________ Welcome Mat ________
Be you old friend or accidental tourist, welcome indeed to The Outer Boogie, America’s favorite altergalactic observational contra-wing prayer recipe bulletin and non-prophet wishing well of ideas and
denial solely and wholly dedicated to the furtherance of confusion and paranoia. And it’s free!
The Outer Boogie is a collection of dumb essay type dealies, obituaries and general complaints. It is non habit-forming and purpose free. What it lacks in quality it makes up for in needless length. I hope it makes you laugh, and possibly even think a little bit. I’m glad you’re here. There’s very little in the way of organization here, mostly because WP isn’t very user friendly if you ain’t a science rocketist, but also because TOB is dedicated to convenience, and the effort required to make it easy for you is counter-intuitive. The entire T.O.B. staff is at your service, as long as you don’t want something.
ps: Ignore the dates. They’re all wrong and wouldn’t matter anyway.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT AMERICA’S FAVORITE PRETERNATURAL PLAYGROUND
WHY DO ENTRIES TAKE SO LONG TO APPEAR?
I stop a lot to light cigarettes. This ain’t one of those brainy sites like ‘Contemplaydoh’; if you think it’s boring reading this thing, try writing it.
DOES T.O.B. HAVE A POLITICAL POSITION?
Yes. It is my position that Hillary Clinton and that whiney Paul guy are both about as interesting as a bag of hair.
WHY WERE THERE NO QUESTIONS IN ‘INTERVIEW WITH A HOUSEFIRE’?
What difference does it make? There were no answers either.
WHO ARE THE MUSICIANS YOU REFERRED TO IN ‘INTERVIEW’ ?
I’d rather not say. Jackson Browne and Peter Kaukonen (Jefferson Airplane).
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?
Doesn’t mean shit. I only came here because I heard there were free sandwiches, and even that was a lie.
7 YEARS AND ONLY 5 FREQUENT QUESTIONS?
Whadda ya want from me? Everyone else fell asleep by the time they got to the bit about Topiary Trees. And yours makes six, Mr. Smarty Man.
Any photographs on TOB not taken by me were altered to a point miles beyond the photographers intended vision or created out of thin air by me, with the single exception of the Lou Reed album covers, which I have posted in tribute and for historic purposes. Click any photo a for larger version if one is available. Everything on TOB was written by me, with the exception of credited quotes, poetry or lyrics.
It’s unlikely, but if you believe you’ve come across something here I simply have no business using, let me know and I’ll attend to it as quickly as is reasonable. That’s not a guarantee I’m gonna see it your way, but I won’t argue over worthlessness.
The opinions on TOB are my own and I’m wide open to criticism.
Knock yourself out at the
“Eat My Lunch” link:
https://theouterboogie.wordpress.com/category/eat-my-lunch-contact-form/
“Feel the muscles in your face twitch, relax.
Remembering everything that went down,
and will go down.
I want to go down to sleep.”
-Debbie Harry
I was reading an article about a cast member of the Walking Dead who attempted and failed suicide. Between the lines (where I regrettably exist), it was about the explosive power of grief and love.
I was not at all surprised by the pretentious and self congratulatory remarks about “selfishness” in the comments from the wildly experienced and thoughtful readers, who in spite of their time on earth, certainty of their “Christian” outlook and capacity for kindness, and the personal number of books (read: the experience of others) consumed, still seem to forget that the mind is capable of far more than the intellectualizing judgements of “together” people who think strength has one measure- their own. Why can’t you just go about it like so many others do? Do you think you are the first one to face crippling confusion and pain?
No. But it is the first time I have had THIS experience. I’m not you, and our differences are supposed to be the call to reason for those of us supposedly too smart to get trapped in the typical folly of man, at least among those of us lucky enough to witness the ‘worst things in the world’ on our color TV set.
I can’t guess how many of these people have never been hit by an emotional impasse, and I know how hurt I and people I have loved have been by the injustice and stupefaction of sudden death.
I suppose at this point in MY experience, what I don’t get is why so many of these folks assume they have faced it at it’s worst, or that every event of this kind can be faced with their previous perceptions and forbearance with a similar result.
The part of me that inevitably lives in that mindset, being human and all, makes me want to tell everyone to go to hell in my worst state of mind, but the part of me I am learning to hate seems to win often enough that I end up writing shit like like this, hoping in some aphotic corner of my decomposing mind that another person will have a moment of recognition, or more hopefully (yechh), absolution.
So the obvious question here, and it’s a fine one, is what do I want people to do?
Well, tangibly, only what they can and know they should if they can. Which other than accepting some inconvenience and assuming a bit of responsibility for some non-fun stuff that is NOT their responsibility, is not that much. And in fact, friends usually do this, and generously. It’s something worthy of respect and gratitude, and I’m not sure they ever realize how much it means at the time.
And that’s my problem (please note I said “my” problem). Somewhere in my head it seems the people one holds most dear would quite naturally assume that pain themselves, even if they didn’t know the dead that well, because they can see your pain and know your mind well enough to imagine what you are going through, and that the acceptable red line for the duration of that suffering is a matter of patience and not a common standard.
I suppose that’s a personal flaw, but it’s one I have to live with. I’m sure it’s naive. And apparently I don’t soak in the power of the words “thoughts and prayers”, which it seems is my loss and a painful deficit.
It seems elemental that we should be always aware of the fact that our understanding is limited to the last thing we have experienced, and to presume we ‘get’ more than that is one of our biggest errors. But what the fuck do I know.
I think too much. I hate that about me. And clearly I expect too much. This is a mystery to me, but that doesn’t make it reasonable. It’s me I’m sick of.
Most importantly, I love you, and as I pointed out here ten years ago the price of love is almost always disappointment first, a symptom of our intellectual audacity.
I have it, clearly so much that I question the willingness of others to strain their potential for understanding, and imagine they should want to. It’s one butt ugly quandary I wish I was too stupid to contrive.
Which brings me back to my problem. And the biggest part of my problem is that it is mine, and will obviously remain so. Here’s hoping I find at least an opening to it’s answer that wont further disappoint, and that at this point I figure out how to care about that, and that musing remains it’s most palpable consequence.
“Like a loco mosquito
’round and ’round and ’round I go,
and when I’m hungry, down I go…”
-Iggy Pop
A few years ago, Ron Asheton, guitarist for the legendary Iggy and the Stooges, was found dead from a heart attack in his home. He was 60 years old.
Today I learned his brother Scott Asheton, The Stooges drummer, died on March 16, 2014. Apparently the cause is undetermined but likely to be related to a stroke in 2011 that reportedly almost killed him.
Dave Alexander, The Stooges bassist, died in 1976 at the age of 27 from alcohol poisoning, leaving Iggy the last surviving member. That’s gotta hurt.
I met Iggy Pop at a listening party in San Francisco, in a very posh hotel ballroom. He was funny and sweet, not at all what I expected, and I was too awed by the fact he was there to do more than take the opportunity to tell him thanks for the great records. I didn’t ask him anything, unusual for me when in that kind of situation. Upon hearing earlier in the day that Iggy might show up, I decided to take along an album (I chose ‘New Values’, a favorite of mine) in hopes of getting it signed. When he gave it back, it had his signature, and he had drawn snot coming out of his nose (like so):
Silly as that is, it was something I’ll never forget. And when I read an interview with Iggy today about Scott’s death, it was clear to me I’ve always been right about him, and about the band. As wild as history can be, those three albums kicked rock n rolls ass so relentlessly that it took twenty years and a new generation to fully appreciate the wallop. Today, most any band worth their salt will acknowledge it, and the best ones go outta their way to do it. I wont recommend you take ’em home (particularly “Funhouse” and “Raw Power”), because I don’t want you to scare your family.
My obit for Ron at the time was simply reprinting the lyrics to Iggy’s nod to the Stooges from “The Idiot” in 1977, “Dum Dum Boys”. There’s no better one for Scott. And to the ones passed, I’ll just repeat what I said to Jimmy: Thanks for the great records.
Things have been tough
Without the dum dum boys
I can’t seem to speak
The language
I remember how they
Used to stare at the ground
They looked as if they
Put the whole world
Looked as if they put
the whole world down
The first time I saw
the dum dum boys
I was fascinated
They just stood in front
Of the old drug store
I was most impressed
No one else was impressed
Not at all
And we’d sing
da-da-da-da-da-da
dum dum day
Where are you now my
dum dum boys are you
Alive or dead
Have you left me the last
Of the dum dum daze
Then the sun goes down
And the boys broke down
People said we were negative
They said we’d take but
we would never give
But we’d sing da-da-da
Da-da-da dum dum day
Da-da-da-da-da dum
And hope it would pay
Da-da-da-da it’s been
A dumdumdum day
A dum dum day
Now I’m looking for
The dum dum boys
Where are you now
When I need your noise
Now I’m looking for
The dum dum boys
The walls close in and
I need some noise
I posted this yesterday, but as the reality of the situation was sinking
in, I was becoming convinced it would need revisions.
I am sad to say that I was right.
_________________
“History shows again and again
how nature points out the folly of men.”
-Buck Dharma
‘And when the music that makes you blue
unfolds it’s secrets and the mysteries are told to you,
may the angels sing rejoice to you that fateful day,
when your spirit slips away.’
-Phillip Lynott
I have no idea how to say all of this, which will almost certainly be
obvious any second now.
Some people think I’m obsessed with pain or the past, but that’s
not really so. If I’m obsessed with something, it’s that the unspoken
stands out to me like a sore thumb when I consider our woes.
In some way, I always see it, right there in the middle, like an
open door.
We weep about mistakes, misunderstandings and even understandings
that have fueled our trials, but it would serve us to see the real demon,
which is the unspoken, and that the real source of much of our anger and
pain might just be our own shortcomings.
I would like to think we know better than we often behave, but I can’t be
sure.
As a result, mostly I like to talk about the things I’m not sure of in hopes
of revelation, but when I write about it my frustrations are confused
with fixations. It’s not my fault that the most common of things unknown
ain’t much fun to dwell on, or that they confound me more than wondering
what it feels like to do wheelies in the mud or make the perfect pickled
cream cheese butterfly. My curiosities are born, not made, and that they
are pretty much a daily affair doesn’t mean I’m an enthusiast.
It’s outta my hands.
This is a night like no other in my experience. My brother died today at the
age of 58. The sorrow in this room is difficult to bear.
He had been on life support for 10 days, and we didn’t know.
His breathing and feeding were machinated. They removed the tubes
daily to see if he was still “there”, but true to form he fought them, which
they blamed on the pain, and they had to hook him back up.
He could not communicate, and the doctor doesn’t know if he could hear her.
I will never speak to him again, nor will our mother. It hurts. I love my brother,
and it hurts. And as much as it hurts me, it hurts her in ways I’m sure I don’t
even get. I will never forget the look of agony on her face when she heard,
and there was nothing I could do but hurt for my loss, and hurt again for hers.
Everybody said that his agitation could be a good sign, and I tried to put
that idea into fruition, but when the doctor’s strategy is to think positively
and say some prayers, the science seems to have left the building.
I knew it was going to happen.
And I would bet my last dime he did too, because everything JB did, he
did on his own terms. He owned any room he entered. He was in the Navy
for four years, and I wouldn’t have been shocked to learn that he had
convinced them to rename it The American Fish Police, or anything else he
wanted. The man was a force of nature. You simply had to know him to
understand.
Though he was 58, to my mother he was a kid, and always would be.
For her, the worst of it is beyond my understanding, and that ain’t
helping much.
For me, being the plagued by unfinished business type, the worst of it
is the unspoken.
When my father died, JB went straight to LAX and flew up to Berkeley to
be with me when I found out. I was the only one who didn’t yet know, and
he didn’t want me to hear it over the phone. There were plenty of unspoken
things between he and my father, but when the shit got thick he thought of
me instead of his anger.
When he got to SFO, he realized he hadn’t bothered to map out the way to
my door (he’d never visited me in the bay area) so he jumped on a BART
train to El Cerrito and played it by ear. How he found my house is a mystery.
When I asked, he said “I looked for it”. He never said anything that he figured
wasn’t worth saying, and I never learned how he separated the worthy from
the frivolous. But I always knew when to drop it.
I can recall dozens times when his generosity and softer side came to the
surface, always to his chagrin. When things were truly weird, it seemed all
he had to do was stand up and say “Ok, fuck this”, and everyone- especially
me- knew the situation was about to be tweaked to his personal specifications.
Nobody argued with JB. There were a few folks over the the years who didn’t
know that, but they were soon to experience the shortest confrontation of
their lives. He was the toughest cat I’ve ever known.
Growing up, he was larger than life to me. He would watch me struggling with
guitar chords, then take the guitar when I got frustrated and the room would
fill with music.
Even at that age I knew he wasn’t rubbing it in, though he might pretend he
was if he was in the mood.
I knew he wanted to inspire me to keep trying. To demonstrate the payoff.
I also knew he would deny that if I pointed it out. JB kept his sentiment well
guarded.
I love my brother. He was always in trouble growing up, but he rarely
lost his cool. I remember my Uncle Ernie (yes) showing up one day to
take JB to get a beer before he left for basic training. Ernie was 20
years older, a very tall and intimidating man of distinction.
As they walked out, Ernie looked over his shoulder at my parents and
said “I’ll take care of him, don’t worry.” I laughed, and dad moaned.
By one a.m., they were both in jail.
When they came home, Ernie was speechless, his suit was trash,
and he looked like he had been sleeping in a burning pile of
decomposing bats. JB just said “what’s for breakfast?”
I remember flying down Beach Blvd on a summer night in his little car,
listening to Bruce Hornsby and thinking life was pretty damn perfect.
We played music, chased dope, talked about records and moved down
life in constant search of laughs and sounds.
He made me realize what was truly funny, and truly dumb, and he only
expected from me what he knew I could do, even if I didn’t know it
myself. He cultivated my love of music, he gave me his humor, and
though he tried hard to make me fearless, he wasn’t disappointed
when he realized I was growing in a different way. I left my share of
rock ‘n’ roll wreckage over the years, but JB was in a class all his own.
Like humans do, I learned to live with our eventual estrangement, even
though I was sure it wouldn’t take a miracle for either of us to get beyond
our difficulties.
He made the same mistake. It wasn’t incalculable or some pathless divide,
or even creative differences- the musician’s favorite divorce engine- that
finally drove us apart. The fracture was not inevitable. It was, quite simply,
the product of our shortcomings, of our elemental human flaws.
I’ve decided our sins are a footnote, a list of crappy choices effectively
punished by consequence in appropriate measure.
Our personal collection of indiscretions and mistakes are just moments
in time.
More troublesome is the ignorance of instinct. That too often some of us
discover too late our willingness to suffer self-punishment in the name of
essentially nothing. I’m aware of the exact nature of our wrongs, but I’m
equally aware of our generous contributions to their longevity.
My regret is profound and painful. Trust me when I say pertinacity is it’s
own reward.
A million times I came close to writing him and cleaning things up, but
I kept putting it off. I always pictured a day when we were very old and
done with human silliness, sitting down with a bottle of bourbon and
sharing our final critique of our time on earth. I always knew he would
put things in a perspective that would assuage my fears and pacify my
soul. I have counted on it. It is not to be.
I can’t tell you much about avoiding our mistakes, but I will remind you
not to ignore the shelf life of your animus.
Let it go the first time it crosses your mind to do so.
Sorry is not the hardest word. Much more difficult, I assure you, is
the unheard goodbye.
I love you, Jim, and I’m so very sorry. Thank you for the best part of me.
I am so proud that you are my brother.
“Jenny said when she was five years old
You know my parents are gonna be the death of us all
Two TV sets and two Cadillac cars, man
it ain’t helping me at all
Then one fine mornin’ she turned on a New York station
and couldn’t believe what she heard at all
She started dancin’ to that fine fine music
and her life was saved by rock ‘n’ roll”
– Lou Reed
__________
One of the more interesting and silly aspects of rock and roll
is the immaculate conception of fact from the loins of rumor,
stories that often are twisted into legends, regardless of their
accuracy.
Of course everyone is aware of the ‘Paul is Dead’ stuff at the
tail end of The Beatles reign, but fans know of many more.
A few goofy examples include Alice Cooper ripping a chicken
apart on stage, Iggy Pop ingesting things better left unmentioned
during performances, Frank Marino receiving the spirit of Jimi
Hendrix while unconscious and near death in a hospital, and Jim
Morrison’s famous Indian. There are many more, of course, and
the career of Lou Reed has it’s share. One that is hard to disprove
is the heroin use and emotional breakdowns of several musicians
during the recording of “Berlin”.
A while back I swapped a few notes with Steve Hunter over the net
and considered asking him about it, but decided it was a bad idea.
I suppose legends are better appreciated with a heapin’ helpin’ of
imagination. For good or bad, this also means that too often legends
are confused with antics, and antics, when the history hits the fan,
are sometimes… unbecoming.
___________
When my brother, JB, died in April, my mother was devastated.
As devastated mothers so often do, she looked for solace in
religious faith.
Ever the country girl, Wendy showed up with a bunch of food,
and perhaps also wanting to help in a less caloric way called
a young man who is very serious about such things.
I was moved by his sincerity, and impressed with his concern.
He did his very best to remain grounded in his conviction, and
I do believe he was as inspirational to her as such a situation
will allow. I remain in his debt.
He led us in prayer, he was never maudlin or overbearing, and
I have every confidence that if he indeed chooses this pursuit
as his mission, he will have great success. He knew his shit in
the whole God deal.
Moreover, he seemed naturally adept at thinking of ways to
comfort her. His most unexpected one was asking both of us
to recount a story about JB. She talked about him having a
complete blood transfusion when he was born (which she
was typically confused about, since I am the one who had
it. I tried to be subtle about it and said something like “the
same thing happened to me” ), and then she recounted an
incident in which JB got his skull cracked by a lunatic who
had been hassling me.
I told this one:
I was about 13. JB was home on leave and as usual brought
home a record he wanted me to hear, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal”
by Lou Reed. As any rock enthusiast who’s heard it knows,
this record explodes in your face for every second of it’s 39
unforgettable minutes. It’s not just a masterpiece of hard rock,
it set a standard for live rock performance that has rarely been
reached by anyone else to this very day. It was menacing, and
lyrically dark, and sonically thrilling. It would be mine.
For a week I buried my tongue in my cheek and mentioned
many times how generous and groovy it was that he had
decided to turn his personal copy over to his doting little
brother. “That’s it”, he said, “dream big”.
As his departure drew nearer, I began milking his sympathy,
pointing out that I already had to mow a lawn just to keep
myself in nickle bags, and he was in the Navy- a real job.
He said things like “That whine doesn’t even deserve cheese,
it deserves Velveeta”, and “There’s a better chance of Liberace
joining the Rolling Stones than you getting my Lou Reed LP”.
The day he left, after all our goodbyes, I went to my dad’s
stereo (one of those combo units that looks like a piece of
furniture, you have to lift the lid to see the turntable and 8
track player) to play a record. When I looked inside, “Rock
‘n’ Roll Animal” was on the turntable, and the cover was
inside the storage pocket. JB always kept his heart under
his sleeve.
And thus began my interest in Lou Reed. It’s lasted 40 years,
and has never faded.
I was already a fan of Iggy and a long time fan of David Bowie,
the two artists that always seem to be somewhere in Reed’s
story, so I knew of him from rock magazines, but the only
music store in town (at the time) didn’t carry most of what I
was usually looking for, or much at all for that matter. “Ziggy
Stardust” was out for a year before I got my hands on one.
The following year I visited my oldest brother in California.
On the way to his place, we stopped at Licorice Pizza, and
I almost had a heart attack. I’d never seen so many records
in one place, and right inside the front door on an endcap was
Lou Reed’s “Berlin”. I opened it on the way home and looked
at the pictures and lyrics in the LP sized booklet enclosed. I’d
never seen a record like it. More importantly, I’d never heard
one like it.
“Berlin” changed everything I knew about listening to music.
It was a sucker-punch from the opening track, spooky and
mesmerizing, unlike anything I’d ever heard. It was a story,
each song a chapter, about a girl called Alaska caught in a
nightmare web of drugs, promiscuous sex and abusive cruelty.
It was an impossibly challenging and emotional record.
The great lead guitar work is there just enough to jolt the
listener back to reality for a little while, but this connection
begins to fade as the end of the first half fades.
In the second half, the safety net is gone, and the mournful
ballads that bring the story home are as difficult to listen to
as they are beautiful. The crying children that have found
her passed out in “The Kids”, the bloody bed and ghostly
choir (guaranteed to make the back of your neck tingle) in
“The Bed”, and finally “Sad Song”, a rhapsodic melody that
seems to say it’s all said and done, and maybe the sun will
rise again after all.
But the lyrics render this optimism hollow:
“Staring at my picture book,
she looks like Mary, Queen of Scots.
She seemed very regal to me,
just goes to show how wrong you can be.”
The violins in the coda repeat again and again, as
though the song, like the protagonists pain, will go
on forever. In place of answers, the observation:
“It’s so cold in Alaska”.
“Berlin” is a masterpiece. The abutment of its shocking,
dreadful themes and orchestral beauty are dizzying if
you listen carefully, quite like “The Wall” by Pink Floyd
(also produced by Bob Ezrin). But while both of these
works are very effective tales of isolation, drugs and
suicidal insanity, “Berlin” has you inside looking out.
If you let it take you there, it will. It’s that rarest of
musical gems- a perfect record– and like most things
people have to work to take in it was not well received.
“Berlin” didn’t even try to mask its lyrical overkill,
and it was attacked, almost across the board, by the
musical press. My favorite critic, who wrote about Lou
more intelligently than anyone else I’ve ever found
through the years, crapped on it (which Lou responded
to on a live album a couple of years later, saying to the
audience “You work your ass off for two years and you
get a C+ from some asshole in the Village Voice”), as did
many other publications. A good example has popped
up around the net since Lou’s death, and I actually recall
reading this review at the time.
Stephen Davis in Rolling Stone, 1973:
“Lou Reed’s Berlin is a disaster, taking the listener into
a distorted and degenerate demimonde of paranoia,
schizophrenia, degradation, pill-induced violence and
suicide. There are certain records that are so patently
offensive that one wishes to take some kind of physical
vengeance on the artists that perpetrate them… (This)
was his last shot at a once-promising career. Goodbye,
Lou.”
Another critic said “Honestly, if you know what’s good for
you, you’ll keep well away… (“Berlin”) will give you night-
mares”.
It’s almost fun to watch many of these geniuses eat crow
as they respond in print to his death.
I don’t know if Mr. Davis has changed his mind, but I do
know his employer years later included “Berlin” as one of
the 500 best records of all time (at #344). It’s now typically
spoken of as groundbreaking, classic, required listening,
and even Lou’s best record. It’s all of these, and more.
Lou suffered this kind of critical malfeasance throughout his
career. Not surprisingly he hated the rock press, but like most
rock enthusiasts he seemed to keep up with it.
He seemed incredulous that they were unaware of his act, the
persona he’d created, and reported his work as if it were definitive.
But Lou never lied about what he was up to, and was often the
only one in the room smart enough to know you were being
played even though he spoke of it often. I remember him telling
one reporter in a story, “Look, man, nobody does Lou Reed better
than Lou Reed.”
I recall noticing Lou telling journalists “This is the best record I’ve
ever made” year after year, discussing “The Bells”, “Coney Island
Baby” and “Growing up in Public”, three records that received
glowing reviews but sold poorly.
It’s interesting that so many fans think “The Bells” is Lou’s best
record, not because it isn’t great (it is), but because it’s so dense
and complicated. The powerhouse of horns are stunning and he
attacks the lyrics of each song with a ferocity they don’t really call
for. It’s alarming to hear the first time, but after a few listens it’s
revealed as more a strategy of sound and seems perfectly in place.
Truth is I’m impressed to find a fan who talks about “The Bells”,
because I know how challenging it is, leaving very little room for
the uninitiated to easily embrace it. Lou clearly put a lot of sweat
into every aspect of it, and it’s a very unusual and confrontational
record that just about nobody heard. It was called “jazzy” by critics,
but I think sophisticated is a better word with the same purpose.
The combative momentum of the music is atypical in jazz,
unless you find improvisation quarrelsome.
One can literally watch Lou’s life change through the
records. The druggy, heavy fog of “Sally Can’t Dance”,
the surprising tenderness of “Coney Island Baby” and
eventually to “The Blue Mask”, in which Lou lays down
some of his demons and sees his life through a new
and wiser prism. Lou tells not just his own story but
that of others. Probably even you, along the way.
No longer the heroin anti-hero, his levity about new
found sobriety and his ability to put in perspective
his past and present realities are funny, touching
and remarkably beautiful.
Of his three best known albums, “Transformer” is the
best crash course for discovering his lovely ear. It’s
amazing to study, and when the parts are separated
from the sum it’s a fine primer for the art of studio
recordings.
There is a “Making of Transformer” video on You
Tube that is a fascinating look at the production
decades after the release of the album. Even Lou
seems impressed.
It was almost sad. When he had a “hit”, like “Rock n
Roll Animal” or “Sally Can’t Dance”, he would attack
his own work when it was praised by fans or critics.
He seemed to be extremely disappointed that the
only work getting kudos were the most accessible
and “least challenging” efforts.
“Sally Can’t Dance,” he once said, “went top ten.
And it’s a piece of shit.”
I always assumed he knew better than that because
it simply wasn’t true, and I hated that he felt so
under-appreciated.
In hindsight, I know I felt worse about it than he did, and I
hope he’s looking down and laughing at the fact that his
name is somewhere in the headlines most every day since
his death, that his videos on You Tube are exploding with
views, and all the hip types are mourning the loss of an
artist they “loved” but hadn’t thought of since “Walk on
the Wild Side”.
I better understand now what he was bitching about, and
it brings me closer to his music.
I was wrong. Lou wasn’t disappointed. He was disgusted.
Lou was no more one the characters in “Street Hassle” than David
Bowie was “Ziggy Stardust”, and the big difference is that he never
pretended otherwise. He was a writer. He was telling us about things,
things most people know little about or may even be afraid of.
He said “My records are my version of the great American novel.
Problem is, you’ll never know how it ends until I write my last song.”
I don’t imagine he thought of it as his last at the time, but the last song
on his last proper studio album reads well as a hard rocking conclusion
to a lifetime of canny observation, humor, music as purest art, and
most importantly, his endless defiance:
“Big sky, holding up the sun
Big sky holding up the moon
Big sky holding down the sea
But it can’t hold us down anymore.”
Lou died last month after his second liver transplant at age 71.
It makes me very sad, and I’ve thought a million things about
him most every day since.
His records were so important to me that I think of them as a very
real part of my own story. In fact, he has been a part of who I am
for so long that one of my first thoughts that day was that some-
where in America, there must be 20 or 30 people out there from
my past who thought of me for the first time in years when they
learned of his death. I’ve been trying to think of it in different ways
to make it more acceptable, and I’m old enough to know it
shouldn’t be a surprise and happens every day. I still hate it.
I’m confident it will be the music that keeps him in my heart,
and I know that’s the good news.
I have to confess my chagrin that everyone has a chance to
catch up though his formidable legacy, and these ‘fans’ only
came out of the woodwork this week. But I also know few will
really do so, and that bugs me too. But that’s my tug of war.
I’m sure one day what he really did will be seen for what it really
was, because music lives forever. We don’t, and I’m sad to say
it’s Lou Reed’s turn to fly into the sun. And even though he hated
“cheap sentimentality”, I gotta tell you it’s a struggle to say a final
thanks, and it’s with a heavy heart I say farewell to the worlds most
complicated average guy. It’s staggering what he left behind.
It’s what becomes a legend most.
Goodbye, Lou.
This is just a few fragments of some memories that came
to me while I was looking at a photo of my grandfather
that came in the box of family pictures we received when
my brother died in April. It has no time line, no structure,
a thousand holes, and probably nothing to tell you.
I just thought it might let out some of the steam that’s been
building in my head since that terrible day.
I took out chunks to keep you from dying of boredom, which
doesn’t help the continuity much, but I figure you’ll never
make it to the end anyway so it matters not. I do thank you
for trying.
For JB, and for me.
________________________________________
“Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam
but these hand prints on the front steps are mine
up those stairs in that little back bedroom
is where I did my homework and I learned
to play guitar
and I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
my favorite dog is buried in the yard
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear I’ll leave, and
won’t take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.”
-Allen Shamblin
My grandfathers name was Carrol. His middle name was
Newton.
The mailbox said CN ____ , with those black on gold stick-on
letters you get at hardware stores.
My best guess would be that he bought them at True Value,
on Main Street, the same place he bought me a small alumin-
um electric guitar.
Not because I’m a great guesser, but because it was the only
hardware store in town. He stopped going out of town for any
reason after coming home from World War 1, with 3 exceptions
(as I recall)- taking me to look at old graveyards in Tennessee,
coming to pick either JB or myself up when we got stuck in a
nearby ‘burg, or taking us out to the Holler (that’s southern
speak for a dwelling in the middle of nowhere).
The Holler was amazing, with a pond for swimming and
fishing and lots of old structures that called out to my
imagination like a siren song. There was a barn with
several levels and cubicles, a very large shed full of rusty
metal stuff, and some kind of storage building with a
staircase inside that led to a locked door.
