The only musician my mother listened to when I was a child that really made enough of an impression on me to vividly remember was John Denver.
I have vague memories of drives through the brown, grassy hills of California, bound for my aunt's house in Walnut Creek, staring at one of his cassette's liner notes and thinking he looked like an androgynous church organist or Roy Orbison's foreskin as my family sang along to Annie's Song.
But man, we loved that guy at that moment in time. I mean, Jesus, everybody did when I was kid. He was wholesome. He fucking loved nature, was in Oh God, regularly hung out with the muppets, performed on PBS and just, gosh, represented everything great about America. I've seen footage of motherfucking astronauts singing Take Me Home, Country Roads while in mother fucking space.
Eventually, however, everything changed. My family stopped listening to him in the car, and his cassettes began gathering dust in my mother's cassette drawer.
At some point, I asked my mom if he had any new albums after noticing that he had been absent from our lives for a long time. I don't remember what she said, exactly, but it was dark. Something about his wife and that he was kind of a bad person.
As I sat down to write this entry, I actually started to get curious
about why I have such an aversion to the guy based on some forgotten
statement that my mother said in the mid '80s It was a quick, passing comment, almost trivial, but it totally shut the door on him. Like, just seeing his smiling, non-threatening face and strangely phallic haircut makes me uncomfortable.
A quick check of his biography on Wikipedia jogged my memory:
Denver and Annie Martell divorced in 1982 and the ensuing property
settlement caused Denver to become so enraged he nearly choked his
ex-wife, then used a chainsaw to cut the marital bed in half.
Wow.
Upon relating that tidbit to my wife, she looked very confused and horrified, then un-ironically yelled "Goddammit John Denver!"
So, yeah. I'm just going to stop writing about this topic now.
God dammit John Denver indeed.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Damage Case #3: Nirvana
First of all , I have a confession - I do not have any Nirvana albums on my hard drive to listen to while I type this. Instead, i am listening to Mudhoney's "Superfuzz Bigmuff", which I regard as superior to anything Nirvana put out.
If presented with a choice between having to listen to Nirvana's In Utero or the entire Ace of Base catalog, I'd probably go with Ace of Base. That's not a joke. I find In Utero insufferable. More on that later.
Starting back at the beginning, I first heard Nirvana on my thirteenth birthday while riding in the car with my older sister, a few days before my first day of seventh grade. The song was "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and it was just starting to get a little airplay on the local college radio station. If I remember correctly, I initially disliked the song because the melody of the "with the lights out / it's less dangerous / here we are now / entertain us " was catchy, but I couldn't yet make out the words. It's usually a good sign when something like that bothers me, and as the days went on and I started hearing the song more often, it grew on me.
I was sitting at a lunch table packed with former Pettengill Elementry students one day towards the end of the first week of school. We were discussing music, and I mentioned "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Most of the other people at the table hadn't heard it, and the one who claimed to have called me a fag for liking them. Coincidentally, that person later turned out to be gay.
I actually liked "Come As You Are" better than "Teen Spirit", and to this day, it remains one of the few songs actually written by Nirvana that I genuinely love. I remember having an awkward conversation with a friend about the video and how I really liked the melody. She told me that she really didn't like Nirvana because they had a song called lithium.
I didn't end up getting "Nevermind" until much later, but I did have a cd single of "Teen Spirit" that I got in a trade along with a copy of Final Fantasy II for the SNES in exchange for Final Fight. I feel like I got the better part of that deal, even if the liner notes to the single smelled like skunk weed and patchouli.
About a year later, "Incesticide" came out, and I got it for Christmas, along with Minor Threat's complete discography.
(I just switched up, and am listening to Azam Ali's "From Night to the Edge of Day" because it's getting late and I want to unwind.)
"Incesticide" is a compilation of unreleased and older material from early singles, EPs and mix tapes. The best three tracks on the album, in my opinion, are a cover of Devo's "Turnaround" and a pair of Vaselines covers. Those two Vaselines covers, "Molly's Lips" and "Son of a Gun" are actually my favorite Nirvana recordings, which is why Incesticide is the only Nirvana album I still own. In case you're wondering, I sold my copies of "Nevermind" and "In Utero" at a garage sale about 18 years ago.
"In Utero" came out a few weeks into my freshman year of high school. I didn't like it. Maybe I am alone in this sentiment, but when I was severely depressed, suffering from insomnia because I couldn't get the image of my mother's brain pulsing through a crack in her skull and the tinny gurgle of blood choking her airways out of my head, just trying to make it through my day without losing it, listening to some rich junkie who has the world in the motherfucking palm of his hand whine and wallow in his own misery just didn't hold that much appeal for me.
