Q: What Is The Worst Physical Pain You’ve Ever Felt?

A: When I was eighteen this kid’s wild flailing elbow accidentally connected with the underside of my chin in a mosh pit, slamming my lower jaw into my upper at, oh, I don’t know, ninety miles an hour. I can’t even begin to tell you how defeating and agonizing that pain was—my mouth is filling up with saliva right now just thinking about it. My brain almost completely stopped working as I stumbled around like some goofball wrestler, watery eyes agog, moaning and clutching my jaw. Thankfully there was no blood. If there was I’m sure I’d have passed out.

Elbow Guy was mortified and eventually paid for my dental bills. The nerve damage was a little rough (all my food had to be room temperature for a while afterwards, nothing super hot or cold) but the worst part was having a chipped front tooth. I full on looked like Lloyd Christmas. The little piece of fake tooth the dentist tried to glue in there kept falling out (invariably into my room temperature meals) so I eventually told him to forget it. I believe he ended up sanding the chip down. He must have, because that chip was razor sharp. It was a danger to my lips and tongue.

Before you ask, the Great Toof Busting of ’97 occurred not at any storied rock venue like CBGBs but at a presbyterian church in Daytona Beach that at that time was renting out its auditorium to local punk bands. On the bill that night was Kills Competition (the band I went to see), Mass Retaliation (I think), and…uh…that band my drummer friend Dan was in before Brad Get Your Bag. Their name started with a P? Not Preferred 53 and certainly not Piebald. If Geocities was still active I could easily solve this mystery as I kept detailed notes about the Daytona punk scene circa 1997 on that rudimentary blogging device.

The moral of this story: don’t ever have teeth.