Through the dim windows in the door you could see white
sheets over a number of curious shapes that became anything
I wanted them to as I stared through the glass and imagined
their past.
The entire room was covered by huge nets of spider web,
probably the central reason I waited so long to liberate
my cupidity and break the lock. Most of it was furniture,
and I was sad to realize it was too late to reanimate my
curiosity, and that my curiosity was the fun part.
Nearby was a very old graveyard full of wood and iron head
stones. The few readable names were unfamiliar, but the old
folks knew something about each family.
The yard was behind a one room schoolhouse, long closed,
obviously, and I always thought it was strange that the
windows were unbroken. The trees kept the entire area
dark, even on the sunniest of days.
The streams of daylight that made it through spaces be-
tween the tree limbs were more ominous than illuminat-
ing, and I could only look through the windows at the danc_
ing dust in the beams for so long before I felt ghostly fingers
on my neck, and I quickly got the hell out of there.
Strangely, I went back many times, but it was my constant
curiosity rather than fortitude that led me there.
Papaw was a fine gentleman. The women loved him, and it
would be many years until I understood the strange draw
of the silent type. His neighbor, Delcie Perry, was a disgust-
ing old bat that kept her nose in any personal business she
had access to. Once, when JB and I stayed at his place alone
for the weekend, we went to the store for 16oz bottles of Pepsi
and candy bars, and Delcie entered the house and went through
our suitcases (there was no lock on his door, ever). My mother
always said Delcie was in love with Papaw, so one day Delcie
called me over to get some food she had made for him, and I
asked her if it was true.Her face turned red and she ordered
me off of her porch, threatening to tell on me.
I had no idea what I had done wrong, but I did know Delcie’s
opinion was held in low regard by my parents, so I didn’t care
about it much.
She took care of an ancient woman everyone just called
“Granny”, who was always in bed in a very smelly room
with lots of round frames on the wall that held sepia-
toned photographs of people that were surely long dead.
It was a very creepy place, that bedroom, and I only went
in when I had to.
After Granny died, Delcie moved to Tennessee, and her
rotting abode became a hideaway- albeit an imagined
one, since it was right across the yard- for me and my
little band of friends.
The last time we were in there my friend Mike Reed fell
through the kitchen floor into a wet and smelly basement
and scraped himself up pretty good. His leg was bleeding
terribly, and later I found out his pig of a father beat him
for getting hurt and tearing up his hand me down clothing,
and then beat him again when he learned it had happened
in Delcie’s abandoned dump.
I couldn’t get my head around this punishment, and event-
ually I asked my Papaw why Mikes dad would do something
that drastic over such nonsense. He said “Son, that nonsense
had nothing to do with it. In fact, that little Reed boy had
nothing to do with it. A man like that lives in a prison of
stupidity. He will never be spared his pain, because he is too
stupid to know he needs to be or even can be. The smartest
thing you can do is avoid him. The kindest thing you are able
to do for him is pity him. And the Christian thing to do is
know you are a safe place for that boy in his times of freedom.
Be that boys friend. Always be a good friend, and you’ll find
your place in this world is a holy one.”
Many years passed before that conversation made me cry.
He had two dogs. Little Bit, a Chihuahua that shook all the
time, and Easy, a huge, off-white hound dog. Little Bit lived
inside, and followed Papaw from room to room. If Papaw was
sitting in his ripped up easy chair, Little Bit was laying beside
him, squeezed between Papaws thigh and the arm rest.
The whole house was tilted, like the Leaning Tower, and this
was particularly noticeable in the kitchen for some reason.
There was an old fashioned Formica kitchen table, the kind
with aluminum legs, like this one (but in terrible condition):
When we ate at that table, Little Bit sat at attention on the
floor next to Papaw, who handed him a bite of his food between
each of his own bites. One for Papaw, one for Little Bit.
Easy wasn’t so fortunate. He lived on the front porch, and only
came inside (uninvited) during thunderstorms.
As far as I could tell, thunder was the only thing that ever
scared him. He’d been bitten by snakes, hit by cars, scrapped
with other animals, and even survived a shotgun blast. You
could feel the pellets under his skin, as well as many tumors
in his old age, that protruded like golf balls.
His favorite meal was curdled milk, which I served up in a
bent up metal bowl that had been on the porch as long as I
could remember. When he was lucky, I was able to add a
broken up biscuit from breakfast. My Papaw loved biscuits
and butter, which he called “cat-heads”.
Papaw always ate in silence. It wasn’t some element of a
belief system, he just never spoke at the table. He was
always a man of few words, but this was different. It was
palpable, but not intimidating. I guess he just didn’t think
it was a time for talk. Everyone else spoke, but not him.
I asked him a lot of questions. If I wanted to know something,
I went to him first. I thought he knew everything, and maybe
he did. If I asked him something at the table, he would answer
it, out of the blue, later when we were in his living room. You
get used to it.
There was one heater in the house, a big potbellied stove in
the living room. My Papaw subscribed to every magazine
under the sun, from ‘True Romance’ to those pulpy detective
mags that always had women in peril and dressed in under
wear on the covers. ‘Look’, ‘Life’, ‘Readers Digest’, the list goes
on and on. He never threw any away.
These stacks of magazines sat beside his chair, among other ”
piles of newspapers, right behind the wood burning stove.
That they never ignited is a true miracle.
The outside walls were brittle black wood, and the walls
inside were brown paper, like grocery bags, and if you pull-
ed on it where it was once torn, it would break rather than
tear. The place was a firetrap, but there was never a fire.
I’m still amazed by this.
There was running cold water at a big sink in the kitchen,
with the kind of faucet you usually see outside, but no hot
water. There was a bathtub in the bathroom, but no water
was hooked up. To use it, my mother would fill it with water
heated on the stove. The bathroom door was on springs that
creaked when it was opened, and the lock was a piece of wood
that swiveled around to block the edge so it couldn’t be pushed
open from outside. The toilet flushed, and flowed to a very
unpleasant sewer outside that was really just a thin valley
in the ground that stretched down the steep hill out back
and disappeared into the woods.
Papaws bed was very high off the ground, with 4 mattresses
under a feather mattress. When I climbed into his bed, I
would sink into it.
Instead of a closet, there was a long pole between walls that
held his clothes on hangers. Dim white shirts, a bunch of suit
jackets, a large collection of ties. I almost never saw him wear
a tie. He didn’t wash clothes, he never changed his sheets.
Every day he seemed to have on the same clothes- a dull white
shirt, a suit jacket and pants.
In the Army, he played French horn in the military band.
After the war he worked in the coal mines- for a dollar a day-
which eventually gave him ‘Black Lung’ and put an end to his
music.
The only story he ever told me about the coal mine involved
a bunch of union types insisting everyone go on strike. He
had a lot of mouths to feed and a dollar a day to do it with, so
he refused. One night soon after, a group of shadowy figures
shot at his house and tried to burn it down. Some FBI types
were stationed to guard his house at night, but the bad guys
just changed tactics- as indefatigable zealots so often do- and
rigged a piece of machinery to fail. Amputation was miracul-
ously avoided, but it crippled his leg for life and effectively
ended his job.
Later in life, he decided to paint more often. The walls of his
little shack were adorned with numerous oil landscapes,
mostly of the Holler and his yard. There were several of my
tree, a giant wooden U that grew beside the thin creek betw-
een Papaws and Delcie’s.
I sat in that U often, and made up songs in my head, singing
them quietly while cutting the bark off of a twig. Sometimes
it was the drivers seat of my one of a kind vehicle that flew me
from place to place, or became a submarine when I needed it to,
or a lunar tank, if the monsters from last night’s flashlight
reading of Science Fiction Digest were simply to numerous to
be beaten with Kung-Fu.
Occasionally, I stalked a monster or a zombie quietly, weapon
in hand (usually a rusty hoe that fired a laser beam out of the
end of the handle), into the dark and damp dirt floor basement
under the house.
The shelves were lined with old mason jars of homemade jelly
or tomatoes, forgotten and left to decay after my grandmother
died. The result had become a deadly elixir that could destroy
the world, and every space demon in the universe wanted to
get it’s hands on it. I simply couldn’t let that happen.
The last time I spoke to my Papaw was over the phone, the night
Easy died. I was at a pay phone near the El Toro Marine Air Base
in southern California, visiting my older brother, Lee. I could hear
pain in his voice when he told me the news, something I had never
heard from him before. I was almost positive he had been crying,
and it took me by surprise.
Easy had sauntered into the house as though it were completely
natural (it wasn’t), went to my Papaws old chair and sat in front
of him. He didn’t say so, but later that night I pictured it and saw
Papaw reach out and scratch Easy’s head without complaining
about the the old boy’s audacious visitation. I just knew that both
of them understood he was saying goodbye.
He didn’t stay long, I was told. He just whimpered a little and went
back out the front door, quite unceremoniously.
A little while later, Papaw went outside to sit on the porch, and
found Easy lying in his usual spot, lifeless and still.
Easy’s collection of war wounds, tumors and poorly knitted brok-
en bones belied his gentleness. I loved that dog and thought of
him as family, and I spent more time hanging out with him
than I ever saw Papaw spend, but I was too young to understand
how long he had been around and how much history he had been
a part of.
The sound of my Papaws voice when he told me the news
revealed the powerful connection they had, and I realized
how much he loved him. He took Easy from a litter of
puppies long before I was born, and he died almost 20
years later. He was buried by the long-empty chicken
coop behind the house. I never saw his grave.
The last time I saw my grandfather, he was sitting in a rotten
old chair on his front porch. I was going back to California, and I
stopped on my way to the freeway. He was sitting on the porch,
and as I went down the cracked cement walkway to the house I
shouted “hey, Papaw.” He looked right at me and said “Jimmy?”
(my brother’s name). I said no, it was me, and my eyes filled with
tears when I realized he was blind. It probably could have been
prevented, but a doctor visit had always been out of the question.
I had never seen him go to the doctor, even once, my whole life.
I told him where I was going, and his only advice was to watch out
for fast women. He seemed certain the west coast was crawling
with them, and I had the feeling he thought I didn’t stand a
chance against their wily motivations. I assured him I would
choose one with care, hugged him and kissed his face.
I said “I love you Papaw. You’re the greatest man I have ever
known”, and I started to cry. He simply said “I love you too, son”,
and released his embrace.
I walked back to car, opened the door, and took one more look at
him over the roof. He looked so small and vulnerable, and I
realized he was not a giant, and not made of the hardest stone,
and that his wisdom didn’t come to him as a heavenly gift,
but instead was the result of facing an incredibly difficult life
head on, trusting his bible (as opposed to yours), those he loved,
and most of all himself, and finding out one day at a time that
some people get their ass kicked and some people kick back,
and he had chosen the latter with amazing courage and
without regret. I knew I would never see him again. A few
years later, the phone rang at Tower Records, and I was told
it was for me, it was my mother, and she sounded like she
was crying. Even though life had crowded my grandfather
out of my thoughts for awhile, as it so often does to
people, I immediately knew what she was going to say.
I don’t know how or why, but I knew he was dead.
I know I left more in this about the house than him.
I left out things like his purchase of my first two
wheeler, that he bought me a snare drum and told
everyone I was going to be a musician because I had
“natural born rhythm”, that he covered for my brother
and me to keep us out of the parental doghouse many
times (but never without planting seeds of second
thoughts and our own responsibilities).
I suppose it’s because my memories of him and that
little piece of earth are intrinsic.
Everybody has their own recollection of important
conversations with those loved and lost, and I
reckon there’s enough documented wisdom
in each of our experiences.
Still, if you lined up his place with a dozen others that
probably look just like it, maybe one in your very own
memory, there was in fact only one of it’s kind.
The creaking of the planks of his porch, the squeaky and
tired springs of the old bed in the room I slept in, the smell
of the dirt floor in the basement, and even my tree are
completely connected to everything about him, an exten-
sion of him, and when I think of them, I am thinking of
him and where he fits in the scheme of my crazy life.
He was right about crazy women, but he was wrong about
me. I asked for almost everything I got, consciously
or not, and I don’t imagine he thought of me as reckless.
But what do I know?
I love you, Papaw. You’re the greatest man I ever knew.
“Here comes Johnny singing oldies, goldies,
‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’, ‘Baby What’d I Say’
Here comes Johnny singing ‘I Gotta Woman’
Down in the tunnels, trying to make it pay
He got the action, he got the motion
Yeah the boy can play.
Dedication, devotion
Turning all the night time into the day.
And after all the violence and double talk,
There’s just a song in all the trouble and the strife.
You do the walk, you do the walk of life.“
– Mark Knopfler
______________________________________
Not long before I left California, once upon a time.
This is about Fred. Not short for Frederick, but for Frederico.
Fred was a couple of years older than me, and I was very sure we had very little else in common the day we met.
We lived in the same condo complex in Santa Ana, California, a rambunctious area between Anaheim and Orange that is as well known for it’s danger as it is it’s beauty.
You just had to pick the right streets.
We chose well, and our little corner of the world was convenient and generally tumult free in spite of the commonality of sirens after midnight.
My friend Crash was married there, in an old church made of huge, mossy grey stones not far from my house, a building that was positively Gothic with a manicured graveyard in the back that was equally spooky and curious.
Just over some railroad tracks, the population had a far more sinister bent. I always thought it was odd that a rail crossing could be such an effective border between two very different places with the same name.
I guess I just notice shit like that.
Anyway, to my surprise, Fred and I became really good friends through a girl I knew whose ceiling was his floor. When she and I decided to take another condo there together (we had to have one big enough to hold my record collection, guitars and amps and still resemble a dwelling for her daughters sake), my mother decided to leave Anaheim and became Fred’s new downstairs neighbor. The place was more compact, more modern, and the rent was much better.
True to form, he watched out for her and went out of his way to help her carry groceries or move things around, whatever she needed. And not because of me, but because he had an innate propensity to protect those he referred to as “the fairer sex”.
He often used phrases that stood out in his conversation like a sore thumb, but his sincerity was apparent and it always made me laugh.
I was pretty confident there must have always been a Reader’s Digest within reach when he was growing up.
Fred was a trip. He was Puerto Rican, or something, and his accent was often the target of my jokes. He seemed to like that, strangely, but something told me if anyone else did it they would regret it. He was the manly type, one of those people who guard a sense of ‘honor’ as a familial duty, clearly some kind of traditional hoopla he had grown up with.
I mean, he wasn’t Don Juan Demarco, but I imagine he would’ve been pretty comfortable in the age of duels.
He was uneducated, like me, but he had a very touching way. He was a gentleman of a very old style and I was impressed and amused by the careful way he altered his vernacular around ladies, made a genuine effort to communicate beyond his ability to do so, and by the genuine sincerity of his handshake- a gesture, he said, that spoke volumes.
In spite of all the things I found endearing about him, there was an aspect that, barring a change of career, would forever keep us at half an arms length. Fred sold drugs for a living, and did well at it financially, but because of the obvious dangers to the others in my life I could not allow our friendship to grow beyond a certain barrier. Or at least, this is what I told myself.
I certainly had no judgements about it- in fact, drugs were one of the few things I mentioned earlier that we had in common- but I kept a safer distance than the other people that were always in and out, and typically my visits were either very brief or when no one else was around. Cocaine was Fred’s crop. He always had a kilo around, and often a house full of shady characters. Most of them I found comical, which was not what they had in mind, but I always made friends easily and had only a few uncomfortable exchanges. If you had known me then, you would find that as remarkable as I do.
If you know me, you probably know what I mean.
The one time I found myself in an intense situation with someone at his place who apparently did not think I was nearly as funny as I’m sure I am, Fred stepped into it and suggested firmly that my adversary “get a beer and sit the fuck down”, which pretty much announced to the rest of his regular customers that my sovereignty was, from that moment forward, not open to debate. I knew he was fond of me, but it surprised me that he was so quick to risk on my behalf. These people were his bread and butter for much longer than I had known him, yet without hesitation he chose to protect me. As I write, I realize it shouldn’t have surprised me at all. I don’t know that day if he understood that I had probably asked for the trouble with my endless sarcasm, but I didn’t think finding out was much of an idea, and I did not bring it up.
One fine western day, Fred asked me to teach him how to play guitar.
He already had a very nice one, a Les Paul, and an expensive practice amp, a Fender twin. But he couldn’t play a note. He was one of those people who are learning to play, someday.
My typical enthusiasm for anyone’s interest in music had me offering to show him some easy starter tips, and to my surprise he was very adept. In short order he was very comfortable with the basic chords, but Fred wanted to play lead, like me, and my approach to soloing is a long drive to standard practice (I have little fingers) and something I am unable to impart.
We got nowhere fast, so he suddenly decided to buy a piano- an instrument I know little about beyond boogie woogie and the black keys. In an extremely short period, he was knocking me out with jazzy improvisations and sad melodies, and the musical results of our hazy daily program became much more rewarding.
I was buying and restoring rare records and teaching guitar for a mom and pop record store in Orange. I had been a regular customer there for 20 years, and when Tower had seemed to lose it’s charm after all that time- another of my “grass is greener” delusions- I approached the owner about a gig and he jumped on it, being a wise business person.
I would work, go home, make dinner, hang with the girls and when they said goodnight, walk over to Fred’s. I would visit after midnight, when it was calm, do way too much cocaine and drink way too much booze and play music or write (though never finish) songs with him, none of which I seem to remember.
After more than a year had gone by and our cocaine driven jam sessions had long ago become a nightly event, the inevitable consequences began to creep in. The whites of my eyes were always yellow. I was very thin, and my health was very poor. I know Fred was frail too, but I guess I just didn’t think about it.
One night I was knocking on his door around midnight. He didn’t answer. I didn’t think much about it when I called a few minutes earlier to say I was coming over, even though I got his machine. He was always home so it was the first time I ever heard his message, and I laughed at it’s formality.
When I got there I knew he was home because his tv was on and his car was there.
No question. I knew his routine.
I knocked again, and again.
I couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t be there and began to get a strange feeling about it, but I also knew that there were probably a dozen explanations. I was talking through the door: “Fred, open the fuck up baby, I ain’t gonna stand here all night”. Nothing.
After a bit, I said “Ok , I’m gonna go get my key. If you don’t say something I’m coming in, so if you’re in there doing something weird, you’re gonna feel pretty stupid”.
But I didn’t. I went home, poured a drink, and stayed there.
The next morning, we saw cop cars and the coroner in the parking lot. His door was wide open. I knew there was at least a very large baggie filled with coke laying by his scales, and that it had certainly been found. I went back home. Eventually, I learned that Fred suffered a massive heart attack, possibly at the same time I was on the other side of his door making jokes.
Later that day his parents, whom I had never met but kind of instinctively recognized, pulled into the lot. They were very distinguished looking, and some of the things he had told me about them suddenly came crystal clear.
They were a very traditional and conservative pair, and Fred often spoke to me about how badly he wanted their approval, and always felt like he never measured up to their expectations. His father, he said, was why he joined the Army, though he was destined to fail, and his mother was the reason he went to medical school, where he also failed. He was sure they didn’t know how small it all made him feel, or how sorry he was that he couldn’t be the person he was sure they wanted him to be.
I approached them and introduced myself, and told them with tears in my eyes that I was at their service, that I was a very good friend of their son. His mother nodded and started sobbing into a handkerchief, and his father shook my hand earnestly and said “Thank you for being his friend”.
I knew immediately that his handshake was Fred’s. Firm, honest, and proud.
It spoke volumes.
The man put his arm around his wife and they walked toward the police standing at the bottom of the stairs.
They were heartbroken, and I knew that in a few minutes they were to learn that Fred was obviously a dope dealer, something they would never understand and that would break their hearts all over again, in a way I probably couldn’t fathom.
The truth, for what it’s worth, is that Fred was a noble cat who did what most think of as bad things. And I know it doesn’t help, but he never meant to hurt anyone, and never thought he did. I never knew him to deal with anyone that wasn’t old enough to own their responsibility, and as silly as it sounds in such a context, he was surely as honest a businessman as the local preacher. Fred didn’t lie, and he cared about love.
I have always wondered if I had just made good my ‘threat’ and got my key, could I have saved him? The thought of him possibly hearing me as he died, unable to say “help me”, still keeps me awake sometimes.
I sat on his porch that night at midnight with a bottle of whiskey and an acoustic guitar and tried to quietly sing “Please Be With Me”, an old Clapton number we both liked, as I cried. After a bit, I just sat in silence.
A couple of teenagers walked up the stairs to knock on his door, surely to buy some cocaine. I had never seen them before, but I knew Fred didn’t spend a lotta time with people who paint their lips black, so they had to be friends-of-a-friend who would’ve left unhappy and empty handed.
They couldn’t get past me sitting at the top of the stairs, so they just stood there for a second, looking at me.
“He’s dead”, I said.
They turned and left.
I wasn’t aware of it, but that night was the beginning of the end of my life as I knew it.
“Your life can only gain if your love is the final measure”
-Randy California
The lovely Ed Cassidy has one of the most unusual stories in the history of rock and roll.
I’ll bet almost everyone you know has never heard of him, but has heard his music, even if only a small amount.
Ed was playing music before your mother was born.
Consider this.
Ed played music until he was called to fight in world war two. (!)
When he got out, he did odd jobs for a while, then returned to music IN THE EARLY 1940’s. In his early career he also toiled in shadows, more so than in his rock and roll years but arguably not much more, playing with the San Francisco Opera (unfortunately, even the strangely complete performance archive on their impressive website has no listing of individual musicians, so you’ll have to trust me), several country and western acts and any number of other creaky stages for nightly pay. He played (also in obscurity as a session gun) on film soundtracks to keep him in rent and eats, eventually finding a home closer to the heart in the noisy world of big band and jazz, drumming for such definitive artists as Art Pepper and Chet Baker, among many others.
Ed decided to teach music and achieved his credential, but his dreams of a band with complete musical freedom, liberated from commonly assigned genres, ultimately won the day. He formed The Red Roosters with jazz great Taj Mahal and the legendary Ry Cooder, but they never got off the ground in the studio and are mostly chronicled for their live performances, which were widely bootlegged. Eventually, CBS released their recordings as a compilation, but as far as I know it is long out of print.
He split the Roosters after an injury of some sort, as I recall, and soon after began jamming with his stepson from his first marriage, Randy Wolfe.
Randy was a gifted musician, and Jimi Hendrix was known to visit and tutor him. In fact, it was Jimi who gave him his stage name, Randy California. At the age of 15, Randy was invited to England to join the new Jimi Hendrix Experience, but Ed wouldn’t let him go, insisting he finish high school. No idea what Ed later thought about this decision, but I’m certainly curious.
Soon after, Randy and Ed formed Spirit, behind Ed’s idea of a band unfettered by musical labels and free to experiment with a mixture of sounds and styles. The first album was a fearless leap into this concept. An unexpected hit, it set a foundation for decades of original music. Happily, the next release was a single, “I Got a Line on You”, which sold very well and became a radio staple, virtually ensuring label support for more recordings. A 1968 tour featured the newly formed Led Zeppelin as the opening act, and though soon after Zeppelin crushed them in the success department, their history would forever show the hierarchy of the tour and helped cement their status.There were many people who said Jimmy Page lifted the omnipresent chord progression of “Stairway to Heaven” from Randy’s song “Taurus”, and this claim is argued among fans to this day.
The follow-up hit “1984” (the first 45 I ever bought with my own allowance) seemed certain to put them on the road to stardom, but label and management issues corrupted the promotion of the song and it’s climb up the charts was stalled.
It’s place as a rock radio standard today tells the tale of what might have been.
1970 brought the most focused work of their career, a record so important in rock history it cannot be overstated. You’re welcome to disagree with that and be wrong, all the day long.
“Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus” can be seen through many eyes. It’s a brilliant folk record, with enough acoustic guitars, harmonies and messages about mans duality to please even the most discriminating commune-dwelling hippie. It’s centerpiece, “Animal Zoo”, is a great song for children (smart ones anyway), with a funny sing-a-long chorus and plenty of sound effects and silly voices to get their attention, and a lyric with a message for everyone.
It’s a great rock ‘n’ roll record, a great psychedelic record, a great “protest” record.
Just about any element ever added to a pop record to push it beyond typical pop record significance is somewhere in the grooves, and Ed’s contribution is occasionally aggress-
ive, very unusual for such a subtle and artful player. “Dr. Sardonicus” is Spirits “Sgt. Pepper”, a song cycle (as opposed to concept album) filled with experiments, dreamy jamming and thoughtful, often funny lyrics. The album begins and ends with the same line:
“You have the world at your finger tips,
no one can make it better than you.”
That was Spirit in a nutshell. For 40 years their songs pointed out the bad but always had faith in the good, and no other drummer could have colored this with such artistry as Ed Cassidy. He didn’t hit his drums, he coaxed them, as though looking for a secret. He said more with an almost inaudible cymbal tap than most players do with a bombastic solo. He never dominated his instrument, but used it to speak, and to frame sound, and support rather than drive it’s motion. He’s the best drummer I’ve ever heard, and I encourage you to take at least a taste of his wonderful band and his wonderful style.
I could bullet point hours of his best efforts for years after “Dr. Sardonicus”, but I’ll leave that to any hopefully kindled interest. It’s worth your time.
Ed retired from professional playing a few years before he died, and I’ve read he did some acting in a couple of films and even a bit part in the TV soap “General Hospital” (!). But he’s still the only rock drummer who played music for the lions share of 89 years, and he did it with confounding originality.
I hope you can find this out for yourself some time.
I’m very glad I did. Adieu, Mr. Skin. And salut.
“I will be glad to tell what songs I have sung,because singing is my business. But I decline
to say who has ever listened to them.”
-Pete Seeger
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/peteseeger232672.html#L1GpSyvabCosfpRh.99
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Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pete_seeger.html#h45LzG8c0XfVdeJB.99
Nine times outta ten, protest music is an exercise in sweet naivete,
a cause with purpose that is unfortunately at odds with the human
experience. It can certainly put fists in the air, but it rarely touches
terra firma.
Ten times outta ten, unless you count Lynyrd Skynyrd’s last couple
of records (I don’t), it’s comes from the always comical liberal bent
that tells us if we wanna be free, we better get in line and knock it
off with the questions.
There is no better example of this than Pete Seeger, who’s inability
(as opposed to unwillingness, I believe) to see that the inevitable
result of unions would be a new political party as loathsome and
stinky as any other, gave birth to a plethora of songs pleading for
a kind of unity the human race is simply incapable of (because as
we all know, somebody has to get the office with a view).
Still, you gotta give points for sincerity, and the cat never wavered,
longed for the opposite, and ached for humanity.
Of equal importance, to him the stringed instrument was as holy as
his deep blue cause. He was an extension of music, rather than the
other way around, and I’m convinced he was as pure as 1850’s snow.
I recommend any of the CBS sides (which are as sonically clean as
possible), but to hear his earthy best, visit a good library and look
for the Folkways recordings (or check their website if your checkbook
works). Though he embraced the ideal if not the common attempt at
communism, few things are more American.
My endless skepticism, not to mention the wacky politics and
practices of the “left”, prevents me from paying much attention to
anyone that tells me they’ve figured “it” out, but it’s also impossible
for me to ignore a life well spent when the results remain relevant
and accessible. A trip to You Tube makes this life inarguable.
Mr. Seeger died yesterday, at 94 years old. Just wow.
I’ve got my friends in the world
I had my friends
When we were boys and girls
And the secrets came unfurled.
City of brotherly love
Place I call home
Don’t turn your back on me
I don’t want to be alone
Love lasts forever.
Someone is talking to me,
calling my name
Tell me I’m not to blame.
I won’t be ashamed of love.
-Neil Young
_____________________________________
My mom told me a story today, about looking for a job way
back when. Someone told her the Corbin, KY post office was
hiring, and it required passing some kind of test. Like many
people, she was sure she would blow it, but she decided to
give it a shot.
When she went down to see how she did, she was told the
score was fine, but they were sorry- the post office doesn’t
hire women.
Once upon a time, I was sent to detention in high school
(go figure), and a skinny boy in a Beatles tshirt was already
in there sitting at a desk looking guilty.
Being a little bit of a Beatles person myself, I asked him
about it. His “favorite Beatle” was Paul McCartney.
Being a little bit of a Beatle person myself, I talked to him
a little more, and in no time flat we were thick as thieves.
His name was John. Jumping ahead a little, John and I
were rarely too far apart for the next 25 years or so.
When Johns mother died, around 1981, he was heart-
broken. I had moved home to California and had been
trying to talk him into moving there, and it seemed like
a perfect time for a new horizon for him. He had lived
in the same small town in Ky all of his life.
I drove there and got him, and we headed west.
About a year later, he had a small studio apartment
in Anaheim, and we spent a lot of time there spinning
records and getting drunk. A LOT of time.
One night, he was passed out cold, and I was still in
my spin cycle, so I dug into a box in the closet to find
some Freak Brothers comics he said he had (I hadn’t
seen them in years).
In the box was a magazine called The Advocate, which
seemed a little highbrow for him for some reason.
I flipped through the pages and soon discovered it was
a magazine for gays. In the back was a classified ad he
had started filling out. The first line said “I am gay but
must act straight.” I was floored.
I woke him up and found myself yelling at him, what
the fuck is this and such, and he started to cry.
Finally, he spit out “I knew you wouldn’t understand,
and I didn’t wanna lose you.” I was floored again.