For what it's worth, the MTV unplugged recording is pretty great, but its always bugged me that the strongest songs on the album are the covers. Plus, I hate the way Kurt sings the word "birds".
Hindsight plays a role in my generally negative appraisal of Nirvana, and especially In Utero. Once it stopped being shocking, Kurt Cobain's suicide really just pissed me off. Not just the media attention or his posthumous rise to iconic status, though that fucking droopy dog looking image that wound up plastered on shirts sold at Spencers and Hot Topic still pisses me off. I mean that the act itself really just pissed me off. I know that he was mentally ill and suffering from drug addiction and Crohn's disease, so his judgement was fucked, but he had a wife and kid and countless other people who gave a shit about him. Instead of getting help, he ate a fucking gun.
Even before he offed himself though, my interest was shifting away from mainstream music and more towards punk and hardcore. As I mentioned in my last post, I was listening to the Sex Pistols a lot, along with Crass, punk and hip hop era Beastie Boys and the Dead Kennedys, and my sister had just introduced me to Green Day and the Bouncing Souls. A few months later, I'd run across Rancid, who had a much bigger impact on me.
....
Five years later, on the anniversary of his death, I was running a punk, oi! and hardcore radio show on WRBC. These kids kept calling in, asking me to play Nirvana and sobbing when I would refuse. It almost would have been funny, if they weren't so persistent and whiny.
If presented with a choice between having to listen to Nirvana's In Utero or the entire Ace of Base catalog, I'd probably go with Ace of Base. That's not a joke. I find In Utero insufferable. More on that later.
Starting back at the beginning, I first heard Nirvana on my thirteenth birthday while riding in the car with my older sister, a few days before my first day of seventh grade. The song was "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and it was just starting to get a little airplay on the local college radio station. If I remember correctly, I initially disliked the song because the melody of the "with the lights out / it's less dangerous / here we are now / entertain us " was catchy, but I couldn't yet make out the words. It's usually a good sign when something like that bothers me, and as the days went on and I started hearing the song more often, it grew on me.
I was sitting at a lunch table packed with former Pettengill Elementry students one day towards the end of the first week of school. We were discussing music, and I mentioned "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Most of the other people at the table hadn't heard it, and the one who claimed to have called me a fag for liking them. Coincidentally, that person later turned out to be gay.
I actually liked "Come As You Are" better than "Teen Spirit", and to this day, it remains one of the few songs actually written by Nirvana that I genuinely love. I remember having an awkward conversation with a friend about the video and how I really liked the melody. She told me that she really didn't like Nirvana because they had a song called lithium.
I didn't end up getting "Nevermind" until much later, but I did have a cd single of "Teen Spirit" that I got in a trade along with a copy of Final Fantasy II for the SNES in exchange for Final Fight. I feel like I got the better part of that deal, even if the liner notes to the single smelled like skunk weed and patchouli.
About a year later, "Incesticide" came out, and I got it for Christmas, along with Minor Threat's complete discography.
(I just switched up, and am listening to Azam Ali's "From Night to the Edge of Day" because it's getting late and I want to unwind.)
"Incesticide" is a compilation of unreleased and older material from early singles, EPs and mix tapes. The best three tracks on the album, in my opinion, are a cover of Devo's "Turnaround" and a pair of Vaselines covers. Those two Vaselines covers, "Molly's Lips" and "Son of a Gun" are actually my favorite Nirvana recordings, which is why Incesticide is the only Nirvana album I still own. In case you're wondering, I sold my copies of "Nevermind" and "In Utero" at a garage sale about 18 years ago.
"In Utero" came out a few weeks into my freshman year of high school. I didn't like it. Maybe I am alone in this sentiment, but when I was severely depressed, suffering from insomnia because I couldn't get the image of my mother's brain pulsing through a crack in her skull and the tinny gurgle of blood choking her airways out of my head, just trying to make it through my day without losing it, listening to some rich junkie who has the world in the motherfucking palm of his hand whine and wallow in his own misery just didn't hold that much appeal for me.
For what it's worth, the MTV unplugged recording is pretty great, but its always bugged me that the strongest songs on the album are the covers. Plus, I hate the way Kurt sings the word "birds".
Hindsight plays a role in my generally negative appraisal of Nirvana, and especially In Utero. Once it stopped being shocking, Kurt Cobain's suicide really just pissed me off. Not just the media attention or his posthumous rise to iconic status, though that fucking droopy dog looking image that wound up plastered on shirts sold at Spencers and Hot Topic still pisses me off. I mean that the act itself really just pissed me off. I know that he was mentally ill and suffering from drug addiction and Crohn's disease, so his judgement was fucked, but he had a wife and kid and countless other people who gave a shit about him. Instead of getting help, he ate a fucking gun.
