Rabbit rabbit.  Fresh cut lawns and lemonade stands.  The light snores of a happy wanderer or two asleep in the park.  It’s spring time and I’m drunk.  Or not drunk enough, perhaps.  I know that many of you are eagerly awaiting the new High on Fire and Future of the Left records (or whatever else it is you’re awaiting), so I thought today I’d share with you a little record that may have flown under the radar to which I was only recently introduced.

It comes to us from the  metal band, Five Finger Death Punch and is entitled “American Capitalist”.   Like you, dear reader, I was a little hesitant based on the artwork and the band’s name, but after popping it into the CD player and actually listening to the damn thing, I was won over.

The first and title track starts out with the typical no-midrange-boner-inducing riff barrage, but quickly stops and over what sounds like a concertina, the lead singer mellowly starts in with the album’s recurrent them of love and loss.  I was expecting some rather banal complaints about capitalism (hence the album’s title), but instead was greeted with the notion that perhaps what the singer, Armond T Featherwood, is referring to is a sort of “spiritual/emotional” capitalist bent on self-destruction.  As the guitars pour (not roar) back in, tasteful interplay between the musician begins.  Instead of the riff barrage, boner jam of the intro, the two guitarists (Moody Price and Jennifer Lally) play off of each other in a call and response fashion that believe it or else, harkens back to the likes of Fugazi.  As Armond continues his tale of alienation, the track slowly builds before stopping, just before the expected boner-jam release.

This careful interplay of tension reminds me of the best post-hardcore acts of the nineties and early aughts, a sort of “tantric” songwriting style that is a testament to the restraint of the band members.

I will confess, though, as the album opens up it’s hard to fully identify with Armond’s tale.  On the track, “The Pride”, Armond seems to be talking about his own impotence through a tale of woe that ends with the protagonist resolving his erectile dysfunction by meeting a woman he has picked up on the street and taking her to a discount motel.  It’s hard not to infer that Armond is talking about a “working woman”, but there is not enough context to clear it up.  Instead it almost feels like a re-telling of Joe Dallesandro’s story in Trash, except it is unclear as to what the cause of Armond’s impotence actually is.

Armond continues to paint a picture of a somewhat reluctant, frustrated lothario: a man who beds women merely because he can but takes little joy out of it.  When he isn’t too inebriated to perform, he goes through the motions, and it’s unclear if he even enjoys sex.  Lines like, “I don’t love you, I don’t like you, but I’ll share with you, I won’t spite you” are offset by similar couplets wherein he cries, “I won, but I don’t care” which reminds me of a sort of darker retelling of the song “Barrier Reef” by The Old 97s wherein Rhett Miller laments a joyless one night stand.  To be honest, this is a big budget record and Armond’s lyrical stylings often leave much to be desired.  Clunkers like “hating it in the hay” and “keep up the keeping up” don’t exactly hum with verbal agility.  It isn’t helped by Armond’s range which is either “screaming” or sort of “talk-singing” like Henry Rollins.

The album then sort of dives into this wallowy, catharsis-free tone through the middle.  These tracks blend together a bit, under the walls of feedback and noise that Jennier and Moody unleash, you do start to hear drummer Franklin Rose open up a little more and lay off of the double bass pedals.  The Jesus Lizard-esque tom work on “Remember Everything” is particularly effective.

The record finally gains momentum again when Armond confesses on “If I Fall” that he has never forgotten the smell of his first real lover’s beard, a sort of eye-opening rebuttal to his tale of sexual woe.  Armond seems to identify more strongly with a repressed homo-eroticism that his tales of house party hookups and sad, empty one night stands belie.  As “If I Fall” opens up, it appears that Armond was struggling with a lifetime of Christian indoctrination which warred with what we can only assume is his true nature.

This idea is underlined in the album closer, the fifteen minute, atmospheric “100 Ways to Hate” in which Armond starts out quietly enumerating all of the things he hates about sex but quickly turns to enumerating all the things he hates about himself, showing that throughout the record Armond was really just hiding from his true nature.  The album raises many questions that it fails to answer, but that perhaps is the answer.  As Armond pursues emotional and sexual capital, he is sort of hollow.  His lust is robotic and it’s hard not draw a parallel between that and the sort of “big business” mentality of insurance companies and the like.  I don’t think that’s precisely what he is saying, after all that’s the sort of generic, unspecific type of rage that looks rather silly when compared with real problems.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of “American Capitalist” and quite shocked that “radio rock” was not just machismo driven, or as ridiculous as I had always assumed.  While I wouldn’t call myself a fan, I have more respect for the band than I thought I would have.

April fools¹.

¹Not only have I never heard a song by this band, I made up all of the member’s names.  I assume it’s probably the same shitty modern metal you’d expect, but this whole thing seemed like a grand idea.  Cheerio.

April 1st, 2012 | Category: WTF | Comments Off

If there is one lesson I’ve learned in my time on this earth, is that I know increasingly less about more and more.  That is to say, I’m hardly any sort of expert on any given topic.  If I say something witty or it sounds intelligent, perhaps it was accidental.  I assure you, I take everything at face value and am completely serious.  I aspire to consider life merely from my own perspective, after all, I have made it this far so I must be doing something right.

Dazzle with brilliance, baffle with bullshit.

Despite my constant assertions that I’m completely full of shit, I was asked a sort of hypothetical question that fuels interesting conversation.  Or at least a soliloquy, which is cathartic.  Textual masturbation.  The question (in typical fashion, I am drawing out the question itself… building the tension, such that the climax is all the more orgasmic… right… christ) was simply: “If you were to start collecting vinyl from scratch, what would you buy?”

Oh you dear, dear, dear sweet fool.  This is such an ego boost, lubricant for a diatribe of harlequin romance proportions.  By that, I am going to infer that you find my tastes far superior to your own.  You are correct.  I am awesome¹.

In all honesty, I can’t tell you what to buy.  I wouldn’t even know where to begin.  But I like this question, so I decided to approach it seriously, only with a few rules.

• Limit it to ten records.
• The records must be either currently in print or so easy to acquire that they rain from the sky.  Sadly, I will not be counting Herb Alpert.
• Assert that they be enjoyed properly: drink in hand, with headphones and no distractions.  A good record should be absorbed.  This is essential to music appreciation and, even more so with music I’d recommend, allows you to really digest the music from the lyrics to the melody, to the little surprises (take the end of “Happy Jack” when Pete sees Keith trying to sneak in to sing, even though he was banned from the booth).

This also affords me the opportunity to retcon my personal taste.  I know I can appear to be much cooler, because now I can pretend that there are no embarrassing musical ghosts in my past.  But I wanted this to be a meaningful exercise, not just hubris.  That moment when you turn someone on to good music is grand, it’s almost a sort of high.  It’s not just the ego-stroking (“OMG, gurl, you are sooo cool”), it really is nice to think you’ve given someone the keys to a world they’ve never known before.

I should warn you, before you continue, that I cannot help but make this list somewhat autobiographical.  I’d like to say these are records, free of context, but the context might be precisely what imparts meaning.  When listened to by someone else, does it mean the same thing?  Of course not, but it may still be wonderful.

More »

March 24th, 2012 | Category: WTF | Comments Off

Ben looked down at the plastic bottle of amber liquid in his paws. The wind whipped through the trees around him carrying the scent of snow and pine. It was cold, but the whisky burned in away that made it not so bad. His hind legs hurt from the gray granite boulders, the snaking roots, and the hard packed clay of the trail.

