The Taxpayers: Everybody Hit the Deck! She’s Got a Gun! (Centralia & Tacoma, WA)-- Local Cut

The Taxpayers: Everybody Hit the Deck! She’s Got a Gun! (Centralia & Tacoma, WA)

June 16th, 2009 [4:30PM] Posted by: The Taxpayers | 3 COMMENTS

CENTRALIA, WASHINGTON

“Welcome to Centralia – Antique Festival June 1st through May 30th”

Less than one hour into the first day of tour and we’ve already decided to make a short detour. Why? Centralia, Washington. Most folks speed past it on the I-5 corridor without giving it a second thought, but after years of secret midnight escapades in this dying tourist town, we know the true nature of Centralia’s dirty underbelly: What goes on in the back rooms of the city’s multitudes of supposed “antique shops.”

Elaine, the 120-year-old owner of “Broadway Antiques” and lifelong Centralia resident sees us coming in the doorway.

“Well hello DARLINGS! It’s the Taxpayers! Well, well…I haven’t seen the likes of ya’ll since the last shipment you dropped off of…the stuff…ya’ll remember? We had some fun, huh?”

We remembered.

Noah Taxpayer has had an ongoing affair with Elaine for the last five years, more or less. About three years back, he had to murder her second husband and the two of them have been living off the inheritance ever since. The rest of us have a pretty successful drug-running business smuggling Goofballs (concentrated ozone and sugar – the folks of Centralia have a pretty serious hunger for this stuff) into the city.

Noah sighed.

“Elaine, you know why we’re here.”

For the sake of secrecy and out of concern for the privacy of Centralia’s residents I’ll have to cut the story short. But suffice it to say, we all bedded with the notorious Lizard Women of the town, made millions in a game of Russian Roullette, and then got chased out of city limits by old men with muskets. We were back on the road. Next stop: Tacoma, Washington. It was to be our first show of tour…

TACOMA, WASHINGTON

Tacoma. Have you ever tried to navigate this fucking city’s pot-hole ridden streets? It oughta be called TA-BLOW-MA! HA!

It’s about an hour before our show starts and we’re exploring some abandoned building on the river. Danielle’s found an old folding chair on the ground, the kind you find in Convention Centers and such, but this one’s been tastefully modified with spray paint. It says “EAT PUSSY” in big, poorly formed letters on the seat. We decide to keep it. Just in case.

As we pull up to the spot that the show’s supposed to be in, we realize that it’s gonna be in one of those big storage garages that businesses have to keep excess inventory in. How cool! This guy named Russ who sets up DIY shows apparently lives there and also puts on shows. As we walk in, the storage garage opens up into this rad, Christmas light laden space with a makeshift bar, multiple levels, a sweet little “stage” and a projector showing Kung Fu movies on the wall. Kung Fu movies…hmmm. An omen? Hopefully not.

The show went pretty great. A bunch of people were there drinking and dancing, there were kids running around and slapping people’s butts, the bands all rocked, and the punk rock flowed freely. In the middle of our set, the door opened, and two people walked in. They looked familiar…IT WAS DESTROY NATE ALLEN! Nate and Tessa, fellow friends and Portlanders! At the end of a song, we smiled and waved to them. They didn’t look quite as happy to see us though…instead of returning the smile, Tessa simply frowned and PULLED OUT A GUN!

“EVERYBODY HIT THE DECK! SHE’S GOT A GUN!”

She approached the stage slowly.

“This is for not coming to our tour kick-off show, you bastards.”

As she raised the gun, Phil grabbed the “EAT PUSSY” chair that was by his feet and swung it as hard as he could. The gun was knocked out of her hands!

Now defenseless, the two villains ran out of the show space in a hurry. Everyone cheered, and we immediately went into a cover of “Never Surrender” by Stan Bush. The tour was officially underway.