"We don't do funny," Joe said completely straightfaced.

This is what it had come to. The band that I was in was trying to decide on what songs would be good to cover in order to fill out our set. They wanted to do your standard punk songs. Songs by people like the Ramones, New York Dolls, and Sex Pistols. I brought up the suggestion that we should look into playing something that wasn't traditionally thought of as punk and make it punk. Something like "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond.

My suggestion was met with pretty strong resistance. They didn't think that it would work too well. When I said that it would be funny and that's when Joe's defense kicked in. The "we don't do funny" defense. It's at this point that I would like to point out the name that was chosen for the band. The band was called "Scorch" so as you can tell, they really did do funny, they just didn't know about it when they did.

I should have known that something like this would happen when I joined the band. I answered an ad in the Dallas Observer. It's one of those local papers whose sole purpose for existing is the classified ads (and for some, the ads for hookers on the back page). I don't usually have good luck answering ads. I should have kept that in mind after I called an ad to start my own eclectic restaurant and received in the mail the following: a rat, two dogs, nineteen hamsters, a snake and a hatchet. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do with them, but I'm pretty sure they weren't supposed to be my business partners.

I called up the ad for the band and had an initial interview. There's a couple of things that you should know about the initial phone interview when going out for a band. You could be the worst player ever known to man. You could have sold all of the equipment of your former bandmates for drugs and it wouldn't matter. All you have to do is make yourself seem cool. They say, "So, do you like the New York Dolls?" You say, "They're cool." Even if you're a total fuck up, as long as you don't say too much you will make it to the next stage of the tryout.

I went to the audition and that should have been the second hint that I should have walked out the door then and there, but I didn't I kept plodding on. The hint was that during the whole audition, the singer did not once sing. That might sound kind of weird. It sounds quite a bit more bizzare when you consider that he didn't sing for the first four weeks that I was in the band. When he finally did sing, it was a little scary. I wasn't sure if he was trying to make a joke or if he was actually singing the way he planned on singing. Imagine taking a cat by the tail and swinging it around above your head. Now imagine that in the background someone is playing the bagpipes. But wait, now imaging that someone is actually strangling the guy that is playing the bagpipes so that he can no longer play them but all he does is scream. There, now you have his voice.

Despite the dark forbodingness (wait, is that a word? should it be forboditity? you figure it out) the first couple of months went pretty well. We were writing songs, I was learning some of their old stuff and we were trucking along. Then came the great name scandal.

Ask any musician what the hardest part of starting a band is and they will tell you that it is choosing a name. The second hardest is finding someone to sleep with you for your "inspiration". (You're not actually a musician until you have a band with a name, thus it's harder to get past that hurdle) The name game was no exception for this band. We had hour long sessions of trying to figure out what we should name the band. My wife gave me several suggestions which I thought were pretty good so I took them to the band. Some of those names were as follows: Kilgore Trout, Action Finger, and The Circumpants. However, despite these quality names, the band initially decided on one that was not on this list. I want to build this up, so I'll give you a hint. It's where Santa Claus goes on vacation (or at least that's how I imagine it). Don't have it yet? Well, the name was Christmas Island.

Yes, Christmas Island. Kind of like Easter Island, but without the giant stone rabbits. By the time that everyone else had settled on this name I had no fight left in me so I accepted the festive name reluctantly. All was not lost, however. Upon arriving at the next practice everyone informed each other that all of their friends thought it was a stupid name. I informed them that I thought it was a moronic name, but that's beside the point.

More hours of endless name debates ensued and finally they arrived on the name Scorch. Yeah, it was '80s cock rock, but you have to admit that it was better than Christmas Island. I was still not happy, but I was happier..

It was a couple of weeks later that the cover song conspiracy came about. Since I already went over it in the begininng, I'll just say that it happened and that my idea never came to fruition (sort of like fruity-licious) because I was outvoted 3-1.

The reason that the whole cover song debate came up was because we had our first show coming up. Everyone was pretty excited and we all weren't really sure what was going to happen. We overcompensated for our lack of preparation and on the day of the show we thought we were ready.