And I realized I wasn’t mad at John for “being gay”, I was
hurt that he didn’t trust me, that what I thought was a no
secrets kind of kinship was not what I had thought it
was. I was wrong about that too, of course.
It was an important moment for me, because I learned
something very large about myself without even wanting
to, something I later realized was a virtue.
As life rolled on I came to know and love (and know and
really dislike) a number of gay men and women, and I
am happy to report that the people they prefer sleeping
with never had a place in the equation, beyond also
becoming my friends.
Quite simply, they typically were among the nicest,
smartest and most gentle people I knew, and the
endless laughs we shared were just so much more
important than an aspect of their existence that
played no part in mine.
It just wasn’t up to me to create a role for myself in
their most personal and private questions.
More simply, I just couldn’t care less.
I’ve since lost a gay friend to suicide, one of the most
wonderful men I ever knew, and one that I never
imagined would struggle with his sexuality.
I don’t have any evidence that it was the catalyst for
it, but I have my suspicions. I know first hand that
the world doesn’t play fair with people who are just
too different, and I’ve had my heart broken over that-
including that night in Johns little bachelor pad.
He didn’t break my heart that night, it was me and
my ability to jump right into issues I didn’t belong
in, without compunction.
I’m sorry about that, then and now. I’m sorry, John.
Today, North Carolina, the place I’m sitting in right
now, voted on a political proposition that could’ve
resulted in gay marriage becoming legal. It’s not
going to happen.
There’s lots of ‘reasons’ getting knocked about, but it
would take an impossibly provocative argument to
convince me that the word ‘gay’ wasn’t the speed
bump. And if that’s true for you, do yourself a favor
and take a look at it. Step up to the plate if you’re
gonna play, and admit it.
You have decided to take action regarding other
peoples most personal and difficult struggles,
thousands of people you’ve never met and will
for the most part probably never meet.
That’s a hell of a power play.
I submit that if the vote had worked, you would’ve
griped about it after the first few marriages were
reported in the paper, but after a while it wouldn’t
be in the paper any more, and a little while after
that, it would be the last thing on your mind.
It would just be.
I guess I just hope you slept on it.
And congratulations, you did it.
Another giant step in the war on things that
simply are, but you wish weren’t.
best,
TOB
“There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive
provider of information regarding sexual matters to their
children. Parents have no right to override the determinations
of public schools as to the information to which their children
will be exposed while enrolled as students.”
-Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
This shockingly idiotic and reality altering conclusion gets
one thing exactly right:
the pop culture version of the liberal mindset believes the
government and the people are two different things.
As any eighth grader in America should be able to tell you,
it also gets one thing exactly wrong:
that in America, the government and the people are two
different things.
There are endless examples of this poopthink. Here’s
some now.
Lookit.
The idea is that the government is an extension of the majority,
because with a population of hundreds of millions, majority is
the closest thing to fair. Is that imperfect? Sure.
Does it make the next best idea look like a joke?
You bet your ass. So what’s the problem?
Millions of Social Security participants are paid about 15,000 dollars a year, a lovely
amount if your band needs new gear but a long way from inspirational if you pay rent
and need electricity, medicine and food.
I just learned that 400,000 dollars of taxpayer money will be used to pay for a statue of
a camel to adorn our embassy in Pakistan. This means, until it’s blown up, people will
pass it on their way in and say, “Hey, look at that really well made statue of a camel.”
Not a bargain.
I ain’t no mathematician, but I figure this is roughly 25 years of Social Security checks
for Americans that paid into the system for decades. Thousands of maimed vets are
waiting over a year for the benefits they were promised when the recruiter patted them
on the back for signing up to attend the perpetual Convention of Religious Cavemen in
the Middle East. Some of them are killing themselves in despair.
Now, since social justice is all the rage here these days, I need somebody to ‘splain to me how yard art and indifference to the immediate needs of devastated veterans applies.
Mitt Romney said last night that he will support “whoever” the republican nominee is,
and so will millions of other republicans.
Ditto for the dems. That’s “whoever”, folks.
How about Adam Sandler?
How can thinking people still be more committed to political parties than they are getting things fixed? It’s disgusting and shameful.
We need to DUMP the democratic and republican parties now. How much more insane
could it be to start over with some different candidates than it will be to vote in another eight years of these clowns?
Their racial horseshit and psychotic dedication to their own desires have reached a
level that should be unimaginable, but apparently isn’t even embarrassing to their
“members”. I can’t even look at Pelosi or Cantor anymore without getting nauseous, and that ain’t the worst of it.
The Hollywood crowd are falling over themselves to support policies for you and me that they don’t ever have to deal with.
And who are these people?
They’re Hollywood.
They’re people who pat themselves on the back constantly, give each other awards
every chance they get, and get away with nonsense every time (Reese Witherspoon
saying “Do you know who I am?” to a cop leaps to mind as an example of their outlook).
They influence politics with zero authority or expertise, they influence the young through fiction often with troublesome results, they abuse the reporters who keep
them in the public favor, and then they are celebrated in death by drug overdose as
victims of a troubled world.
They are handed a lifetime of obscene prosperity and favor for doing exactly what they
want to do every day of their lives, and in some cases (like the Kardashians, Snookie, et al) for behaving like idiots.
And your president invites them to champagne soirees with Stevie Wonder as the entertainment in an effort to panhandle support.
Gang, when George Clooney has a hand in world politics based
on his willingness to be a big shot, something is certainly askew.
This has been floating around the net for while.
I have paraphrased some of it for your convenience:
America, April 2014:
where politicians talk about the greed of the rich at $35,000.00 a plate campaign
fund-raising events.
Where people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans
when they have a black President, a black Attorney General and roughly 20% of the
federal work force is black, but only 14% of the entire population is black.
Where the two people most responsible for our tax code- the head of the Treasury dept. Department and Charles Rangel (who once ran the Ways and Means Committee)- BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.
Where they have Muslim terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have a major political party and the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims who apparently aren’t interested in even complaining about it might be harmed by the backlash.
Where we make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege, while we consider letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally become American citizens in the name of tolerance.
Where people who think it makes sense to spend unprecedented financial fortunes with at least a modicum of reason (this would not include 400,000 dollar camels) are called
idiots by the leaders of a major political party who are able to pay their own bills because these ‘idiots’ PAY THEIR SALARIES.
Where people who understand the fact that the constitution spawned the most
influential nation in history, and is behind the life that the majority of Americans have
almost certainly enjoyed (in a way other nations never do and never will) are thought
of as “extremists.”
Where you need to present a driver’s license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but if “they” can stop it, not to vote for the people that have pet agendas and the access and authority to spend tax money on a whim.
Where people demand that government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).
Where the government collects more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, spends a trillion dollars more than it has per year (for total spending of $7-Million PER MINUTE), and complains that it doesn’t have nearly enough money.
And where rich people – who pay 86% of all income taxes – are accused of not paying their “fair share” by people who think shitting in their own tent on Wall Street is activism and haven’t paid a penny of income tax in their lives. Truth is, most of us haven’t.
And while this list of inanities aims at the left, the right ain’t doing you any favors either. They have attached themselves to an antiquated and corrupt assimilation of spirituality that large numbers have redefined for themselves, and to a TV show narrative of family values that more resembles ‘Leave it to Beaver’ than your living room.
The one thing they have in common is they’ve all been in the picture too long. They see themselves as the Great Elders instead of temporary stewards.
They have forgotten their place, and their role, which is America’s fault for ignoring this when we see it. They are now celebrities, and voting day is the political super bowl. ‘Our ‘team’ has simply got to win.
This will be our doom.
There’s one way out. Voters need to look into some Green People and some libertarians
and whoever else is trying to push over the apple cart. Write in your uncle Frank. Anything to send the message. That’s not an endorsement of Green People, it’s an example of another option.
A new beginning can’t be any worse than this.
Anything else is sabotage. If you vote and you check a D or an R, you are contributing to a bigger problem than John McCain or Harry Reid will ever be.
Yesterday, there was a report that said 6 billion dollars of tax revenue has been lost. Not invested poorly, just LOST. They cant find it. No one knows where it went. And it will disappear from our thoughts as handily as it did from that piggiest of banks.
April 4, 2014: Congressman Jim Moran says congress needs a raise, because $174,000 a year is not enough for him to live decently.
Put that in your hookah and smoke it.
“We hit the road to Hull
sad amps and smashed guitars
played badly at The Duke
to almost no applause..
But someone made it worthwhile
when smiling with bright eyes
he gave me full attention|
and took me by surprise..
Be careful, ’cause I’m an axe victim
hung up on these silver strings
like wings, like time machines..
like voices on the wind”
-Bill Nelson
Sometime around the end of 1973, my brother was home for a while and brought with him a black Les Paul.
It was miles beyond the cheap dime store 6 string I owned, and it helped me understand how crucial the right instrument is to playing.
I had a True Value amp made out of really hard cardboard with black cloth and silver bolts that made it look pretty rockin’. No reverb, but it had a gain control that was nice and crunchy full blast.
The first Montrose album had been on my turntable for weeks, and l listened to it constantly, with that Les Paul
around my neck, in a state of wonder and determination.
When I finally realized the song “Space Station Number 5″ was all about the muffle and the E chord (hit me up
some time, I’ll teach you to play it), two things I had reasonably conquered at the time, I played it along with the record so many times that my cheap needle ruined it.
When I had it as right as I could, I dragged my gear (all 7 pounds of it) and the album to my girlfriends place to
erase any doubt (as if) about my coolness.
She set the needle down, and after the opening section, I pounded that first E at top volume, quite effectively
blowing out the speaker in my long suffering amplifier.
Needless to say, she didn’t get to hear it that day.
I was pretty bummed about my amp as I went home, but laying in my bed that night, I smiled from ear to ear.
Raw power, man. Raw power.
Ronnie’s wife has now confirmed that his death was a suicide. It seems he had suffered clinical depression
for years, and she told the AP that he was often very hard on himself after performances, “even on nights
when he received several standing ovations”.
It’s a terrible revelation.
Guitar Player magazine ran a story describing his last day and revealing he died from a self-inflicted gunshot
wound to the head.
His cancer, which I and many others assumed had killed him, was in remission.
The story can be found here:
Ronnie Montrose Suicide
So long, Ronnie. Seems you had it rough and few were even aware of it.
But you made it seem possible for me, and you made my life better.
“Sure as you’re born, they bought me a silk suit
and put luggage in my hands,
and I woke up high over Albuquerque
on a jet to the promised land.”
-Chuck Berry
“When that last guitar’s been packed away
you know that I still want to play
so just make sure you got it all set to go
before you come for my piano.”
-Jackson Browne
Briefly, with feeling.
The great Elvis Presley dropped dead 36 years ago today, sitting on a toilet with a weeks worth of Dilaudid in his skull.
I spent years building an inestimable Elvis collection, traveling to record conventions and digging through hundreds of collections filled with dusty Ray Conniff and Liberace records to find that one piece that might but probably wouldn’t be be there, going to one mom and pop shop after another, and searching the back pages of Goldmine and Record Collector magazine religiously.
I got to the point where I could look at someone’s space at a convention and know what my chances were just by seeing the seller behind the table.
The best bet was usually an old person who obviously never listened to rock and roll but loved Elvis like the Savior. The women usually looked like Flo on the “Alice” TV show- you could picture them with their big, stiff blonde hairdo, wearing a pink waitress uniform with a big name tag, chewing gum and taking an order from a weary truck driver at Mel’s Diner. And the men either had the Elvis haircut, or looked like a country preacher. Rare was the occasion that I ran into someone who looked like a rocker with anything that I needed to fill a hole in my collection.
Always found it odd that the last people the King of Rock n Roll appealed to were rockers.
Me, I could listen to anything the man did. I even broke my sacred policy of zero tolerance for Bossa Nova tempos when necessary (though I still draw the line at Tango), and he was the only gospel artist I’ve ever been able to listen to without limit (except for Bill Monroe, who was a close second for me in the hymns department). The reason was simple but highly unusual:
the love Elvis had for sound was ineffable.
He didn’t seem to notice how dumb a song might be. He just didn’t care.
That’s not to say he chose his covers without obeisance, it means it didn’t matter what you put in front of him, he was willing to sing it. During his far too long lived acting career, the soundtracks to his movies featured some of the dumbest songs ever written (including what may be the dumbest song of all time, “Ito Eats”, from “Blue Hawaii”).
For Elvis, It was the vibration of sounds, the inherent nature of music that intrinsically reaches most any human being on one level or another, that held him it’s it’s sway.
This is so clear when you study his records. His weird inclination to use a choir rather than a few back up singers- even on material most musicians would call wildly inappropriate for such a decision- is a perfect example. He would hit the stage with 30 musicians in tow. The sound simply couldn’t get dense enough for him as his art and his lifetime unfurled.
It may have been that very thing on another level that finally took him out, but Elvis has the singular honor of being a legend so true that his shortcomings are a footnote.
His music is simply so important that it transcends the typical fodder and continues to hold his story in uncommonly distinguished reverence, like it or not.
Most rock enthusiasts would tell you his best records were his most naked ones- “Jailhouse Rock”, “That’s All Right Mama”, “Blue Suede Shoes”- and they’re probably right. But for me, “Promised Land” was his paragon. Not only is it my favorite of his almost 50 top ten hits, I also think it’s his most mature and emblematic rock studio performance.
The themes of stages and the road always kindle the bittersweet dreams of the incurable music man, and of what is now obviously the largest batch of love songs ever recorded by one person, it’s the only one that feels more like loneliness than a moon- June- spoon valentine. It’s a celebration of high speed life, the juggling act of being a musician with an inexplicable need to put SOMETHING on the table while co-existing with all the people around them who enjoy it, but at it’s core, don’t necessarily get it.
At least not like you wish they did.
36 years after his death seems like odd timing for this I know, but I realized when I noticed the anniversary today that I never wrote a word about him. And I could’ve gone on and on about a thousand more Elvis Presley songs and a thousand more impressions. But I wont do that here. You’re welcome.
With dozens of releases since his death it’s kinda hard to say Elvis is missed, because clearly he will never go away. I’ll just let that stand as the best result of a sad but triumphant life.
Roll over Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovski the news.
Long live rock.
“My people were fair and had sky in their hair”
– M.Bolan
“Into this life we’re thrown”
-J. Morrison
I wanna say something about tolerance.
It’s a nice, progressive word.
Your willingness to practice it (or your inclination to claim you do) is like an invisible tattoo, a
silent display of intellectual predilection and saintly empathy. It feels good, and it sure looks
dandy on your profile. What prouder pursuit than living and letting others live, in peace and
personal integrity. Come on, now, and say “Amen”.
I was floating around in the friends list on a loved ones page (hi Dez), and found the profile
of someone who is admired vociferously as a wonderfully successful young student.
You gotta get behind that, so count me in.
This same profile features advice from it’s owner that we keep a Bible handy, because one
never knows when one might run out of toilet paper.
Me, I don’t own a Bible, but I do know all the words to “Jesus Christ Superstar”.
Of course, I expect this kind of plastic rebellion from folks whose SAT score vastly outweighs
their experience, but in fact I find this sort of attack coming from older folks as well, more often
than I’m comfortable with, and more often than a standard serving of reason tells me I should.
I don’t have much use for religion. More often than not it seems like taking the hardest path
available for the sake of belonging, and it’s never made sense to me that a force as inscrutable
as a deity would find the allegiance of humanity very satisfying. Our approach to curing ills is
generally driven by divisiveness and warfare, in spite of our Hallmark platitudes and bumper
sticker philosophies. And while the theist and the atheist are a pretty good example of our
pathetic us and them strategy for living, the fact that the Christian worries about the fate of
the non-believer as the non-believer finds victory in shitting on the Christian says everything I
need to know when measuring my empathies.
In the news this week is the thing about the long suffering extreme Muslim folks killing their
countrymen (and yours) because some holy stuff was accidentally burned.
Strangely, a percentage of anti-religion types found among the political ‘left’ are whining about the
lack of respect for Islam with one face, and laughing hysterically about a recent Huffington Post bit
tearing Christianity to shreds with the other.
The odd part of this (if you don’t count the dizzying hypocrisy) is that the bit isn’t really funny
enough to rate, but a portion of it deserves scrutiny (or exposure, for all you sign wavers).
It’s not much of a reach to see an elitist mentality among many anti-God types. In fact, their
entire message is usually that they are just too smart to fall for such things.
If you don’t believe me, ask ’em. The toilet paper guy that inspired this burst of wordy eye-
rolling is as good a place as any to start.
Part of the argument in the Huffington bit seems to be that barbaric bloodlust is just as alive
and well in the Christian church as it is in the whole extreme Islamist deal, and the offer of
proof is the “cannibalistic” rite of eating a wafer as the ‘body of Christ’.
It’s true that there are some smart cookies (not wafers) in the atheist camp. A lot of them I
would say. But that only makes this silly attempt to be comically relevant less credible.
The wafer and weird hats are a bit over the top for me too, but nobody is dumb enough to
honestly equate this kind of ritualistic symbolism with sentencing Christians to death simply
because they are Christians, treating woman like submissive filth, blowing up children to prove
my God can beat up your God, stoning people to death for imaginary crimes, or posting knife
beheadings of innocent journalists on the internet.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you think handing out some Ritz as a symbolic gesture has anything
in common with the animals who do this stuff, you’re giving justification a pretty low bar.
My best guess is that even Michael Moore and Ed Shultz know better. They just hope you
don’t.
I don’t want anybody apologizing for me about incinerated propagalia. Especially Americans
who paid face value for tickets to see a crucifix in a glass of piss at an art show. An event,
it should be pointed out, that no one apologized for, and that did not result in chaos and death.
I know there’s an argument to be made about the shady power and secret doings of
the Catholic church, or any number of other goings-on in organized religion. In general,
I don’t take anybody too seriously that thinks his guess about the mystery of life holds
more water than anyone else’s. But the stamp that active Christians make on my life is
pretty much non existent, with the notable exception of the opportunity to practice the
tolerance anti-God types are so fond of giving phony lip service to.
Shutting people down over such things is just too much of an investment in self-service for
me. I simply don’t need to be right about everything that badly.
And I would be willing to bet that all the costumes and rituals and traditions of the Christian
faith really add up to nothing in terms of how your life is going. I’ll bet these people you hate
so much haven’t walked into your neighborhood wearing a bomb one time. For most of the
anti-God crowd, I’ll bet the only time the subject of religion really enters your day-to-day is
when you are blowing your horn about your claim that even though the mystery of life and
death has boggled some of the greatest minds in the history of earth, you have managed to
figure it out.
The vast majority of human beings on the earth, who do practice religion peacefully and have
for thousands of years, well, I’m sure they could benefit from your amazing grasp of an infinite
universe. I mean, with info that huge, why ain’t you rich?
I don’t spend much time or energy on religion, and I’ve not seen a single locust.
Still, I pray occasionally for reason to prevail in our world this day, and I don’t find
it selfish or incredible.
Most importantly, in my experience true Christians are decent people, certainly
more capable of forgiveness and mercy than I am (if I had some political puppets
telling me how fucking stupid I am everyday, I don’t see myself inviting them over
for chicken pie), and with that as my only real guide, I just can’t find it in myself to
imagine they are a batch of fools. Hating millions of people I will never meet that
simply do not get in my way on any level feels like needless work to me. And it’s
dumb.
It’s not hard to understand people needing peace in their lives, and if this is where
they find it, and they can do it without cutting off heads or blowing up restaurants,
I say live and let live.
You know, like progressive, tolerant people do.
For every mind blowing scientist that spends his time trying to prove theists are
stupid, there’s another equally brilliant thinker scratching his head. And why?
It’s simple.
When it comes to life and death, ALL of us still here can only speak in absolutes about half
of the subject. Even then, we’re pushing our luck.
I found a friend on Facebook (I started a page just to
look for her and killed it when I found her) and we have
exchanged a few letters, all silliness and light.
Today I opened my email at the library and came face to
face with my best friend, Steve- a face I had not seen
since the morning of the day he died, more than 30
years ago.
It was the last thing I expected to see, and I’ve been
very surprised at the flood of emotions throughout my
day. I cried in the bathroom, briefly, this morning, and
I’m fighting it now.
As years pass, memories- as I once opined on TOB-
sometimes seem to become simply the words you use
to describe them, and I am hesitant to admit that I have
wondered through my lifetime if my memories were always
telling me the truth.
I’m happy, and sad, to learn they were, and seeing Steve’s
beautiful face again has made my heart swell with love
and with loss. Those moodiest of blues.
I love you, Steven. Hello, goodbye.
(With a guest appearance by k)
<found this in an old MySpace file>
A friend of mine was telling me she had met pert near 30 people (why,
that’s almost 31!) -in the flesh- that she originally encountered on line.
I told her that was amazing, but really I meant that’s amazing, really and
very much so.
I don’t think I could face the disappointment that often. Not that she has;
as I point out on TOB so often, it’s not you, it’s me. In fact, she says for the
most part, the meetings went well.
And we’re back to amazing.
Maybe (hee) it’s paranoia, but since my apple cart overturned I’ve found
people are much more reasonable when confronted electronically, for a
couple of good reasons, I reckon.
The best one would be words. You gotta use ’em, if you’re gonna love
somebody on the air.
The luxury of facial expressions and waving hands and furrowed brows
are sacrificed at once, leaving you with limited defenses and forcing you
to think out loud. The meanest mother fucker in the valley loses every
ounce of menace when he is reduced to his words. The old “sound”
young, and the timid brave. You can hide here, in a very real way, and still
give the impression you can walk out the front door any time you like with
your head held high, and unafraid.
How do I know? Don’t be simple.
Physicality is a magic carpet for pain. I went from loving everybody to
withstanding most in a relatively short period. But I need people, every
day, just like you. I mean, it’s in the handbook. I can’t escape it, and don’t
want to, entirely. In general, they are the first thing I think of in the morning.
Typically, I turn on my computer (after swilling some coffee and lighting a
cigarette) when I first get up, and look for the chicken.
I’m not suggesting a complete lack of emotion exists with these kind of
relationships, because that would be dumb. I think there might be just
enough, if you can dig it.
For instance, several people have mentioned to me how cool it is that Kay
and I are so close. They’ve gotta pick up something in the air, ’cause I don’t
think Kay sends out memo’s about out friendship, and I know I don’t.
I don’t know why I still leave myself wide open for whatever folks wanna dish
out, because I’m pretty smart, and should know better. They do say experience
is the best teacher. Maybe I’ve learned something, because I don’t feel very guilty
anymore pushing the “deny” button on friend requests, even though “accept”
or sending one myself has worked well for me lately.
I’m looking forward to finding out what’s next with the people I talk to most on line.
It’s an ornery and remarkable batch of souls I’ve stumbled upon, and I’d like them to
know that I know that. I suppose it’s bittersweet that I have these fine people only
through the grace of ‘lectricity, but the fact is it’s probably best right now.
I’ve got a long way to go.
___________________
kay:
I don’t begin to understand you. In fact, I don’t begin to understand
why I just woke up out of a pretty sound sleep, thinking it was almost
morning, when it fact it’s not even close to midnight.
Oh yeah…. I had to pee.
“I don’t know why I still leave myself wide open for whatever folks
wanna dish out, because I’m pretty smart, and should know better.”
Some of us just come into the world like that. Others wear steel toed
safety boots all the time. Probably the same ones whose children go
out to play wearing helmets and elbow and knee guards.
For the most part, I think we get what we expect. As long as we know
that there is really no one in Nigeria who wants to send us fifty thousand
bucks in exchange for our checking account routing number.
Got a message today from a widower who “doesn’t like to type”, but wants
to talk with me on the phone.
With a bare bones profile. I wrote back to say thanks, but no thanks. The
reply to that said simply “Bye”.
No harm, no foul.
I’ve been told to be careful of you, that you’re not who you want me to think
you are. Since as far as I can tell, neither you nor I have any idea whatsoever
of who you want me to think you are are, my radar remains in low gear.
Or whatever radar runs on. The same thing that powers dippy birds, maybe.
Doncha just love it when ieSpell comes back to say “Spell check complete” ?
You and I, ‘lectronically at least, are just one of those serendipitous things that
happen every so often.
Had we run into each other in person, in the middle of Duke gardens or wherever,
we would most likely have just passed in the night.
Not that there would have been any real reason to have been in the Duke gardens
at night, but I was going to say Starbucks before I remembered that I don’t drink
coffee and have, in fact, never set foot in a Starbucks in my life.
I’m not sure where to post this. Ordinarily I would put it in a private message, but it
makes so much more sense here, in response to your blog entry. And since we have
only a couple of MySpace friends in common, why not?
There are worse things than gullibility. Lots worse things. And bitterness ranks right
up there at the top.
Believe it or not, I’ve been there. It didn’t suit me.
Shine on, kiddo.
Posted by kay on Dec 28, 2008
ISTILL DON’T KNOW HOW I WANNA GO ABOUT
putting this together, so I’ll play it by ear- which is standard Outer Boogie practice anyway, I guess.
For any new Yahoo people I’m bound to encounter, I started writing TOB a year and a half ago for no good reason. At 46, I found myself starting the being alive thing all over again behind an incredibly unfortunate series of calamities. Everything I knew was gone, everything I had was stolen, and I was as lost as a person can be. Still am, really. But that’s not what TOB is about.
I’m a rock and roll musician, which means I’ve got one foot in the blues and one foot in the grave, but it also means I’m in that weird strain of artistic types that can come up with a creative notion without really trying very hard but will probably never be able to make clear what that idea was supposed to impart. I’ve said many times that music is the measure of my worth, that I’m good for nothing else- a message you’ll find throughout my greasy little blog, because it’s the truth. For me it’s now a source of real pain as well, because every tangible factor of that life was stolen from me by some pretty heartless people, which means that everything I’m made of is a 24 hour reminder of the shittiest thing another human being has ever done to me. But that’s not what TOB is about.
Because I am the artistic type- and history leaves little doubt that if there’s a black sheep in the artistic type family, it’s the rocker- I’ve always been unable to resist the little voice that tells me to make some noise. With my instruments and records now part of some twisted satan tree garage sale, I was up a creek. I’d found work as a telephone guy for 1-800-Flowers (your florist of choice for 30 years) in “New” Mexico, and to my surprise they thought I’d done such a dandy job (not sure what that says about their employees) that they gave me a home computer for being telephone-guy-of-the-month (or something), and presto- once again, I’m a nartist. My guitars were gone, but I had a keyboard! Very soon, The Outer Boogie was born. Hardly a rise from the ashes, and you can’t really dance to it, but it felt like a way to say something, so it was the first real positive in a long series of negatives; negatives so profound they had wiped out more than three decades in a matter of months.
But that’s not what TOB is about.
You’ll find some running themes, like Christmas, and Oprah, and friendship. Food, and cancer. True lies, several birds, earthly bullshit, and occasionally The Blue Oyster Cult. But mostly, TOB is about God. It’s about this weird notion so many have that people are basically good, especially the people who pat themselves on the back for it. It’s about the insanely thin line between good and bad and love and hate and righteousness and justification. It’s about the dance we do every day to His tune (whoever He may be in your neck of the world): The Outer Boogie.
When I left Durham to go to New Mexico,
I wrote this on TOB:
” I plan to close the presses temporarily (I say “plan to” because it’s possible- not likely- that I might have an unexpected burst of inspiration at any given time) to kill the cockroaches in my bloody suitcase and head left. This portion of the east coast, though picturesque, makes a John McCain press conference look like a rave. A mile away in any direction from Duke University ( in North Carolina, hospitals are the State Bird ), Durham is as empty as a book store in Arkansas.“
_____________
I’m not sure why, but it seems like I’m always saying
goodbye.
It also seems like I’m always going in circles- start here,
go there, and back again, even if it’s only sorta. I guess
the biggest mystery to me is how and when I left getting
lost on the freeway for getting lost on dirt roads.
One can become accustomed to the 405 (and even the
one-way surface street wasteland that is Long Beach),
but how people learn to ignore bombed out trailers with
cars on top of them will forever confound me.
It’s been a very long time since I woke up happy, and
I’ve always been one of those ‘grass is always greener’
people. But everything in me tells me Wendy came
along for a reason, and second guessing it would be
foolishness above and beyond even me. So soon I’ll be
saying goodbye again, however windowless and tantrum
free.
Few people my age are still having this kind of aimless
adventure, and I’m grateful for the things I’ve learned,
as usual. But I will not miss “New” Mexico.
Of course, I said the same thing about Kentucky.
A Kentucky story for you.
In 1978, as I was getting ready to finally go home to
California after a dismal high school career in Kentucky,
I enjoyed several months of unemployment checks,
getting high and playing guitar 18 hours a day, surely.
All of my dearest relationships were also moving on,
to marriage or college or working in their dad’s garage
and such, so any melancholy was futile, which is standard
anyway, I suppose.
One fine day, a strange little man I sometimes bought
dope from knocked on my door (it’s bewildering how a
knock on a door or a ringing phone can be the first few
seconds of dramatic change in your life), and I opened
it to find him a little dazed and holding my dream guitar,
a 1969 Ampeg Dan Armstrong six-string.
“What the fuck?” came to mind before “Hey, how ya
doing?”, but he didn’t seem to notice.
His name was Junior.
Junior lived in real country poverty,
with his aged,creaky grandmother, in a very large house
of blackened wood.
