I want to confirm what I have learned from unnamed sources: Phish has broken up.

On their official website, there’s a link dated 5/25/04 titled “An Announcement from Trey”, which reads:

Last Friday night, I got together with Mike, Page and Fish to talk openly about the strong feelings I’ve been having that Phish has run its course and that we should end it now while it’s still on a high note. Once we started talking, it quickly became apparent that the other guys’ feelings, while not all the same as mine, were similar in many ways — most importantly, that we all love and respect Phish and the Phish audience far too much to stand by and allow it to drag on beyond the point of vibrancy and health. We don’t want to become caricatures of ourselves, or worse yet, a nostalgia act. By the end of the meeting, we realized that after almost twenty-one years together we were faced with the opportunity to graciously step away in unison, as a group, united in our friendship and our feelings of gratitude.

So Coventry will be the final Phish show. We are proud and thrilled that it will be in our home state of Vermont. We’re also excited for the June and August shows, our last tour together. For the sake of clarity, I should say that this is not like the hiatus, which was our last attempt to revitalize ourselves. We’re done. It’s been an amazing and incredible journey. We thank you all for the love and support that you’ve shown us.

– Trey Anastasio

I thought that this was a mistake, or a prank, because it’s totally out of the blue. But I used my major industry clout (I do have this awesome website), spoke to some people “in the know”, and it is 100% true: Phish is done.

Let’s have a moment of silence for stoners everywhere, who are now faced with any number of scary possibilities, including:

- having to stop dancing all weird-like;
- getting a job;
- putting down the bong for just one fucking second;
- bathing;
- no longer hurting their conservative parents with their neo-hippie lifestyle;
- losing customers for their homemade veggie burritos; and
- having to find a whole new band to dedicate and validate their existence and drug use.

All kidding aside, Phish is (was?) a pretty fucking sweet band. On a personal note, I’d like to say thanks to Trey, Mike, Page and Fish for some sweet music, and making it totally ok for me to “accidentally” touch a girl’s boobie in Hampton, VA on 1/2/03 because I was “really, really high.”

Thanks guys, and may god bless you, your families, and your pets.

[Warning: the following post is graphic in content, and not suitable for children or pussies. Thank you.]

One weekend about every two months I don’t go out. This isn’t because I don’t want to, it’s because I just physically can’t. I’ll try to drink on a Friday or a Thursday night, and it just doesn’t work – I’ll immediately start to feel like shit, get all sorts of indigestion, and shut down. I can’t explain this phenomenon, and it’s terrifying, because it’s so unpredictable. I live in a state of constant fear, hoping my “down weekend” doesn’t strike when friends are in town, or I have a party to go to, or by some mistake on god’s part I have a date, etc. [But mostly I fret about the friends in town or party thing, not the date.]

This was the case this past weekend. The good news is that it coincided with a weekend that both my roommates were out of town, so I was left alone to defile myself in the friendly confines of my LES apartment. I am a big believer in numbers, and I work with them all day long, so here are two statistics that accurately sum up my weekend:

Number of pornographic films downloaded to my roommate Ben’s computer from July 1, 2003 to May 20, 2004: 44
Number of pornographic films downloaded to my roommate Ben’s computer from May 21, 2004 to May 23, 2004: 61

When I say that I have never been so focused in my life than I was about downloading porn this weekend, it is not an understatement. I worked so hard at it, you’d think I was trying to save a crew of astronauts trapped in space, or desperately working on an antidote to a poison recently ingested by my entire extended family. Imagine me, sitting in my roommate Ben’s small, dark room, wearing just boxers and an undershirt, watching literally hundreds of porno clips, featuring old faves like Celeste, Chasey Lain, Jenna Jameson, and Kylie Ireland, while learning about new starlets, such as Sunrise Adams, Briana Banks, and Kira Kener.

It was incredible. My every movement this weekend was based around the rates that the clips were downloading; whether they were mpegs, wmvs, or avis; whether I had already downloaded them but they were named something else; etc. Showers and meals were timed after the right number of films came off the queue and were mostly downloaded.

And the self-love was, to say the least, near legendary. My previous high for one day’s masturbation is seven, set back when I was about 14. This Saturday, I was at six at about 3pm, when I thought to myself, “Do I really want to tie, or perhaps set, a new masturbatory record at 24 years old? Isn’t that kind of pathetic?” So I decided to pull in the reins and call it a day. But I’ll tell you, I easily could have done ten. Easily.

And that was pretty much my weekend. When I’m not poisoning myself with liquor, I’m beating my dick like it owes me money (*this joke stolen from “The Chappelle Show”).

But I don’t think this should be too much of an impediment in my quest for a girlfriend/wife. After all, I have an engagement ring fund, I’m getting a dog, and I probably don’t have any STD’s. What more could a woman want? Sheesh.

1) Jessica Simpson in this month’s Maxim. Jessica, you’re wearing a white button down shirt and a pair of jeans. Last time you were in Maxim, you were half-naked and I was quoted as saying your photos were “the most magnificent pictures of the female body ever taken. Jesus, I have a boner.” Just because you have a “career” now doesn’t mean you can pile on the clothes and turn your back on your die-hard [read: pervert] fans like myself. Judas.

2) Two of the Wayans Brothers (Marlon and Damon? Edgar and Max?) have a movie coming out this summer called White Chicks, in which they play two FBI agents who go undercover as white girls. Hilarity ensues, and I try to commit suicide by stabbing myself in the neck with the straw from my 240 oz. Pepsi.

I’m not a movie snob by any means – my favorite movies are the same ones that all guys my age love: Lebowski, Rushmore, Swingers, Tombstone, Tennenbaums, Office Space, etc. But this is just too far. Too far. The sad thing is, this is probably going to make a killing at the box office.

Meanwhile, I will continue to play with myself too much and over-eat, and say things to my roommates like, “You know, maybe I should write a screen play or something?” And they will say, “Dude, do you have to eat the macaroni and cheese straight out of the pot? We have bowls you know.” And I will say, “Show of hands – who here is the boss of me?” And only I will raise my hand, and thus will continue to eat my mac and cheese out of the pot, and wash it down with a nice tall cool glass of chocolate milk (and a giant piece of carrot cake).

Now I’m hungry.