A Terrible Mistake You Should Avoid

This is probably goodbye 👋

Hey, gang. Kind of a sad one today. This is something we’ve been building to for a few months now — for a while we told ourselves things would turn around, our minds were deceiving us, etc., but at some point it just became pretty clear that we had made a genuinely tragic error, and that the consequences were irreversible. “Tragic” might be overstating it. We’re certainly feeling a little bit sorry for ourselves, a little bit maudlin. I suppose the world isn’t going to stop turning, and this is mainly just bad news for us. There are lots of great bands out there, and you’ll find them without too much difficulty. We can, I think, be replaced — and unfortunately we’ll have to be.

You see, it has become impractical for the band to move forward. “Why?” you’re probably asking. “Just tell us what’s going on,” you say. And we do owe you that. This tragedy, minor though it may be in the greater scheme of things, befalls us primarily, but I suppose we know that it’s going to affect you all, too, and for that we are very sorry.

Sorry, most painfully, because this was at some level our fault. It didn’t have to happen. We might have — we should have — known that what she was promising was too good to be true.

“She” is Dr. Penny Lamb, our band pathologist. She’s a medical jack-of-all-trades, really, and has taken care of us for years, wearing the hats of a GP, a surgeon, a dentist, and a psychologist — even a drug dealer in our younger, febrile years. Since nearly the beginning she’s been with us, since she jumped into the van at South by Southwest 2004, told us she’d trade medical advice and minor surgery if she could hitch a ride with us back to New York City, where she was due at a medical conference later that week. Keith had gouged his hand on a cymbal during one of our shows — recall the aforementioned febrility — and needed to be sewn up, so Penny’s offer seemed fortuitous, and we accepted.

And for many years it was fortuitous, Penny’s presence in our lives. She saw us through all manner of disorders, infections, relapses; broken bones, luxated joints, cracked skulls; anemia, dyspepsia, of course dipsomania. Her advice was solid. Her cures were effective. Her sutures held. And then she went to Bali.

I don’t say that to suggest that going to Bali is a bad thing, or necessarily involves the corruption of a person’s clinical instincts. Hell, we’ve been to Bali with Penny before (2011 — she administered antivenin to Andy after he obliged a fan by wearing a Malayan Pit Viper for a photo), and it went very well (she also pumped Keith’s stomach when he gorged on too much of our host Tyler’s “tattoo Tuesday” sushi). (She also cleaned out a leg wound I’d gotten surfing — necessary because I slept in a puddle and the gash developed sepsis.)

But this trip was different. On last summer’s trip, Penny went without us, and participated in a conference for alternative nutritionists. Not her first such get-together — Keith’s vegetarianism, my preference for yellow foods, and our collective fondness for alcohol and overnight flights have caused no shortage of nutritive maladies. After this trip, though, Dr. Penny came home offering a prescription that we found very bold, to say the least, and for which she was bursting with irresistible enthusiasm.

We did, it should be noted, try to resist. We hated the idea immediately. Keith was a hard pass, and I thought it sounded fine if observed for two or three hours, but after that…? And this would be full-time, without end date (we have since ended it, believe me). “You’ll love it,” she said. “The effects are immediate,” she told us. “It’s economical, and environmentally friendly,” she threw in, plausibly enough.

What the band doctor proposed, I suppose it’s time to tell you, was a radical change to our diets. What she wanted us to do — my skin crawls even typing this — was to commit ourselves fully to eating just one food. And the single food to which Penny believed we should henceforth have access — I’m not sure I can write the word, an emoji may have to do — ………… 🐦.

Pigeon. 🤢 God, just looking at it on the screen… PIGEON. PIGEON PIGEON PIGEON.

Okay, I’ve broken the seal. I’ll be alright now.

Dr. Penny believed that starting that day — this was announced almost as she hopped out of her airport limousine, if memory doesn’t lie — it was imperative that Keith and I stop eating everything except pigeon meat. Three meals a day, seven days a week. Plus snacks. Little balls of fried pigeon gristle at the movies. Pigeon jerky for a pause on a hike. A flat mash of pigeon slathered in pigeon fat with candles on birthdays.

Was it a tough sell? I won’t bore you with the minutiae, but yes, you bet it was. We fought tooth and nail. We huffed and whined, stormed around in rages, told her we should have left her in Austin. Keith hid under his couch for two days. In the end, Penny’s rhetorical horses dragged us far, far away from anything remotely familiar, and we found ourselves consuming — exclusively (not including drinks) — pigeon.

Nor will I bore you with the many recipes that do in fact exist, some of them remarkably satisfying. I suppose I would say that once you’ve given yourself over to it, pigeon turns out to be a versatile, even chameleonic ingredient. At least for a time. Eventually even booze is unwelcome if you guzzle enough of it, and we shouldn’t ask pigeon to do anything booze can’t.

Penny did, though — she asked of it something booze, unfortunately, for all its charisma, has never been much good at: the rapid, comprehensive, visible improvement of a person’s health. Promises were made, evidence was cited, rigid belief was expressed… In the end we buckled. Penny has always had that effect.

And skipping ahead again, because this is beginning to look like wallowing, I will tell you simply that it didn’t work. The diet didn’t work. It failed. Catastrophically. Had it been a crash test, all dummies were decapitated.

Gang… we messed up. And I don’t think recovery is possible. I mean the pigeon… it fucked us up. Eating pigeon is BAD, and you should not do it. Be safe and don’t do it even once! Whatever you do, do NOT go on an all-pigeon diet for seven and a half months.

Friends… folks… members of the gang… we aren’t vain people. We know there’s more to life than… etc., etc. But we do our work in the public eye. Only one person can be Sia, the rest of us have to make ourselves presentable. And this thing we’re now presenting? It just isn’t going to pass muster.

Big breath. Okay. We trust you. I mean, we trust you to be revolted, but we also trust you not to be too cruel when you describe your feelings. So go ahead and…

Fuck.

Fuck you, Penny.

Go ahead and scroll down.

.

👇

.

👇

.

👇

.

👇

.

👇

.

👇

.

👇

.

👇

.

👇

.

😭

.

👇

.

👇

.

👇

.

👇

.

🥺

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Keith Murray, photographed at approximately 3pm yesterday.

Chris Cain, photographed in his kitchen this morning.

Seven months. Nothing but pigeon. We’re completely fucked.

So yeah, tour’s canceled. Record’s gotta be canceled. We’re indoor guys now. Hermits. This is goodbye. Take a good look. Take a good long look at a damn bad thing.

Take one last, good look. And pray for our souls, which, as you can see, are barreling toward hell on fire.

98% pigeon serum,

Chris & Keith