If he wasn’t home, she would waddle to the bedroom on
her hand-cut cane to fetch bags of pot for his customers.
As I recall, other than food stamps, bags of Window Box
were their only source of income.
Well, if you don’t count stolen guitars.
“Where did you get this?”, I asked as I took it from him.
“The high school”, he answered, “it belongs to the band.
They ain’t got no guitar player so it just sits in the damn
room, they ain’t gonna miss it.” I figured somebody would,
but that somebody was undoubtedly one of the idiots that
had made my life beyond difficult for years, so being young,
I didn’t care much.
It was a Dan Armstrong, and I knew what he was about to
say.
“Wanna buy it? My mamaw needs some money real bad.”
I had 75 dollars. So of course, I said “I have 75 dollars”.
Sold.
Junior took that money home to his mamaw, then went to
the bridge at Laurel Lake, and jumped to his death.
Sometimes, I still dream about it.
That instrument changed my life, and most assuredly
changed my playing. The way it came about did too,
on both counts.
I miss it, like a friend.
What’d I Say?”
–Ray Charles
I HAVEN’T DONE THIS up until now, but after a flood of letters,
telegrams, smoke signals and a guy in a democratic campaign bus
with a megaphone (or four emails and a comment left on TOB,
depending on who you talk to), I began to get the impression I
need to explain myself. I don’t do that often, and never well (I’m
told), and frankly the thought of it gives me diarrhea.
But I owe you.
I wont bother with the anti-hip hop silliness, as it’s clear (or should be) that thinking people already know “hip hop” is the creative equivalent of the Pet Rock. But the Rap thing is inarguable: it’s humorless and monotonous, the only talent in the studio, typically, is behind the board, and the only things it seems to inspire are violence, illiteracy, misogyny, cookie cutter performances and ludicrous clothing. The most plastic and empty participants in this farce, Vanilla Ice and Kris Kross (who?) for example, don’t even show up on the radar of my point, anymore than a record by The Brady Kids would belong in an argument that “pop” music (the genre, not the demographic) isn’t vacuous. Mr. Ice’s hook was handed him by nature (melanin), and Kris Kross took the bold fashion signature of wearing their pants 19 sizes too large and ran with it, donning them backwards, and commanding the attention of absolutely no one with an intact brain stem.
While there is no debate that records by The DeFranco Family or The Banana Splits were purely marketing ideas to sell breakfast cereal and Teen Beat magazines (I remember fondly cutting cardboard 45’s out of my empty boxes of Quisp, an idea that surely sold many thousands of tonearm needles as well to replace the ones that were destroyed by the plastic coating)- which can reasonably be considered manipulative or even despicable, depending on your personal spin regarding the level at which capitalism meets criminality- it is arguable that a peek under the hood of rap “music” reveals an engine that drives the same kind of limitless greed, but astonishingly is even more execrable. Record labels like Buddha, Bell and ABC (among others) in the late 60’s and very early 70’s enjoyed many hit singles by a bevy of non-act “stars” including the 1910 Fruitgum Company, The Ohio Express, The Partridge Family, and The Archies, to name a few. These records were conceived in an office, written in the studio or tin pan alley, performed by musician’s union member stand-by’s and marketed as bona fide acts (remember the Brady Bunch episode where two A & R types groom Greg to become pop star Johnny Bravo? It wasn’t as much of a reach as you might imagine). In fact, sometimes there were “tours”, which basically were live action commercials parents paid for their kids to see; my parents took me to see the Banana Splits at a fair of some sort, a show consisting of guys in giant fur suits and rubber masks dancing around a stage while the records blasted through a P.A. system. I loved those records as a kid (and love them now for other reasons), but the show made me an ex-fan for the rest of my childhood (I saw Glen Campbell the same summer, who replaced The Splits for me in the musician of all
time dept.).
It’s obviously a fact that David Cassidy performed on The Partridge Family records, and in fact more than one of the musicians who played anonymously on some of the other silly records I mentioned went on to careers as first rate session guys, and even stardom (pop buffs may recall a ’70’s hit called “Rock Me Gently” by Andy Kim; Andy was lead vocalist on several of The Archies hits). But the truth is these releases were a very clever and very effective way to reach into the pockets of parents and smash the piggy banks of kids in a way that killed many birds with one stone. Not just through records, posters and fan club dollars, but also tv shows, cereal, lunchboxes, magazines and any number of other shiny beads. Of course all recording artists participate in promotional concepts that sell records and tours, but only in extreme examples (KISS leaps to mind) do artists even approach the level of “gimme more” that is reached by the strange wing of rock music known as “teenybop”. Serious enthusiasts and musicians can smell a rhinestone rat from 200 yards, but we also know when the bullet hits the bone that the big difference between an empty musical trash can and a full one is the songs.
It’s easy to say “pop trash” from any era is like the punch line of “The Wizard of Oz”; it sure feels behemoth, but it’s really just a little bald guy with a big P.A. system and an ocean of reverb. Pilot, Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, Paper Lace and any other one-hit wonder you can think of made some pretty light- weight music, as did many multi-hit acts like The Monkees and The Turtles. But in fact this music was written, not “sampled”. And written by musicians (many Monkees hits were written by songsmiths like Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, among others- you might be surprised to learn that “I’m a Believer” is one of several tunes that kept Neil Diamond in mac-and-cheese while he penned the earliest of his multitude of brilliant songs in his tin pan alley days). Through the eyes of a grown up (even one as obviously disturbed as I am), even the dumbest of these songs (“Don’t Touch My Guitar” by The Archies, for instance) are little gems- funnier than I realized as a child, kind of like animators hiding images in Disney cartoons- and even delightful (“Jingle Jangle”, another Archies masterpiece of fluff, is not to be missed). The Turtles, of course, are really Flo and Eddie, who in fact are truly funny people and great musicians, adding vocals and immeasurable silliness to some of Frank Zappas most memorable music. Their records are absolutely great, far more than meets the casual ear (find “nikki hoi”, a hilarious and perfectly goofy number). At the least, the Greatest Hits album is a necessity, but I recommend all of ’em, if you can find them.
Disco, for obvious reasons, is a whole ‘nuther blog.
If you think I’m saying that if you dive into the right dumpster you might find a gold watch, I’m not. Or more accurately, not yet.
I give you rap. Or “gangsta rap”, which is the proudest flag this half gallon of acid tap water seems to fly, a fact that speaks for itself. In 2007, with the psuedo-influx of “boy-bands” NSYNCerated, the small Hollywood twat-pack (who are “singers” one week and handbag brand names the next) either going insane, to jail, or having personal wings added to million dollar rehab clinics, and the dreaded “female vocalists” (who add 25 syllables in the form of notes to every word they bleat) now obviously a parody of their own uselessness, the (alleged) juggernaut of gangsta rap is now the best living example of modern pop trash. But it’s missing, and contains, a few elements that make it quite different than the pop trash of auld lang syne. If you were born yesterday, take my word for it: there’s a big difference in your kid getting a Beatle haircut and having him think handguns and whores are just the way it is.
The guys behind The Monkees couldn’t have cared less that the music was crafted and clever, and would have taken the same pains to sell you recordings of farting prairie dogs if there was evidence farting prairie dogs made kids want to eat Frankenberry. The rap industry has the same army of greedy silk suits that want your money. Like the music biz realities in the first half of this, it’s completely understandable that reasonable people might find these manipulations nafarious. Hey, see ya in church. It’s an argument with weight. I can dig it. But the fact is you’ll find an identical round table at Disney. It ain’t my complaint.
The problem for me is gangsta rap itself. And of course, it is my problem; these “artists” certainly have the right to make it, and you certainly have the right to buy it, annoy everybody at the same red light with it, even give it (gulp) to your kids. Chances are, you’ve done all three. That doesn’t mean your kids are more of a puppet for big business than I was at 10 years old, but if you have done all three, it means you are. I’m certain that I’ve never seen a 45 year old riding down the street blasting “Sugar Sugar” on his Blaupunkt.
There are few people that have listened to less of this stuff than I have, but I’m not driving blind. It was my job for a very long time to buy this stuff from dozens of distributors and sell it to you. You can believe it or not, but the lie of gangsta rap makes the lie of The Banana Splits look like the the Book of Job.
It has been explained to me by a few followers that it’s something like “Rock Theater”, which of course is nothing new- during the long ride to full puberty I was completely fascinated by Alice Cooper. But it is bullshit; captivated though I was by the band’s coolest records (the first 5 Warner Brothers titles), it never occurred to me to consider necrophilia or beheadings as a lifestyle. The fact raps nastiest side effect is that it furthers the cause of stupidity, illiteracy and hopelessness in urban America (a cause that is already pretty beefy without gangsta rap thanks to a host of others with the the same agenda) is made even more iniquitous when you learn that the vast majority of people who buy it are fairly to very successful black adults that stop into Borders or Tower Records on their lunch hour, in a suit and tie, and drive off in their very clean SUV with “50 cent” blasting on an expensive stereo; or middle/upper middle class white teens who never missed a meal in their life. It’s their connection to “cool”. The inane lyrics, cloned performances and pre-recorded back-up are the new version of “it has a good beat and you can dance to it”. This group of consumers, in my significant experience, out-buy black and hispanic teens 3 to 1, conservatively.
This in no way means these kids don’t eat it up; just that they get it another way. The big dollars that keep it alive come from adults that don’t believe a word of it. These kids believe it completely. The stunningly mind numbing part is that “Baby I love you” is now “Bitch betta have my money”, and the credit card waving hipsters that fund it don’t seem to give a flying fuck.
Think that’s no big deal? Well, this is America. Think away, dixieland. The Outer Boogie isn’t about what should’ve confounded you by now, but
what has confounded me.
Another part of this lie, a really hairy one, is that this crap is the voice of “Black America”. That’s just stupid, and if you don’t know it, shame on you. It might serve us all to remember the power music has for most of us, especially the young. While the message 40 years ago of “tuning in, turning on and dropping out” was, inarguably, ultimately full of some pretty deep potholes, you would have to be, oh, Charlie Manson or George Wallace to misunderstand it’s goal. John Lennon said “Have you heard? The word is love”. If you think that’s oversimplified pie-in-the-sky, don’t cry to me. Write your Messiah. I think that was His position, too.
So to get to the part of my answer that a few fellow American’s have asked for, no, I don’t think ‘gangsta rap’ got people shot at Virginia Tech. I do think an unmissable message in gangsta rap and even ‘pop’ music in general (the demographic, not the genre), among other gilded splinters of stupid for the last 20 years or so, helps people like the idiot who did it believe that such an action is just telling it like it is. Yo.
And If you still don’t buy the point about new levels of dumb, I recommend 15 minutes in a teen chat room. What’s your kids favorite poem? Ask him. But don’t be surprised if it ain’t “Ulalume”.
I know there’s a large number of young people out there who don’t fit this bill. I know there’s a large number of young people out there a thousand times smarter then I’ll ever be. I hope yours is one of them. But I also know the people lost at VT were lost not just because nobody got around to cleaning the filter in the killers gene pool, but also because far too many people seem to believe they just don’t have the time to care about that ( if they think about it at all ).
From my seat, if you have provided the world with somebody’s future neighbor, I’m not sure there’s time for anything else.
Finally, the question about racism, which is quickly becoming political Ipecac for thinking people black, white or somewhere else. I’m certain militant race baiters can hit the side of a barn, but this time…
I am about music. It is what I am, it is who I am. And I mean, that’s all. I am worth nothing else. I would have given up decades before now if it weren’t for a hell of a lot of people that gave me my reason for getting up in the afternoon. The only unmolested certainty of my entire experience. They no less than showed me there was something about the whole “planet earth” thing that I could understand, and even love.
Musicians. Like The Beatles.
And Ray Charles, Buddy Guy, Lightning Hopkins, BB king, Sly Stone, Robert Cray, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Jimmy Witherspoon, The Chambers Brothers, Muddy Waters, Hound Dog Taylor, Luther Allison, Freddie King, Willie Dixon, R.L. Burnside, Earl Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Carlos Santana, Albert King, John Lee Hooker, Big Joe Turner, Charles Brown, Robert Johnson… and that’s off the top of my head. If you had a point, I’d get specific.
I do not think in any way that I am ignoring the things that “cause” something like the VT massacre. Actually, I’m sick of everybody dancing around them. Stupid is as stupid does. And some folks is even whiter than me.
I didn’t like “Planet of the Moops” either. But I’m sure glad you read it. You have a real nice day.
June 16, 2007
“You don’t see no city when you look at me
’cause country is all I am.
I love a-runnin’ bare-footed through them old
corn fields,
and I love that country ham. “
-Loretta Lynn
“And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will still be standing
until I pay my bill.”
-Warren Zevon
_______________
My friend Donna used to love to sit and listen to me sing
Lynyrd Skynyrd songs (about 700,000 cigarettes ago)
with an acoustic guitar. She would sing along in a whisper
and watch my fingers do the endless G C D dance so
prevalent in pop music (thank God and Chuck Berry), and
it was good for the callouses on my fingertips (which are a
little soft these days) to pick up a box geetar now and then.
Strings come in widths, and as a rule I use electric 8’s,
which means their width is .008, about as skinny as you
can get. Nobody plays 8’s- I’m surprised they still make ’em-
because they are easy to break and hard to keep in tune for
the first hour or so after restringing, but also because most
players seem to have big fingers that make gripping thinner
strings problematic. Everybody I’ve ever played with used 9’s
or 10’s. When your fingers are tiny like mine, a 10 gauge is
like trying to press a pencil into a coffee table with your finger
tip. I had to kind of invent a way to learn to play, which utilized
a lotta cheating and a blatant disregard for theory. They don’t
say ‘it’s only rock n roll’ for nothing.
I’ve never known many songwriters, but I wish I could ask the
ones I do know what they think of modern country music.
I’ve heard more of it in the last four years than I ever wanted
to, and the process seems pretty simple. Make a list.
When you break it down, a country hit is usually a list of
things that make country living different than… well, other
kinds, I guess. By the time you get to the chorus, you get
the synopsis: My favorite truck, my favorite girl, my favorite
bar, my favorite beer and I go to work on Monday even though
I have a terrible hangover.
I like barbecue stains on my white t-shirt and dig messin’ up
my boots by dancin’ in the dirt. I like my mommas home cook-
in’ and deep fried pie and an ice cold beer under stars in the
sky. And so on.
The most prolific songwriter I ever knew was my dear friend Parker,
a young kid that got my attention with the records he bought at a
music shop I worked in.
Parker was a very sweet kid, straight as an arrow and safe as milk.
He always came in on Sunday, after church, where his father was
a minister of some sort. He was clean cut, short back ‘n’ sides, and
always wore a suit and tie. That boy loved the blues, and I mean the
old porch steps black blues like Robert Johnson and Elmore James.
His interest in it was truly impressive in a person his age. He seemed
to have no investment in the usual guitar hero trappings that come
with wanting to play when you’re young and male.
I found most of his favorites a little boring, and started giving him
records by Rory Gallagher and B.B. King. I think he found a lotta
my stuff a little boring too (try as I might, he never got The Good
Rats, and I think his gratitude when I gave him a copy of Little
River Band Live was obligatory) when I started trying to steer
him away from his steady diet of black cat moan.
The last time I saw Parker was the middle of my last few days
in California. I was in an apartment with a couch, a landline that
still worked for reasons unknown, a Fender Bullet and nothing
else. I was broke, surely hungry and very sick. He had no idea
I was in such a state when he called to see if I felt like playing.
He asked me if I needed anything, and I said yes, a hamburger
and a fifth of Jim Beam. With Fred dead and gone, I was running
out of cocaine too quickly for comfort, and my last bottle of bad
bourbon had been my dinner. Parker showed up in half an hour
with my booty and an instrument and was taken aback by my
appearance. I was skinny, sallow and beaten. After assuring him
I was fine, I took a long swallow of Beam, and we began to play.
A few hours are missing from my recollection of that night, but
I remember him leaving. I knew I was going to hit the road for a
while, so I handed him my Fender and said “You keep this to
remember me by.” He didn’t wanna take it, but I wouldn’t take
no for an answer. I had quite a collection of instruments at the
other house, but he knew the Fender was my favorite instrument
for blues. What neither of us knew was that my guitars were all
about to be stolen. When he walked away, the instrument in his
hand was the last look I would have at any of my gear, including
a guitar I had purchased from a friend who killed himself the same
day at the end of the ’70’s. I will never be able to replace it.
When Parker came around, I couldn’t even get him to have a beer.
About a year after I left he called me once when I was in Durham
to tell me about his first acid trip, for which I lightly scolded him.
And rock n roll gains a new survivor.
These days, he has hair down his back (I have pictures), has
abandoned his fathers church, and has become a full time
starving musician, doing the California couch surf and collecting
awards for ‘Best Local Blues Artist’, which generally means you
get your picture in the O.C. Weekly and it becomes a little easier
to get a Thursday night in San Juan Capistrano for a stipend of
burgers and beer.
He’s done two records of original material (except for a couple of
blues standards so old they are in the public domain)- stripped
to the bone acoustic blues that are right up almost nobody’s
2013 alley. His first one is the only album around that thanks me
by name in the credits (though it shouldn’t be), and that made me
cry. Parker believed in me, he loved me, and he wanted to save
me. I know I scared him the last time he saw me, and I’m sorry
about that.
The last time I spoke to him, which has been quite a while now
(and the only time since I left Durham), I learned he had purchased
the rights to the name Licorice Pizza, a once famous California
record chain, and was planning on opening a record shop.
Don’t know how that went, but he was happy, and I’ll bet he still is.
I imagine the life I built has ended up on ebay and in other collectors
hands from coast to coast. I imagine it all made some pretty poison
money. As powerful and occasionally crippling as it is, the grief has
to be correctly measured and justified. I just have to wait.
With everything by now long gone, the human being in me looks
every day for the things to hang on to, though by nightfall it often
feels like swinging above a buncha bear traps on a wet paper rope.
I’m afraid the unfortunate truth is that I haven’t come close to
moving past my loss, so usually I aim for a bigger picture and miss.
One day, maybe I’ll hit the bulls eye, and come to terms with what’s
left. Promises kept but altered, the folly of faith, the fragility of
trust, and the formidable demon of righteous anger.
I made peace with my father, try hard to keep my mother company,
gave in to the burial of too many friends, and tell myself “I told you
so” about the brittle and fickle nature of love.
Among all that, I’ve found the music is still there, and always there,
and it has waited for me to come back. It’s a slow process with a lot
of tears. I can listen again with less pain. I can pass it around. I’ve
found I still believe in the music, and that is something I’ve never
had to bother choosing and am powerless to govern.
That’s bound to be a good thing.
If I can keep hoping there’s still something about me that’s worth
people’s time, and do what feels most like the right thing in the
moment in spite of the cost, I may just be alright. The music, I’ve
learned, will take care of itself.
Thanks, Parker. I’ve missed you.
“In with a left hook is the Bethnal Green Butcher,
but he’s countered on the right by Mick’s chain-gang fight.
And Liquid Len, with his smashed bottle men,
is lobbing Bob the Nob across the gob.
With his kisser in a mess, Bob seems under stress,
but Jones the Jug hits Len right in the mug;
And Harold Demure, who’s still not quite sure,
fires acorns from out of his sling.”
-Peter Gabriel
It's probably not a secret that I've lost
faith.I'm also pretty sure the reap-what-
you-sow thing is dead on, and that doesn't
help much.
I do know the country I live in has lost it's
collective mind.
And even though I still believe the internet
makes the wheel look like a silly notion, I'm
afraid it's killed part of us. Five minutes
reading comments under any news story you'd
care to look at makes this hard to argue with.
I'll be 53 very soon. I suppose I don't have
much to show for 5 decades in a capitalist
country, but that never bothered me much. When
I did have stuff, it was stuff that was an actual
extension of who I am. I never thought much
about owning boats and gargoyles and horses and
such, because they don't really make any music.
Still, it seems a shame to be well past the half
way point to oblivion and not be able to say
"here's what I did".
I guess the only thing I really have for people
is what my 5 decades have revealed to me. I think
experience is a thing of value, even if the people
who need to hear about it most are in the quite
expected stage of who-gives-a-shit.
I mean, it's no picnic teaching young people
anything, because their experience doesn't really
go too far beyond the fact that old people are
Dullsville.
Still, it's probably my duty to try, being
almost 53 and all, so sometimes I write
stuff.
It never changes anything, it's probably
nowhere near as as funny as I'm convinced
it is, and I never recommend anyone follow
me anywhere.
But some people I know will certainly outlive
me, and if I've left something behind besides
memories there's always the chance someone might
read some of it in a period of nostalgic fancy
and decide maybe I had something to say after
all.
Of course, I'm not counting on it.
So, from the experience desk:
A couple of decades ago, I was sitting in
a recliner with my chest held together by
stitches, drinking from a plastic gallon
bottle of Albertsons vodka and watching
the trial of 4 L.A.P.D. officers accused
of brutality come to a close, in a courthouse
about 25 minutes up the freeway.
A citizen had captured the fracas on video
and the images had been seen- and instantly
judged- around the world.
A young black man had taken some officers
on a high speed chase up in the San Fernando
Valley, into a residential area.
The speeds were alarming, and if it hadn't
been one o'clock in the morning the potential
for a catastrophy would have been enormous.
The capture of this individual was an eruption
of adrenaline and anger, exemplified by a hand
full of bad cops who clearly went overboard.
For reasons that remain a mystery to me, a jury
found them not guilty.
In just a few hours, Los Angeles was in flames.
Mom and pop businesses were destroyed, there
were gunfights in the streets, and one individual
has his head cracked on camera by a brick for
committing the sin of being a guy driving his big
rig through
a situation he wasn't really even aware of yet
(look up Reginald Denny on You Tube to witness
this shocking crime).
More than 50 died in the street.
At one point there were 10,000 troops enforcing
a dusk to dawn curfew in one of America's busiest
and most amazing cities.
And we all watched as hundreds smashed their
way into stores and ran out with TV's, stereos
and anything else they could carry, to a sound
track of news anchors yelping about a downtrodden
race of people instead of pointing out the stupid-
ity of an idea like looting for equality.
Some bad guys, cops in this instance, escaped
justice.
But it happens in courtrooms all across the
country on a regular basis. This day, a giant
number of thugs burned down their own neighbor
hoods in protest. The vacuous logic of that
boggles the mind. Seems clear to me that
making bad shit a million times worse is an
act of utter lunacy, but it went on for days.
And those of us a bit out of town began to
wonder how long it would take to spread.
It was a fearful, confusing and meaningless
war, and large portions of our city were
completely destroyed.
So what did we learn that might save people
from a similar calamity in the future?
Not much.
Enter Zimmerman and Martin, in Florida.
A phony racial flame being fanned by the
likes of Al Sharpton, begging for violence
so that he might play leader for a few days.
And left wing schmucks like MSNBC assigning
racism to every aspect of the case, in spite
of the Martin family saying clearly that they
don't see it that way, and pleading for reason
and a measured response.
Decent people, used in their grief by an
agenda driven media in an effort to inflame
a story and inflate an ideology. If you doubt
this, consider the ways NBC described Zimmerman:
"A white Mexican", "A self-proclaimed Mexican"
and a "Light skinned Mexican". I guess sometimes
brown just ain't brown enough when it's time to
sow.
There's an old saying in America for defective
behavior such as this. Fuck you.
Tonight, the shooter was found not guilty. The
wheels again turned in the justice system and
the opinions are legion on the net.
Our way of life dictates that we eat these
decisions, that they are arrived at after a
fair and balanced effort to find the truth.
It doesn't always work, but that's the fall
out of a free nation that assigns a burden of
proof to accusation. It's how we do it, folks.
And so far, no violence, but many people are
probably still unaware of the verdict.
I don't think I'll predict violence like I
saw in L.A.
I think I'll just ask you to join me in playing
the hand we're dealt as often as possible.
Nothing is served by insanity.
I am interested in your take on it. And in
closing I'll offer mine.
It's simple, but leave it to Americans to
complicate it with racism and any other
hooplaganda we can think of because our
favorite TV channel tells us to.
Both of these people were clowns.
Zimmerman is a wanna be cop who stepped
into waters he is too stupid to know were
precarious beyond his capacity.
Martin, with pictures of a pistol and a
pot plant on his phone to back it up, was
a wanna be "gangsta"- as opposed to a real
bad guy- who clearly played a part in his
mind that his parents were oblivious to.
These stupid roles they assumed in their
lives speak volumes about their personal
insight.
Zimmerman should have listened to the cops.
Martin should have high-tailed it home.
They both made shitty decisions.
Martin paid the biggest bill for it, and at
the very least Zimmerman should have answered
to a charge of police interference for ignoring
their good advice.
But if you're bound to blame one thing, blame
the contaminated nescience of a fiction frenzied
generation that can't think it's way out of a
paper bag.
This wasn't about bad guy Martin and
good guy Zimmerman.
This was about people who pay far too
much attention to Snoop Dogg and Clint
Eastwood instead of working on who they
really are.
And we all lose because of it.
Let's hope for continued peace in Florida
tomorrow.
Let's learn something, shall we?
Ok, I'm done.
This memory is dedicated to Jeff English, the best keyboard
player that ever crashed on my couch, and to JB, who always
knew better.
“Drive west on Sunset to the sea
Turn that jungle music down, just until we’re out of town
Close your eyes and you’ll be there
It’s everything they say, the end of a perfect day
Distant lights from across the bay.
We’ll jog with show folk on the sand
Drink Kirschwasser from a shell
San Francisco show and tell.
Well I should know by now that it’s just a spasm
Like a Sunday in T.J., that it’s cheap but it’s not free,
that I’m not what I used to be.
Here come those Santa Ana winds again..”
-Donald Fagen
Sitting at my Aunt Marian’s bar, I saw an ad in one of the
free Papers.
“Hard rock guitarist need (sic) for fills and solo’s,
serious but fun, no head trips” (I suppose today that
would read ‘no drama’). Two things caught my eye.
The two hundred other ads for bands needing players almost
without fail said one of these: “Must have awesome hair and
attitude”, “No wanna-be’s, must have van” (!), “On the edge
of breaking big, must have place to stay and rehearse
(!!), and/or, most typically, “Influences: Rush, Zeppelin”
(what those bands have in common beyond excessive
volume and success remains a mystery).
This ad didn’t use the words “metal” or “kick ass”, it didn’t
mention being big shots, it was possibly the only one that
didn’t mention Rush, and it said ‘hard rock’. To this day it’s
the only ad of it’s kind I’ve ever seen to use that phrase, and
and I liked that.
The other thing that caught my eye was no mention of gear.
Generally this meant lots of practice amps (as opposed to
stage gear) turned way the fuck up, un-mic’d drums, speed,
and somebody’s living room. I liked that too.
They were in Harbor City, so I took a small amp and my
world famous Ampeg six string and headed out. I soon
learned I was right about everything but their brains.
It was an amazing pad. The landlord had to be some
family member because no sane home owner would have
signed a contract with any one of these people. At the
end of a quiet (looking) cul-de-sac, a big round driveway
with several vans and a shiny Camaro would have given
it away as my destination, but the noise sufficed. Another
musician with a Beverly Hills dad who financed greasy
dreams for his anti-sophisticate son. Inside I found a sugar
bowl of cocaine, a fridge fulla Heineken and St. Pauli Girl,
and four long haired guys and their girlfriends. There was
an expensive but basic drum kit, kinda like a Lexus with
absolutely no features, and a piano I was sure had never
been played. A quick inventory of my experience told me
at the least I would leave at 3:00 a.m. after having a pretty
good time, or at most I would leave at 3:00 a.m. with one
of their girlfriends.
After introductions, I asked them to blow through a number
and show me what they do, so I could get a feel for their
modus operandi.
The rhythm section was shockingly tight, but though the
guitarist crunched his power chords with confidence, his
solo was amateur hour. As Charles on M.A.S.H. once said,
he could play the notes, but he couldn’t play the music.
Didn’t take long to know it wasn’t gonna work. The singer,
who turned out to be the master of the house, asked me
if I knew an old UFO song, “Rock Bottom” (well, it wasn’t
really old back then), and I said I played it best in my sleep.
So we played it.
The song is one of those 7 minute set closers like “Free
Bird” or “Green Grass and High Tides” that, played live,
typically stretches into a 10 minute self-indulgent guitar
solo. Clearly a test. When we reached the ending solo,
the other guitarist- Mike, I think he said- started to play
it by rote, but quickly went back to the rhythm parts.
Now, I play to make music, not clone it. If I can’t put some-
thing of myself in it, it ain’t worth doing. So as I usually do,
I started with the framework of the famous solo but soon
began to improvise enough to be self satisfying. Mike,
after a couple of minutes, began to inaudibly complain,
then he stopped playing and took his guitar off.
We all stopped.
He left the room griping about me not following the original
notes, he didn’t know what the hell I was gonna do next,
blah blah. I heard a little of it, but I was on my way to the
sugar bowl in the kitchen to try and rekindle a little interest.
A bit later the singer (I simply can’t recall his name) came
out and sat across the table where one of the dopey girls
and I were doing lines and laughing about this or that. He
started giving me some kind of pep talk about the situation.
That it might take a little time for Mike to get used to the idea
of a second player handling more solos. That I shouldn’t be
discouraged, he wanted me, he was the front man, and we
could work it out.
