I originally ripped this song off from Arlo Guthrie way back in 2001, and I’ve been singin’ it for seven long years now. It’s called Loomis’s Restaurant, and it’s about a friend of mine, Mickey Loomis, but Mickey doesn’t own the restaurant, and there’s not really even a restaurant in the song at all. 

If you’ve ever heard me sing this song before… you’re gonna have to explain to me later why you was within earshot of my shower. But in the meantime if you’ve heard the song before you already know that while there’s not a restaurant in the song, Mickey is in the song, and there’s also a massacree.

Back in 2001, the song told the story of the Loomis’s Restaurant Bye Week Massacree, which, oddly enough, went down during the 2001 bye week. But sometime last year I went ahead and decided to update the song to tell the story of a whole separate, distinct, non-consecutive massacree.

Shit, I really need to stop hanging out with Mickey.

You can get anything you want at Loomis’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want… at Loomis’s Restaurant
Walk right in, we’re around the back
Just a half a mile from the Voodoo Shack
And you can get anything you want at Loomis’s Restaurant

Now it all started last year on the Ides of March, when my buddy Moongoose McQueen and I was sittin’ out on the front porch musin’ about what a chump that Caesar fella musta been to walk right into getting pwned like he did, and Moongoose was informin’ the occasional female passerby that he was her vehicle, baby. Eventually Moongoose grew tired of gettin’ slapped every few minutes, so we decided to go pay Mickey a visit over at the restaurant.

I guess there’s a restaurant in this here song after all. But Mickey doesn’t own the restaurant, and he doesn’t live in the restaurant, he just meets there occasionally with one Sean and a whole bunch of Ricks and Terrys and Ryans to load up on various eggs and other assorted brain foods while hatchin’ schemes and machinations and skullduggery and all manner of monkey business in preparation to more effectively smite their foes at the annual first-year player selection shindig in New York City which was comin’ up in about six weeks.

So Moongoose and I get to the restaurant and we find Mickey and Sean and the Ricks and Terrys and Ryans doin’ just what we figured they would be… porin’ over volumes and volumes of information and analysis from about seventeen different message boards all at one time. And man, they were into it too. The only times they even looked up for a second was when one of the Terrys would shout "Look, this guy thinks Jason David’s nickname ought to be Toast!" or something like that. And they’d all laugh uproariously for a few minutes at the cleverness and originality of it all, and Mickey would tell an intern to get that guy’s address and send him a tee shirt, and then they’d be right back at it.

And there was a huge dry-erase board on the far wall, and there was a bunch of names scribbled all over it, and crazy shit like "BPA!!!!" and "DON’T REACH!!!!" all over the place, and every once in a while one of the Ricks would say something like "Hey Mickey, PorkBaller493 says Aaron Ross has stiff hips and skinny ankles. Says he’d be fine at 28, but he’d be a REACH at 27. What do you think?" and Mickey would say "Scratch him." and another Rick would go over to the board and strike out his name and write "Trade down 1 spot for the sake of value?" next to it.

Well Moongoose leans over and whispers to me, he whispers "Hey, where did all the eggs go?" because all the big metal buffet receptacles that normally hold the various types of eggs and egg dishes was all empty, which I hadn’t noticed, but which Moongoose evidently had noticed, and I ask him "How the hell am I supposed to know where the eggs went?" which I thought was a perfectly reasonable response. But Moongoose proceeds to lay into me for answerin’ a question with a question, and before long he’s all pissed off and he’s askin’ me all kinds of crazy things like "What are you, some kind of asshole?" and I say "Well you just did it too…" and before I know it he’s shoutin’ at the top of his lungs "SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO ALL THE EGGS!!!"

Right about then, a silence falls over the room, and Mickey and Sean and all the various Ricks and Terrys and Ryans are lookin’ at us, and a melancholy, puppydog look comes over Mickey’s face, and single tear rolls down Mickey’s left cheek as he slowly shakes his head back and forth and mumbles…

"Hollis stopped by."

I thought it was a damn shame, but I can’t say as it occurred to me to do anything about it. But before I know it, Moongoose had ripped off his shirt, had one finger pointed at the ceilin’ and is shoutin’ "As God is my witness, this will not stand!" and all of a sudden he’s shovin’ me into his red VW Microbus, loadin’ up shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, and we was headed out on a quest to obtain as many various eggs as we can get our hands on.

Well we get to the first store, and the second, and the ninth, and the fourteenth, and I’ll be damned if there wasn’t a big sign and a chain across each one, saying "Closed on the Ides of March. Ain’t no senator sticking a shiv in our backs. Not today, buddy."