I'm not going to explain the show as I saw it. I am going to tell you what other people had to say about the show after it was all said and done. Here are some of the comments:

"Your singer's a total moron, did he not take his Ritalin today?"

"Man, your guitarist looks like a child molester."

"The drummer was pretty cool, but everyone else kind of sucked." (no, I didn't play drums)

"I'm serious, he looked like he was trying to find an 11 year old girl in the audience to have sex with. He was damn creepy!"

"Hey, you got any beer?"

As you can tell, we were a smash hit.

They had another show lined up a couple of weeks after that, but I just couldn't bring myself to stay in the band. I told them that it was because I wasn't happy in the band. And while that was partially the reason, the real underlying reason was that I just didn't like being funny when we didn't "do funny".

I was thinking the other day about the silly things that people let themselves get addicted to. Just the other day I realized that I have a problem with an addiction. When I looked at it seriously I really had to laugh at myself about it, and I was a little ashamed. You see, I had become addicted to computer solitaire. I can probably guess what most of you are doing right now. You're snickering a little bit, maybe calling me a loser (you don't have to call me a loser just because I was addicted to computer solitaire. You can call me a loser for many other reasons, I'm sure of it.) and then you stop laughing. Maybe you slink in your chair a little bit. Deep down, you're a little ashamed of yourself because you know that you have fallen victim to the big S in the past.

Let's face it, a lot of people have become addicted to that stupid little game just because it effortlessly passes the time away. Or maybe solitaire wasn't your bag. Maybe you prefered freecell. And maybe just maybe it was minesweeper, though I can't say I have ever met anyone that has been addicted to that crappy game. I can honestly say that I think that Microsoft owes some sort of debt to the American people for inflicting these seemingly harmless games upon us. Maybe they could buy us all a milkshake.

It's innocent enough when you start. A game here, a game there. Maybe you play a game to put yourself to sleep at night. That's when you start to build up tolerance. It gets to where you're playing five, ten, twenty games a sitting. You start to play solitaire with Vegas style rules and have your score be cummulative so that you can justify it to yourself, "I'm practicing for the real thing in vegas."

When you start to lose a lot you tell yourself, "I'll just play until I'm five hundred dollars in the hole or positive two hundred and then I will quit." Nevermind the fact that you'll never make it to positive fifty, let alone two hundred. It's got you in it's grasp and it's not about to let go. You get to negative five hundred and fifteen and you tell yourself,"It's just the low 500's, I can make a comeback before the high 500's. I'll just keep playing."

That's when you realize that you have a problem with Solitaire. You try to stop, but the computer keeps calling to you, "John, John, come play with me. I'll start you out with all four aces on top of stacks." Oooh, that's tempting, you could actually make your two hundred boundary with that, "You're on computer, and I'll even bet you fifty bucks that I make it to my 200 point mark. Try that on for size."

Wait a minute, you're talking to a computer. What's the matter with you. Are you some sort of freak? You have to stop, before it gets too far out of control. You start going to support groups, SS (Solitaire Suckers), CCA (Computer Card Addicts), and The Anti-Electricity Group. The last one was a tad bit extreme, but they all helped a little bit.

You've been sober for ten days now, and proud of it. It's really hard because every time you go to work and sit in front of your computer plugging away at financials, writing that last bit of code, or surfing for that ultimate porn site the computer calls to you. And then maybe a couple of days later, at your friend's house you ask to borrow his computer and your ten days is up pal.

Three weeks later the only person that ever cared about you finds you at three in the morning rolling around on your floor. You've got the keyboard stuck between your legs, the mouse in your mouth, and you're fondling the monitor which has tipped over near you. This is a sad day.

But you realize, as you pull yourself up from your filth, it could be a lot worse. You could be a big loser that writes a column for no one to read. That really would be sad.

To make a long story short, my playing Solitaire was actually fairly short lived. I've known people to play it for years and they never admit that they have a problem. If you or someone you know have a problem with Solitaire, find help. If not from me, then please do so from someone else.