He looked out at the broken teeth of the mountains on the horizon and closed his eyes.  It wasn’t even that long ago.

She had looked at him, tilted her head and sighed as she opened the door, a vintage red vinyl bowling ball bag stuff to the brim with organic toiletries and threadbare t-shirts.

He had looked up at her. That was the part where he was supposed to say something. “Don’t go, I’m sorry.” Or “I don’t know what is wrong with me.”

He stared into his lap and looked at the wear on his claws.

When he looked back up, she was gone.

The apartment was quiet.

Now he sat under a blue sky amidst the evergreens, just shy of timberline… the trees spreading out, until they were dwarfed and bent in the wind. If it was whisky, it barely tasted like it. It was more like grain liquor with a slight whisky after taste. Like lemon wedges in a glass of ice water. You wouldn’t call that lemonade.

Whisky or not, it was two dollars and it was now lunch.

He raised a shaky paw to his lips again.

The hike was supposed to inspire him… inspire him to paint again or do something. To action. To life.

That was four hours and a few thousand vertical feet ago.

“Hey, hey… you, hey, hang on.” The voice startled Ben and when he turned around, he saw a relatively young chimpanzee in forest ranger garb, his hand like feet poking out bare from the olive khaki trousers.

He made his way over to Ben, while Ben secreted his plastic bottle of rural liquor store hooch under his rain shell.

“Some view, hey fella?” Ben shrugged.

“It’s okay.”

“Okay, it’s the wonder of mother nature!” The chimpanzee had an impossibly midwestern accent. His vowels sounded odd, accented in a way that reminded Ben of conversion vans and little league.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to disturb you, but there’s a fella who’s been missing since last Wednesday in these parts and we’ve been looking for him. If you wouldn’t mind, I could leave you with a flier and maybe if you see something… You know.”

“Sure. Why not?” Ben shrugged. At least if he took the damn flier the ranger would amble off and he could drink.

The chimp reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded up stack of papers that he’d clearly sweat on. Maybe chimps didn’t sweat. Ben didn’t even know. He handed one of them to Ben.

It was a picture of a rabbit. Mottled gray fur. Wide open, bloodshot eyes. He looked thin. Malnourished. It was almost a mugshot, but it wasn’t. The rabbit was holding a fishing rod.

“His name’s Jacob Reynolds, but he just goes by ‘Thump’.”

Ben tried to surpress a chuckle.

“Yeah, I know that’s a silly name for a rabbit, but there you go.”

“What do you think happened to him?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know for sure. He’s older… he could have, forgive me, fallen and broken a hip. Hard to say. His girlfriend is worried sick about him. He’d been drinking a good bit. I guess they were fighting. Horrible business, you know?”

“Yeah.” He could imagine the plastic whisky bottle and hoped the ranger was about to leave.

“I guess he went up here to find himself or something. Oh well, takes all kinds. But if you see him, you let us know. The ranger station is on the way back to the main road.”

“Okay.”

The chimp nodded and turned around, Ben reached under his jacket and stopped when the chimp turned around.

“You know, I’m not as dumb as I sound. I don’t think Thump is the only one who is lost.”

Ben sat there, with his hand in his coat. His mouth felt dry. He wasn’t sure if it was with thirst or something else…

“Well, take care. Keep your eyes peeled.”

Ben turned back to looking off at the mountainscape. The rocks on the peaks were a blue slate spotted with snow.

He didn’t pull the bottle out.

He just breathed slowly, hand still in the pocket gripping the bottle. The wind whispered, whistled, almost speaking to him.

“Ben, look at me!”

She had been staring at him all night. He just looked at the ceiling.

“What is wrong with you? I’m basically asking for it and you just lay there with that million mile stare.”

She was right. They hadn’t had sex in three months and even then it was this mechanical, brutal process. He had been silent the whole time. It felt like a chore and what pleasure was there felt forced. Cheap. As if it wasn’t real.

What had her ploy been, that last night? Have sex with me or I’m going to leave?

If that was her gambit, Ben let her play it out. Go ahead and leave. I don’t care.

He felt broken.

Even then, he didn’t like drinking. It was just something to do. Nights in warm fog and sleeping in. He never really felt the power of his habit until he’d stand up to piss and he’d feel the room sway.

It had been a room, it had been their room, with the television set and the bookcase full of old paper backs, the artwork from their friends. Then it had become an alien place with white walls and an old brown lamp made from a log that was missing it’s lampshade. A mustard yellow recliner and a literal pile of half-read Louis L’Amor western novels. A corner with empty

plastic whisky bottles. Cigarette burns in the dirty, navy blue carpet.

He felt the shadow of the hawk before he saw it. It dove straight for his head.

He barely ducked as the hawk flew back up, arcing up to the midday sun.

“Christ!”

The bird circled back and Ben got up to run, throwing his backpack over one shoulder.

Bears, despite popular belief and thier girt, could actually run. A bear could easily outrun a human. But Ben was drunker than he expected and his bulk didn’t help him.

He slipped and began to tumble down the side of the mountain.

He knew he should have been worried about his life or what would happen to him when he inevitably stopped, but he was more concerned with all the dust that he was surly coated in and… and if it really mattered at all any more.

It wasn’t a deep thought. It wasn’t soul searching. It was more observational. “That child is wearing red sneakers.” Or “Huh, this restaurant has generic ketchup.”

It was almost disinterested and uncaring, as if he was just responding to a request for the time.

“Looks like I’m about to die.”

It hurt, he rolled over broken branches and gained speed, bouncing off of boulders and if he wasn’t going to die, could he at least black out?

He rolled and rolled, like a rag doll. He closed his eyes and just let it happen.

Whatever.

And then splash. Icy cold water. The ripples of light cutting through the surface. A sort of lake.

The water was so cold. Even Ben, with his thick fur and fat felt the chill of it. It was surely from melting snow on the surrounding peaks.

Ben scrambled for the shore, panting.

He lay there for what felt like hours. Whisps of clouds visible just under the edge of the trees. He was cold.

“Maybe I’m going to die of hypothermia.” He said aloud.

The wind replied with a stinging breeze.

He decided it was probably time for that drink.

He reached in for the bottle, half expecting it to have been broken in his fall.

It wasn’t broken.

Maybe.

It wasn’t there.

Ben felt panic rise. Not much, but enough to wake him up. He sat up. He hadn’t felt any emotion except regret at his lack of emotion in a long time. Did this mean he was a drunk?

He looked up at where he came from, an impossibly steep downward slope covered in trees. How had he missed all of those trees?

Why wasn’t he more hurt?

Was he dead?

He almost laughed at that thought. He didn’t believe in any sort of god or afterlife. If this was it, it was boring. Maybe that was it: he was damned to spending his afterlife in the same rut he spent life.

Where did that fucking bottle go?

He began to climb back up the slope. The trees grew thicker as he followed a trail of broken branches and bent grass. His trail, he supposed.

It was hard going. It was steep. Far too steep for all these trees to be growing as normal. On one hand, Ben felt the trees looked valiant. “Take that, gravity! We will grow anywhere and you can go fuck yourself.” Or perhaps they were just arrogant. “Fucking trees, think they’re better than me.”

Ben almost lost it when he said that. That was incredibly stupid. Who talks like that? Furthermore, who talks like that aloud?

“Crazy drunks.”

As he climbed, he noticed another line of broken branches intersecting his.

That was… odd.