I didn’t mention that he had a better chance of getting Don Ho
to sign up for this silliness, because the coke was still plentiful,
the beer was cold and I had nothing else to do.
Mike never recovered from his temper tantrum, but the rest
of us let the party carry on, and even managed to jam a little.
A chair ended up broken to an explosion of laughter, a girl lost
her top in a game of strip something, and a bottle of cheap
brandy found in a cabinet was passed between birds of an
unnamed feather.
At one point they showed me hand drawn logo designs for
the band, and threw out a slew of bad band names to vote
on, which generally is a good sign you’ve entered a room
full of people with awesome hair and attitudes that have a
place to stay and rehearse, a van, dig Rush, and are sure
they on the edge of breaking big.
I left around 3 a.m., quite alone. It had been a gas, as usual.
Like so many of the people looking for players in personal ads
in the 1980’s, it was the party and the big plans that were
driving the bus. The music was just white noise.
It was one of dozens of similar nights back home, a life time
ago.
I think often of the crowds of crazies, and when I see some
of the old Boulevard regulars on a reality show or on tour
with some 80’s rock revival/nostalgia/neuralgia troupe, it’s
all crystal clear. Everything was just a big semi-impossible
gamble, and in many cases of the ship getting off the ground,
the launch pad was a big living room in a big house with a
sugar bowl full of coke, a fridge full of overpriced beer, and an
eventually booted guitar player who wouldn’t know the
meaning of “band” if you tattooed it backward on his
forehead so he can read it between the lines when
he bends over the small mirror on the kitchen table.
All things considered, they really were the good old days.
A couple of years ago, you may recall, there was a complete
airport freakout (the source escapes me) that began the day
I was to change planes in Atlanta for a ride to El Paso- in fact,
a few hours after I landed in Georgia. My four hour layover
turned into 3 days, during which I spent a few hundred dollars
(my entire fortune) in a number of bars and ultimately wound
up in Cleveland without my guitar (I got it back a week later).
Since that day (the freakout day, not the getting my guitar back
day) nothing has made much sense, and most of it can be traced
directly back to me (as I’ve made clear again and again). In the
game of unfailing fuck up, I am beyond formidable. Other fuck
ups should never be confused about this. I do not take prisoners.
In fact, only I could fuck up, every time, when doing the right thing,
which generally is my goal. I never wanna hurt anybody, sincerely,
but it doesn’t pay much to be that way.
People were always patting me on the back because I spent a couple
of years working with challenged adults, but the truth is I did it the
way I wanted to, and substituted my skew for the rules. I kept them
laughing, but in the end I’m not sure I served anyone, really.
I walked away from life as I knew it to help my ailing mother a few
years ago and I get a lotta atta-boys for that too, but the truth is I’m
not very good at it. And the way of life I left behind isn’t generally
open to comebacks.
I could make a list, but I wont (you’re welcome).
_______________________________
“Listen to me brother, take my advice
stay away from trains and them loaded dice.”
-Boxcar Willie
“Things are more like they are right now than
they have ever been before.”
– D. Eisenhower
A while back Wendy and I wrote a kinda lengthy bit about my moving here,
for our friends on My Space. Kind of a play by play, how she was feeling,
how I was feeling, and what we were each going through in the few days
leading up to our first actual face-to-face.
We finished it about the same time as the final meltdown over there, so it
never got posted.
That’s ok, it was fun.
One part of it was about Amtrack. This ain’t it, nor is it really about Amtrack.
That is, it’s about something else. I’ll get to that in a second.
Like you, I watched the TSA freakout on my big color TV, and read many
opinions about it before it disappeared from the headlines (you can only
look at a grimacing authority figure groping a baggy crotch so many times
before the thrill is gone, I reckon).
We’ve all seen the foundations, what with underwear bombs and ink cartridge
bombs and such, and we all know there are a bunch of people out there so
fond of their philosophy that they will drown your newborn in swamp water
given half a chance and… well, we had to do something.
Of course, our action was just as absurd as usual in the face of other, better
ideas, and it reeked of financial corruption, as such things so often do.
And, as expected, people thought it sucked.
For the most part, people thought it sucked because it was too personally
invasive, though some brought up the ever hovering slippery slope of
personal freedoms, and a few even complained about the corruption
by posting shocking videos of politicians from the opposing aisle telling
on each other.
I think it sucks too.
Not because my scrotum is sacred or because I have a God given right to risk
slaughter if I want to, but because of a bit of truth. You remember truth, I’m sure
of it.
It goes something like this.
I moved east coast-ish from the desert about three months ago.
It was my intention to fly, but it took about ten seconds to figure out that wasn’t gonna
happen when it was time to book a flight. The tickets were extremely pricey, but even
more prohibitive was the fact that my mother- who was coming with me to get some
decent medical care- had to use oxygen tanks.
You see, the airlines have a weird thing about explosive devices.
You’ll recall the previously mentioned religious zealots putting the fear of Allah into
them about ten years back, and in their frenzy to look like they’re all over the situation,
they went from more stringent security practices to ultimately insisting on feeling up
everyone’s sweaty parts before they would agree to give you an overpriced ride.
Many of us chose the less intrusive route of just letting them see us naked rather than
experience us naked, by walking through a high tech gadget that lined the pockets of
elected officials and added dozens of pages to Google’s image search feature for us
to wade through in our never ending quest for a peek at other peoples nipples.
The airlines permit oxygen- you just have to rent a battery powered machine that costs
as much as the tickets (if you don’t own one. Unlike most folks, I reckon, we don’t).
To my delight, I learned Amtrack allows oxygen tanks, and costs less than flying, if you
you don’t count the $9.00 ‘frigerator sandwiches they call breakfast, lunch and dinner (for
the working poor), or the 80 hours it takes to get to NC from El Paso. No picnic for a sick
old lady, but my options and time were limited.
We booked the seats and were told to call 24 hours before our departure with the poop about what we were bringing; how many tanks, what size, etc. As well, I was to tell the person at the ticket window that I was the oxygen guy, and to make sure I told the conductor as well, I assumed so they could make a necessary security arrangement.
I told the ticket lady when we got to the station, and she mumbled something that was
almost surely acknowledgement as she printed out the tickets.
The (9) tanks, enough to do some serious damage in the right hands, were in a mid-size
suitcase, very heavy. As I approached the conductor with it, and started to tell him what
was in it, he took it from me and hoisted it up the steps. They clanked loudly, he made a
joke about the weight, and walked away.
It was clear they didn’t care what the hell I had, so I let it go.
I put it on a shelf with all the other baggage, in a downstairs hallway that lead to the
bathrooms. This is good, because I needed a new tank several times, so I just went
downstairs, took one out, and carried it back to my seat without one ounce of scrutiny
(I don’t know how familiar you are with oxygen tanks, but I promise you they look nothing
like a paperback book). Fact is, most of the time, everyone was asleep.
We stopped many times between Texas and North Carolina. In San Antonio and New
Orleans both, at least 75 people got on board. Each walked onto the train, past a
tired and clearly indifferent conductor who took their tickets without even looking up.
Now, of course I’m not under the impression all this might teach anyone anything,
I just wanted to make a point about how ridiculous we are, and a recently popular
bit of agenda driven hysteria seemed as effective an example as any other might be.
And it ain’t just that we seem to wait around with our claws out for an ‘issue’ to tear
each up about without ever really getting to the meaty center, or even that we imagine
– after a few short decades- that we’ve figured out the mysteries of an infinite universe,
God, life and death, thanks to a few books and the kind of muscular ego only going to
college and having enough to eat in a free country can provide.
The really funny part is how willing we are to trip over our own dicks in the pursuit of
the appearance of being fair, with less thought about the potential price than we give
to the fact that we have no intention of actually doing so in our private lives, especially
with strangers.
If that sounds extreme, I recommend a few hours on the internet.
Far as I’m concerned, if I know it’ll take my loved ones to their destination with a better
chance of showing up alive, they can profile me all day long. The international aspects
of travel set it apart from just about everything else the average Joe does in America,
and I’m not nearly as afraid of slippery slopes as I am defective philosophies.
But like everyone, I will continue to tolerate travel, bounce from blog to blog, shake my
head, laugh in my own face, and maybe even say something now and then. Try not to let
it pester you too much, and when it does, feel free to tell me to go somewhere and die,
as some of you are so inclined to.
And don’t worry. I probably won’t do it.
See you gently down the stream.
“The heart is forever inexperienced.”
-Thoreau
The best cat I ever met was my friend, Thoreau.
I moved back to Anaheim from Berkeley because I was very sick,
and I spent many months alone, for the most part, in a large, empty
double-wide trailer in Lake Forest, trying to heal. I brought a few
guitars and a few hundred cd’s- a relatively new format- to keep
me sane, but I was very lonely, and plastic half gallons of Albertson’s
Vodka kept me sleepy but didn’t have much to say.
One day, having decided a kitty cat might be appropriate company,
I went to the animal shelter to scoop one up. I’d had several dogs over
the years, and knew they were too much like people to fit my needs.
Cats were independent, indifferent, liked to sleep, and best of all, didn’t
bark or wanna take walks.
I looked in several cages and saw cute kitties of every stripe. At the
very last cage, several people were trying to get the attention of a
solid black one, who obviously wasn’t interested. “Herekittykitty, awww..”.
He just looked very bored.
After they all walked away, I went up to the cage and said “hey”.
He stood up, stretched his tiny bod, took a very sophisticated seat
with his tail folded across his feet, and opened his mouth wide: “ow”.
He looked me right in the eye, and I said “You’re the one, huh?”
He stretched again, his little arms laid out in front of him, and then
walked up to me and sat down again. His eyes were slanted, almost shut,
and I could hear him purring.
Yep.
I considered his confidence in a most trying reality, and I said “I’m Ernie.
You are Thoreau.”
Thoreau, or “Fro”, as he came to be known, was more than a beast.
He was my friend, and seemed to know exactly when to jump in my lap
and when to leave me the fuck alone.
He was never demanding, atypical in catdom, always totally cool, and
loved to sleep next to my head, his wet nose in my ear. His little snorts
at night became the soundtrack of many dreams.
In his first weeks at my house, he swallowed a needle, an unusually
dumb move for him. I did the whole doctor deal and he came home
with his little head in a huge cone to keep him from chewing his
neck. About 2 am I woke up to him standing on my chest, complaining
loudly. I tried to comfort him, but he wasn’t interested in baby talk, he
wanted some sleep.
I crushed an anti-depressant I had been prescribed and poured the
powder in his mouth. In ten minutes, he was curled around my neck,
snoring like a drunken Admiral.
Thoreau’s best day still comes to mind sometimes, and I laugh out loud.
I happened to notice a “cat leash” at the store one day, with a picture on the
label of a beaming Beaver Cleaver type walking his smiling cat down the street,
tail erect, bared teeth gleaming.
I took it out of the package when I got home and showed it to him. He was in
his usual ‘waiting’ position, his eyes half closed and his opinion clear.
Unimpressed.
It was evening and I took him outside and put it on him. “Let’s go.”
He fell over on his side. The answer was no.
I thought pulling him might be encouraging, so I did. He was a bag of dirt.
The answer was no.
I knelt beside him and said “C’mon, man, this is the latest in cat snoot.”
He looked up and said “ow”.
There was no way he would suffer this indignity.
I took it off and threw it over the stone wall into the golf course next door.
He stretched, sat and looked at me. I started walking, and he trotted along
beside me, the winner.
One morning, when he was two years old, I crawled out of bed for a new
day at Tower, opened a beer, and fell back on the couch.
I realized that he was not with me.
I called out “Fro, where you at buddy?”
He appeared, and walked toward me, then suddenly he was walking sideways,
and fell over.
I screamed “oh SHIT!” It was an instant nightmare, I knew something was horribly
wrong, and I ran to his side. I stood him up, and he wobbled a bit, and I said “walk
baby, please walk”… he took a few steps, and fell over on his side.
I started crying, desperate, grabbed the phone and called my friend. “It’s Fro,
he’s dying, I know he’s dying, help me please!” In a few minutes her car squealed
out front and we rushed him to the hospital.
The doc came out of the examination and said “The most loving thing you can do
is let him go.”
I went into the room and put my head on his side, soon wet with my tears. He raised his
head and looked at me, then rested again. He was purring.
The doc stuck a needle in his hip as I pressed my face against him, sobbing. “I’m so
sorry, buddy. God, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
He stopped breathing.
I went outside and curled my fingers in a chain link fence, literally wailing.
“I’m sorry, buddy. I’m so, so sorry. Please forgive me.”
I felt my friend’s hand on my shoulder, and she said “The doc is pretty upset, he said
to tell you he is very sorry. There was nothing he could do.”
I never learned what killed him.
I only have one picture of him, because the rest were stolen with everything else I owned.
When Berkeley had Solo, the only black cat in the litter, I immediately thought of Thoreau.
Solo became my pal fast, and had several of the same quirks that made Fro so special.
Most obvious was the notion that everything- everything- must meet with his approval.
About a month ago I let Solo out to chase bugs, and he never came home.
I was pretty sad, but I figure he just decided it was a hell of a lot more fun to write his own
book. I know he’s out there, and I know he’s doing it his way.
I’m not sure why I wrote this. I guess it’s ’cause things change.
Anyway, this is for Thoreau. He was my friend, and I miss him.
Surely, it’s been earned.
**
It’s a funny thing, writing.
And I mean funny strange and funny ha ha.
I’ve written here before about it’s failings and how easy it can be to
misconstrue. But there is also something perfect about it. A little bit
perfect.
I abandoned the telephone a while back in favor of the space-yak of the internet. Email is a wonderful thing. It almost forces people to think, to be a little creative. Of course, Generation Dishrag has adopted purposely incongruous spelling and phrasing to go along with their monotonous half-stolen music (when it comes to rap and hip-hop, the “homage” reasoning in one of my earlier blogs doesn’t apply, in the interest of common sense). For the unsure, a few minutes reading comments under any Britney Spears news article on the net should destroy any argument to the contrary.
I know people who think the internet is the Satan Tree, and they aren’t idiots.
Me, I think it makes the wheel look like a Pez dispenser in the scheme of achievement, and frankly I’m not convinced that kids encountering online weirdness is actually scarier than kids finding gangster rap CD’s in their Christmas stockings. It’s amazing to look at the opposing realities of it: the single most empowering source of information ever seen by the human race is in full swing at the same time the least interested (not to mention least interesting) generation of all time fill the nations high schools.
{I predicted the death of rap (sometimes when I’m wrong I don’t
fuck around, I’m really wrong) the first time I heard The 2 Live
Crew, but only because I thought it was simply too stupid to
maintain any kind of real momentum as it’s “fans” moved into
adulthood, as I explained- perfectly- in an earlier entry (see “Time
of Job”). But even if I’d realized that it wasn’t gonna go away,
I never would have imagined the rancid rain that would fall in it’s wake.}
I’m quite certain I’ll be floating around in cyber space for the rest of my life. It’s actually kind of a friend to me.
I started exchanging letters with an old friend I found on the Satan Tree about a year ago, and while all the lovely things about her that I expected are quite evident, there’s another dimension to her I’m not sure I would’ve realized had our reunification been face to face, as our friendship had always been. I’ve learned something from that.
Another close friend will tell you I’ve always thought of myself as a bit of a writer, but in fact I learned something about that idea as well through TOB, and not all of what I’ve learned is good. I am sure the endeavor is honest. And a little bit perfect.
The internet is really the first time in history that everyone has an opportunity to say something. Now if they would only get busy on a machine that helps us listen. Brains and ears and hindsight don’t seem to be feedin’ the bulldog.
I don’t know what TOB will become, but I know the location change won’t be the only one. I know that, because I wish the opposite were true. I don’t get what I want, typically.
I would not imagine it will become a political soapbox, ’cause I really hate that stuff (See “Tug of Peace” when/if I move it to 360).
The last thing I wrote for The Outer Boogie at MSN, “Season of Nether”, was never published, and the last thing I published there is the reason why. I suppose I’ll just have to come to terms with the fact that I have no place in New America (but that doesn’t mean I have to like it). Actually I’m not sure I belong anywhere anymore- but that’s another blog.
People often say politics and religion are subjects better left alone among friends. They both drive me nuts, so I wish that were possible. TOB was never really political, and while the zillion interpretations (for lack of a sillier word) of God’s endless tickle fit are often somewhere in the recipe, it’s never been “religious”. Nor was it ever about the idea that I know something you don’t, an impression I’ve been accused of.
Truth is, it’s been about the fact that I don’t know shit; that I’m always scratching my head about the world around me and the people in it, and “Tug of Peace”, the last bit published, turned out to be the biggest head scratcher yet.
There are people I know, and even love, that have written me with astute references to the bottom line of “Tug of Peace” without even knowing it. Some who have skimmed it (typical of everyone, I’ll bet) and even some who haven’t assume I’m on some “side” in this war deal and that I “blame” people that it’s apparently popular to blame for the whole Goddamn thing. Gentiles and Ladymen, thank you for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for you.
It’s unlikely I’ll publish “Season of Nether”, at least to TOB, because I’ve already said what I wanted to say about it, and an additional rant would be an indulgence. I gots nuffin else.
Except this.
There’s a lady in that neck of the universe, a teacher, who was arrested and convicted of a crime the other day. She was given- as I understand it- a choice of punitive measures.
Door number one: 40 days in jail. Door number two: A PUBLIC BEATING.
As I edit this, I read that now a bunch of that country’s loudest minds are dressed in their favorite sheets and running in the streets calling for her death. As I tried to tell you in “Tug of Peace”, if the civilized world ignores this prehistoric crap in the age of uranium a whole lot of misguided American political mouthpieces are gonna feel pretty stupid some day. Unfortunately, they wont be the only ones paying the price. Up, up with people- you meet ’em wherever you go.
As far as I know, the right and the left are smacking each other around this very evening about the fate of your children, just like you want ’em to. One side thinks people who sentence women to PUBLIC BEATINGS are people our leaders can guide to reason (remember the beating is public. That means people and their next door neighbors come out and watch- maybe even bring some cole slaw and chicken wings- unlike the private beatings so common to us heathen westerners).
The other side thinks…something else, I’ll bet.
If you’ve read any part of The Outer Boogie except “Tug Of Peace”, you’ve already seen my societal suicide note. Better start writing your own. And be sure you say that writing words and speaking them aren’t the same thing, because they’re not the same thing at all. Now there’s some cyber space you can sink your mental cavities into.
By the way- the aforementioned teacher’s crime was naming a teddy bear “Muhammad”. Any “red state” folks thinking about naming their puppy “Jesus” might wanna consider an alternative. You never know what triple-foam mocha latte swilling coffee shop Old Navy college hottie protesters might get away with after the next election. After all, the PUBLIC BEATING people are the good guys in this thing as far as the “blue state” people are concerned.
I hope by tomorrow TOB will be up and running, with everything switched over. I hope both those that have told me they like it and those it has pissed off will stay tuned.
I hope you didn’t read this wrong, and that what you heard is what I think is what I meant and not just what you read or maybe wanted to think you thought I meant when you read it.
See you at the next flogging.
I’d like you to meet Sherry. I met her once, just the other day outside of my
mother’s “doctor’s” office.
She was clearly a meth fan, and strangely.
I was smoking, and she came outside to join me since I obviously had some.
“Is that a cig-rette?” she asked. “Why yes,” I said, “yes it certainly is.”
“May I have one?”
“Of course”. I lit it for her.
She was holding a cardboard ‘can’ of concentrated Great Value orange juice
with a rusty metal ring around the top, and a bag.
“What’s in the bag?”
“It’s a thing to hold my poop. They want a sample of my poop. Is that a camera?”
“It is,” I said. “They want a sample of my photographs.”
“That’s so cool, man. I love photography.”
“Wow”, I said, “tobacco, pooping and photography. We have a lot in common.
Don’t tell me you’re a musician, too.”
Oh yes.
“Oh yes. I write symphonies, man, like classical. I wrote a really famous one
but I can’t tell you what it is, for legal reasons.” I see.
“You taking pictures?”
“I always am. May I take yours?”
She straightened her hair. “Sure, go ahead.” I did.
“I’m an inventor too, man, I have lots of machines. Can’t really talk about it
because of the government.”
I had to ask. “What kind of machines?”
“Well, I guess I can tell you. I trust you.”
“Thank you.”
“I have this one invention where I can turn 1 gallon of gas into a thousand
gallons. It’s huge, man, a big deal. If the government finds out I’ll probably
get killed.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh yeah, man, it’s huge. Nobody knows about it. Yet. When it comes out
man I’ll be worth millions. Even Russia will want to kill me for it.”
“Russia”, I said, “that’s big time.”
“OOOOH, YEAH.”
A once white Datsun (or something like it) suddenly whipped around from
the freeway into the parking lot and smacked into the curb, blowing out
the left front tire and sending the hubcap into the air. The driver got out
to survey the damage, and to blow my mind.
I’m sure years of meth added to it, but she looked like a 75 year old Janis
Joplin; vintage flowered blouse that left her wrinkled belly exposed, hip
hugger bell-bottom jeans and platform heels that made her walk like she
was on a tightrope. A man emerged from the passenger side. He looked
like a demented Gregg Allman.
Sherry was bound to get involved and walked over to them, so I went inside
to check on mom, waiting for the X-ray guy to call her name. I told her about
Sherry as best I could, but she was about to find out for herself.
She came into the waiting room carrying some weeds, or as Wendy calls
them, wildflowers. She sat in front of mom. “Are you Eric’s mom?”
Of course mom was lost. “Yes, this is my mother, Pat.”
“SOOO nice to meet you. Eric is so sweet, do you have any pictures of him
I can have?”
“Eric?”
“Ernie”, I said, “but my friends just call me Rick.”
“Rick.”
“No, I don’t think I do.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Have pictures”, I answered, obviously the only one of the three of us
keeping up with the conversation. “What do you have there?”
“Flowers”, she said. “My husband and I were married by a flower.”
“By a flower?”
“A flower performed the ceremony. We are astral travelers, we went to
Venus to be married. A flower married us.”
Mom was speechless. “That’s uncommon,” I said.
The nurse came out and said “Pat, the radiologist is here, and the doctor
wants you to eat these crackers because your sugar is low.”
Sherry said “Can I have some? I didn’t get any. I have pregnancy diabetes.”
“You’re pregnant?” I asked.
“No.”
The door opened and someone in scrubs leaned in and said “Come on, Sherry,
your ride is here.”
“OH! Gotta go. Bye Eric. Come see me, I live in the White Sands apartments, the
one under the stairs, but there ain’t no stairs on that end. I have birds, and my
daughter is gonna get me a fur bird cage. I love you. Bye.”
We took a cab home.
<Disclaimer: While this story is 100% true, I can’t seem to find the original photo that accompanied it. I found the one shown by Binging “meth girl”, and it’s oddly accurate, though I altered the colors for extra Outer Boogieness.>
“For a lot of people, quiet isn’t so much about the
presence of silence as it is the absence of sound.”
-TOB
“It is possible to live in peace.”
-Ghandi
Sometimes, things are easy for me.
The things I need in life are few.
But I like stuff, and I wish for things. Like everybody else.
Most of ’em you cannot buy, which is kind of a drag for
people like me, who worship at the altar of convenience.
But maybe that’s what makes them special.
I like a little reason. It’s good stuff. Helps one sleep,
keeps the questions sensible, and keeps things like
fist fights and the Maury Povich show in the corner,
where they belong.
If it were more popular, there would be less things driving
me nervous. Like hunger. Homelessness. Racism. Politics,
and rage over them. Boy bands. You know.
I like kisses. Of course, you can buy kisses, but reason makes
it difficult to take your wallet into the areas they’re sold.
And you can’t buy real ones, but I’m sure it’s true that generic
ones provide comfort sometimes.
I’m guessing, of course.
I like conversation. Nothing makes me smile quicker than wit.
It’s like an electric shock when somebody says something
perfect, or even near perfect.
I like letters from Wendy. I would imagine if you sent her five
bucks for one, you’d get it. But they wouldn’t be like mine.
The ones she sends me are priceless. Especially the ones
that just say “I’m here.”
I like to play guitar solos. I like to put in little squeaks and
pops, because only people who are really listening ever
catch them. And really, they’re the musical part, because
you can’t really write ’em, or even plan them. They just
appear in your head while you play, like art actually
whispering in your ear.
I like noodles. Fat noodles. With cheese and hot sauce, and
a Pepsi on ice. I like to watch TV when I eat noodles. But I
don’t have to.
The wish department is a little more slippery, as you know.
I waste time on impossible ones, like everybody else, but
that doesn’t mean they aren’t important.
Mostly, I like the possible ones. The end of hunger. Blurrier
lines of human division. Places to live, for everyone. New
music that’s actually good. Noodles for dinner.
But the best one of all is peace on Earth.
It is possible, you know.
Peaceful sleep. Peaceful friends, peaceful meals, peaceful
streets. Peaceful lives, across the board, for everyone you
know and everyone you don’t.
That’s my wish for each of you. For all of us. As usual.
I know it ain’t a Jupiter Jack or a Snuggy, but I mean it.
All of you have taught me something. Sometimes a
whole bunch of stuff. And it doesn’t matter if I’ve known
you for twenty years or three months. You have all said
something, or put a cartoon or a joke on your page, or
posted a song or a picture, that flicked on a light at one
time or another. It matters. I thank you. I look in on you
most every day, and your well being is beyond important
to me.
Merry Christmas to the classiest friends list on My Space.
My friends.
I hope you find lots of the things you like, under your tree
and every day of your lives, and that your wishes- possible
and impossible- come true.
Most sincerely, I bid you peace.
e
A word about “Tug of Peace”…
Anyone that’s read TOB in any kind of real way surely, I hope, knows that I am uninterested in your personal poop. You can dance naked in the street for all I care.
But if you are easily sucked into the vortex of dumb, it is unlikely you will get invited to dinner at my place anytime soon. More importantly, if you are a murderous psychopath, I’m telling your mom. Period.
_______________
TUG OF PEACE
“From life alone to life as one
think not now your journey is done;
for though your ship be sturdy,
no mercy has the sea!
Will you survive on the ocean of being?”
-Peter Gabriel
“Hey! Is that you pissing on my leg?”
-Alex Harvey
For Ht
and Donna
PRE-RAMBLE____________________________
“We don’t see things as they are.
We see things as we are.”
-Anais Nin
_______________________________
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
The creator of all space and time wants to get a message across, and letting Christ be tortured and murdered is his best idea? I’m just a shmoe halfway to my return to dust, but I think it would’ve occurred to me to at least try passing out some flyers first.
Ok, obviously this kind of stuff isn’t that simple. I know that,
you know that, all God’s chillun…….
Well, maybe not all of ’em.
The stats are staggering. This planet is crawling with theists. God,
and I mean every single one of Him,
knows when you’ve been sleeping,
and knows when you’re awake.
BEFORE I TAKE ANOTHER STEP, I WANT YOU TO
take a look at me.
I am 47 years old. I think it would take a vivid imagination to think of
me as something even similar to mainstream. I once quit a job 1 hour into my first day because I realized how boring my boss actually was. When I was a little kid I fell in love with my best friends older sister- not so much because she was lovely, but because she liked Mott the Hoople.
I’ve never owned a suit. I’ve owned 3 cars in my lifetime- all very used, all given to me (One of them I sold for 50 bucks to shorten the list of hassles during a hastily conceived relocation, and another one I lost the keys to-
unfortunately they were in the ignition at the time. I pretty much gave up looking for it several years ago). I’ve consumed so much Southern Comfort in my time that major stockholders would send me Christmas cards if they could find me. I’ve taken so many drugs that kissing me might sedate you.
I buy my clothes at thrift stores. My favorite jacket is a cheap velvet blazer with a torn lining. I would rather have a great conversation than find a hundred dollar bill. I could eat plain spaghetti or McDonalds double cheeseburgers every
day for the rest of my life, without complaint. I like to play guitar, watch the circus roll daily by, and ignore ringing phones and doorbells. I don’t care about power, politicians make me sick, and if more people were familiar with my life story they would officially name the path of least resistance “Wesley Way”.
In other words,
I am the Anti-Square.
________________________________________________
I tell you all of this because I want you to know who’s telling you all of this.
I tell you all of this because I want to tell you all of this.
________________________________________
START THE REV-ILLUSION
______________________________________________
I saw an anti-war protest yesterday on television. I like television. A lot. It’s pretty much the only place most people can see stuff like anti-war protests. Unless you live in Berkeley, of course. Berkeley is my favorite place in the country. I plan to die there. In Berkeley, anti-war protests are the State Bird. Berkeley is so weird, they
have their own Monopoly game. That’s true. I once saw a cop there in full cop regalia leaning against a building playing an acoustic guitar, with a burning cigarette stuck behind the strings on the headstock like I often do. I told him I’d never seen a cop in full cop regalia leaning against a building playing an acoustic guitar with a burning cigarettestuck behind the strings on the headstock like I often do, and he said, “What’s your point?”
I thought it was a fine question, and said so.
I ‘m pretty sure I look to you like a person who has no problem with dissent.
Trust your instinct.
But protest is supposed to make sense; if it doesn’t, it’s not a protest at all. It’s just a bunch of people spending perfectly good energy wasting perfectly good noise about something they’ve apparently perceived ass backwards.