Moongoose vows to die tryin’, and I thought that was pretty much what was gonna happen, and eventually we end up all the way out on old 51 in LaPlace. And we come to a side road, and off to the side of the side road there’s a 1978 El Camino, and I’ll be damned if the bed wasn’t filled to the top with eggs. And right there across the top of the windshield, in big bold Old English typeface, was the words "Huevos Frescos Cada Día 4-Life Holmes!" And Moongoose looks at me, and I look at Moongoose, and in a single voice, we both say in that inflection you use when you wanna express complete and utter amazement… "Well noooo shit."

And so we pull off to the side of the side road, Moongoose pulls out his Diner’s Club card, and we load up as many eggs as we could shovel and/or rake into the back of the red VW Microbus, and head on back to the restaurant to bask in our triumph.

And that’s what we did, and we drove back to the restaurant and there was high fives all around and we all chowed down on oyster & andouille frittatas that couldn’t be beat, occasionally scratchin’ a player here and there off the big board when DraftBoy4681 who had watched all his games informed us that the guy doesn’t have The Heart Of A Champion™. And Mickey was reinvigorated, and he was so grateful, he offered us each a pass to annual first-year player selection shindig in New York City coming up in about six weeks.

And Moongoose and I headed home, went to sleep and didn’t get up until the next mornin’, when we got a phone call from Officer T-Boy in LaPlace. He said "Kid, we got a Diner’s Club receipt with your name on it from under the passenger’s side front seat of a 1978 El Camino which was bein’ used in the unlawful trade of embargoed Cuban-produced eggs, and I just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And after talking to Officer T-Boy for about forty-five minutes and finally arriving at the truth of the matter, Moongoose and I was informed that we had to take the ferry over to Edgard and report to the parish courthouse, where we was to relinquish any unused or partially-used eggs to the authorities and pay a fine to be determined by the judge after our hearin’.

So Moongoose and I loaded up all the unused and partially-used eggs into the red VW Microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, called Chris DeBurgh and apologized for havin’ little choice but to pay the ferryman, pulled up to the courthouse in sprawlin’ downtown Edgard, and met up with Officer T-Boy to relinquish the unused and partially-used unlawfully imported Cuban-produced eggs.

Now friends, we didn’t have any idea what to expect when we pulled up to the parish courthouse with a red VW Microbus full of unused and partially-used eggs. But I’ll tell you what we didn’t expect. We didn’t expect the ditches on both sides of the road to be filled up with people chantin’ "Commie! Commie! Commie!"

Officer T-Boy escorted us into the courthouse, we walked in, sat down, man came in said "All rise", judge came in sat down and said "Kid, you a big fan of Cuba are ya?"

I said "Your honor, we was duped. We was misled by an inaccurate ethnic stereotype. We was thinkin’ them huevos was from Mexico. We ain’t no commies, sir." And the judge jumped up and shouted "BULLSHIT! SUSTAINED! OVERRULED! BULLSHIT! We don’t use the term ‘commie’ anymore, kid. These days, we call your kind an ’enemy combatant’. Casts a far wider net, see? Don’t matter if you’re red or brown or yellow. It’s all covered because it’s more general. Or should I say ‘generalissimo’? You hippies think commie poultry products are the bees knees, we’ll see how it bees when I send your ass to Gitmo!"

It was right about then when I went ahead and shat my pants. And Moongoose shat his. And there was thunderous applause in the courtroom while the judge told the lawyers to bring us backstage to hammer out the details. And we get back there into that little room there, and the lawyers are whisperin’ back and forth and the judge is whisperin’ at both of ‘em and Officer T-Boy is whisperin’ to himself and all Moongoose and I could hear was "Gitmo… Gitmo… we’re gonna send those hippies to Gitmo…"

And we was scared, and Moongoose asked me if I knew how to make a noose out of my belt, and I said "You plannin’ to hang yourself over purchasin’ some unlawfully imported foodstuffs?" and he got all pissed off again because I answered a question with a question, and he said "You got a better idea?" and I said "See, you just did it again." and before I knew it he was freakin’ out and bracin’ himself to jump through the first-floor courthouse window to his death, and/or to make a run for it, whichever came first.

Right about that time, the judge walks up to us, and he says to me real quiet-like, he says "Kid, you think you can git mo of them eggs?" And I say "I’m not sure I understand" and he says "We need you to git mo of them free range Cuban eggs and bring ‘em back here. We ain’t got but three left, and if I don’t get my omelette in the morning, the first twenty motherfuckers who come through this place are goin’ straight to Angola. Get me a couple dozen assloads of those eggs by midnight and we’ll call it even."

And Moongoose looks at me, and I look at Moongoose, and once again, in a single voice, we both say in that inflection you use when you wanna express complete and utter amazement… "Well noooo shit."