He turned around and follwed the new line of mild destruction. It was hard to fight it, the mountain was pulling him down. He had to lean against trees and grab branches as he felt his true mass fighting with gravity at nine point eight meters per second squared.

They had once been happy together. He had been happy too. He had laughed, he had made others laugh. He had been excited to be alive.

What had happened?

“Hello, Ben.” It was his father, calling him as they prepared to meet friends for happy hour.

“Hi.” It had been a few months since he had talked to his father, at the time, and he always felt so odd about it. They never addressed it directly, but he felt like a sort of failure, in the eyes of his father. It was cliche, but he couldn’t help it.

The weight of his father’s expectations travelled with the electrons through miles of copper wire and fiber optics, to collect in his phone. It felt so heavy that Ben didn’t want to answer.

“Ben, I heard it through the grapevine that you’ve been painting.” Of course, he’d been painting. That was what he did.

Of course, Ben’s paintings were macabre scenes of violence and sex, abstract collages of fantastical characters swinging crystal bladed swords. Demons who’s semen looked like fuscia paint that sprayed across a crowd of doughy looking parishioners.

Ben knew where this was headed.

“You’re almost forty, Ben. The paintings are disturbing… I… I’m disappointed in you.”

He hung up.

Ben hadn’t talked to him since.

He saw a flash of red ahead, trailed by the mild destruciton of a fall. But not Ben’s fall.

And there he was. Gray, grayer than the picture, his eyes staring eternally, glassy and big.

Thump had done the same thing Ben had. Maybe he had even been chased by a rogue hawk. Only Thump had not been as lucky.

Without thinking, Ben reached into Thump’s red parka and fished out two empty plastic bottles of gin.

“You too, eh?”

Thump groaned.

“Holy shit, how are you still alive?”

“Gurgle.” Thump didn’t talk but looked up at him, blinking.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Ben opened his wet backpack and pulled out a bottle of water and a silver and bronze reflective “space blanket” he kept for emergencies. He didn’t want to touch Thump, he was afraid if Thump had a broken back or something, he could paralyze him.

He fished out his phone.

No signal.

“Okay, okay, okay. Let me think… you can’t move. Stay here while I go get the ranger.”

He made Thump drink and put some trail mix into his mouth.

“Eat, eat. I don’t want you to die while I’m gone.”

Thump nodded, slowly and chewed.

Ben knew he had to get to the ranger station as fast as he could. This was the time he needed his old college speed back. A young Ben would have already covered a mile in the time old Ben spent contemplating what to do.

Ben began to run.

And run.

His feet kept slamming into the trail, each footfall jarring his body… but it began to blur. He just had to save Thump. He had to save him.

Ben started to cry as he ran.

What was wrong with him? Was he bored? Was he just a jerk?

The sun was low in the sky when Ben arrived, out of breath.

“I found Thump, I found… I…” he gasped for air. “I can show you where he is.”

The chimpanzee ranger walked over to Ben, “My god, that’s wonderful! I’ll get the rescue chopper people on the phone right away. Are you up to finding him again?”

“Yeah.” Ben thought of all the times he hadn’t felt anything, good or bad, and smiled. Not because he was proud of what he had done: but because he felt happy and guilty all at once.

“Yeah, I can help you.”

Maybe it was time to call Beth.

January 5th, 2012 | Category: WTF | Comments Off

“The black and inky seas go up and down, and up and down and that feeling in your guts isn’t sea-sickness is just all that shit you carry with you.  It’s reminding you, in the dark and stormy night, that you’re always full of it.  Shit.  You’re only uncomfortable ’cause you’re weak.  You don’t wanna be reminded that you’re always carrying that shit.”

His hair was stringy and greasy and mostly gray, combed back across the top of his balding head.  It made his forehead look larger and the wrinkles about his bushy eyebrows were more prominent.  Angrier.  But he wasn’t really looking at me when he said this.  He was looking at his hand.  A hooked finger sort of pointing at me.  I looked into my own beer and regretted my decision to stop.

It had been eleven years since I’d been back here and somehow I thought that I’d run into someone I knew.  Instead, this old man, with his tiny sideburns and missing teeth, had decided I needed a lecture about being in the Merchant Marine.  I wanted to ask him if he felt ashamed that he wasn’t in the US Navy, but.. well, his breath could both melt paint and rival a brewery so I imagined that I’d be forced to push off a fight.

His face was slick with mucus and sweat, the waxy cartilage of his ears would slide up my forearms and stain my well worn blue, white, and black Lee flannel.  It was my favorite shirt and certainly not worth antagonizing the old man.

The old instinct rises.

Hard to repress, it gnaws and tears at my nerves as he talks.

A bottle of pop freezing.  The glass cracks.

An over-inflated tire rolling off the rim.  Drawing too much current and throwing the breaker.

It was that nerd “thing”, but maybe more universal than that it was a “young snot” thing.  I thought I grew out of it.  I thought I’d come back here and impress everyone without having to draw attention to myself.  They’d just know.  To see anyone would have made me feel better.  I clutched the binding of the two records I bought before I came in here: a used copy of Yank Crime and a reissue of Pass and Stow.

The snot instinct is so hard to repress.  The need to “tell someone off”, it’s some sort of unbalanced ego thing.  Was it really any different than the guys who go from sports bar to sports bar looking for some combination of genital to genital interaction and fisticuffs?  Both were ultimately less about the experience and more about ego.

Because if you liked to fight, you liked to lose.  You wanted that “alive” feeling of hitting the concrete, the cold hard smack to the back of the head and the jarring of your brain against bone.  It was a wake up call and the concrete skinned knuckles and broken glasses were a vital part of that experience.

These guys were about ego, and if I was honest, I was too.

“The thing about the sea is that it’s just you.  It’s like one  of those things… like man… ah.. in stories?  What are they?  The conflicts?

I finished a gulp of my warming Old Style.

“Conflict… man vs man, man vs nature, man vs himself, man vs the supernatural, man vs society.  I think that’s it.”  I offered.

He nodded and smacked me weakly on the back, almost as if he regretted or feared the action.

“Yes, it’s man vs nature…. no…”

“I think you mean it’s ‘man vs himself’.  The sea…”

He smacked me again and cut me off.

“Yeah.  Ssss’exactly.  Exactly.  Exactly.  It’s man against himself.  The sea is jus’ some… a thing.  You put you on it.  Like the sea is your own shit.  Just thrown back at you.”

“Huh.”

I just wanted to come back here and rub it in their faces.  I wasn’t just the quiet nerd in the back of the room.  I’d tell Jesse and his shitty Ramones wannabe band that they were a bunch of glammed out poseurs.  I’d always wanted to tell him that if he’d been less obsessed with dressing like he was in Motley Crü, he could probably have been in one of the many lineups of Screeching Weasel.  I’d tell Mandy that it was a good thing that she’d never given me the time of day and spent all that time pining after Nick who couldn’t give a shit who he fucked as long as it was regular and they’d show up to his shows and stand up front and watch him bitch into the microphone about emotions that he only vaguely understood.  Yeah, feel sorry for that fucker.  It must be hard to get laid so often.  That’s not heart break, that’s narcissism, you fuck wad.  Nick and the thousands of other douchebags, the Jobriath to Bowie of shoe-gazy indie rock in every major city in the US.   That isn’t true, either.  I just wanted to see Mandy and her short black hair show up in her “When it Pains, It Roars” t-shirt and her librarian glasses.  To see her curvy frame and listen to her tell another story about her deadbeat room mate and his dog that could survive anything from eating batteries to getting hit by a rattling moped.

