Saw this lizard munching on a palmetto bug and flashed back to a gig a few years back. We were playing on the deck behind Three Amigos (not the real name) here in town. It was an unusual gig as the restaurant didn't usually have bands. You could say we were an experiment, an attempt to draw in business, but as my dad used to say, "If you were a turd, you wouldn't draw flies."
We had to run extension cords through the kitchen window and clear a few tables and chairs in order to set up. No big deal, Boston's on the Beach in Delray served lunch on the band stand with all of our equipment shoved to one side. Nothing like finding coleslaw on your wah-wah pedal. At any rate...
Besides the lack of power, carpeting, customers and lighting, at least there were plenty of mosquitoes and no-see-ums attracted to our bright ass stage lights. With my long white beard and purple or blue stage lights, I am a bug magnet... Blister bugs, all sorts of moths and every other flying insect swarms my face, makes it difficult to take in a breath big enough to sing without inhaling a few. It's kind of like a low-fat, protein supplement.
After four hours of doing the bug dance (swatting mosquitoes and playing at the same time), and entertaining the 3 people repairing a boat on the other side of the canal, it was finally time to call it a night and start packing up.
The band is always the last to get out especially on a slow night. The management cuts the bus boys, food runners, most of the servers, and have all of the side work finished early, leaving the band by ourselves on the dock.
The cockroaches weren't used to waiting for a band to pack up. As soon as the chef turned off the kitchen light, the boardwalk came alive with creepy crawlers.
One of the band members had an exacerbated aversion to the presence of multi legged creatures. Needless to say, when one of the palmetto bugs raced up his arm, he let out a squeal that loosened my stool as he flailed around in hysterics. The more he danced around, the more the winged insects took flight to escape the enraged giant stomping its feet. He danced up a swarm so to speak before retreating to the relative bug free safety of the building.
It was like one of those movies with palmetto bugs, a.k.a. roaches, crawling out of every nook and cranny. A lot of people don't know it, but roaches can bite. They're not generally aggressive and it usually doesn't hurt, unless they find a sensitive spot.
They didn't bother me too bad, I was more concerned about the roaches infesting my cases and bags and eventually ending up in my van to lay their eggs.
Roach eggs are interesting in that they move around kind of like a worm. They're quite disgusting actually, especially if you think about it in an eggs and bacon kind of way.
After about 10 minutes, the infestation had settled down enough for the drummer to return to pack his gear, with only the occasional gross out freak out when one of the creepy crawlers would get too close for his comfort, which was strained at best.
As usual, the bass player had the quickest and easiest load out and already had all of his gear off the dock and in his truck. I was rolling my cords in my usual, meticulous fashion, a place for everything and everything in its place, using the live and let live approach to making peace with the palmetto bugs.
When I was a kid, my friend's mom would stomp on a cockroach and kill it with her bare feet. That always grossed me out, bug gut slime on the bottom of my foot. I made the mistake, once, of taking my flip-flop off my foot to smash a cockroach climbing up the wall. I reared back my arm and started to shout, "Gotcha," but I missed it and as my mouth was open with the got part of gotcha, it flew in the gaping hole to escape the death blow from the flip-flop.
I screamed with all I could muster to keep it from going down my throat. I could feel it's feet clamoring over my teeth and tongue and roof of my mouth as it was circling around my mouth, trying to get down into the darkness that was my throat. I was hoping that it wasn’t shitting itself. I was starting to pass out from lack of air and not wanting to inhale for obvious reasons... I was starting to see stars when it finally flew out of my mouth, leaving me gagging and gasping for air while trying to wash my mouth out with water. Nasty! I pert near puked.
That's what I got for being so arrogant as to think I was going to kill that supposedly insignificant little bug without repercussions. I did not see that coming at all. There was wisdom to be found in that experience and that was, keep your mouth shut until the job is done.
Could of used a an army of these lizards…☮️❤️😊🎵🖖
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