Anybody with pubic hair that’s interested enough in the world to have picked up a book has probably seen the famous photograph of a hippie at a 1967 peace march putting a flower in the gun barrel of a National Guardsman.
During the anti-war protest yesterday, one of the peace loving hemp heavy heartstringed whippersnappers told a reporter, who works for a network widely considered “right wing”, that if he didn’t leave he was going to get his ass kicked.
Another one, considerably older, told the same reporter he might not get out of there alive.
C’mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.
I think we all remember Woodstock 99, where 3 days of peace and music revisited ended up with thousands of people in giant short pants setting fires, having fights and generally destroying everything in sight to the contemplative musical messages of The Offspring and Metallica.
There’s no such thing as a peace riot, guys.
Kicking ass for peace is like fucking for virginity.
It’s very similar to another example of whirled peas in my home town, recently in the news; a gay pride parade advertisement featuring a- parody, I guess, though I always thought parody was most effective when it was parodic, of The Last Supper, showing a bunch of muscle bound sex fans around a table of enchanting sex devices popular with people who like plastic stuff in their butt.
Honestly, you can’t imagine how little I care about your sexual antics. Fact is, my sexual resume’ would make Annie Sprinkle choke on her Cheerios.
My observation is about the effort. I’m no activist, but if “Insults for Tolerance” is the best your spokespeople can come up with, seems to me it’s time for a meeting.
But since insults and tirades are the new pink in American discourse,
let me be frank.
Leave it to the new mass of Old Navy fat-free double mocha college hotties to fuck up a peace (or a get-a-piece) movement. I know it’s unromantic, kids, but the Middle East ain’t Vietnam. I know it’s boring, but pissing in the Holy water ain’t gonna get the Catholics on the leather chaps and butt-less blue jeans bandwagon.
All of which boils down to a single, reasonable question.
Who are you fucking people?
Changing the world doesn’t happen every time there’s a new societal bent, folks, even if you try real hard. Revolution is not a fad. None of you wants the shooting stopped more than I do, none of you. It is the most pathetic kind of earthly crap. But a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse. America has foreign policy that is so incredibly ill conceived that every fingerprint on it should lead to criminal convictions.
But if you think I’m gonna support an apology over it that will result in my little niece having to wear a hockey mask and a parka every time she needs to go get some milk for her future children because somebody’s God thinks women are trash, you’re out of your mind.
Do we belong there? Absolutely not.
Do we have to be there?
I think its pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that religion is the natural enemy of common sense. It’s always been annoying, but since 9/11 it’s potential for being number one with a bullet (or an airplane) on the international pain-in-the-ass chart is -finally- fully and inarguably realized among people with a grip on mortality.
Strangely, the punch line of the whole thing- peace on Earth- is never the result of it’s practice. I said never. In fact, in the most religiously effusive places on the planet, you’re a hell of a lot more
likely to get shot over it than saved by it. It baffles me that this fact has no effect on the legions of squeaky clean hat-passing Sunday morning sectators that fill the worlds churches. And let me break the bad news if no one else will: trusting the Untied Nations to keep an eye on fanatical factions is like asking Stevie Wonder to drive you home.
I want nothing to do with politics. Your politics mean as much to
me as your shoe size; and me, I couldn’t find Iceland on a map if you threatened to beat me to death with a brass sextant. But even though my working knowledge of whatever it is that keeps the trains on time makes Don Ho look like Eddie Van Halen, I know when something stinks.
And stink- the kind that is only a relative of smell- is a mighty thing. When it’s bad enough, like the smell of death and politics and greed, it’s tangible. You can taste it. It sticks to your skin, like a black and humid southern night.
THE SATAN WHEEL________________
The eleventh of September is here again. There’s something to be said for anniversaries.
We’ve all heard it said that if one forgets the past he is doomed to repeat it, but I don’t think that’s clear enough to be a curative measure. A recovering alcoholic will tell you insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, and that’s a bit closer to our collective folly; but it’s rhythmic, and a rhythmic phrase is soon like an expired drug.
We all remember the past. Our problem is that we too often add elements of our present in a way that connects them falsely, or we embellish in a way that paints the truth, or, worst of all, our memories become simply the words that describe them, and the power they have to teach us is lost.
A state of vigilance is imperative to remembering the past. We must not confuse memory with regret, or it’s value is destroyed. We must avoid holding it so tightly that we reshape it, or worse, squeeze it to death. Like everything else, it’s a circle, and equilibrium is a fragile thing. If you’re constantly spinning around to look behind you, your balance goes out the window; but if you don’t do it at all, eventually you’re bound to get a kick in the ass.
None of which means a goddamn thing to those who can find reason in driving a car bomb through a McDomivahd’s during the Islamist lunch hour; those who don’t just spin around too often to look at the the past, but actually still think we live there.
THE BALLAD OF WILDER STILL____________________________
Some practices and cultures are mysterious even to those who jump around the world studying them, and that’s good news if you’re a National Geographic Channel program director or a bored graveyard shift gas station guy with a 12 inch tv. But the truth is the bottom line on much of that stuff is as simple as dirt.
Chopping permanent designs in your face and putting a bone through your nasal septum as a passage to “manhood”, or gathering around a fire beating drums with a bone and painting your pet boar with chimp shit to wake up the ovulation genie is a pretty good indication there’s not a hell of a lot of libraries in the immediate vicinity. If one side of the world is riding a rocket to deep space while another side is pulling out children’s fingernails to inspire the rain beasties because… well, because that’s how you get the rain beasties attention, I guess, then it’s pretty obvious the latter was in the bathroom when the bus left about a thousand years ago. Beyond echoes of what great-great grandparents have said, what they know of life on earth is prehistoric. That has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not these people are bad or good, because in that department, they’re just like you and me. But it’s 2007 (as I’m fond of pointing out), and the lifespan of these people has the same finishing line as a plumber in Poughkeepsie. And that means these people are being robbed, and they don’t have to be. Of course you on the phony “right” would think we shouldn’t suck up the cost, because it would be too hard to figure out which special interest would be able to siphon kickbacks. The government doesn’t play well with the Departments Of Public Education. Let’s say Ted Nugent, on one of his hunting sprees, found a guy in the woods wearing a loin cloth and boiling a virgin to get rid of a headache. It’s not had to imagine that people would come apart at the seams to “civilize” him; he’d be on a tour like the monster in Young Frankenstein, listening to everyone ooh and ahh as he demonstrated his new and hard earned prowess with a can opener, singing “You’ve got a friend”.
And why? Because leaving him stupid and running on pure instinct would be wrong, that’s why. Of course, the tour would be sponsored by Bud Light and quickly rot like every other instantaneous flash-in-the-pan (in a year his mug shot will be on TMZ after his 3rd D.U.I.), but the initial motivation would be the idea that teaching him something about what most of the world has learned is the right thing to do. And if you on the phony “left” wanna argue about that because Jodi Foster made you cry in “Nell” or you believe it’s wrong to infect his simple nature by teaching him to be part of the greedy western war machine, then we’ll argue. Give me a call after you get the kids off to school.
MESHES FOR CELESTIA_____________
From The Outer Boogie, “Interview with a Housefire”:
‘As far as I’m concerned, the only only aspect of this that I can consider right now is that thousands of people from my neck of the
world who have no idea I even exist are living in Bedrock and sleeping with a rifle, just in case I do. Tom Robinson said “If left is right
then right is wrong; you better decide which side you’re on”.
I’m on their side.’
The weirdest aspect of the “war on terror” is that Americans aren’t just on different pages, we’re not even reading the same book, and that doesn’t make any sense at all in a situation like this one. While there’s room for debate regarding strategies and leadership, treating the issues behind this thing as though you’re talking to the mayor about potholes on Main street is not just embarrassingly stupid, it’s infuriating to those of us with a fondness for the absence of tanks in our neighborhoods. I have yet to hear one ‘anti-war’ democrat or Hollywood attention whore even hint that they might have some idea about who this enemy is. Tim Robbins (and every other social injustice junkie) is worried sick that the west is infecting an ancient culture with our greed and decadence, shouting from the moon-roof of his limo to anyone that’ll listen that the only reasons we’re there are to keep a political agenda alive and to line the pockets of right wing rich guys with oil interests. Imagine that! Politician’s with a war time agenda. I say it’s shocking. It’s shocking, says I.
Dear Hollywood,
Everybody knows there’s nothing rational or humane about a nation like ours, or any nation that imagines decency, selling weapons to countries that are several centuries behind the times and at least an age behind the truth. It is the shittiest kind of earthly nonsense. If one family is hungry in a world of prosperous nations, giving a dime to murderous, hyper-religious cave trogs is a sin, and should carry a penalty that makes the noisy parts of the Book of Revelations look like home room detention. Who are you fucking people?
I don’t need to consider some clandestine purpose behind this chunk of history, because whatever it may be that’s leading the White House, the course of action to make it work is to shut down people who are indefatigably focused on setting America’s hair on fire. The agendas will live long after this is in the archives. Even if the people who died in New York only had husbands or wives, that number is roughly 6000. When you factor in the children, parents, Grandparents and friends of those 6000, we’ll probably never hear the head count of people who’s lives were strip mined in that attack. Right now, I could care less about fat cats and basement business. Right now, we don’t have time to pretend we can stop the freight train to Weirdsville that is foreign policy. I don’t know about you, but most of us saw that day going down, and most of us get that the reason it went down is that a small number of maniacal “leaders” have a large number of fanatical cavemen convinced that killing people who eat pork gets them a backstage pass to Elysian Fields and all the fermented mango juice and finger-cymballing 12 year-old belly dancing Betties they can eat.
Don’t tell me it’s not that simple. They prove it is every time they open their mouths.
Somebody said if you’re not a democrat when you’re a teenager, you have no heart; and if you’re not a republican when you’re an adult, you have no brain. Lemme tell you something. If you’re either one, the only person you’re kidding is yourself, and the only people you’re serving are rich celebrity history majors that not only know you’re a sheep, they count on it.
Mr. Robbins has every right to be a fuck sandwich; the annoying part is that he and others like him not only seem to believe they’re teaching people something, they are also vigorously participating in a defective uprising by a bunch of pan fried zealots that is solely based on the ignorance and prejudice of an ancient and irrational religious practice that has a very real shot at making the world my little niece will grow up in a pretty shitty place to have dinner. Not only are the similarities to the age of gladiators and crucifixions being ignored by petition waving party zombies like Sean Penn and the state of Vermont, suddenly- after four-plus decades on the planet- they’ve decided it’s a shameful crime that we haven’t been providing our long suffering Islamic neighbors the trinkets and toe-rings they need to effectively catch God’s ear at the airport.
The radical left, whoever they might be, go out of their way to ignore the televised beheadings, the kidnapping and/or murder of missionaries and journalists, the recruiting of children through cartoons designed to brainwash and prejudice, the idea that women are property, the use of children as explosive devices, even the promise of perpetual attack unless we wise up and get on board.
And they don’t seem to know that the people they think they’re protecting wouldn’t think twice about using Nancy Pelosi’s eyeballs for ice cubes. And why? The pulse of the nation, of course. And a lot of the nation is so busy avoiding identity theft and programming their blue-ray music mind chip that the brief glimpses they get of the war on tv leads them to believe some party spin about the state of the conflict.
The cold truth is that if 99% of Americans were totally behind stopping the insanity of the extreme Muslim faction even if it means cleaning their clock, Hillary Clinton would be waving the war flag as high as everyone else, because that would be where the votes are. Do people really not get this? It’s astonishing.
I don’t believe for a second that Bush does anything agenda free. For the super-rich, that stuff is in the handbook. People at the top of the political food chain prop up dangerous governments and cash in on chaos; it’s part of the game. Both parties make my skin crawl, but the right wing seem to be the ones that understand that this monkey see, monkey do enemy is too prehistorically motivated, and too mindlessly determined, to ever quit. They see this as the final showdown, and they are not going anywhere. Right now, people- at this moment- there’s a room full of these mud hut maniacs composing a plan to kill a batch of filthy Americans. It doesn’t matter who. And if they wont stay in their own yard, as profoundly tragic as it is, our only hope of avoiding having to deal
with this shit for the rest of our lives is paving their playground. They’ve seen what most of the rest of the world has learned, and it’s unlikely that the far middle wing teaching them to use a can opener is gonna soothe the savage breast. Unlike Ted Nugent’s virgin boiling rain doctor, they know there is a more civilized world. They’re just not interested.
Nobody could quote John Lennon- or Alex Harvey- as much as I do and still sleep at night after even considering war as an answer. It’s not. I don’t believe for one second a political victory behind war has ever been a human one. But I’m not an idiot, and it would be a lie to suggest war has never resulted in a residual human victory. That doesn’t mean war works; it means that sometimes, in spite of mankind’s best efforts to make the life experience as impossibly shitty as we can imagine, the right thing seems to rise from the ashes. Often this right thing is simply keen hindsight, which is certainly potentially curative but never, obviously, the initial objective. But sometimes the right thing is liberty itself, and let’s let reason ring; nobody even bordering sanity can submit a rational treatise on the evils of human freedom.
I don’t know a goddamn thing about the Jewish religion, the Muslim religion, or even the Catholic religion, and don’t want to; as I’ve said, it’s pretty hard to take this stuff seriously when it’s most respected minds think dumb hats and gruesome trinkets are important realities in the Divine Plan.
It means less than nothing to me what you pray for or how you pray for it, in part because it seems unlikely to me that the Higher Power needs your insight on how next week oughta turn out; but more tangibly because it’s a hell of a lot more convenient for me to stay out of your spiritual jumping jacks than it is to worry about it.
I do think prayer for others is an example of peoples finer tilt; in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (a great read even if you haven’t tasted wine since religious people sliced off your foreskin so the guy in the bad hat can give you the pass code to the Pearly Gates parking garage), it’s suggested the purpose of prayer is only to ask for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry it out, which so far is the best argument for practicing prayer that I’ve come across.
Simply, the spiritual quest of the aborigine next door means nothing to me. I’m just not interested in a take on time and space from people who are apparently easy with swallowing the silliest kind of caveman bongo banging whiplashery. My neighbor can burn all the incense, ting all the triangles and boil all the tree bark his hunger for salvation commands if it doesn’t use up all the hot water in the building and delay my shower.
Because that’s how freedom works, and because that just makes sense.
John Lennon said “God is a concept by which we measure our pain”. I would argue, if he wanted to debate it (which I doubt), that God is also an excuse. Not in the scheme of things past or to come, but in the human mind. There is one reason and one reason only that those indulging the weirdest religious practices on the planet cannot exist in harmony with those who do not practice religion at all: because one of these two groups are indulging the weirdest religious practices on the planet. The place you are most likely to find “God” alive, well and on the clock is in the dark and horrible cavern of human stupidity and fear. It isn’t the pro-choice crowd that’s bombing anti-abortionists, and it ain’t agnostics that are strapping bombs to their children and treating women like diseased chickens. These are the mindsets of fanatics and lunatics, and there ain’t a psychiatrist on the the planet with a big enough couch to work through the problem. It’s these maniacs for whom God is an excuse, or worse, a weapon. They are the predictable result of living by ancient religious ritual in a modern age; in terms of snake handlers like the taliban- one example- these practices promote stupidity and psychopathy. Because these extremists are exclusively male dominated, violence and megalomania are textbook reactions to any theoretical challenge. Because these extremists are hyper-religious male dominants, their version of taking their ball and going home by statute has to feature some hats, some swords, and of course, some exposed and bleeding gizzards.
There are few things more dangerous than a megalomaniac under the impression somebody has figured out he’s completely full of shit.
I once said if the world in which we live is comfortable with the fact that revolutionaries can own birdcages without losing an hour of sleep, someone isn’t telling the truth. What I meant was simpler…
who are you fucking people?
_____________________
A MOSTLY COLDER SUN
“Its a tug of war. Though I know I mustn’t grumble.”
-Paul McCartney
Leave it to the new strain of coffee torn shoppe sweater liberals to fuck up an ecology movement. Choppy chin hair and a “Go Green” t-shirt may pass for new ways of thinking to people who own Oasis records, but you should know that smart freaks laughed when Johnny Rotten snarled “Never trust a hippie” because we knew what he meant. Look, if you wanna let Al and Tipper Gore lead you to a cooler future, lace up those earth boots. Me, I’m not getting in line behind anybody who took Judas Priest seriously.
It will be a wonderful thing if your great great grandchildren inherit a planet that still has polar ice caps, even if the experts determine their biggest advantage is that they make pretty screen savers and bears like ’em.
But if you’re losing sleep because Al Gore says San Franciscans should stockpile aqualungs, you’re confusing politics with postulating. Lemme tell you something. If Mr. Gore had wound up in the oval office, the number of white house backstage passes would be the same. Only the recipients would change. America is the hippest game in town, and that’s just a fact. But no one that might read this has ever voted for a politician that has anything to do with that.
It’s never a bad thing when people with influence bring attention to something advantageous to the masses. Just don’t imagine Mr. Gore’s concerns are wingless. The fucker would torch every tree in Tacoma if he knew it would put a democrat in the drivers seat. There are plenty of reasons global warming oughta be in the paper. Selling Al Gore DVD’s ain’t one of them.
If every young ‘un in the nation bought a Pearl Jam record and marched for wiser light bulbs, and we had time for it, no one would like it more than I would. But America has a weird problem with “movements”. The participants become an island. It’s us against them before the paint on your protest sign is dry. And if in time your cause- assuming it’s a good one- makes it all the way to a segment on the Oprah Winfrey show, you’ve just graduated to pushing tampons and toilet wands like every other lip gloss lemmings in a limousine. Normally, that would just be blog fodder. But until we figure out how to get the God people to stop cutting off heads between prayer meetin’s, it’s attention we can’t spare. And as long as we can power a Who concert with Al Gore’s back-up generator, you’re never gonna convince me he’s anything more than another expensive blue suit.
THE AGORACHRISTIAN PANTY CIRCUS
HALF-MOON PARACHUTE COWBOYS OF DESTINY
Leave it to the new strain of airbrushed conservatives to fuck up a military action. Still, unless Mr. Gore accidentally proves the answer to Middle Eastern blood lust is a colder sun, smacking those people around makes a hell of a lot more sense than drawing up new contracts, because they wont take them seriously even if we bend and let them be signed in chicken blood during the Holy Half Moon. Paint me a river of tears about liberty; as long as these savage psychopaths are gonna argue that cutting off American heads is God’s idea of taking care of business, reasonable human beings are gonna make the ugly call. This crap sucks, in every imaginable way, and in even in ways that have managed to shock us. But the fact is, we’re debating foot baths in our airports as a show of religious tolerance, and they’re stoning women to death that are sick of wearing face masks. My God can beat up your God is stupidity that stretches the imagination in ways unseen since dinosaurs ruled the earth.
Both of our countries are full of children, of course. Tell me, what are the chances yours are gonna grow up thinking another modern way of life on the other side of of the world is so wacky that they deserve to have their heads removed? Are you really gentle and peaceful enough to empathize with the ritualistic zealots that perpetrated the most shocking and costly act of war ever seen on American soil? Are partisan politics really important enough at 3 o’clock in the morning to gamble with your children’s lives?
It’s not a revelation that Bush is as full of shit as anybody else
you’ve never voted for, guys. But the left wing is gonna get you
killed.
Hey, I was 20 once too. I’m just as surprised as you are.
As I’ve said, other than a bit of wide-eyed wonder, I never had the spare interest to concern myself with my neighbors grab at the Holy parachute, and I still don’t. The good Lord knows if you wanna dig for sarcastic gold in the field of religion, the Vatican alone provides enough ammo for a thousand sets at the Improv without ever telling the same joke twice; as a writer I don’t need to concern myself with the religious underground. Have a glass of pigeon blood, on me. They can pray and flail away as long as their hearts desire. Until, of course, they wanna shoot me because they think I’m doing it wrong.
In my experience, religious people are decent and sincere, pretty much the only two requirements for getting on the societal guest list. In my experience, extremely religious people are contemplative and comforting. In 2007, the nuclear mutant baby of religious and extremely religious doctrine does not get to wage a “Holy War” on nations with a different spiritual bent. And if they do it anyway, we need to eat their lunch. A bulletin for the pseudo-hippie protest crowd: the middle east ain’t Vietnam.
Do we belong there? Absolutely not.
Do we have to be there?
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
As long as this kind of stuff is that simple to people, you bet your ass.
Amen.
(Post publishing adden-dumb: In a move one reporter called “beyond
Orwellian”, the leader of “the most transparent administration ever”
has recently banned photo journalists from prez-type events so that his
office can approve all photos before they are seen by the public.)
“They never stop, and they never die
They just keep on puffin’
how they multiply!
Crazy horses will they never halt ?
If they keep on movin’
then it’s all our fault
What a show, there they go,
smokin’ up the sky
Crazy horses all got riders,
and they’re you and I.”
–Wayne Osmond
“Experience without theory is blind,
but theory without experience is
mere intellectual play.”
-Immanuel Kant
I’ve seen several fun tips to energize the green energy endeavor lately, and typically they are about as efficient as a “Down With Pollution” pocket patch. If everybody gets to warn me about the sheer power of empty Pepsi bottles and the evils of financial sanity, I get to weigh in too. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s no help at all.
There is no device or mathematical equation that could properly measure my unwavering indifference, and not just because the most obvious thing the last crop of young people have given us is unspeakably bad music. Large numbers of extremely intelligent people who have dedicated their lives and careers to studying all of this stuff (and know far more than I could ever stay interested long enough to learn) disagree, often vehemently, about the reality of both sides of the argument.
My inclination is to avoid the side that smells the most like political hysteria, but I don’t discount either side completely because I simply ain’t comfortable pretending I know what I’m talking about when the main sources of information being utilized by myself and the public at large are the two biggest cauldrons of bias and blather known to man:
newspapers and television.
It makes sense that the incredibly disposable society we live in can’t be good news for Mother Earth, but it’s also evident that the human race kids itself century after century about how formidable our presence here really is. There are few examples of being too big for our britches that are more revealing than discussions about controlling the oceans.
The cold truth is that for me to dedicate myself to either argument, at this point, is to make a decision based on inconclusive evidence that is far too cloaked in politics
for my comfort.
Simply, too many experts completely disagree.
If we spent half as much energy worrying about the awful shit we KNOW we can actually alter, like political parties and Miley Cyrus having a successful career, we might be able to leave behind a more substantive legacy than just being the generation who decided winning a spelling bee was abusive to those who lost.
Now if you think all of this makes me a homophobic racist who hates poor people, that’s dandy. At least we both know who I’m talking to.
In no way do I believe you should abandon your take on all this if you are comfortable with your conclusions. In fact, I think it’s a fine thing you’re concerned, assuming you are convinced your sources are sincere and properly separate from party politics.
My only advice is the TOB stand-by: don’t stand in line, even if it’s attractive.
All that glitters ain’t necessarily gold.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled program of endless MyFaceSpaceBook joy and tasty recipes.
I don’t have much to say, as you know.
I never intend to write one of these ‘dedicated day’ blogs,
‘cept for Christmas and such, though the last two years or
so it seems I’ve abandoned that policy.
Wasn’t gonna do it at all today til I saw Josie say she missed
her dad. I do too. Mine, I mean. Never met hers, though I’ll bet
he was dandy pie, ’cause she is.
My dad seems to have made enemies of everyone in the family
but me, which is odd because the (main) reason they are all mad
is the shitty way he handled the last ten years of his marriage to
my mother. Since I am much closer to my mother than either of
my brothers, it would only be reasonable that I would be the
angriest of them all (I think my oldest brother never liked the fact
that it took his entire childhood for my dad to figure out how to
handle kids, too- but I ain’t going there today).
Sometimes I think my brothers get so angry at me all the time
because I remind them of our father, who was also extremely
fond of convenience.
I used to think my dad was the most responsible cat I’d ever met,
so I was shocked when I figured out how wrong that was.
I was the last one to see him alive, in my immediate family, when
I took a road trip with a very married lady (oops!) to Alabama for
a visit (that’s the blog you wanna read, but I wouldn’t hold my
breath if I were you).
He was living in a motel, the very last thing anyone who ever met
him would expect.
When he came to mind, you would picture him in one of his stupid,
brightly colored knit leisure suits (I know now he did that for his
own amusement), but this night he was wearing jeans and a baseball
jersey. His hair was long, and his manner completely relaxed. In fact,
the first thing he did was open a little cooler and toss me a pony Miller
High Life (I didn’t mention I drank Southern Comfort, as a rule).
We stretched out on the bed, our backs to the wall, and I asked him why.
Why everything. He told me, quite frankly in fact, and I understood.
I never explained it to anyone else, and probably never will. But I know.
I really only meant to tell you about one thing that always stands out
when I think of my dad. His love of freedom.
He fought for it in two wars. He hated my long mane in high school, and
he really hated my army jackets. But there was no way he would tolerate
complaints about them.
My favorite example is the time, I was about 10 I guess, that I went to the
local library to check out a book called “Fools Parade”. I had just seen
the film, with Kurt Russell, James Stewart and George Kennedy, and I
loved it.
Now, I didn’t know the first thing about prostitutes or corrupt cops (the
movie is just this side of family fare), I just liked the dynamite. There was
lots of dynamite.
The librarian refused to let me check out the book because it was of an
‘adult nature’ (never mind she let me check out Ian Fleming books every
week- guess she wasn’t a Bond fan). I went home and told my dad.
I could paraphrase the speech he gave her for dramatic purposes,
but instead I’ll get to the point. Just know he made it crystal clear he
didn’t get his leg blown apart in Vietnam so some church-addled biddy
could decide what his kid could and couldn’t read.
If there were a book he didn’t think I should read, he would decide that,
though for the life of him he couldn’t think of one.
It was beautiful.
I wish I could call my dad and ask him what he thinks of this and that.
You know what I mean. But I can only try to keep in mind that the last
thing I said to him, over the phone as he was getting ready for surgery,
was that I understood, and I loved him.
The last thing he said to me was, “I love you too, son.”
Wanna contact me personally and
say something brilliant?
Now’s your chance.
Remember to mention the name of the bit you wanna complain about so I know how to attack you.
The following contact form is an easy and private way to tell me to go to Hell.
Fill out the fields and drop me a line.
Rest assured your email address will never be shared or sold.
I have no agenda. Hell, I don’t even have any friends.
Any info you enter is invisible to others.
Don’t worry, I ain’t soliciting pen pals, but I will answer anything you ask me to as soon as I am in the mood.
Boogie, chillun.
A spankin’ new underwear bomb plot was thwarted today
by the FBI or somebody like that, saving a Delta flight from
certain doom. They seem to be pretty sure the bomb was made
by the same cat who made the last underwear bomb, again using
non-metallic materials that are difficult to discover. Reportedly,
he’s gotten much better at making them.
Hey asshole: not better enough, huh?
Across the universe, the terror trial of 9/11 fucknose KSM and
his band of Allah people turned what should’ve been a two hour
formality into 13 hours of dickhead follies, throwing paper airplanes
(classy), eating, passing magazines around, dropping to their knees
in prayer, and refusing to put on headphones so they could hear the
proceedings in translation, among other ultra-heavenly bacchanalia.
In an effort to add sanity to the situation, a decidedly non-Muslim
defense attorney showed up in full fourth world citizen regalia and
suggested that, going forward, all the other women allowed in the
room show respect for the poor fellas on trial by wearing “more modest”
attire.
I’m just glad Obama changed his mind about having the trial in New
York City. Coulda been a real circus, ya know.
Meanwhile, the brother of a man who was trapped in an upper level of
one of the towers gave an interview today in which he said something
quite like this (paraphrased, I didn’t have a pencil):
“One of the defense people made a reference to ‘all of the things KSM
has already been through’, and all I could think of were the men and
women who did nothing more than go to work one day, trapped in the
towers with three terrible choices: suffocation from black chemical
smoke, burning to death, or jumping. That’s what they went through.
None of us can imagine what that choice must have felt like”.
It’s my guess every one of the people that died that day would have
picked seconds long intervals of water boarding over those choices
6 days a week and twice on Sunday. C’mon and tell me about torture,
motherfucker.
Finally, the big cheese has told one of the long suffering batches of
bad guys that they can play with the rest of us if they will denounce
terrorism.
A strange comedian/commentator said this today (again, no pencil):
“What this administration doesn’t get is that they don’t care. It’s like
a rabid dog- they can’t change what they are, they don’t care that they
have rabies, and you can’t talk them out of biting people and spreading
it. You pretty much just have to take ’em out back and shoot ’em”.
You can’t make this stuff up. Lean forward, America.
My first real job (if you don’t count the week I spent bikini waxing Sumo wrestlers in
the Philippines; hard to believe that place would be so strict about child labor) was at
a mom and pop record store, when I was about to turn 15.
It became the only work I ever did with 100% joy, and I did it in a number of places for
three decades.
Every place I ever lived smelled like cardboard, because of the LP jackets. Whenever
I moved, there would be large areas of total clean in my carpet where my collection had
been, especially under my opera case/wall; last count/guess was about 18,000 titles, and|
that’s just the stuff that was in order.
My last house in Santa Ana was a rock museum- every inch that wasn’t a pile of playable
units of some sort had the furniture on it, with a tiny path in front for squeezing in.