“You see, young man.  It’s not just the sea… it’s anything.  Almost anything is really about you.  It’s not about what… whatever it’s about.  It’s really… it’s really about you.  The gov…” the old man hiccups.  ”ernment.  All those… rich… the rich fuckers and shit.  It’s not always about them.  It’s about you.  Cause the sea, or the whatever is just a canvas to measure yourself against.”

“Another round?”

The old man nodded and the shit in my guts refused to settle down.  Nothing ever changes.

Dischord deserves props for so many things, but affordable reissues make for handy stocking stuffers.  It (mostly) prevents record regret (not buying something when you see it: which is why I wish I was more into vinyl when Mclusky was still kicking.  I remember passing on buying “Do Dallas” on vinyl because all I had was a shitty portable turntable.).  They need to reissue more Lungfish, though.  Now if Touch and Go would follow… luckily I always stumble across weird backstock: I’ve managed to collect a number of Big Black singles and even picked up a deadstock copy of “Two Nuns and A Packmule” off of eBay from the late 90s.

October 22nd, 2011 | Category: WTF | Comments Off

The pathways of feet and bicycles are the maps of arcana that chart the world: learn the secret ways and a city shall unfold itself to you.  Because once in every person’s life, they should crest that hill and look out on the lights and feel as if “yes, this world is mine.”  It’s not true, of course, but it is an empowering feeling and I feel a great pang of sadness for anyone who has never felt it: fueled by the equal parts cheap lager, music, and hubris I felt my legs burn as I reached the top of the hill.  The city was mine.  You can chase me, but I know all of the back ways.  You can mock me, but I know worlds you’ve never seen.

The driver of the Audi that calls you “faggot”.  The woman in the minivan that tells you to “get off the fucking road” while her kids squeal and dribble in the back seat.

Unbeknownst to them: the world is an ugly place and beauty is not found in the placid, waxy complexions of the traditionally attractive things as much as it in in the nooks and crannies.  Sweaty house shows, impromptu dance parties, hours spent writing and drawing away from other souls.  Stripping down and swapping clothes in a parking lot.  Alley cat races.  Chance encounters.

The city has it’s secrets.  The lines of energy that flow from party to bar to party to home to study to sleep to love to make love to cry, are not visible to the casual observer.  That’s what bothers me the most: the casual observer.  Afraid to get their hands dirty or disagree.  Send aid to China.  Sponsor a child.  But the shaking, hungry hands that have certainly made mistakes belong to human beings with as much rights as they.  The roads belong to the cyclists as much as the SUV drivers.

The world, despite the high of that climb, is not mine nor yours, individually.

If it weren’t for hours alone with books and punk rock records (which includes hardcore, post-hardcore, and indie and all things that the Ramones unwittingly inspired and Black Flag made possible… yes, if you play indie music you owe more to Black Flag than the Beatles.  Suck it up.), I’d be a different person.  If I’d been popular in school or beautiful or rich, I’d be less than I am.  All of those experiences, from sadness and heartbreak, to secret pride, made me who I am… an explorer of secret paths, because I found beauty where others saw ugliness and there is more beauty to be found.

If you visit a strange land or move to a new town, find the other explorers.  You won’t see them on television or in the papers, but you can find them if you keep looking.  My credo as a tourist: get drunk with the locals.  Fuck the chain stores and pre-packaged, sanitized for your protection, “adventures”.  Give me the blood and the sweat and the tears.

If you do nothing else today, take this trite aphorism to heart: learn something new.  Do it on your couch.  Do it on your bike.  Do it on your feet in a strange part of town.

Just do it…. aw, shit.  Fuck you, Nike.

(Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is a good read, and an okay mini series, about secret magic worlds.)

October 16th, 2011 | Category: WTF | Comments Off

It was going to be a bad day.  The toast had burned, he’d spilled coffee everywhere, and worst of all… his socks matched.  Nothing was as unlucky as matching socks.  Well, except for those times when you’d hold the door open for someone and stand in precisely the wrong spot: between the aforementioned someone and the door, making it less helpful and more of an inconvenience.  Hoot hated that and it was exactly about as unlucky as you could get.  It was a full cup of hot coffee unlucky, because the full cup of hot coffee was always willing to spill just a bit of it’s contents on your pants or your shirt.

Hoot always told himself he was a night person.  Really, a night person.  It was biological and it wasn’t his fault: he was meant for hunting in darkness, not sitting in a sound booth, flipping through records at four in the morning.

Ugh.

Mornings were just horrible.

“Hey Hoot, you’re looking a little out of it?”  Billy Badger was always too upbeat, he was too happy.  He wasn’t bubbly, he didn’t come up to you and slap you on your back and ask you about “the weekend” and chortle and laugh and tell jokes that were not appropriate.  He was just happy, all the time.  It was one of those character traits that was nice at first, but then just grew to be annoying.  Because no matter what happened, there was always “a bright side” and “it could always be worse”.  Yes, Billy, it could be worse: you could have to listen to yourself for another ten fucking minutes.

God.

Hoot rubbed his face as he put on the brown, crackling headphones and pushed the button on the console.  It was 4:59 and it was about time for him to start.

His intro kicked in, an instrumental loop of The Meter’s cover of “Darling, Darling, Darling” with a husky female voice saying: “Night owls who’ve missed the last call to dream town, it’s not too late.  Settle down with the smooth sounds of Hoot, the morning owl.”

“Morning Nutley.  It’s one of those days already, when the sad sighing world just seems to be the backup vocalists for your own ennui.  Let’s start it off a little slow this morning, my coffee’s not kicked in, so here’s Jimmy Smith to mellow you up in the AM with ‘Fungii Mama’ wakey wakey.”

God, I sound stupid.  I can’t believe anyone listens to this shit.

He rubbed his face.  It was unlucky, unlucky, unlucky.  Feathers fell out and drifted down to the mustard and brown nylon carpet at his feet.  This place was falling apart.  If it wasn’t the doors that never quite shut right, it was the seats that squeaked or the bathroom stalls that desperately needed a fresh coat of paint.  But every weekday morning, you’d find Hoot here before the sun.

“You’re an owl.  You’ll be fine.  It’s ‘pre-morning’ morning.  You’ll still be up.”  At least that’s what Jonah the English Bulldog always told him, as he sucked on his cigars, which never seemed to be lit.  For all Hoot knew, he smoked or pretended to smoke the same cigar every morning for the five years that Hoot had worked at the radio station.

He must smoke it, I mean his voice sounds so gruff.

“One Last Hoot: predawn for night owls” was how they marketed his show.  He’d take calls and discuss anything, play “mellow” music and generally loathe every minute of it.

Hoot picked up an orange brown glass ashtray by the console and tossed it in his hands.

I should just throw this through the glass and leave.

Hoot’s next choice was Bright Mississippi from Thelonious Monk.  The phone’s switchboard lit up.

Not now!  Ugh, if I could just take a nap.  Play something long.  These people never leave me alone.

The lights slowly quit flashing, until one sole white square was blinking in the relative darkness of the studio.  The song ended.

“Hello, this is Hoot, you’re on the air and don’t bother with that introduction junk.  The less we know, the better.”

“Hi Hoot, I gotta say…” the man, who’s voice was shaky and hoarse continued, “normally, normally I’d be really bummed at your cliched selections this morning, but… but I’m really hungover… sh-”

Hoot cut in.