So that’s what we did. We got back into the red VW Microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, and by midnight we was just about done deliverin’ a couple dozen assloads of unlawfully-imported free range Cuban huevos to the loadin’ dock at the back of the St. John The Baptist Parish courthouse there, and we drove back to see Mickey at the restaurant (remember Mickey? It’s a song about Mickey) where the whole cabal of Ricks and Terrys and Ryans was still strategizin’ and machinatin’ and skullduggerizin’ and plottin’ out all manner of monkey business, and once again there was high fives all around.

But that’s not what I’m here to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down in New York City, it’s called Radio City Music Hall, where you walk in and you get injected, inspected, deetected, infected, neeglected and seelected. Havin’ scored a couple of those little cards they give you to get you into the place to observe the festivities there from Mickey, in exchange for our replenishin’ their depleted supply of commie poultry foodstuffs, we get back into the red VW Microbus, head on up to New York City and spend up every last ounce of restraint within us to make it through the entire first day without even approachin’ the level of douchebaggery usually reserved for the Jets fans there. It was rough, but we managed.

Havin’ triumphed once again, we decide to duck out back into the alleyway and spark up a nice bowl of grass while trying to see if we can’t get one or two of the newest Saints on the phone to offer our congratulations and issue unreasonable performance ultimatums on behalf of our Saints fan brothers and sisters on that there internet. Better they hear it from us than for their moms to read it on a message board.

So that’s what we did. Or what we were plannin’ to do anyway, that is until we remembered that earlier in the day, Moongoose had traded his Zippo to an usher in exchange for a Xerox copy of one of them phone number lists they give out so they can call up the guy they’re about to select. Lucky for us, in New York City, you usually don’t have to walk much more than a half a city block before runnin’ into some sort of street fire. We had both had our hands stamped when we got there, so Moongoose used Mickey’s draft invite to get us a flame, and he lit mine up so we could both have one. And we blazed it up for a little while, made a few calls and on headed back to the red VW Microbus for some sleep, so we could look and feel our best when we went back the next mornin’.

Next mornin’ I walked back up to the entrance there, looking like the All American kid. I tell you I was hung down, brung down, hung up and all kinds of mean nasty ugly things. And we walked in sat down and Kiper’s hair was perfect, and right about the time that fella who announces the rest of the picks after the commissioner decides it’s Miller Time was about to get the show on the road, a police officer walks up to us and says to me, he says "Kid, we got a report that there might be some intruders in the process of perpetratin’ some code orange level shenanigans in the general vicinity of this general vicinity, and I’m gonna need to go ahead and check your invite just to make sure you ain’t one of ‘em."

And so I showed him the back of my hand where they had stamped it the day before. It was right about then when I realized that the stamp was from CBGB, and we used our invites the previous evenin’ for flame, and Moongoose and I was about to be in some deep shit. I tried to explain the situation we had found ourselves in the previous night, and I’m not sure why I thought he’d understand, but he didn’t.

"Kid, are you telling me you burned your draft card?"

And I say "No sir! Well, yes sir. But I don’t think you’re gettin’ what I’m tellin’ you here…" and the fella starts jumpin’ up and down and I’m tryin’ to explain and he’s yellin’ "COMMIE! COMMIE!" and jumpin’ up and down there and I’m shittin’ my pants once again and he’s still yellin’ "COMMIE! COMMIE!" and wavin’ his arms up over his head and just really freakin’ out there and Moongoose jumps up and gets right up in the officer’s face and he shouts "Calm down, asshole! We was just callin’ our new friend who the Saints got yesterday!" and the officer asks who we was callin’ and Moongoose does the one thing that considerin’ the situation he never shoulda done. He told the truth.

"We was callin’ Usama"

And the fella starts jumpin’ up and down again and shoutin’ "ENEMY COMBATANT!!! ENEMY COMBATANT!!!" And everybody in the general vicinity there starts shittin’ their pants, and they’re scramblin’ to and fro and steppin’ on each other’s heads and shoutin’ out their Social Security numbers and yellin’ "I’m clean! I’m clean! Run my file, I’m clean!" and before I knew it there was about ten other mean nasty ugly men draggin’ Moongoose and me on down the hall gettin’ injections, inspections, deetections, neeglections of our very own, and all kinds of stuff that they was doin’ to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time goin’ through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspectin’, injectin’ every single part of me, and they was leavin’ no part untouched.

Threw us in a little room there in the back and told us to sit down on the bench and wait for the fella who was gonna be comin’ to ascertain our involvement in the alleged code orange level shenanigans that was reported to be goin’ on in the general vicinity of the general vicinity. And we sat there for a long time until the fella came to the little room there, and he walks in and he’s standin’ above me lookin’ down and he says "Kid, we only got one question. You ever had any contact with a commie?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the 1978 El Camino with the huevos frescos and how we was duped by the misleadin’ ethnic stereotype into buyin’ about a dozen assloads of illegally-imported commie poultry foodstuffs, and he stopped me right in the middle of it and he said "Kid, you ever had any contact with anybody from the middle east?"

