WEAPONIZED SPIT

So I have this card game. But it's not really a game. It's actually called "The Ungame," which is supposed to speak to the fact that it's not a game. It's basically a deck of cards with questions on each card. The cards are designed to stimulate conversation. The prompts will be something like "How do you feel about sharing personal problems?" or "Talk about taking risks," shit like that. The point is that you, the card dealer, are supposed to be an active participant, and ask follow-up questions. It can get deep, depending on how vulnerable you're willing to be.

A few weeks ago, I took my deck to a bachelor party. After drinking for half the day, I started giving cards out to the guys we were partying with. After drinking for the other half of the day, I started approaching random people at the karaoke bar, and making them answer the questions. You might be surprised how willing people are to share their personal shit with strangers at a bar!

One random dude at like 1 AM pulled the card "What do you hope to achieve this year?" or something along those lines. He told me that he was in a metal band, and that this year, 2023, was the year that they were finally going to get their shit together and make it to the big time. I promised him that I would look the band up when the Twisted Teas stopped flowing and I recovered from the bachelor party.

Their name was Weaponized Spit. I know this because I wrote it down in my phone memo, with the intention of looking it up. I looked it up. I could not find Weaponized Spit online. Total bummer! Not because I had sincere hopes that Weaponized Spit were going to be the next great American band, but because, I dunno, it would be a funny story to tell. "The Ungame led me to discover this week's Record Club album, created by a dude who sang 'Thunderstruck' at SouthHouse karaoke."

I could not find the band. In the meantime, I found the following:

— NPR says that termites use their spit as a weapon against larger insects. The loogie acts as a sort of lasso to capture them and break them down.

— In March 2020, there was a court argument about whether spit was a weapon under the law, as this would effect the outcome of a ethnic intimidation trial. This argument would coincidentally take on a new life about a month later, with the arrival of COVID.

— "Spit Weapons" are what they call guns in the Judge Dredd universe, whatever the fuck that is.

— Yeah, like I said, things changed after COVID. A man spit in April 2020 and was charged with "perpetrating a biological weapons hoax." There was also the fact that this guy spit on a cop instead of a black teen, and you know how America reacts in those different situations, unfortunately.

— Apparently Godzilla has atomic breath, and this article uses that hook to tell you about cobras who spit their venom.

You should know that I didn't use quotation marks for this search. If you put quotations around "weaponized spit," then like eight hits pop up, and all of them are about reptiles, not music. Let's switch the google search to "weaponized spit band," again without quotations. If you put quotations around "weaponized spit" and add "+ band" outside the quotes, you get ZERO hits. Anyways:

— Here's a song called "Weapon of Choice" by the Aussie hip hop duo Spit Syndicate. It's not terrible. I guess I was expecting all metal music? So the white boy rap is kind of surprising.

— Someone asked Quora "How do you turn your spit into a weapon?" and someone else responded "You don't brush you teeth and eat raw decayed meat," which is somewhat funny. This search result showed up under this particular search because "band" is in the word "husband," and Quora shows other related questions, five of which are variations of "Why does my husband want to spit in my mouth?"

— Here is a weapons website called "Zombie Tools," which reads like some true incel shit, but maybe that's just me.

— This Top Ten list mentions at #4 an album called Nexus by Dayshell. Standout tracks are apparently "The Weapon" and "Spit in the Face." Alright, now this is what I'm talking about. Evanescence-core!!!

— A band called Cancer Priest has a song called "Weaponized Brainstem" and invites you to "spit" on them via email. The big story here is those metal fonts! Love it!!

I remember clearly that I asked Mr. Weaponized Spit whether his band is on bandcamp, and him answering in the affirmative. So let's try one more search: "weaponized spit bandcamp":

— The first song that shows up is called "Spit" by an artist named Gag Reflex. This is UK club music. It's got a nice rhythm going for about five minutes, but that's about it. It shows up here because the label that released it, Scuffed Recordings, has a motto that goes: "Find your next secret weapon."

— The next one is called "Spit on Me" by the artist Qual. It's some drone nonsense, and I couldn't make it through the whole tune. I'm not getting paid for this shit! Qual showed up a bunch in my search, because I guess this song is one of his most popular (I can't imagine what the other stuff sounds like), and his newest album is called Weaponize Your Dreams.

— There's also "SPIT!" by the band SPIT!, a Taiwanese hardcore punk rock band. Hell yeah! Now this is what I wanted to hear when I searched "weaponized spit"! Don't get me wrong, I turned off "SPIT!" after like 30 seconds (mainly because Pam did her classic "what are you listening to?!" shtick), but I appreciate that someone brought the noise to this affair.

— Finally, I stumbled upon a benefit compilation of Philly punk music. The comp benefits the Philly Community Bail Fund. Good shit! It showed up in the search because tracks 4 and 5 are called "Weaponized God" (by Interloper) and "On the Spit" (by Open City), respectively. Pretty normal hardcore sounds, as far as I can tell. The comp begins with DARK THOUGHTS, which is pretty rad. It also includes a cover of "Sheena Is a Punk" renamed "Gritty is a Punk" by a band called the Ramoms, an "all female, ALL MOM, parody/tribute band to the Ramones," which is also rad.

Rad, but not Weaponized Spit. I am forced to reckon with the fact that this man either bullshitted me at karaoke night, or he has not followed through yet with his intentions to get the band together in 2023. That's okay, because that's not really the point. The point of Ungame is to ask someone to be vulnerable, and then to ask follow-up questions that show that you care about that person's courage in their moment of vulnerability. This blog post is my follow-up question. Weaponized Spit, where are you?

Just in case they ever get their shit together, I want to help them get ahead of the game, and so I went ahead and made their logo, using that classic metal band font. See you soon, Weaponized Spit.