“No swearing, FCC and all.”

“Yeah, sorry…” the caller continued, “I drank so much gin last night that my breath still smells like gin and I’ve got to be at work in three hours, at the latest.”

“Take a sick day, drink a tall glass of water, and hit the hay, man.”

“Can’t do it.  Burned ‘em all already.”

Hoot guessed how this was going to go.  Hoot would chastise the man a little, the man would hang up in resignation and another caller would tell Hoot about how much they hated so and so, and on and on.  Hoot would finish his three hour show and take the bus home, where he’d get wedged between a retired school teacher and a retired housewife, one would smell like cabbage and the other would smell like some kind of horrible fish and he’d sit down in his tiny one bedroom apartment, drink a warm glass of milk and go back to sleep.

Then he’d get up, and do it all again.

It was a bit maddening.

“Well, ” Hoot began, “why don’t you drink that glass anyway and find something low pressure to do at work.  Clean up your desk, or finish up some lingering paperwork.  Can you manage that?”

Silence.  Deep breath.

“Yeah, I think so.  I think so.  Should I take a nap first?”

“Nah.  Do that and you won’t wake up at all.”

“Okay.  Thanks, Hoot.”

“Yeah.”

Hoot never said more than “yeah” when some one would thank him.  He didn’t know what else to say.  He never felt like he had done anyone any favors or even helped them in the slightest.  He was lucky to have a job, much less one that wasn’t complete crap.

The phone lit up again.

Hoot ignored it and started “I Love You” by Coltrane.

Whoever it was hung up.  Hoot was alone again.

Today it was a hungover man, tomorrow it would be a woman who was upset that the bus wouldn’t pick up her kids in her unincorporated township.  Didn’t these people have better things to complain about?  Didn’t anyone want to talk more about Jazz or regale him with an interesting story?

Hoot had left his boyhood home of Oak Woods some time ago, finding that it was boring boring boring.  Nothing ever happened and they all had the same single-minded ideas.  His uncle recited the same hard line view that he learned from his father and though his uncle was one of the most respected, wisest, blah blah blah people in the community, Hoot didn’t think that someone “that wise” would just go through life without questioning what he had been taught.

The phone rang again.  It wasn’t a caller.  It was Woodward from accounting.

Woodward Weasel or “Oodie” (say “ew-dee”) as he liked to be called was an okay sort of fellow.  On days when Hoot had to stay for a staff meeting, Oodie always liked to get lunch with him.  He wasn’t adventurous or anything, but Oodie definitely enjoyed some of the better local eateries: fruit berry worm quiche at the little French bistro four blocks from the office, spicy ginger cashew cicadas at the Asian fusion place, etc.

The curse of the day hung heavy over Hoot as he answered the phone.

“Hey Hoot, I’ve got bad news.”

Here it goes.

“Well, ” Oodie continued, ” we are going to be taking you off of the pre-dawn show.  In fact… don’t…”

Hoot sighed, a sigh that bordered on a sort of long, well, hoot.

“We decided to cut your program altogether, Hoot.  Sorry.  I’ll buy you some mice meat Pho, okay?  No hard feelings.  The economy and all.”  That’s what he’s going to say.  ”See you later, Hoot.”

What Hoot really wanted, sometimes, was to travel back to being that little owl back in Oak Woods, to his endless afternoons of exploring the woods by himself after school.  Then he wouldn’t get phone calls about how poorly things were going on a day that was about as unlucky as possible.

Oodie kept going. “We need you to take over the late night slot on Friday and Saturday.  It’s actually a bump in pay.”

Hoot was speechless.

“Really?”

Oodie laughed, “Yeah.  Ricky Redbreast decided to retire.  Between you and me, he said some rather inappropriate things to that temp receptionist and when it got back to Jonah, he was not happy.  They basically made him retire.”

“I can see that.  Ricky was a misogynist in denial.”

“What do you mean?”

“He would always say stuff like ‘that asshole can suck my dick’, but he was always talking about the women he went out with and… you know…”

“Oh yeah.  I get it.”

“Yeah, if ‘suck my dick’ was an insult, what did he think of the women who actually did… you know.  Like he hated them or something.”

“You’re kind of reading into it, Hoot.  But anyway, he had a long career.  His show was on the air for almost twenty years.  Jonah thought you’d like nights better anyway.  I gotta go, though.  Plus, you’re still going to have to do the pre-dawn show for another week.”

“Okay.”

Hoot sat there, in shock.  It was shaping up to not be an unlucky day after all.

The phone rang again.  It was a caller.

“Hola, Hoot here, what’s bothering you today?”

“Nothing…” the voice was small and delicate.  ”I just wanted to say that I really like your show, Hoot.  I listen to it when I’m running.  I don’t know what I’d do without it.”

Hoot suddenly wanted to tell the young woman that he was sorry.  He wouldn’t be on in the morning much longer, but he didn’t think he could say anything this soon.  He was unsure of how to proceed.

She sounded young and if she got up that early to run, maybe she was a doctor up before her early morning shift at the hospital.  She probably drank coffee from a French press as she read the New York Times and did the crossword in pen.  Here it was, Hoot gets a promotion and a perhaps smart, fun, attractive young woman finally had the guts to call him and thank him for his work and Hoot was going to have to let her down.  Either that or lie to her.

Damn you, Oodie.

Maybe it was an unlucky day, after all.

October 5th, 2011 | Category: WTF | Comments Off

I was desperate to find it.  A stupid thing, really.  Asinine and a waste of time.  A jacket.  Because shopping on line is a double edged sword: the benefits of not having to talk to human beings face to face and the paradoxical problem of not supporting local business, I eventually bought a jean jacket in a flesh and blood, brick and mortar store.  I had this thing in my mind: my skinny grey Levi’s, beat to shit white Vans, and a skinny fit trucker denim jacket.  It was this look I was after.  Somewhere between Americana country and 1978 London.  I think.

I wore that jacket tonight and yes, it carries some weird karmic reverence.  Every gig I played with my last band, I wore that jacket before, and it was kind of this emotional shield, sort of thing: if I could get up and sing and play a guitar in front of strangers in this goddamn thing, then I should be able to do anything.  Of course, that’s a rather shit filled cop out as I sort of like the anonymity of the stage.  Bother.

That’s how my night shifted, but that’s not the meat of it.  That’s just our literary foreplay (pray that me calling it “literary” is not pretentious and rather just a device for me “getting over” whatever hang ups I may have about writing for other people, because I think it is, but as neuroticism goes, I just can’t be fucking sure).

No, what really got me interested in writing here is re-watching The Quiet Earth, a movie I have not seen since I was a teenager.  That was an interesting phase… I did this thing where, because my friends mostly consisted of the voice of Anthony Civorelli (Gorrilla Biscuits, CIV) and such (The Fist of the North Star manga was also something I read too many times, thanks Kenshiro, maybe I’ll put fingers in your chest at some point… wait, that sounded homo-erotic… maybe it is/was/is?), I ended up renting every Sci-Fi movie in our little local video store and that, along with shit like Def Con One and good stuff like A Boy and His Dog, ended up in my VCR.

