It’s Groovy to Be Punk, According to Pennywise at Warped Tour

Ran into Fletcher Dragge from Pennywise near the Port-a-Potties, behind the scenes at the Vans Warped Tour in Anaheim (yet another chapter in my ongoing saga with rock ‘n’ roll urinals), and he says punks are the new hippies. I’m not one to argue with a mountain of a man, and the O.G. guitarist is looking more and more like Grizzly Adams every day. He’s so dang nice, he even pulled $20 out of his pocket to buy a guy in dated Dockers shorts some Dickies. Now that’s some bro-love.

Saw the fiercest, tattooed, muscle-neck wankers rush the stage when Weezer performed. I asked the Weezie boys about their hard-core following, and even they don’t get it. But drummer Pat Wilson did say that Mikey Welsh got the gig as Weezer’s new bassist ‘cause his tattoos give them street cred. Yeah, like they need it. Sandwiched between performances by Papa Roach and Green Day--both big hits on the tour--Weezer had everyone screaming. It made me all warm and fuzzy for the days when I used to see them for free at Club Lingerie on Mondays, but not as warm and fuzzy as when guitarist Brian Bell told me Rivers Cuomo--the band’s sweetheart of a singer--is writing brilliant songs right now. If the work’s even on par with “Pinkerton,” you’ll have to slap me two times just to revive me. . . . Texas Terri, who stuck out in the Pond’s parking lot like a desert lily in a sea of spike-haired cacti, signed mucho autographs after her PG-rated set. (She covered her ta-tas with Texas Terri stickers.) I’m thinking next year, main stage.

Ever since I flushed my cell phone down the toilet like a belly-up goldfish, my life has been serene. I fully recommend losing a few of those bells and whistles, before deaf-, dumb- and blindness ensue. Let’s achieve some freakin’ zenness, yo!