Hollie Journey & the Trashfish
Hollie Journey—to you I must apologize. You are my lone exception to the one name only rule. But I trust you will understand why I made an exception. You have the most marketable name I have ever known, and that fact is important to the story. You were named to be a rock star.
Lloydel and I, inspired by Brother Best’s expletive of choice (trashfish) formed a band. At this point, we decided not to let it bother us that neither of us played an instrument. What are studio musicians for, anyway? (Besides, I was convinced I could pick up the pennywhistle in under a week.) Highly satisfied with our progress towards stardom, we stood and invited the entire Parlor on a walk around the temple. Hollie walked in as we were leaving and joined us.
All the way around the temple, Hollie serenaded our company with random snippets of impromptu verse. It didn’t take long for Lloydel and me to realize that her rich, bluesy voice was just what the Trashfish needed. We invited her to join the band and, because of her wildly marketable name, renamed ourselves Hollie Journey and the Trashfish. Hollie suggested we change Trashfish to whitetrashfish and Lloydel agreed. Democracy reigned and the motion passed. But I’m writing this book alone (all by myself), and I still think Hollie Journey and the Trashfish is the better name. So there.
Brainstorming immediately produced our first album’s name (Wheels on a Bus) and four track titles—“Motion Sickness”, “Hepatitis B”, “Ode to Scooby Doo” and “Fishhook Fever”. We then set about actually writing songs. But none of those four tracks took form that night. Instead, we wrote such now-classics as “Apathy”, “Photograph the Devil” and “Fantasm and Pizza.” We were off to an excellent start for our first night, but then Hollie and I fell into bickering. For the next hour or so, we yelled back and forth at each other in heightened Monty Pythonesque accents about absurd things. And so ended March 28th, birthday of the band.
March 29th was to be the last day of the Trashfish—even in subreality. I wrote three more lyric sets that day, including “Trashfish Tour 2000 Theme”:
Floating in a lake
Sinking in a river
Snacking now on scum
Or a picnic’s discarded liver
How I love the reekage
As I slop through the leakage
I am a trashfish
Mellowed with age
I am a trashfish
I am a trashfish
Icky Smelly Sage
I am a trashfish
Belly up in scum
I am a trashfish
Bleached scholastic fun
So watch out here we come, I suppose. I don’t know if that will ever qualify as virtuous, lovely, of good report and/or praiseworthy, but it certainly is trashfishy. I’ve thrown our complete catalogue of songs into an appendix if you’re desperate for more, but if you’re not, skip it. I know some people just aren’t open to trashfish tunes, and that’s okay. (Especially when the band can’t play.)
[gg’t ill]
return to the table of contents
Thanks for revisiting Nauvoo with me. I would love to hear your thoughts.