So I stole/re-watched the movie with my girlfriend and the director (in the commentary) said something very concisely that I mean most sincerely: “a little obscurity is a good thing”.  This is why I want to forget the Star Wars movies.  Don’t explain everything.  It’s better, as both a consumer and creator (this, by the way, is a rather passive-aggressive way of saying “pay attention to my writing and the music I never let anyone hear anymore”, that is to say… pathetic), to have to use my imagination.  Here is the thing that so many people don’t understand: I rather get most of reality.  I know and understand (goddamn empathy) why you think it’s okay to wear shit like Crocs or why cargo shorts seem like a good idea and why you think “Tool is the greatest band ever” (when I often feel like they are the hair metal version of The Jesus Lizard or tons of artists on Amphetamine Records with a dose of Big Black).  Subjectivity and all that aside, I think I totally undersand the emotions underlying both of those things… I empathize.  Maybe too much.

But the world, life and all that shit/rot, are (in some ways) too easy to understand.  There are no gods or devils and man kind of just fucks himself over, again and again and on.  Well, that’s rather stupid yet it is what it is and all that rot/shit/rot/shit/biscuits.

Don’t explain everything.  I want to look at a painting and bring something of myself to it’s interpretation.  I want to hear a song and connect it with my own experience, not with the singer’s/writer’s/team-of-writers-churning-out-shit-for-pop-tarts’s's’s-es.  What ruins things like Star Wars more than anything is this contradiction to the world I had fantisized.  My fantasy was valid too… the blanks left by the film, I filled in with my own emotions and experiences and dreams.  I remember falling asleep after watching (and taping on my shitty Repcon VHS tape in ELP) Empire on TV for the first time and imagining all that the movie didn’t tell me.  The extent of the base on Hoth, the white uniforms and what the sleeping quarters must have looked like.  That was my brain building on Lucas’ (and other’s) ideas.  So coming back, years later, and filling in the blanks is more about fucking with my personal vision than it is about making art.  After all, it’s not like Picasso stopped banging stupid art students because he had to come up with a reason for the Three Musicians to be together.  (I call it, the “Special Edition” and the guitarist came first!)

A little obscurity goes a long way.  I don’t really want answers.  Answers are too final and life, while I’m/you are alive, is not.  Not yet, at any rate.  So let it be open ended.  Let others fill in those blanks.  That’s really sort of the essence of art: making other people use their imagination as much as you used yours (if not more).  Anything else is masturbating in the mirror, and Jesus, man… you need to stop that.

September 30th, 2011 | Category: WTF | Comments Off

“Hey!  Hey you!  Come back here!”

The engine revved and the 1993 rusty black Ford Ranger jerked up next to him.

Was this happening?

His backpack was rather full and in the early evening sun, as the light began to fade, he still felt droplets of sweat pool up in the small of his back.  His legs were sore, sort of a pleasant sore that is the result of having “done something” that served as a reminder of a long morning ride up into the mountains and back only yesterday.  He hated the mornings, but mornings were when he accomplished most.  It was in the morning that his mind seemed to click into gear and his body hummed along accordingly.  Whether it was at work, or on a chilly Indian Summer weekend morning, it was near dawn that he performed optimally.  But he hated mornings.

When he had been younger, a boy who worked in the Moser Lumber Yard had told him that the boy was cursed with a sleeping disorder.

“Why?” He had asked the boy, who was five years younger and gangly and whose acne broke the smooth, yellow waxy lines of his forehead.

“Because I just cannot get up in the morning.”

He felt like smacking the boy, who had also told him that the hoverboards from Back to the Future were real and that one day, the boy would be a billionaire.  The latter being a more possible scenario, he had still mocked the boy.

“Well, when you are rich, send me a hover board.”

Never-the-less, mornings were horrible but he got up and rode anyway.  He felt self-conscious, his stubby legs and floppy midsection stretching his jersey and the tight front of his bib shorts, but he did it anyway.  Today, today though he felt sore.

Pleasantly sore.

He had, despite the soreness, sprinted to a little bodega, tucked away on a side street in an old shoe store, whose owner always had unique, what can cheaply described as “ethnic” ingredients.  Walking into the crowded store, with it’s walls adorned in pre paid calling cards and posters of African footballers from ten or fifteen years ago, you were nearly blown back by the smell of tamarind and sandalwood, incense and spices.  He found lamb shoulder and faded cans of chick peas right away.  Then he spent time mulling over his options in spices: Spanish paprika or Hungarian?  Smoked or not?  Sweet or hot?  Then it was on to cinnamon… should he get real cinnamon or cassia?  Cassia being what is commonly called “cinnamon” in the United States, while real cinnamon was more subtle and less bold.  Vietnamese cassia… then cumin, but which one and could he grind it himself?

Home.

A leg over the saddle and the weight of his groceries on his back: two cans of chick peas, a can of diced tomatoes, rather generic flat bread, cassia, paprika, crushed arbol chilies, two onions, baby spinach, and fresh garlic.  The cans rattled around, threatening to break the spice jars.

His last minute mission, a Morrocan stew made in a slow cooker, was nearly complete when the truck creeped up on him.

“Hey you!”

As a cyclist, he was used to being harassed by all manner of motorists.  ”Fag!” “Get off the street!” Horn bleats from angry soccer moms lost in the city, whose frustration in trying to find parking for the children’s museum was only exacerbated by a “goddamn fag biker”.

Nice language lady.

He could see her son gumming an animal cracker, the remnants of it’s hippo and lion brethren mashed against his rosy red cheeks.  He reached out for him as he rode by.

Better not engage her.  Just keep going.  She’s had a rough day.

“Hey, listen to me when I’m talking to you!”

He wanted to say, “I can’t help but listen… you’re yelling.”

He chose to ignore him.

He tried to glance over discreetly.

The truck’s fenders were mangled, close calls with other cars and botched parking jobs, perhaps.  The driver was a chubby old Hispanic man, who’s graying ponytail hung limply behind his faded “Sturgis 1994″ t-shirt.

“You fucker, listen to me!”

He revved the engine and the truck veered hard right and the world changed in a few quick motions.

The red and gold conversion van in front of him.  GMC almost in his face.

Off the bike.

The cans rattled.

A shirtless man drinking a Miller Chill yelled out.

“Get him!”

He imagined that there was this subtle tension between these men and himself.  That there was unspoken hatred of the young college-educated kids who had moved into the neighborhood.  This was some type of class war.  The shirtless man must also hate cyclists or perhaps just feared them.  Feared that the world was changing into something he didn’t understand and, therefore, didn’t like.

Or not.

“Hey,” the driver leaned over and he could smell cheap beer and even cheaper whiskey on his breath.  ”Hey, I saw you texting on your phone!  You can’t do that, you idiot!”

He hadn’t been texting… he had pulled out his phone to check the time, but should he bother correcting him?  The man looked old and sweaty.  The truck was filled with smashed fast food bags, one from Burger King advertising the two thousand and ten Winter Olympics, and the bench he sat on was ripped and torn, yellowing foam poked out here and there.

“Hey, you stupid fuck, I’m a cop!  I’ll take you in.”  He looked at him with watery, almost pleading eyes.

He knew that was a lie.  The man was sloppy drunk, nearly slurring his words, at five in the afternoon.  If he was a cop, he was drunk driving.  It was easy to imagine, however, that the man was a cop.  From the truck and the age of his shirt, perhaps he had been a cop, and a biker, not the bicycling kind, back in the mid nineties.  He had been younger and thinner, his hair had been fuller and dark.  His wife had been sexy and slim, smoking cigarettes and taking their daughter shopping to find a dress for her quinceanera.

