil in service of the Lion-Panda cabal that is strengthening as we speak, and these sick fucking animals will force our children to massage them, and good fashion sense will be punishable by death, and they will make us build our own slave quarters in the middle of nowhere, and the seasons will all occur at once, and you’ll all be saying, “Dang, maybe I shouldn’t have thrown trash on the ground in front of people’s houses because then I would have been prepared.”

I don’t remember the specifics of where this came from, just that it was one of the presents my dad brought home from a business trip when I was a kneehigh. This other time, he brought me a coonskin cap which, unfortunately, quickly became too small for my giant head, and I think our dog MacIntosh ate the tail. LL Cool J’s DJ wore a coonskin cap, too, but he called himself Bobcat. Anyway, I believe this may have been purchased in Hawaii, probably at the airport. My dad was a busy guy. It’s a rhino flute-horn. It sounds wicked as shit, like Zamfir if he was Samoan. My dog gets really weird when I play it.

I bought this Powell Peralta Skull & Sword deck in 1988 with money I got for my birthday. Up until this purchase, my skateboards were A.) a Variflex with cement wheels, and B.) a homemade Christian Hosoi Hammerhead lookalike carved out of plywood with the same cement wheels on it. The homemade board was great. No kicktail, weighed about 40 lbs., zero flex. It was like being in the Lil’ Rascals except all my friends were from the future and didn’t have Great Depression toys. So I saved up and bought this deck and promptly moved to a new town where nobody skated. Like 1989, nooooobody skated. I never put wheels or trucks or grip tape on it, just a couple sad Swatch stickers. I think once, after a big snow, I duct taped it to my feet and tried to ride down a hill.

LL Cool J’s Bigger And Deffer, the only tape remaining in my collection from Me: The Cosby Years. It wasn’t the first tape I ever bought– that honor goes to The Hooters’ Nervous Night — but it was the first tape for which I developed a corresponding choreography. May have had something to do with its purchase coinciding with my first room that had a lock on the door. This is the same room in which I used to try 360º Nerf Hoops dunks on my brother and he’d forearm me into the door, tearing huge holes in my 6 ft. poster of Michael Jordan dunking on Kenny “Sky” Walker. I also had this one. Funny how much I loved Jordan as a kid but then annoyed Brendan in high school by saying Bird was superior just because Jordan was his favorite player. I like to argue. Anyway, this tape is still awesome. I’m listening to it right now, and LL just called himself the “ninja of rap.” Brendan is a ninja of some sort, as well.

My friend Eri gave me this Swishahouse Hip*Hop Smellz air freshener that she got as a freebie at the Tuner Awards last month. The Tuner Awards are the Oscars for people who pimp their rides, and Swishahouse is a record label in Houston, Texas that makes the best driving music since Jan & Dean. You may know Swishahouse from the global hits, “Still Tippin’” by Mike Jones or “Sittin’ Sidewayz” by Paul Wall, but you should listen to everything they have released. If you’re interested in learning more about the local Houston rap scene, go to Matt Sonzala’s blog, HoustonSoReal, because it is Smithsonian in scope. I will have to guess that this freshener smells like promethazine and Sprite because I refuse to open it (decreases the value), or maybe a generic candy smell. Head over to HipHopSmellz to get your own or ask them what this might smell like. But I warn you, “Avoid contact with wack Mc’s Dj’s B-boys and Writers, this product could give them some style.” The best part is I don’t own a car.

This is as good a time as any to break out one of many George W. Bush-related items that will appear on Liberace Fingers. This is the Official Mini-Maglite of The 54th Presidential Inaugural, “Celebrating America’s Spirit Together,” January 18, 2001. As you can see, it is candy-apple red, like a Mustang 5.0. It is also engraved with the names of President Bush and the late Vice President Richard B. Cheney. I was not able to attend said inaugural, but my boss at the time, who was able to attend, was kind enough to bring all of us laborers back a souvenir. There is nothing on the flashlight that mentions the host, Larry King, or the performances of Marilyn McCoo or Ricky Martin.

This is a fannypack for beers. I’ve never come across a situation where I needed it, and yet it remains in my possession. Fascinating. Hopefully, someday I will be around when some guy’s penis falls off, and I’ll go, “Throw me your penis, guy” look at him confidently and say, “Trust me, bro, this fannypack can hold ten penises. Meet me at the hospital.”

The sun is sitting on my chest, spitting hot lava loogies on my face and punching my sternum with fists of melted tungsten, fucking bully. Dog just split in half and out stepped a gnome riding a grasshopper with six Air Jordans on. I knew it! My will to live needs a nice sandal. The mountain lions. The mountains lions are coming down from the hills, and they are sick from eating yellow grass. Hoo! Hoooooooo!!! Come Rainbow Sherbet Eagle! Take me to your nest of 31 Flavors so that I may curl up under your lime wing in a bed of mint chocolate chip instead of spraying myself with this piece of shit broken hose attachment.