And I said "You mean like Kentucky?" and he punched me right in the gut and got right up in my face and said "Kid, on more wisecrack out of you and you’re goin’ on the waterboard!" and I thought that was strange because I didn’t know there was any surfin’ in New York City. And the fella starts yellin’ at me "WHERE’S USAMA?!? YOU’RE GONNA TELL ME WHERE USAMA IS RIGHT NOW, KID!!!" and I tell him I honestly don’t have any idea, but if I had to guess I’d say he’s probably somewhere on the campus of Kent State. And the fella starts mumblin’ "Kent State… of course, it’s always fuckin’ Kent State" and before I know it he’s on the phone tellin’ somebody to get the National Guard out there pronto… and bring tanks.

And the fella pulled me up by the hair and took me back down the hall there into another room where there was a bunch of other fellas in there sittin’ on the benches, and he threw me down on the bench and he told me to wait there ’cause the sargeant was comin’ in to talk to us. And there was a bunch of fellas in there, there was Chinese guys, Arabian guys, Indian guys, African guys, plain old long-haired white guys, and we was all sittin’ on the benches there waitin’ on the sargeant to come tell us what we was gonna have to do to prove we wasn’t perpetrating any code orange level shenanigans in the general vicinity of the general vicinity so they’d let us go home.

Sargeant walks in with a fella behind him wheelin’ in a cart full of books. "You-will-all-stand-up-line-up-single-file-proceed-to-this-cart-select-one-King-James-Version-U.S.-Holy-Bible-you-will-proceed-back-to-your-seat-remain-standing-place-the-Bible-on-your-left-hand-raise-your-right-hand-face-level-elbow-perpendicular-stand-facing-the-flag-on-the-far-wall-wait-for-further-instructions" and he talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we all figured that as long as we had one of them there books and was standing in our spots, we could probably wing it the rest of the way.

So that’s what we did, and we each picked up one of them little books and proceeded back to where we was sittin’ but we didn’t sit down and faced over toward the far wall there and we put our right hand up by our face and the sargeant walked back over and stepped up onto the little stool there and he said "You will repeat the words I am about to say. When we’re done, you’re free to go."

And I walked over to the sargeant, said "Sargeant, you got a lotta damn gall if you’re tellin’ me… I mean, I mean, I’m just sittin’ there watchin’ my American football team select themselves some fresh meat… I mean, I’m just sittin’ there watchin’ and bein’ a good fan like an all-American red-blooded male, and you stick me in a room and you ask me all these crazy questions, and you got me bein’ injected, infected, neeglected, and you put me in here, and you got all these other fellas in here, and we was all just tryin’ to support our American football teams, and you got the National Guard goin’ back down to Kent State, and you got all these mean nasty ugly things goin’ on… and now you’re standin’ there tellin’ me that all I gotta do is hold this here book and stand the way you want me to stand and put my hand where you want me to put it and say whatever words you say, and just as long as I do all that just the way you want it done, I’m innocent and back in the good graces of the U.S. of A.? Just like that?"

Sargeant said "Kid, you’re about this close to asking one too many questions. Just fuckin’ repeat after me and consider yourself damn lucky you ain’t one of these brown or yellow fellas."

And friends, that’s why I’m singin’ you this song right now. Because right this very minute, this here song is bouncing off of some sort of satellite in geosynchronous orbit somewhere over Fallujah, and right into the ears of some fella sittin’ in an office in Washington DC, just like it’s been doin’ every time I’ve sang it in the shower, ever since that day, when I turned around and walked back over to my spot by the bench there, remained standin’, facin’ the flag on the far wall, right hand next to my face with the elbow perpendicular, and repeated after the sargeant… more or less…

You can get anything you want at Loomis’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want… at Loomis’s Restaurant
Walk right in, we’re around the back
Just a half a mile from the Voodoo Shack
And you can get anything you want at Loomis’s Restaurant

And friends, that fella in Washington DC right this very minute is probably wonderin’ why they got him sittin’ at his desk there surveillin’ some American-born long-haired hippie white boy schmuck from Louisiana who can’t carry a tune while he sings this stupid song about a small-school third round rookie and the fella who seelected him… for a half hour at a time… over and over again. And again, and again, and again. And again, and again, and again.

And again. And again.

And all you’ve gotta do if you wanna join the Loomis’s Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement is sing it with me the next time it comes around on the geetar. So we’ll just wait for it to come around again, and we’ll sing it when it does…

We’re just waitin’ for it to come back around on the geetar is what we’re doin’…. alright now….

You can get anything you want at Loomis’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want… at Loomis’s Restaurant
Walk right in, we’re around the back
Just a half a mile from the Voodoo Shack
And you can get anything you want at Loomis’s Restaurant
da da da da da da Loomis’s Restaurant.