My walls were covered with guitars and 30 years of memorabilia, including a gold record
awarded me for my less than microscopic contribution in selling a million copies of
‘Invisible Touch’ by Genesis, a silver copy of “Imagine” by John Lennon with embossed
lyrics in the disc, and any number of other treasures, gifts and irreplacables.
One of my favorites was two sheets of yellow, stained legal paper with Ricky Nelsons
hand written lyrics to “Garden Party”, in a beautiful frame.
When CD’s came along, I kind of started all over again, and built another collection that
covered walls. Thousands upon thousands of titles. I do believe I had at the very least a
‘greatest hits’ type package from just about anyone you can name, from Gogi Grant to
Grand Funk Railroad, and in most cases, I had entire catalogs. It was the one thing in life
that meant everything to me. My work was my hobby, and in fact, me.
I’ll never forget the day I found a memo on my desk at Tower Records, instructing me to
box up all the LP’s and get ’em back to the warehouse.
We were going CD only. I was crushed. So needless to say, I’m a music person. I know
none of this will mean much to anyone, but it might explain why I chose to share the
following article beyond the average reasons-to-share-articles. For me, it’s like a flower
on a grave.
A final so long to the life I once had. I hardly knew ye.
But it was a wonderful thing.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/11/15/music-lovers-prepare-to-say-goodbye-to-the-cd/
So the in general attorney is leaving.
It’s been a helluva ride.
Big E, you passed through our lives like a flaming barbed wire gallstone. I look forward to ignoring your upcoming books and appearances on “The View” as part of a focused and deliberate strategy to completely forget you.
“THE QUALITY OF MERCY
is not strain’d.”
This threadbare, rather Christian precept is not vague.
It doesn’t say “…should not be strained”,
or “…really sucks but give it a shot”.
It does not suggest varying measures can be applied.
Quality is, first, a noun. It is inherent. A characteristic. The quality of mercy one owns. Moral DNA. It’s like the steel or fiberglass that house your car’s actual power: you may see it mentioned in the owners manual, but it wont be on the troubleshooting page. A thumbs-up from the best seat in the house at the local gladiator arena was exactly what it was called; an act of mercy. That is not a distinction without a difference; hell, even Richard Ramirez let a few victim’s live, and I’m fairly confident you wont find him on the short list of potential Guest Speakers at too many rape crisis center fund raisers.
And don’t suppose the word “mercy” is definitively bound by it’s most common context. Some of us may need a tutor and a bucket of espresso with two straws to get through some of his stuff, but you’d have to be a certified ashtray to wanna debate Shakespeare’s most dexterous wordsmithing. Like most any effort of value, definitions are not improvised and only gently embellished when a point is hard won, in the interest of being compelling but fair. (you didn’t fall for that crap, didja?)
He was talking about kindness, forgiveness, and heartfelt empathy. Doing unto others. Having no inclination toward revenge, or judgement. From chasing someone out the door at Denny’s to give them the wallet they’d left behind all the way up to ignoring grave danger to get another out of it’s way, it’s actually the essence of Christianity. Being a good person even though you didn’t have to, regardless of it’s personal cost.
Giving someone one more week to pay a debt before you crack their brain pan may be your idea of a good deed for the day, but it wont get you on the guest list at Deepak Chopra’s next yoga-palooza.
But if you’ve ever read a book, any book, you already know that. And that is the swimming egg that continues to head-butt the calloused membrane around my fuddle. I think, for some people, that egg pushes through and fertilizes the outrage that results in hostages and suicides; fortunately or not, I think maybe my soul is just too tired to let that happen. (More likely, it’s my distaste for inconvenience that keeps me on the couch, but I figure if you’re gonna pound senseless your craving for empathy, you might as well be lyrical about it.)
Look, I don’t know who anybody is; all I know is that if you’re gonna invest some years, or a life-time, into the proposition that sharing the bloody results of getting up every morning with another person is the dental plan that’s right for you, you better remember smart and smarter is a reality with a purpose.
You better do it knowing that your “coming of age” rituals do not stop when you hit your second decade, contrary to song and story. You better know that nobody you know is gonna be the person they are right now in a decade or so. And you better take a look at the decades you’ve seen, to make crystal clear how little time that really is. A lot of people thrice your age are still nurturing phobias and childhood traumas, even imagined ones. Is this because these experiences or events from the past were so powerful that they are still hiding in the closet to getcha when the lights go out?
A lot of experts on the Oprah Winfrey show and the lecture circuit would say yes, and they may be right. Me, I dropped out of school to pursue my dream of listening to Mott the Hoople records whenever I goddamn felt like it, but I think there’s another reason these mad shadows still tilt your pinball: be it 1959 or 1975, it just ain’t that long ago. That people still find themselves clearing cobwebs out of their lost sense of wonder after 50 years shouldn’t be a surprise at all if you include time in the equation, as some of our rustiest cliche’s attest: “youth is wasted on the young”; “seems like yesterday”; “where does the time go”; “life’s too short”. We all know this stuff, and yet people seem to be completely oblivious to it as we make really shitty choices about how to win, how to lose, and how to determine what’s “fair”( which has unfortunately come to mean “how do I get the most out of what we went through over the last bunch of years and not come out looking like a heartless jerk to my family and friends”).
Call it bitterness over a recent rape of righteousness in my life if you like, but I’m here to tell you that if you have a “partner” (i just love the phony chime of purpose and duty in that moniker), statistically, you ain’t gonna have much of a problem finding somebody to do the Macarena with at your local Heartbreak Bar and Grill when the day of reckoning comes.
And this is the point at which you find yourself face to face with the quality of mercy. Here is where, if you choose to see it, who and/or what you are really about floats to the surface like, in far too many cases, a bloated corpse in the Hudson. Where you should ask yourself if you really want the mini-van and the Casio, or if you just don’t want to “lose”, even if someone you supposedly loved enough to dive into the empty pool of commitment for gets sandblasted.
Let’s face it, people often suck. It’s astonishing how blind people suddenly become to the attributes that inspired the truly draconian measure of choosing to proclaim perpetual allegiance to another in the face of God, His middle man, and every friend and family member you can squeeze into the room. And if that’s not enough people to make this bizarre declaration to, even though every scrutiny applied has shown it is almost destined to fail, don’t worry. Chances are good it will be in the Times-Tribune.
If “to the victor..” is a more appealing bumper sticker philosophy for you than “do the right thing”, you can relax. You have a hell of a lot of company. If Glaxo-Smith ever comes up with a pill that makes living with a bumper sticker philosophy odorless and easy, I’ll be the first to sign up for the clinical trial. I envy you. And ain’t nobody whistling “Dixie” on my shift these days. I’m in pain. Bet you are too.
Is there actually a point?
Best answer: that I am ceaselessly amazed by mean. Nobody told me about mean when this crap thick sea dive got off the ground.
I’ve been unreasonable, I’ve been reactionary, I’ve said things I regret, I’ve done things that would make “to the victor” people want to vomit, but as God is my witness, it has never occurred to me to be mean. It’s been said that you judge yourself by your intentions while the world judges you by your actions, and that’s hard to argue with.
But I’m talking about intent.
The quality of mercy. I have seen otherwise sensible and acceptable people (get your filthy hands off my standards, it’s beside the point) lose touch with any common understanding of sharing the planet when they feel like they’re not winning even the most worthless of prizes. From pulling your hair out because a room mate ate your cheese-whiz to screaming like a lunatic at a little league practice, the duality of our motivations is too big for my skull. Motivation, seems to me, shouldn’t do a complete back flip in the face of simple daily circumstance. Integrity means nothing if you only apply it when you’re sure you wont get hurt.
I’m guessing the winter of our individual years will be when this stuff keeps most people awake at night. When our mad shadows have expanded to include even our peripheral participation in the ignorance of justice simply because it saved us some money, or time, or effort. Because doing the right thing might really fuck up our week, or make us appear less in control. Because… what if we “lose”?
I’m guessing the size of the footprints in that heavy snow will mean little in the face of our final Christmas eve. That every opportunity for mercy missed will be a running sore. If that just sounds like a platitude, that’s ok. It probably is. I wouldn’t mind putting it off ’til December myself, because I sometimes think “to the victor” has got to be easier, however laborious “winning” might be. But I think the quality of mercy is real. It’s expensive, it’s not often fun, but it’s there. You might mistake it for the fear of confrontation, for being a “people pleaser”, or even just a momentary lapse of reason.
I’m confident I can promise you many of the authorities that risked or even lost everything at the Twin Towers on 9/11 at one time or another discovered their Cheeze-Whiz was gone and threw the empty can into the trash like a hand grenade. But when the shit got thick, they never questioned what their next move would be.
Do you imagine that’s because it paid for their groceries and cable TV?
Don’t kid yourself.
The quality of mercy is not strained, and it doesn’t call in sick either.
Of course you have to pour over the receipts from the all-you-can-eat
carwash you bought, there will always be a punk on your kids team that
never passes the ball, and “Law and Order: SVU” will be pre-empted for a
golf tournament the night you decide to stay home.
I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout changing the world.
That’s for “to the victor” people, God love ’em.
Without them we would perish.
And maybe that’s the whole plan.
Maybe the power that those in their winter imagine is tolling up their karmic
bill is actually themselves.
Maybe the price to be paid for not keeping the human condition foremost
in our minds is that winter. The time when finally we cannot put off for
another day the fact that the moral of the story is supposed to be
righteousness.
If you’ve read a book, any book, you already know that.
The question is why we put it off like dirty laundry until we absolutely run
out of socks.
Your capacity for kindness, for mercy, is not in question. I’m sure at the end of days you don’t get put in the “cons” column of Kris Kringle’s naughty or nice list because you don’t wanna go to to your neighbor’s uncle’s funeral, or babysit your sisters loudmouth brat. What you’re reading is the scenic route to a simple question, like everything else. If you spend time telling yourself when the lights are out that the questionable moves you’ve been making cannot be helped, where is the need for justification coming from? Why is absolution a concern?
I can tell you why. But fuck that.
I said I envy the “to the victor” people, but I think what I envy is that this is the one area of my little world I’ve never been able to put off ’til Tuesday.
I guess I always found it just felt better to not cheat people.
I’ve been accused of it, even by people who meant it at the time.
But unless that person is still mad I didn’t follow the script,
I would invite you to ask them today if they were right.
Of course, it’s gotten me nowhere.
But I think it’s possible that having my nightie in a knot over why other
people look over the potential big picture in favor of victory now might be
the more shallow end of the pit to stand in. I don’t have to hold my breath
as often. At least not because of me.
George Harrison said “live on, the answer’s at the end”. If the Almighty
Judge and Jury does turn out to be yourself in those winter weeks, your
Christmas morning will be a gift indeed.
As for me, I’ve never bought anybody a gift before the second week of
December.
And I really hate anticipation.
(expurgated, for your comfort.)
__________________________
“The Internet makes the wheel look
like a Pez dispenser in terms of human
achievement.”
-TOB
“Gonna die in a small town,
Yeah, that’s prob’ly where they’ll bury me.”
-John Mellencamp
(with thanks to Ken Hensley)
_______________________
It might be unlikely that I’ll ever be called upon to translate, but I’m pretty fluent in hillbilly.
My paternal grandparents were from Corbin, Kentucky- the home of KFC and a hop, skip and jump from Cumberland Falls. My father used to cop apples from Colonel Sanders’ apple tree. He said the guy was a real prick about it. Weird.
My grandfather was a coal miner and an artist. He loved to paint with oils, and he played the French horn in an Army band when he was in the military. He was a pretty wise cat, never in a hurry, always cool as a cucumber. When he got very old, he liked to sit in his chair by the wood stove in his little shack and listen to the radio- WCTT, the only station between the Tennessee border and Lexington, if memory serves- from morning to night. At sunrise, it was the days obituaries, followed by news and then preachin’, unless it was baseball season. Then, it was the Cincinnati Reds, all the time (I think when I was born, they removed the bone in my head that makes guys dig sports, because I’ve never found the appeal. Moreover, listening to baseball on the radio always seemed tantamount to going to a wine tasting with a mouthful of
Ora-Gel. I still don’t get it).
He subscribed to every magazine on the planet, and never threw any of them away. “Look”, “Modern Detective”, “True Romance”, “Life”, “Readers Digest”- you name it, piled up everywhere (as a kid, I loved the “True Detective” type stuff; it seems whatever crime the bad-guys-of-the-month had committed, there was always a black and white picture of a girl in her underwear as a symbol of unbridled victimization. Even without the color, it blew the lingerie section of the Sears catalogue out of the water).
Whenever I stayed with him, he always took me to church on Sunday, until I got old enough to decline. I didn’t go at all unless I was staying at his place, so I never grew familiar enough with it to ignore how truly bizarre it was. The women, including my grandmother (I have very dim memories of her for some reason, even though I remember much about that time period), all kept their hair in a “bun” on top of their heads, but when they let it down, it was thicker than a Stephen King novel and long enough to hide their butt. They practiced what my mother still calls the “Holiness” religion, some kind of by-product of the Pentecostal faith that in retrospect wasn’t much of a walk to Snake Handler City. They would “speak in tongues” when the preacher would say something apparently particularly inspirational, but for the life of me the only thing I heard was “sha-la la la la”, generally the chorus of most of the Archies best singles.
They would groan and weep and shout and squeeze their eyes shut, and frankly, even as a little kid, I just thought it was all pretty fucking weird.
Sandwich meat was purchased in big rolls, Pepsi came in a 16 ounce glass bottle, the cops knew everybody’s names, and the high school football team could have shot the mayor and the town would’ve kept them out of jail.
It was Hometown, USA defined.
I moved back to California after getting kicked out of several high schools in Corbin, and spent the next 20+ years there, but by then I was very acquainted with small-townia, and could not argue with the fact that it has it’s…
charms.
Once again I’m in a small town, and it’s more than 3 years (I think) since I left the west coast. And I came here from Durham, North Carolina; not quite as prehistoric as this place, but it can still fairly be described as Small Town America.
You would think by now I would have a grip on it.
I do not.
When my cat recently knocked my Internet and phone out of commission, I had to reach Baja Broadband to get a new modem. I do not have a car (see The Outer Boogie for loads of info on this subject), so I headed out on foot to find a pay phone. You know, a pay phone.
Ah, foolish traveler.
I was to attend a class the other day, a most important obligation regarding my job, and more importantly, my ever shrinking paycheck. My employer has all but laid me off, so I will grab a few hours anywhere I can get them.
Class was scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m., on a Saturday.
Knowing, as I do, that things are lax enough that I can show up 5 minutes late without upsetting the apple cart, I decided to take the 8:50 bus, which in fact isn’t a bus at all, but a real big modified van-dealie that holds about 20 people and passes by once an hour from 7-1, and again from 3 to 6, I’m told.
Unless it’s Saturday.
These are but two examples of lessons hard learned when you realize you have abandoned civilization for necessity’s sake. I am constantly whining about the fact that it’s two-thousand-nine and nobody told New Mexico.
In other blogs, I have tried to describe the popular culture here- including the mind bending yard art- but I have failed. Strangely, I find that some of my favorite people these days live and thrive in towns not unlike this one, including at least two I have known for years. Am I just hopelessly spoiled by decades of modern conveniences like pay phones, buses and shopping centers, or are there really places in America that just didn’t get the memo at the turn of the century?
For a while there, it really made me wonder.
Last week, at the end of my workday, two ladies there who are quite aware of my shrunken work schedule put $400.00 in the pocket of my coat.
These are people who barely know me, and who, at the very least, think I’m pretty weird, what with all the book readin’ and velvet clothes wearin’ and never showin’ up at prayer meetin’.
For all my moaning, I have to wonder if a band of underpaid caregivers in Los Angeles who didn’t even know my last name and figured I was a bit of a freak anyway would have ever even entertained such a gesture. I doubt it.
I often make use of- and complain about- the one taxi service here, Dollar Cab (don’t let the name fool ya). The drivers are all pretty familiar with their patrons, since we are few, and after several trips to the doctor and the grocery store (note the singular), they have clearly ascertained enough details to paint their own picture of our life here on Michigan Avenue.
Late one night, a few weeks ago, there was a knock at the door- which always makes us look at each other in shock, as it is rare- and I opened it to find a cab driver who came by to tell us he had found a wheelchair for my mother. I didn’t know he was looking.
This was the first of many such favors these corn pone heroes have taken upon themselves to perform. I can’t even write about it and keep dry eyes.
One of our first encounters with this same company was less endearing.
Or was it?
My mother wanted to walk to the store, a real effort for her, so I agreed.
We bought a weeks worth of whatever, and called Dollar Cab for a ride home, because her strength was gone. They never showed up.
An old man (in a cowboy hat, doncha know) that had been parked in front of the store for an hour waiting for his son- an employee there, we learned- to clock out, apparently realized what was up with these two road weary faces (it couldn’t have been me growling about not being able to get a cab in Anti- Gotham) and rolled his window down. “Y’all come on, now, and get in the car. I’ll take you home.”
He did.
That these are people of religious faith must surely be a part of my lesson -though it may be the part I never understand- for it seems to be the tie that binds these places together.
I mean, everybody gets the idea, has a picture in their head, of Small Town America.
Even if they’ve never been to one.
I suppose it’s some kind of trade off I’m not supposed to understand.
I still want to go home, every day.
I still gripe about these dark ages. But I’ve learned- or more accurately, been reminded- that things are not always what they seem.
I am moved to confusion and tears, often, when I consider it all.
It is a mystery. It ain’t very rock and roll.
It is decidedly inconvenient.
It is a far better way.
< The Organ Mountains, near Las Cruces >
If you’ve heard the record, you can imagine my surprise when I found out “Cities on Flame” sounded nothing like ‘Smoke on the Water”, as I had assumed it would, and the sound that bent my mind was actually part of the record’s crafted perfection. I was thrilled, and when I read a critique of the album in Circus Magazine soon after that described the sound as “piped in from outer space”, I felt like an idiot, and was very glad I hadn’t shared my little drama with my my friends (the only reason being I knew they weren’t interested in such things enough to give a proper fuck).
After so many years, it’s good to know BOC are considered legend, and good to know their mystery is still part of that legend, even if it’s usually behind their one international “hit”. Happily, that hit is rich in the imagery and mystery found in their greatest music; not so happily, a gigantic number of the people who still think of “The Reaper” as one of the most affecting songs of their youth stopped there, or after the next “hit”, “Godzilla”; a far less memorable tune -but a good one- loved more for it’s behemoth riff than it’s comedic turns (“oh, no-there goes Tokyo!”). But that’s ok. I always run into real O’Cultist’s at the shows, and they’re not unlike “Deadheads” in the family aspect of that phenomenon. Except they’re funnier, and have better taste in rock.
One of the most interesting mysteries through the years are the bands lyrics, which 9 times out of 10 are misquoted, misinterpreted, or disagreed upon. Even band members have said they disagree on what lyric one song or another actually made it to vinyl with. A Google search will always bring a batch of interesting conflicts, so much so that it becomes impossible to be sure of some of it. In the old days, 50 cents and a SASE would bring you copies of the lyrics on an old fashioned computer print-out, and these I’ve found through many years of dedicated listening are the closest to the truth, but there were a few possible errors (Robert Christgau once said “BOC’s lyrics aren’t unintelligible, just unbelievable”). A favorite example, penned by Buck Dharma and Jim Carrol, is “Perfect Water”, a brilliant and practically unknown thing of beauty from a very under-mentioned lp called “Club Ninja” (which features, unfortunately, one of their worst album covers and, happily, at least 2 of their very best songs). I’ve found several variations on the lyrics to “Perfect Water”, more than most, and for that probably non-existent passer-by (or anyone with time on their hands), I am submitting what I am (almost) sure are the correct ones, which I have not encountered a precise agreement on yet. If that passer-by does, let me know, I’d be grateful. And as always, it’s my suggestion “Reaper” fans everywhere take some time to find out who these cats are; a splendid time is guaranteed.
Yeah. Like that.
To my British computer acquaintances, who seem to find
this stop in the water completely insane, and my American
ones, who seem to have lost touch with how things actually
work in our Republic.
This is a reply to a question I was asked on the internet.
_________________________________________________
That you wonder what I think seems unlikely (even though
you asked) unless you just need comic relief. But I’ll tell you
what I’ve determined.
It either hasn’t occurred to you, or you don’t care (I can’t
know which but I have my suspicions) that maybe many
folks in my neck of the world have considered all of the
stats and assumptions found in your thread, necessarily
added their personal EXPERIENCE AS AMERICANS, and
come to their own conclusions.
But no, that’s insignificant to you, because some of those
conclusions (if we actually are capable of such a process,
being idiots and all) are not in lockstep with yours. Any pro-
gun thought can only the be the product of right wing silliness,
because without right wing silliness, who could you be better
than?
I doubt if you’re interested, but since you lean so heavily on
stats you should know that they show most of us are indepen-
dents, and don’t subscribe to either party. In fact, we’re a little
sick of ’em, because they both think quite like you do. Opposition
equals stupidity. Compromise is deadly to ideologies.
Here, individual conclusions are significant. We will put it ALL
on the table, including arguments much like yours, but also
large elements you are ignoring, like better attention to those
with mental health issues, security and tighter restrictions.
I’m pretty sure most of us won’t fight for a personal bazooka.
Of course tighter restrictions would be middle of the road, and
I know how dizzy that place makes you.
We will take all of that and endeavor to find an answer most of
us can live with.
For 300 million people, that’s a hell of a feat, but we’ve done it
many times before. We call it freedom. Your version of it seems
to leave a few things to be desired.
My best friend is a gun person.
I am not. Her habitat is North Carolina. I’m more of
a Los Angeles type. And we love each other and have for years.
THAT is pretty goddam American. I’m not upset in the least that
you don’t like guns.
What’s annoying is your plastic and inaccurate certainty about
the American experience. Frankly, you don’t even know what
you’re talking about, including those of you who think you do
because you visited New York on vacation and watch MSNBC
religiously.
As for the alcoholic statistics that you strangely tie in, I would
say many of them don’t just own guns, but also drive cars every
day, putting lives in danger quite thoughtlessly.
Maybe we should ban cars because a lot of people are irresponsible?
It’s afternoon, shouldn’t you be at the pub coming up with new ideas
on how to stop people who aren’t carbon copies of each other? (I know
this because I saw it on TV).
Please remember, it isn’t smart to ride horses and drink.
As always and unlike you, I’m willing to be wrong.
Happy days.
“When the cops came knockin’,
them doors flew back!”
-Chuck Berry
I met this black guy named Odean when I was living
in the mountains near Palmdale, at a strange kind of
camp with two hundred other street-walkin’ Cheetas
like me.
That’s a long story, but some of the people there
were pretty hardcore cats from the streets of L.A.
that in a different circumstance would have knocked
you in head and taken your wallet if you were within
reach.Of all of them, Odean was king of the strutters,
quite sure of his throne as he preened around fist
bumping and taking daily stock of his homeboys.
Anyway, I ran the weekly ‘newspaper’ there (6 to
10 stapled and photocopied pages of the guys basket
ball scores, submitted bad ‘poetry’ and lunch menus
that I was determined to make funnier upon taking
over as editor), and being of unsound mind and
prone to confusing audacity with courage, I thought
it might be interesting to interview some of these
guys and try to get a little deeper into their heads
(it’s a fault of mine).
Of course, others who knew me then might say
that I was likely sure I could also entertain myself
and a very small number of others I had befriended
there by writing these interviews up with a generous
(if not potentially healthy) dose of sarcasm that sure-
ly would fly over the subjects heads.
I’m often misunderstood.
I chose Odean first. He played basketball well,
and even though I know nothing about it, I
figured complimenting and letting him brag
about his obvious skill would be a good way to
break the ice and get him talking, and maybe
even make me look a little less like a morning
meal.
I changed my mind about this strategy when
he bounced into my little office, fell into my
chair and took one of my cigarettes out of the
pack that he almost smashed when he threw
his legs up to rest his giant feet on a stack of
my writing. Seeing his big, dirty tennis shoes
on my desk illuminated my distaste for his ilk,
and I said “Alright, Odean, I’ll just leave it up
to you. All of this gangbang crap, the violence
and the crime, the crappy music. Who looks at
that and sees it as an option? I don’t get it.
What does life mean, what does anything mean
to you? I just don’t understand.”
Odean put his feet flat on the floor and rested
his elbows on his knees.
After half a minute staring at the floor, he looked
up and right into my eyes and said, with a voice of
total sincerity that I didn’t even recognize as his
own:
“E, life is vast, and it’s a trip.”
Perception is reality. You never know who you’re
talking to. Live and learn.
If you made it to the end of this, you pick the point.
OBITER DICTA
___________________________
..show us here the mettle of your pasture;
let us swear that you are worth your breeding…
___________________________
“When you work you are a flute through whose heart
the whispering of the hours turns to music.”
– Kahlil Gibran
“How many dollars, how many sales,
how many liars, how many tales?
How many insults must you take in
this one life?
Don’t talk to me about work.”
– Lou Reed
***********************
I’ve had a lotta dumb jobs for brief periods of time. Life has this weird part that sometimes makes necessary any number of bizarre indignities.
But you know that, I’m sure.
Doing what has to be done is something I’ve never been afraid of. But I am simply incapable of ignoring all the satellites. It’s a fault of mine, I guess, but it’s one of those things people who love me have to decide to live with.
Jobs are a trippy deal. Most everyone who does one is pretty sure they are getting fucked on some level, and most likely that is so. Can’t let that matter too much, if one can help it. But some folks just think too much.
Just like I never trust a movie that has a Burger King promotional tie-in (or any other product for that matter), I don’t trust any company that makes people wear a uniform. This doesn’t extend to doctors and nurses, and a few other things, because the ‘uniform’ has a purpose. But there ain’t a reason in the world places like T Mobile or Food Lion should require ugly and uncomfortable clothes for their employees.
I think most people wouldn’t think twice about it if a store employee had a smock-type dealie or apron to identify who works there. Personally, I think a name tag is fine.
Do you really care if an employee is wearing jeans, as long as you can tell they work there?
I’m betting the answer is no. At 1800flowers, we got a memo one day that said every one must answer calls thusly: “Thank you for calling Flowers dot com, America’s florist of choice for 30 years. How can I help you today?”
This kind of shit sucks the humanity out of interaction. It makes an employee sound like an automaton, and for me does not inspire confidence in the people I’m dealing with- in fact, it does just the opposite.
I am far more inclined to imagine the person on the phone might relate to the inevitable subtle oddity of whatever prompted my call if they say “This is Mike”, instead of “Thank you for calling the Inevitable Subtle Oddities division, where we pretend to care about answering all of your questions after you listen to us read a script that tells you we really aren’t able to say anything we haven’t been instructed to, nor are we able to address the one-of-a-kind problem you are apparently facing since you felt the need to call. How can we help you?”
Once, at Flowers, I tried to humorously point out to a customer who didn’t get how it worked that I didn’t really go in a back room and put her arrangement together, I was simply a go-between. I was amazed when they called me in and played back my conversation with her to point out the things I can’t say.
If you don’t know it, let me explain to you that calling 1800Flowers is pretty much making a phone call to get out of making a phone call. They thank you for your order, then call
your local florist.
It can be financially advantageous occasionally if you order an advertised item, but if you’re trying to get some flowers for a funeral and know what you want, or even need a suggestion, it is a redundant excercise that only adds a step to the list of things you’d rather not be doing.
I’m confident your local florist can suggest an appropriate selection a little better than I could, since I don’t know a chigger-bush from a tater plant.
That they answered the phone doesn’t mean they know flowers any more than a white coat means I can cut a mean rib-eye.
When I applied at Food Lion, the manager seemed quite impressed with my decades of experience in most aspects of retail. He said “You are way over qualified for this.” I agreed, and said that wasn’t an issue for me, ’cause I am the breeze. He then asked me if I knew anything about meat.
When I said no, he decided to put me in the meat department. A red apron works unconcious miracles, I suppose.
I was talking to Wendy the other day about going to Cobb’s Grocery after school, as a kid. A bald fat guy in a bloody apron would cut a thick slice of bologna from a big tube of it, and make me a sandwich. Didn’t think about it then, but now I know finding one that good would take some effort.
It used to be that when you went to a shop of some kind, the employees were pretty much the real deal. Now, these are “specialty” shops, in the older sections of town. Unless you live in Berkeley, which is the older section of town. What we think of as groovy, unusual furniture or record or book or clothing stores used to just be the store.
Welcome to 2011. The old days, meaning life as people my age and older know it, are long gone. I don’t think it’s about Obama or El Nino or the Book of Revelations. I think it’s about the sheer number of people on the planet.
The world, and people, are disposable. And we did it to ourselves.
I have a passable number of talents in a couple of areas, and can be very good at things. It means nothing. The right place at the right time can put a college graduate out of the running if a pinhead like me is more convenient. I’m betting, especially in a southern state, there are hundreds of people who can slice up a dead cow like a mass-murdering Picasso, and need a job. Instead, a smart ass guitar player with 30 years of entertainment industry experience is fetching your fatback, and the cat with the talent for smoking and slicing a carcass to perfection is in his living room trying to figure out how to apply on line, because paper applications just add to the office chaos. How can we expect a manager to take time out of his endless day to find the right person for the job?
