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| Bios
Galore |
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Ben
decided at an early age that the Coast Guard wasn't for him. This
wasn't an easy decision, as his uncanny ability to float had made
him wonder if he wasn't meant by God to save the drowning, but this
conflicted with his own intensive fear of water and all things wet.
To this day he bathes in filtered sand. it was shortly after leaving
the ship on which he had spent the last several years in a futile
effort to remain dry and being taunted by his cruel shipmates with
cries of "Hey Dryboy" and "Still got sand in your
ass?" that he finally realized that the torture of the wet,
wet ocean was a thing of the past and felt free for the first time
in years. He walked for miles, thankful that it wasn't raining but
not really aware of his surroundings. When he finally stopped to
take his bearings, he found that he was standing in the famous Trombone
District of Mattapoissett Rhode Island. Everywhere he looked, there
were the sensuous shapes of trombones, beautiful, brassy, bent,
banged and twisted metal and it called to him. He walked from window
to window, stunned by how many different variations there were of
trombone. They were so very very shiny, and yet so very very dry.
So he went within with the decision already made to begin a new
life blowing on his golden mistress. The first 5 stores he went
into told him to get lost, but fortunately, the 6th one had an understanding
owner named Mickey. Mickey understood, as he heard Ben's tale of misery and woe, that he had a similar story himself. Mickey also hated being wet, but he also hated being sandy and so had spent years cleaning himself in a vat of parsley giving himself the green sheen that had resulted in his nickname "The Leprechaun". Mickey was willing to not only give Ben his first trombone in exchange for the life preserver that Ben inexplicably still wore but offered to show Ben the secrets of being the best bone boy he could be. Day after day Mickey taught Ben how to handle to precious instrument, where to move the slide (turns out, it DOES matter) and how to work the spit valve. Ahh, the spit valve. As soon as Ben learned of the spit valve, a plan began forming in his mind. So he practiced, day in and day out, night in and night out, shirt tucked in and shirt left out, 3 strikes and your out, the slide went in, the slide went out. "You must feel the wind flowing through you, Indeed you are powerful, as the emperor has foreseen" said Mickey in one of his cryptic Star Wars references. Finally, Mickey proclaimed Ben ready to go out and bone the masses and he left Ben with the final thought "You must only use the trombone for knowledge and defense, never for attack". Ben assured him that he would, with his fingers crossed the entire time. A week after meeting Mickey for the first time, Ben left the trombone district with his trombone in one hand and a mission in the other (well, figuratively speaking). Now he needed a band. He found The Valves the way most people do, drunk in the gutter in front of Burger King, and offered his services. The Valves said "Sure, what the hell" immersed as they were in a whopper fueled drunken semi-stupor. So they began playing together and soon they were playing gigs all over New England. Finally, after years of toil and hardship, Ben was able to book them a gig playing for his old shipmates at the Coast Guard, and at the end of a particularly saliva intensive rendition of "Flip, Flop, Fly" let loose his spit valve over the assembled crewmen, all the while screaming "How's it feel to be wet now, assholes!"... Ahh yes, life was good.... |
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