MIKE PORTNOY IS AVAILABLE FOR BAR MITZVAHS

Watch out! These young bucks are taking over the world.

Yep yep, it’s my birthday. I’m using my “Get Out of Jail Free” card to steal a Mike Portnoy story away from Vince (who usually covers all things Dream Theater-releated), ’cause I know how to party hard, party hard, party hard, party hard, party hard, party hard… [fade out]

ANYWAY, from the perspective of someone who is not as obsessed with Dream Theater as my cohort, this whole Mike Portnoy thing is getting to be pretty pathetic — like, characters from a Woody Allen movie pathetic. Portnoy is like the dude who left his wife of however many years for a younger, hotter, albeit much stupider, woman, and when that woman inevitably got bored by his old saggy balls and inability to shtup ten times a day without the aid of a little blue pill, he begged his wife to take him back. And his wife, to her credit, has been in therapy since he left, and has a new sense of self-worth — so she told him to go suck an egg. And now he’s stuck with this goddamn motherfucking ridiculous Porsche that doesn’t even run right half the time and a big house with no one to fill it.

Mike Portnoy is understandably lonely.

So how he’s dealing with his loneliness? Is he getting some alone time to, y’know, really get to work on Mike Portnoy? Did he join JDate to try and meet someone new? Is he taking that Porsche around to all the hottest clubs in town in an effort to snag another youthful bippy?

Well, kind of — what he’s actually doing is going to the Senior Center for Singles Bingo Night. Which is to say, he’s reuniting Yellow Matter Custard, his Beatles cover band, for the first time in eight years. Gee, I wonder what the occasion is?

This is even sadder because now one of the most skilled drummers in all of rock will spend his time not playing originals, but covers — and not even covers that really require his immense talents. I mean, I love The Beatles — seriously, only Nazis don’t like The Beatles — but when I think “Great Drummers,” the name “Ringo Starr” isn’t exactly the first thing that pops into my head, y’know?

But I get the decision — better to get the old high school garage band back together and remember a simpler time than sit around the house obsessing over the fact that your career just took a sharp detour into Loserville, right?

Or maybe I’m being too hard on Mikey. Maybe there’s nothing sad about his current situation at all. Maybe I should be following his example instead of making fun of him. Fuck it — that’s what I’m gonna do! Vince and I have been friends for a quarter of a century, but as of right now, I’m gonna throw that friendship right in the shitter and quit MetalSucks to go work for The Number of the Blog. I’m sure they won’t quickly tire of my endless stories about how we used to do things in the olden days, right? It’s a sound plan, I think, and it will absolutely not lead to me writing CD reviews for my college newspaper again. Yep, it’s gonna be nuthin’ but smooth sailing for Axl Rosenberg on the Mike Portnoy’s Guide to Life Plan. Happy birthday to me!!!

-AR