Then he’d grown frustrated.  He was forty something and his life was slipping by.  He was stuck with his wife and his daughter.  His wife, the red headed Irish American firecracker who been excited to make love in the back of his Trans Am to Molly Hatchet and REO Speedwagon, had grown thinner and more gaunt.  Her skin had grown leathery and her hair dry and she was… worse.  She was boring.

So he began to drink and it wasn’t a problem until he crashed his cruiser into a Jersey barrier on the Interstate and had tried to blame the incident on a blown out tire.  Internal affairs had cracked down on him and they had warned him, but it just made it worse.

Now he was buying fifths on duty and pouring them into nearly empty cups of coffee from Dunkin Donuts.  Then, on a routine stop, a woman in a champagne gold Toyota Camry had called him in and he’d been put on probation.

Then it continued to fall apart and that high point, the summer of 1993 when he and his wife road his Harley Softtail to South Dakota, seemed to disappear on the horizon.  He sold his bike when he was finally let go and his wife kicked him out.  He sold it to pay the first and last months rent and buy a big screen tv.  The rest he lived on as he could, picking up odd jobs, and as he drank and drank, his old Sturgis shirt filled out and whenever he bothered to drink a cold glass of water, he remembered South Dakota and stopping at Wall Drug, the tourist trap that promised “free ice water” up and down the highways of the midwest.

Maybe the man had been a cop, but the cyclist didn’t buy it now.  He did, however, think all these thoughts which were perhaps a fantasy, and suddenly feel bad for the old man.

He had been inclined to call the police and report a drunk driver who had nearly put him off the road.

I should call the police, right?

But the man was sad looking and shabby and the cyclist had certainly, foolishly and dangerously, driven drunk.  What if the cyclist called him in?  Would what was left of the man’s world come crashing down?  Could he live with himself for ruining the life of someone else?

True, the old man had certainly done it to himself: no one forced him to drink or shut down on his wife.  Still though, the cyclist didn’t feel right about turning the old man in.  Though the old man may certainly kill someone with his driving.  He’d nearly killed the cyclist.  But the cyclist still felt shaky.  He felt as unsure about reporting the old man as he had about choosing cassia over cinnamon.

“Okay.”  He said, at last.

“Yeah, well… okay… I’m drunk.  We are both in the wrong.  Three for three.”  The old man said, nodding to himself.

“Yeah.  So… okay.  I won’t text.”

“Okay, brother.  Don’t text.  Just don’t text.”

The driver backed up his pickup truck and drove off slowly, but the cyclist followed  a half a block behind.

The truck pulled over and the driver stumbled out, almost falling to the curb.  His faded white Nike trainers caught some leaves as he made his way to the fence.  A woman walked out of the red brick house and opened the gate for the old man.  She was young and lovely, her brown skin contrasting against the red plaid of the western shirt she was wearing.  Her hair fell over her ears and her eyes glimmered as she walked over to help the old man.

“Dad, you’ve got to stop drinking.  Let’s go inside and sit down, okay?”

He nodded and winced as he walked.

The cyclist smiled and turned around, he had a stew to make.

September 27th, 2011 | Category: WTF | Comments Off

On a beer slicked floor, beneath the cracked, rattle can black ceiling tiles of a Denver bar, I sang-screamed at a band and they sang-screamed with me. Throats raw and hearts beating in our ears, the crowd hugged each other and shook their fists, swayed, and danced through the night. As the stage swayed with people, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I was overcome with an impending grief. Was this the end? Was this the last song?

Let me <ahem> get this off of my chest: Hearts of Palm (or Nathan & Stephen, depending on when you first encountered them) should have been famous. I will say it again and again (and again and again). It is a highly subjective, rather firm thing to say, but I wanted to get it out of the way. I don’t know them personally, but I had seen them play together many times since I first saw them at a show over three years ago and I was convinced that they would sweep the world. It was probably a stupid notion, but it’s a persistent one. They really seemed like a band about to take everyone’s hearts the way they took mine.

It wasn’t just a “last show” which felt like truly one of the “last shows” (as the singer Nathan is moving away it will be much harder to surprise the Baker neighborhood with a reunion one-off).

Bands breakup everyday. And just as the breakup, they form.  As Mr Stephen Malkmus put it, “new bands start up, each and every day”.  So what? Why should I care?  Another band dies, we could call it cyclical music unemployment.

It wasn’t just that Nathan & Stephen were a talented collection of musicians (with music you don’t have to be a technical virtuoso to thrive and those with excessive technical prowess are really only good at the musical equivalent of masturbation… and who’s that good for save the player and the sick few who like to watch), but the songwriting and arrangements were excellent.  The band, comprised of a small horn section, multiple guitars (even jumping up to a Moby Grape three at times), the synthesizer (which was often employed more as an electronic organ or as a Rhodes piano, as in “Give Em Hell”), bass, drums, and (of course) a vocalist.  The brother who is leaving for Nashville, Nathan McGarvey.

(That alone has the makings of a movie: leaving the mountains for the lights of the Grand Old Opry, with dreams of steel guitars and Nudie Cohn suits.)

The eclectic line up, like all things indie, has its roots in punk (if you want to bother finding that line, be my guest), but the multi instrument approach, perhaps made more famous recently by Daniel Smith¹ (aka Brother Danielson, Danielson Famile, etc) and his progeny (Sufjan Stephens contributed to earlier albums before going off on his own) was fun and different enough (even if it seems like a poor man’s Polyphonic Spree… god, I feel like an asshole for saying that because it’s just not true at all).  It’s hard not to think, though, that the horns and the piano really link back to AM television infomercials for Time Life CD sets.  This is perhaps a stretch, but it seems like it’s a common enough experience to have been a child, home sick from school or on a weekday during the summer, watching the Price is Right and glimpsing ads for CDs that included seventies singer song writer hits from Carol King to Billy Joel and those sounds (the brassy horns, the only slightly uptempo drums under a Rhodes piano riff both really inspired by the sounds of Stax and Motown, only with less raw sex appeal).  And what child who grew up in a religious home wasn’t familiar with choral inspired arrangements from Psalty the Singing Song Book to The Music Machine (“have patience, have patience, don’t be in such a hurry”)?  More than that, the sound just under the palm muted guitar reminds me of watching the AM Gold ads and seeing soft glow video clips from the Old Grey Whistle Test of Curtis Mayfield or Rory Cochrane.  Whether or not we all share those influences, that’s what it always makes me think of.  “Love Will Keep Us Together” and Mr Roper and What’s Happening Now? (Thanks, Nick at Night.)

Nathan’s lyrics had a way of both telling a story (Valentine) and using the same sort of free flowing, stream of consciousness disconnect employed breathlessly by Jeff Mangum (“And it’s so sad to see the world agree / that they’d rather see their faces fill with flies”) or mildly by the likes of Eric Bachmann and Phil Elvrum (the Microphones) and countless other indie greats (Calvin Johnson, hell even Dough Martsch). It never got to the “marbles in the mouth” moments of Mangum singing around the rim of a verse or Bachmann’s infamous near homonym schemes in Web in Front (“overdone, overdrive, overlive, override”).

(Were they perhaps both inspired by HR’s verbal diarrhea blitzkrieg in “Pay to Cum”?  Because holy shit, that song makes “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” seem like a “Daisy, Daisy” number.)

