Some Apologies to Shrimp (an ode to the shrimp not responsible for our singer's hospitalization)

Just watched the movie Up in the Air and drank too much hot chocolate and thus I'm awake at 1.37 a.m. I had other plans to play a gig this evening, but they were derailed by our singer's hospitalization. No, nothing worthy of the annals of rock legend, neither coke, nor hooker, no drunken brawl with bouncers shaped like early 90s american gladiators (Nitro was not involved), no drug addled dance with nudity and broken glass, no irate outburst towards an intrusive paparazzi, no, the initial blame for this one fell on the back of a small salt water crustacean and an ignored expiration date. We were lead to believe that some form of food poisoning placed Erik Canzona in hospital, it was attributed to shrimp, but upon further investigation it was appendicitis (each time I spell this correctly I am completely shocked with hubris). We are happy to say that his operation went even smoother than this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYRAVw8Op8Q

So we would like to offer absolution to the jumbo shrimps initially blamed for the offense. Take them off death row, they committed no such crime. I've heard so many incidences of little shrimp taking on and crushing the stomachs of full grown adults, perhaps there was some profiling involved in this quick and direct finger pointing which took place. In fact I must admit biases of my own. Having heard that Erik ate some bad shrimp my anger was instant, the enemy certain.

I went through my entire life eating shrimp. It wasn't exactly a "shrimp cocktails on the yacht" everyday kind of thing, but the occasional shrimp delight would swim down my gullet with no problems. Then I turned 20. I remember the night well. I was home from Boston College on Christmas vacation and my mom had cooked up a shrimp and scallop dinner. This was the early stages of an antisocial phase which has lasted until up til now, so as opposed to catching up with my high school friends on a Friday night, I was eating seafood and watching the Simpsons with my door closed. The itchy feeling came on slowly at first, though it quickly turned into a excited fevered frenzy of scratching. This was when there were back to back episodes of the Simpsons at 6pm and 6:30. By 6:30 I was absolutely certain that something fishy (if you read this I owe you a quarter for the bad pun) was transpiring, but as the clouds parted over Springfield I realized that it was the Monorail episode and though I had seen it 15 times, there was no way I was pulling my eyes off the t.v. to check the bathroom mirror. When 7pm finally came I went to the bathroom to check and see if something weird was happening. When I looked in the mirror I saw a fat dude lookin back at me. It was like an episode of Quantum Leap, where the main cat checks the mirror and is like "who's this fat ass black dude looking back at me." I looked like Al Roker circa that time, with the addition of a plush afro. I screamed like a Culkin with aftershave and my mom took me to the hospital. Apparently I was newly allergic to either shrimp or scallops and the reaction cause my head to balloon out so much the fatness pushed my eyes closed. I found out that it was shrimp after a Paul Simon / Brian Wilson concert in the early 2000s. Upon exiting the concert I noticed that the New Orleans food vendor was throwing his rice away. Having started my career as a broke ass musician I gravitated magnetic towards the prospect of free food. In fact it is something I have developed so sharply and acutely at this point that I would call it the next sense. I approached the guy running the booth and politely asked if I could take some free rice. He said "sure, you want some shrimp?" The prospect of free shrimp completely eclipsed my memory of the "incident". When I sheepishly reached into the vat of butter sauce and grabbed one shrimp he looked at me like an asshole and said "Damnit SON! If you want some shrimp, GRAB SOME SHRIMP". So I did the logical thing, I pulled my sleeves up, put both arms in the tray, threw all caution to the wind and GRABBED SOME SHRIMP. My arms dripped butter all the way back to the car, but I had scored at least 40 bucks worth of bounty. I've never eaten so much of anything in my life and the only thing I've regretted more instantaneously was chugging a liter of vodka to show off on a date (but that's a blog for another restless night and why my two front teeth are fake). Yes, that night, there was a whole lot of scratching going on. In fact as I type this I'm kinda startin to itch from mere memory. So in closing, cause it's way past my non gig night bedtime, not all shrimp are hoodlums. Just because the shrimp I eat are Raiders fans and roam the streets drunken, with shotguns in hand and vengeance on the mind, the shrimp with the expired date that Erik consumed this afternoon were gentle students of life, known to help elderly ladies across and toss change into the coffee cans of the homeless. Just watch out for those God Damn Peanuts.