Fact is, most managers would sleep better if they knew their employees had a grip on their duties, but, well… if one doesn’t work out, there’s always the next guy.
We’re doing it wrong. Like with most things of the modern world, reason is a last resort. And it’s too late to turn it around.
Sure wears a body out, thinking too much. Best just forget it, and put your apron on.
“And the world was asleep to our latent fuss.”
-David Bowie
When Roger Waters “fired” Rick Wright, as the Rock Handbook surely reads (don’t reckon many editors were in the room), I can’t be the only one that thought he’d lost his mind.
Fact is, it’s pretty much a fair wager he actually was dismissed, but I’d bet a week’s pay (hey- that’s dinner for two!) that the art side of the “artistic differences” belonged to Rick.
I think we all know, or it was certainly reported (don’t reckon many editors were in the room), that Roger Waters (at the time) could only see his nose in his medicine cabinet mirror because his fuckin’ head was so big.
But I don’t care about that, and I’ll bet you don’t either.
I probably can’t count the number of times Roger Waters made me laugh, made me cry, or even swelled my heart with awe. We all love Roger Waters, albeit mostly for his distant past, something you can say about Rick Wright as well.
But this is rock n roll, an art, so the year “Meddle” came out is significant only to the chronology of the catalog. That is, it don’t mean shit.
The difference between them is that when you think of Roger, you think of Roger- but when you think of Rick, you think of something bigger.
Which means that although Roger certainly became the subject, his painting would have been far less colorful without Ricks inarguable genius. While the music is often about pain, his beautiful playing helped us listen. Moreover, that contrast often left us crying. Even those who don’t want to have to admit that Pink Floyd will always be larger than life.
That rarest of rock rarities- a band that truly deserves everything it has achieved. And that achievement has nothing- nothing- to do with the fact that it wouldn’t be surprising to learn they each have a batch of nimble-fingered serfs churning fresh butter for their English muffins every morning. They’ve been called one of the biggest examples of “corporate rock” in the world (like Rat Scabies wouldn’t have signed up for a lifetime of unlimited prosperity).
That’s hard to argue with, and who gives a fuck? Lenny Kravitz?
I once wrote about the time my friends John, Martha and myself were kicked out of an unbelievable backstage buffet at a Floyd show because we didn’t know our passes were limited access (never imagine strong drink leads to reasonable assumptions).
It’s a pretty funny story (you’ll find it on TOB), the point of which was “corporate rock” (at the end of the day, is there really any other kind?) and, well, who gives a fuck? Jewel?
I lay my money down not just because the music is almost always completely perfect, but also because Pink Floyd will always be infinitely bigger than the sum of it’s parts. Even from the cheap seats, they ate your lunch. Every time.
The ocean of fans at every set left the arena completely stunned.
Believe it.
They are saying Rick was a private guy. I think you can absolutely believe that, because I know almost nothing about him outside of his music, and when someone like me knows almost nothing about a guy in a rock act so behemoth it can’t be fully explained, even after all these years, something is… askew.
I think the reason I know so little about his personal life is that, to me, he was the music. The legend of Pink Floyd is intangible because it is magic.
That magic would not have been part of the story without the great
Rick Wright.
If you haven’t thought about that for a while, play the records
(“classic rock” radio commuters can skip “Money”).
See?
Rick Wright died today. He was 65.
I’d like to revisit- as opposed to recant- something I said
a couple of years ago, while I was putting a new coat of
cheap paint (and apparently sniffing some glue) on the
fish tank at TOB.
I’m far too tired to open another window and fetch the
verbatim quipette, but I get fined for not quoting TOB.
So I’ll be lazy and call it testing my mettle: “I left the
Universal Amphitheater certain I could hold my
whiskey better than Van Morrison, and when Stan
Lynch was bordering on a temper tantrum while he
watched me collect my backstage pass at will-call for
a post-set Neil Young party after being denied because
he “wasn’t on the list”, I was pretty sure I was cooler
than him too. But the fact is, watching a heavy-metal
star puke is pretty much like watching anybody puke.
There’s just a lot more people around.”
Now, I don’t expect you to be challenged by that very much,
but it’s relevant. Bear with me. I….shall….be…………………
brief.
I took a ride up to Las Cruces a couple of days ago, and it’s
plain to see that the beauty of this State refuses to give in
to the lack of imagination I keep running into. I mean, you
gotta see some of the popular jewelry in this part of the
country. I’m thinking about getting a few cans of Krylon
and a bag of rocks and starting my own business.
On the way (it’s a pretty good ride) through the hills, I was
thinking about some of the people I’ve met recently on My
Space, particularly their blogs. They are so…American, I
guess; really lovely and quaint, about things like cooking
and patriotism and gardening.
These people seem so happy and ok with the way things
have gone for them, sometimes in the face of profound
tragedy. It’s something to behold.
I’ve been moved by what I have read more than a few
times, and it has me looking at the MySpace thing in
a whole new way.
I had completely forgotten the “comment” dealie at the
bottom of the blog page, and these guys were making use
of it in a most interesting way, having entire conversations
about the subjects. One friend does a “round robin” story
thing, where she writes the first couple of lines, then some-
one else adds the next, and so on. It’s extremely comical and
very creative.
Of course, everybody else on Earth probably uses the blog
page in a similar way. Sometimes common sense eludes me.
And sometimes, that’s a problem. In a big fat issue through-
out the last few days (I think), that very problem had a star-
ring role.
I’ve experienced sudden and inexplicable despair many times.
When I was young I think it was booze induced, or fear behind
my mothers cancer.
Later in life I had no idea what it was about.
I’ll ask my friend Donna. She’s seen it more than once.
My best guess today would be my anger, for two reasons:
one, I never release it, and b, because it’s so totally out
of character for me to feel rage that sometimes I feel like
I’m in a vise. It is not in my nature.
The filthy people who strip mined my life a couple of years
back certainly planted some seeds, but because rage isn’t in
my nature the most I could do when it happened was wonder
how people can be that evil and still like Cap’n Crunch. And
those seeds have surely grown, but because rage isn’t in my
nature, I keep it within.
Recently, some people found themselves questioning my
sanity. Of course, all they had to do was ask Donna, or even
me, for the answer, but I’m sure they didn’t know that.
I do know it’s a question worth asking. And I’m fine with the
answer.
The short one is… yeah. I’m nuts. Frankly, I don’t care much,
until it starts stepping on other people’s toes. Well, I mean
the people I care about on some level. The rest of you are on
your own.
For those in category one, maybe this’ll help. That is, if we’re
still on reading terms.
Remember, you did ask.
Make no mistake, I know my anger is justified on several levels.
And so what. I’m sure yours is too.
But I’m guessing yours isn’t having you for breakfast, lunch and
dinner every day.
Mine is, which almost certainly means… something, I’ll bet.
How do you like me so far?
So, that may or may not be what brought me to my real funny
place a few days ago. I don’t know. But it sure was inconvenient.
Several friends have expressed extreme frustration at the lack
of details regarding what I’ve lovingly Christened ‘Depression-
gate’ (you had to be there).
I’ll fail at giving you some now.
The catalyst behind the recent sanity questionnaire being
passed around was a mistake- make that a few mistakes- that
I made when I felt the universe start shutting me down. In a
nutshell, these would be three adult dose bottles (and that
means fifths) of Southern Comfort in 50 hours or so, and
logging in at MySpace. Add to these the fact that my mothers
life was in the balance again and presto: I need an accountant
to tally up the number of apologies owed.
If you’re still waiting for yours, let me know. I’ve had a form
letter printed but I can’t remember who got ’em and who didn’t.
I told a friend that I just didn’t realize the power of MySpace,
that I was surprised by the whole Depression-gate fiasco (I
didn’t describe the fiasco part, but let me tell ya, it was a
scene man. Of course, my guilt is probably adding a fifth
dimension and a fireworks display). Well, I owe an apology
for that, too.
Because I know that the people who jumped in the water
clothes and all to intervene did so because they care, and
to say I’m surprised by it is dismissive.
I know better. I didn’t mean it that way.
It was also vigorous denial, a favorite hiding place for the
mentally-riddled.
And the ex-ego riddled.
I wasn’t myself, guys. It happens. I’m sorry for shaking
your tree.
I look around me every day and I know I’m not a very big
deal and never will be. I don’t cry about shit like that much,
though. Never did.
But I spent most of my life in the rock and roll business, and
while it was exactly what I wanted to do, at the end of the day
it served absolutely no one. Sometimes I’m cool with that.
Sometimes it makes me sad.
These days I spend playing guitar and writing. Again, the
Hubble telescope couldn’t find my personal contribution
to the planet if you turned it up to 11 and gave it a gram
of coke.
That more than 25 years of me revisited adds up to back-
stage passes and broken guitar strings makes me a shoo-
in for Who- The- Fuck- Is- This- Guy of the Year.
Except for one thing.
My friends.
And I know my friends wanted to help me a few days ago.
And I know it stopped the rain. And winds were wheeling and
negimaki rising and the Organ Mountains and everybody is
home now, including me.
Thank you. And I promise, I’ll be good.
Can I put it to bed now?
*
This is kind of weird. My mother says “Lord, they’re putting bacon on everything now”, every time she sees a commercial about hamburgers.
Hamburgers with bacon on ’em, I mean.
They. They’re at it again. The family of man.
Which building is theirs, anyway? Who is the Floundering Fadduh?
And if the Bacon People are common knowledge, which they apparently are unless Bill O’Reilly and Anderson Cooper and Pete Townsend and the “9/11 Truthers” and Glen Beck and Sean Penn and probably even you are just completely insane, how come I seem to be the only one who never gets the fucking newsletter?
The fact is, to the people I serve at work, I am one of the Bacon People.
I suppose only you know who your Bacon People are.
“The carpet sweeper is the biggest scam perpetrated on the
American public since ‘One Hour Martinizing’.“
-Cosmo Kramer
“America. Love or leave it.”
-Once popular bumper sticker
“If you’ve mistaken my bi-monthly mewling for zeal,
you’re giving me way too much credit.
More importantly, that’s your problem.”
– part of an answer to some silly TOB hate mail, a couple of years ago.
Michael Jackson hasn’t even melted yet, and there are lawsuits
in the wings.
Some ridiculous rap guy in $700.00 sunglasses, making a speech on TV, said that “Michael Jackson is OURS”, “ours” meaning black people.
If that’s true, you can have him.
I don’t think it is, but I may be the whitest guy in the entire Southwest.
The dying deal seems like a good opportunity to think about the many good things he did for others.
But of course, that’s smoke in the wind.
Anyway, welcome to the Fourth of July, 2009.
When you think about it, it’s a pretty swell thing. A holiday about sacrifice. A holiday about a bunch of Americans who do something almost unimaginable. A holiday about strength and altruism. A holiday about hamburgers.
I really hope people think about the incredible service those in the military perform.
I think most of us do. “We” didn’t, always. But it’s different, now.
Part of me thinks it might be ridiculous. I mean, rap is bad enough, but Generation Zed has it so wrong they’re even fans of the government. I wouldn’t have been taken by surprise a few months ago if I turned on my TV and saw Obama break dancing with a Big Mac in his hand.
But the bigger part of me is glad. Because as much as I can, I know what these people do, and have done. It ain’t about right and left, any more than it’s about scholarships and being stationed in Hawaii. Every good thing in your world can be traced right back to those who serve and have served in the military. And if you’re too revolutionary to separate the guys in uniform from the White House Press Secretary, well… I guess you’re the reason it’s also a holiday about hamburgers.
Wars come in all sizes, as you know. The great big ones allow us to be where we can fight the “smaller” ones. They can both be rather bloody. They both suck.
One teaches us about scope, about the enormity of the world and the difficulty of being human in a world that is largely dedicated to our suckier sides. I was thinking about that.
And I was thinking about this place, America, and reading all the happy greetings and glitter tattoos on your My Space pages, and I was thinking that this place isn’t really a place at all.
It’s people. And a confusing lot, they are.
I’ve decided you might like to hear about a couple of them, being fellow Americans, and what they might find out if they are lucky. And more importantly, if they’re not.
Even me, a little bit.
I know this girl who is incredibly special. I mean she is one of a kind. She doesn’t know it, somehow, but she is.
Being who she is, one of the first things she thought about when she woke up on the Fourth of July, 2009, was the fact that a whole bunch of folks are gonna be hungry today while a bunch of others were absolutely not. In addition, the biggest reason the not hungry group will be laughing it up today are those in the military, and those who once were. Pretty American, that. And it’s good. I shoulda thought of that this morning, too, but I was looking for my cigarettes.
I love you, Stormy.
And I know this lady who has lived a dream. She has known a joy that about a zillion people with similar aspirations will never realize.
After a series of events from incredible to ludicrous, she now finds herself in very dire straits. After what had to be some heavy soul searching, she asked for help.
After she did so, she pulled her covers up over her head and pretended she hadn’t done it.
The thing is, she didn’t ask for help for herself, but for others. She is simply a conduit, because the others in this case can’t possibly do it for themselves. And these others, in their suffering, still smile in their own way, and will until their last breath.
I work with people like that, every day. I was thinking about that.
And I was thinking the lady will accept the pain and “shame”
of needing to ask for that help, because that’s her option. I mean, that’s it.
And I know this other lady, who you might call a real hard ass if you didn’t know better.
Seemingly intolerant of the slightest imperfections, though she claims that’s changing.
And it took this second lady exactly as long as it took her to learn about the first lady to reach into her sequined coin purse (the kind with the little snap, I’m guessing) and help.
Secretly I wasn’t surprised in the least that she had done it. Don’t tell her that, though.
I was thinking about these people, and I was thinking about me.
Me… well I’m no big deal in any way. Unsavory, even.
People tell me the work I do is a good thing. I suppose that’s true, but it doesn’t come from some huge place of giving in my heart. I work there because I applied and they said ok.
But I’ve learned a lot there. Mostly about myself, but also about you, and promises, and need. And I’ve learned that truth can be some pretty uncomfortable shit, which is about a million light years from fun. Not my neighborhood, as a rule.
I got the third highest score when I went bowling with the ‘kids’ the other day.
(For those who knew me a couple of years ago, yes. I have now bowled. In fact, it’s my job.)
The yahoo’s this generated were not beer-inspired exaggerations, but some real life joy. Some really decent-to-the-bone people were absolutely buoyant that I had just accomplished something as worthless as worthless gets. And I realized that meant it really wasn’t worthless at all. Not this time. This time, I found out.
I never lost the part of me that cares about people. I’ve lost everything else, but not that.
I don’t know why. I suppose I should have, because other than bees and spiders, people drive me up the fucking wall more than anything else. When people are shitty, man, few things on Earth are weirder.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been hungry. Not “I want something, but I don’t know what it is” hungry, but REALLY hungry. Maybe it’s because I’ve been hopeless. When you get to those places, the world is different.
When you get to those places, you find out who people are.
You find out some of who you are.
I hope if you still have to find that kind of stuff out, you find it out a different way.
However it happens, I think you’re gonna find people are the answer.
Not all of them.
But somehow the ones you need will arrive when they are supposed to.
Even when it’s the last thing on your mind.
If you don’t know what I mean, you will.
Avoid the inclination to pull the covers over your head and pretend you don’t need them.
You do.
And it just so happens you might be in the best place in the world for finding those people, or for them to find you.
Welcome to the Fourth of July. That place is what it’s all about.
Don’t you think?
*
I was riding home on the “bus”, and this girl I have never seen before suddenly whips around with this wild look on her face and says, “YOU smoke, I’ve seen you!
You have any matches?”
“No, I don’t”, I replied, “do they still make matches?”
“SHIT”, says she.
I reached in my pocket and pulled out my lighter. “I have this.”
“YES,” she said. “Where are you getting off?”
“12th Street”.
She looked beaten.
I tossed my lighter in the air and she caught it.
“Keep it,” I said.
The first three rock n roll events I attended were in Hawaii
at the very end of the 60’s.
My mother took me to an amusement park dealie to see
The Banana Splits and Gary Puckett.
Then both of my parents took me to a festival at Diamond
Head with Santana on the bill.
My third experience was the first arena show
of a thousand to come: Jerry Reed and Glen Campbell.
Jerry wasn’t under-rated during his career, he was
simply under-heard by the right audience.
It was easy to dismiss him a bit because he seemed
so goofy, but in fact that goofiness was talent in action-
Jerry was an artist with admirable chops as a guitarist
and, more importantly, a gifted and funny songwriter.
Smart people may decide to catch up now; if the only
thing you know about him is that he was in “Smokey and the
Bandit”(and face it- he was the best thing about that film),
I encourage you to dig up some of his classic sides- his
hits are only a small part of the story.
It’s good stuff, as funny and thoughtful as the best of Hoyt
Axton, and often as rockin’ as the CDB.
I’m glad I found that out a long time ago.
And I’m glad you
can still find that out.
If I were you, I’d start tomorrow.
Rest in peace, Jerry.
_
______About “Planet of the Moops”(June 10, 2007)_______________________
I didn’t publish the following hissy fit when it was still bleeding for several reasons. I didn’t like it much, and still don’t; but not because it went against the grain of everything I’m trying to believe can be changed about me (like anything tough, it takes practice to practice what you preach, and like everyone else, I drop that ball from time to time), and not because it’s an over-reaction (if I didn’t mean it, you wouldn’t see it. I don’t have time for that anymore). I was angry, and I guess I didn’t think it mattered. And it wasn’t funny, which is an element I trust.
Most significantly, I didn’t like it much. Still don’t. So I don’t mind if you don’t either. I just wanted it to go away, and somebody reading it besides me is the best way bury it. I recently advised someone I love to “write the storm out”. Somebody else I love once said that “writer’s write”. That means the result is irrelevant. If you decide to read it, maybe you’ll keep that in mind. And if this sounds like an apology, I guess I did it wrong. I’m just trying to practice what I preach.
Yesterday a South Korean national shot, depending on which report you decide to quote at this point, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 folks, killing over 30 of them.
It has yet to be determined what effect this will have on American Idol, the Geico caveman or Madonna’s refugee collection, but test patterns indicate Geraldo Rivera is crying again. Like the vast majority, I have no idea who this motherfucker was or why he didn’t unplug his own Glade Light Show to begin with instead of taking a bunch of people who very likely would never have done something like this, ever, with him. But I can guess, which is really all that anybody- even season ticket holders like Nancy Grace- can ever do.
The Brobdingnagian chasm (how do you like them apples?) between fear and indifference makes Cumberland Falls look like a runny nose, and yet we continue to confuse them.
Both are pretty easy to reach for when ugly hails your cab, which is why they are so often called upon to explain away the haze. Somebody pretty smart once opined fear might explain the deaths of Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Cobain, among others; the fear of not being truly heard has to be a hell of a lot more powerful to those who own it when there’s a zillion people telling you every day that they’re listening. Yeah.
Indifference comes in pretty fucking handy when we’re scratching our heads over the shit storm of rap records or crack addicts who are mothers of seven. It fits like a glove when we need to explain a drunk driver mangling your babysitter, or another clown with his waistband around his knees sticks his handgun (sideways for extra cool) in the face of a 21 year old 7-11 clerk for a hundred and nine dollars, killing her anyway after he gets it. Inoperable indifference is sometimes the only reasonable explanation for the completely unreasonable. Such massive damage is a bit easier to sleep with if we can use as a conclusion the fact that the bad guy behind the madness simply doesn’t or, more acceptably among those with over-sized diplomas and the people who trust them, isn’t capable of giving a damn. Indifference and fear, fear and indifference.
These elucidations may be the American Psychiatric Associations favorite illustrative sandwich cookie, but they ain’t the deal here, and that’s the putrid truth. I’m something like an expert on fears (I collect ’em), and I’m afraid indifference doesn’t leave much room for elements like premeditation, desire or paranoia; even if the first and last of these factors, which are common in crimes like this, are not in the recipe, desire can make up for both of them with room to spare. And few things are less indifferent than desire. I buy that people can be troubled; hell, I’m troubled.
Keith Ablow can live with it if he wants to, but all of my logic tells me that troubled ain’t good enough.
In this case, and far too many others to count, there was a motivation- and if you wanna call it my “opinion”, please do, if it takes you off the hook- more bizarre than psychopathy, more confusing than the fact that we know who Nicole Richie is, and as Godless as a hungry child. Every day, all over the world, the most basic hierarchy is the reality.
Nowhere is it modified, improvised, or even slightly tweaked. Adults call the shots. Big people speak, little people listen. In the Home of the Brave, American Dreamers typically work their asses off to embed this fact in the little skulls of the underlings- we provide, so we decide. “Underage” isn’t just a line in the sand, it’s a legality. WE ALL GET IT. The experience of children is to be (or should be) meticulously measured. And if your paying attention, it should be clear that nobody blows that horn louder or more frequently than the fine folks right here in the land of spacious skies and amber waves of grain.
Enter the mystery. The same fine folks appalled by the images of 12 year old soldiers in parts of the world where murder and reason commonly split a pizza don’t even put their cell phone down long enough to consider the wisdom of giving a door key to the most aggressive contagion in the modern world. Stupidity.
You probably bought ’em some for Christmas. And there’s fallout. There just is.
So am I gonna tell you cop-killer video games and posters of pop stars with muscles of steel, prison tattoos and a handgun are worse than greasers joy-riding in a stolen car, “Rebel Without a Cause”, Elvis the Pelvis or The Clash? You bet your ass I am. Am I gonna say that “On The Road”, “Go Ask Alice” or “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” are less dangerous than….oh yeah. Books don’t apply anymore.
I call stupidity a contagion for a reason. It is. And, like all contagions, some people are exposed to the carriers and walk away clean. The people who get it sometimes react differently, some of them foaming at the mouth and others responding to treatment. In tragic cases, the treatment looks like it’s working; an experimental antibiotic, say.
Or going to college.
But they’re rotting from the inside out. Enter Seung Cho.
This ignorant, pimply piece of dog shit took a chunk out of the ever decreasing barrier against the rapid and nearly complete decomposition of the present generation- a too small number of people who are trying to get smarter because they know it’s valuable- for a couple of reasons.
Number One is right in our faces: he was an ignorant, pimply piece of dog shit. I’ve heard him called “troubled” and “unpredictable”, a “loner”. But no one is saying the clearest bit of truth that’s hanging like a Berkeley fog over all this, and that is that he was an ignorant, pimply piece of dog shit. In case you haven’t been around long enough to know, let me spell out a life lesson that IS on your horizon. It is completely possible to be a troubled loner and still be an ignorant, pimply piece of dog shit. I didn’t know that for a long time, either. But I found out.
Number Two is even worse. He WANTED that chunk. The fine young people and staff members that this gruesome little prick murdered were committing an “offense” he couldn’t overlook: they were better than him. There’s more than enough information and history around to make it crystal clear, folks: there ain’t a doctor in the universe that can freshen rotten natures. They could’ve put Zoloft sprinkles on his banana split and he still would’ve been an ignorant, pimply piece of dog shit. And the dead would still be dead.
I spent a hell of a lot of years anesthetizing my fears and failures; I was bullied terribly in high school by a group of celebrated idiots who could play football but couldn’t spell it (“required” C+ report cards notwithstanding), and nobody understood the gravity of this day-and-nightmare but me. I didn’t finish high school because of my bizarre notion that getting high, listening to and playing music put a much more agreeable spin on my waking hours than did reading chapter 3 of “Land Of Liberty” with Mr. Crabtree in Amurkan Hiztry and wondering if my next trip to the little boys room would be the one that left me with a broken arm and a dent in my face the exact size and shape of a football helmet. And why? Because I was “different”. I didn’t “fit in”. I was “weird”, and goddammit, weird just will not be tolerated in a state known for blue grass and snake handling ministers. Make no mistake, there is a level of bullying that is no less than terrorism. That was my experience. I was beaten up. My stuff was stolen or destroyed, my name was a joke. The football team were let out of class to attend the funeral of my best friend, at which they issued (when there were no adults around) vile insults about him, dead and decapitated in a car accident at 15, and promising they would vandalize and defile his grave regularly. The local newspaper spoke of pride in the fine young men on the football team that missed classes to attend the funeral and pay respects to a fallen schoolmate.
What in the hell does all this have to do with someone who is an outsider that got so sick of being thought of as invisible and weird that he finally decided to kill everyone he possibly could?
Can’t imagine. I do know there’s never been any suggestion that anyone at Virginia Tech ever beat this killer up, tore up his property or demolished the flowers on a loved ones grave. I know that in school the closest I could ever get to cheerleaders and “popularity” was having my picture in the yearbook. I know that if every guy who didn’t get invited to the Peach Pit for a chocolate shake with the pep committee or a date with a majorette decided to kill people, education would be a surgically implanted microchip by now, because the school system would long be a memory.
I know that when it comes to fight or flight, I’m hoping I get a window seat, every time. And I know I’m free, and I know he’s dead.
There is plenty of room for compassion in my spiritual footlocker,
maybe more than is good for me. But when you get to the point where there’s a hell of a lot more years behind you than ahead, the body count- if you stop to look around- is staggering. In the societal climate of 2007, a time when kids think blow jobs aren’t sex, guns are cooler than guitars, Britney Spears is an artist, and really giant pants look good (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, spend five minutes with MTV, or better, take a contemplative look at your kid or his friends {for a change}; their back pockets are so close to their feet they have to do the limbo to reach their wallet), ignoring stupidity in your living room is something like a crime. If you are not completely alarmed and astounded by the philosophical root rot a stunning number of young people consider “kewl”, you might wanna look at the possibility that you’re doing it wrong. It’s not generational anymore; the concept of rebellious youth is quite dead. These assholes kill people. With guns, and with influence. They’re in your kids math class, they’re behind you at the snack bar. Your children don’t have to sign up to be the aftermath; all they have to do is show up. Virginia Tech is living, and dead, proof. Parents better care about that, because when Junior pops out of the happy canal, mom and dad are automatically signed up to be the aftermath, like it or not.
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“Thank God I’m on the road tonight
With this old hillbilly band.
We may not be good looking
But we sure get outta hand
Was that The Devil’s stagecoach
Flying over the Rio Grande?
Thank God I’m on the road tonight
With this old hillbilly band.”
-Neil Young
“Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood.”
-Shakespeare
Welp, it’s official.
Though Ed (who’s been quite done with it for a long time),
Gary (who always seems to be sleepwalking until it’s time
for a solo), and Artimus (who disappeared off the face of
his earth) are still breathing and playing in some form or
another (Artimus, are you there?),
Lynyrd Skynyrd is dead.
Ronnie, Steve, Allen, Leon, poor Cassie (just as her dreams
came true), and now the great Billy Powell, the last rock and
roll piano player on earth, who was found the other day face
down in a huge pile of massive heart attack. (How come it’s
always somebody like Billy Powell? How come it’s never
somebody like Soleil Moon-Frye or Justin Diamond?).
Lynyrd Skynyrd were the nicest bunch of guys you would
ever wanna meet. Well, except Gary, who seemed pretty
occupied with being a “star” both times we spoke.
I caught their act no less than 20 times- more, in fact-
and they brought home the bacon, every time.
Two of the most surreal evenings I ever spent at a
rock show were both Lynyrd Skynyrd performances.
First, the “reunion” show, “Southern by the
Grace of God”, the first tour after the accident
and the first tour without Ronnie.
At the end of the set, everyone was waiting for their
signature number; as the band queued up, Ronnie’s
little brother (who was filling in as vocalist) surprised
everyone by removing his cowboy hat and hanging it
on the microphone, then leaving the stage.
A lone white spotlight hit that mic as the rest of the
stage darkened, and they played the song as an
instrumental.
It is hard to describe the oddity of being surrounded
by a sold out crowd at the Universal Amphitheater,
every one of them crying.
Second, the last set of that tour, again at the
Universal Amphitheatre one year later.
By now, the hat-hanging stage-leaving deal was
pretty well documented, as they did it throughout
the tour, so I was fairly confident the emotional tax
had been paid and a night of typical Skynyrd swamp
rock was in store.
Halfway through a rollicking set, Donnie announced
that someone wanted to speak to us. Out rolled Allen
in a wheel chair, and he did his best to speak to us
with an uncooperative brain, telling us he wished he
could be playing for us on this night, but that God
apparently wasn’t into it anymore.
By the end of his mostly indiscernible speech, he
was crying; so once again, I was surrounded by
16,000 leaky eyeballs in a concert hall I had been
to a hundred hilarious gigs in, a place I had never
associated with sadness. Fans know; there’s always
been an air of sadness around these guys, even
though they went out of their way to make every
date they played an absolute party, and always
pulled it off.
Happily, the band finished with a blistering set in
the second half, and we all left the room as it should
be following a Skynyrd show; elated, rocked, and too
high to drive.
This is my fourth obituary for members of Lynyrd
Skynyrd.
Several months ago, I heard a rumor that Billy had
died; in fact, it was on the Internet on several “dead
rock stars” sites. My friend Donna proved to me it
wasn’t true.
Now it is.
Billy had this huge chest, he was what some call
“barrel-chested”.
From what I’ve seen, it was necessary to house his
heart. And most importantly, the cat could play like
a windstorm, this weird mix of saloon-rag and boogie
woogie that added up to rock and roll more than all
the hair band synthesizer squeezers in ’70’s and ’80’s
Hollywood combined. Good stuff, man, really good.
So long, Billy Powell. So long, Lynyrd Skynyrd.