More so than a pop song, whose lyrics are at best trite and at worse truly asinine, this style can invoke feelings in a way that even a good story teller can struggle to convey. It is different for each listener (and I’d posit that many self avowed “fans” of music don’t really listen to the lyrics… this is my only explanation for all of the right wing “hardcore” fans that can listen to, say, Black Flag and not understand the deprecation or black sense of humor involved in a song like “Slip It In” and the joke isn’t “ha ha: what a whore”). As a human being, though, relating to art of any sort is about experience. It is not a prerequisite, in the purest sense… or is it? Is it possible that we can cry when watching the first fifteen minutes of the Pixar film “Up” because we too sacrificed our lives and lost our loves? Or is it that we can understand that level of desperate, impotent sadness? Somewhere in most of us these feelings were touched. Some experience in our life was similar, even if it was a pale form, a shadow from Plato’s cave. Perhaps it was the feeling of being snubbed from a birthday party as a child, or never being able to cull love from your parents, but sadness and, more importantly, the impotence of inevitability and the litany of things we cannot control can be found when art reminds us.

As I’ve been writing a book (two actually, hell knows I need to finish them both), I have struck upon a notion: that more than joy, sadness is the most powerful emotion. Joy and sadness often go hand and hand, and I am not suggesting that “gallows humor” (e.g. joking about the size of the noose before you’re about to be hung) is the end all be all of emotion (though damn if it isn’t the sort of strength of character I’d want of myself). It’s more that real joy, the true kind that stirs your soul, is inevitably tempered by sadness. Reality is much less saccharine than the cartoons and movies of our youth. Growing up is learning to find joy in the most bitter of circumstances. This ability helps us pull through horrible situations, it is (perhaps) an evolutionary trait (though I am not going to argue the natural selection benefits vis-a-vis reproductive advantage because you can laugh despite how fucked you may feel).

There are lines towards the end of “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” that stop all other thoughts in my brain… which is no small feat. (It is not a matter of uniqueness or anything, but my mind tends to be a frothing, boiling cauldron, of millions of ideas all at once so to marshal all of that cerebral dissonance into a single thought is impressive.) The lines in “Two Headed Boy Pt 2″ where he mentions his own father, mixing in moments of his childhood into the loose narrative inspired by the Diary of Anne Frank, that (no matter what he was truly trying to paint) remind me of my own father. Specifically remembering a misty autumn in Jockey Hollow Park (a large forest preserve about forty minutes from Manhattan in New Jersey) attempting to fly a rather shitty GI Joe kite with him. He stood there, in this blue plaid flannel, naturally worn jeans, and worn white leather Nike’s (this is, ironically a look I somehow affect to this day) laughing as the cheap plastic poles kept snapping. I remember riding his shoulders and laughing in a way that time and distance has obfuscated. Not just in the normal way, but in that way where our politics and lifestyle have reduced our conversations to philosophy or science and little else. There is no small talk between us and my decisions and choices are so disagreeable to him that we will never again have that moment in the fog and wet brown leaves. As the only parental figure in my life, it wreaks me to this day. Those lines just bring tears to my eyes.

What we’ve become. What we’ve done. Culpability all around.

So when in the Hearts of Palm song “Give Em Hell” the music drops out and Nathan sang:

So stand up where you are until you give them hell.
Stand up where you are and give them, give them,
Hello dear old friend.
It’s nice to see you back again.
How has your life been?
And how much trouble are you in?

And at the transition from “hell” to “hello” everyone in the band would join in (and being a large band it had the effect of a choral arrangement in a good way, evoking singing along in church for recovering protestants like myself); at that point in the song I remember a sad friend from my undergraduate (oh you stupid ass, so you went to grad school too… big deal: I don’t believe in intellectual snobbery, this is how I tell stories) days, someone I have written a song or two about myself, but whose tragic downward arc in life comes roaring into the front of my mind: his attempted suicides that left him with pins in his spine.  His drift from a brilliant upright bassist playing in a jazz combo to a fumbling stoner who struggled to hold down a job doing “quality control” at a Craftsman tool factory. Every time I’ve seen him, it’s another story of “setbacks” and the stupid, ignorant wrangling of his parents laying the blame for his problems on the one or two joints he smokes everyday. Fucking fools, enablers really.

If it were just the sadness and power of touching these experiences that listening to Nathan & Stephen evoked, that would be one thing. But those sensations and feelings arise with or without the banner of “last show” hanging over the entire affair.  I don’t need a “last show” to tear up at the thoughts of my old college friend or of the girls who just always went for the cooler, sexier guy (VALENTINE?).

This night, as I stood there soaked in cheap lager and sweat, there was something else too.

It felt like a scene from a film, perhaps when Mike Meyers as Steve Rubell in “54″ is remembering the high points of Studio 54 in a soft focus montage, was it the end of an era? Was this the high water mark of all of that DIY punk rock derived music I’d grown up with? Could we trace the rise of “indie” rock in the aughts back through to cross country, broke as fuck, tours by The Minutemen and Black Flag and was this the end?

Sometimes it feels that way. The music that I discovered almost solely because I didn’t fit in with the crowd that loved grunge, felt personal. Like it was “my” music. And now, years later, when so many other people discover “indie” music which always felt “earned” in this weird way to me, now it feels like it will never be mine again. And all the bands I was in, that never went anywhere because I’m so bad at management (getting shows, you know… talking to strangers about playing a gig and all that) but so driven by the creative process, was that all over? Had I missed my chance to do anything except record demos I’ll never play for anyone?

I hope I’m wrong. I fucking sure as shit do, but maybe I’m not. Inevitability.

There in the sweaty darkness, I was overwhelmed with these sensations… and then there was joy.

Singing along with my friends and with the band. Drinking too much and it felt like we had slid back in time three years. It felt no different than a late summer evening in 2008 when everything seemed to be “about to happen”. I resolved that night to write more music, to write more stories, and just keep going. Who knows, maybe one day it will be something other than a distraction and even if it doesn’t, that doesn’t really matter.

Hearts of Palm, Nathan & Stephen, you should have ruled the music world. Thanks for the music. Thank you.  But greater than that, the nostalgia and pangs of regret that creep into my own self-doubt are foolish.  There are always new adventures.  The story doesn’t end.  That’s the trick.  When it’s done, you won’t know it.  So instead of wallowing in “what was” or “what could have been”, ride the electric dragon of inspiration and seek out new things, because it’s never too late for anything.  Even sorry.

In the Rudyard Kipling story, “The Man Who Would Be King”, two men seek their fortunes in a foreign land where they plan to be kings.  Because the natives have not seen white men, they are thought to be gods, but this is their undoing.  When the people learn they are mortal men, they are assaulted and one is executed.  It is actually much stupider than even what I’m writing here… it’s a very dumb story.  The title is better than the tale, it is no “Jungle Book”.

¹Secret confession: a couple of years ago I was convinced to go see Daniel Smith and his band and I did not know who they were. If that was all there was to it, that would be one thing, however the darker truth is that I did remember who they were after looking them up: once upon a time he was on Tooth & Nail records, the Christian “punk” label that made MXPX famous. I remember even seeing the video for Rubber-Necker and thinking “this is kind of cool, but weird”. Back then I wanted to like all of the Tooth & Nail bands, as the “christian” part made me feel as if it was okay to like indie music. However, truth be told, I didn’t care for half of them and was quite disappointed that christian music still sucked.  It can’t all be DC Talk and Jars of Clay… (I just puked a little).  Oh mid nineties nostalgia!

September 2nd, 2011 | Category: WTF | Comments Off