Even before he offed himself though, my interest was shifting away from mainstream music and more towards punk and hardcore. As I mentioned in my last post, I was listening to the Sex Pistols a lot, along with Crass, punk and hip hop era Beastie Boys and the Dead Kennedys, and my sister had just introduced me to Green Day and the Bouncing Souls. A few months later, I'd run across Rancid, who had a much bigger impact on me.
....
Five years later, on the anniversary of his death, I was running a punk, oi! and hardcore radio show on WRBC. These kids kept calling in, asking me to play Nirvana and sobbing when I would refuse. It almost would have been funny, if they weren't so persistent and whiny.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Damage Case #2: Never Mind the Bollucks, Here's The Sex Pistols
Let's talk about the Sex Pistols for a moment, shall we?
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols is, in my opinion, the single best example of punk rock ever recorded. Sure, there are plenty of faults with the band, their formation, talent, originality, convictions and image. They were a punk-themed boy band manufactured by a guy who had previously managed the New York Dolls and failed to coax Cock Sparrer into the role he wanted. I don't think any of that is up for debate at this point.
The thing is, once you get past all the hype and Sid & Nancy bullshit, you have this timeless, genuinely awesome album. It's abrasive, brash, offensive, ballsy and angry. It delves into subject matter like abortion and the holocaust that are still taboo nearly 40 years later. In fact, it's such a solid album that it's kind of the punk equivalent of Dick & Jane. It's often the first punk album people explore and, frequently, that leads to people who have been fans of the genre for a while to start taking it for granted. I was totally guilty of that.
....
My first encounter with the Sex Pistols came one summer night when I was ten years old. My older sister, Kate, and her pen pal from Bangor were watching Sid & Nancy in the living room, and invited me to watch it with them. I was still very sheltered and the drug use in the movie made me really uncomfortable. I eventually walked out, not quite sure why anyone would want to watch people shoot up.
A few months later, however, I saw Return of the Living Dead at a Halloween party at my family's very liberal church, and decided that I wanted to be a punk after all. I asked Kate if she had any of the music from the ROTLD soundtrack. She didn't, but she gave me a tape with the Great Rock N Roll Swindle on one side and Ministry's "The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste" on the other.
I never made it past the weird Malcolm McLaren opening on Swindle, and just skipped over to the Ministry side because it was the loudest, hardest and fastest thing I had ever heard. Dumb decision, maybe. Whatever. I later played the Ministry side during my 6th Grade Christmas party after my teacher proclaimed her hatred for the New Kids on the Block Christmas album and asked if anyone else had music. I think that makes my misstep forgivable.
Over the next few years, I'd hear the "Anarchy in the U.K." and "God Save the Queen" pretty frequently on mix tapes, WRBC's Hardcore Happy Hour or while hanging out with my sister and her friends, but they weren't really that interesting to me.
Then I turned fifteen.
Fifteen was an ugly year for me. The summer of my fifteenth birthday opened with me finding my mother convulsing in a pool of blood after she had a seizure and split her head open. Meanwhile, my father's PTSD stemming from Vietnam had gotten to the point that he had to spend most of the Summer at the Togus VA hospital. No one really happened to notice that I was pretty severely traumatized by the whole experience because my family was just struggling to get by.
On top of all that wonderfulness, my parents had enrolled me at a private school that had claimed to be better equipped to handle my attention deficit disorder than Lewiston High School. So on top of suffering from severe insomnia, depression and a complete lack of self-worth, I was suddenly having to adjust to a new school that, among other things, was full of wealthy, waspy pricks.
Suddenly, the Sex Pistols music made a lot of sense to me. Beyond everything else, they were a symbol that I could hide behind when I wanted the entire world to just fuck off and leave me alone. But they also had some pretty great songs. I could relate to "No Feelings" and "Pretty Vacant", that desire to kick people in the head, mocking people's joy, ridiculing how hollow the beautiful, happy people around me seemed.
One of the worst parts about the school was that the bus ride in and out took nearly an hour. I'd have to get up at five and wouldn't get home until nearly six thirty most days. I spent the bulk of those rides slumped up against a window near the back of the bus, drowning out the world with my walkman. "Never Mind the Bollucks" was one of my albums of choice for those rides.
...
Eventually, I stopped listening to them. Maybe I burned out on them, or maybe I just scratched the CD too much for it to play in my stereo. Whatever the reason, I don't remember listening to them very often between the ages of seventeen and thirty-two.
One day, while cleaning out my apartment during my move from 77 to 48 Congress Street, I was listening to the Casualties station on Pandora, when "No Feelings" came on. Suddenly I was hearing the song with an adult set of years that had been actively listening to and learning about music for a good fifteen years, dissecting and interpreting its meaning and appreciating how influential it had been for so many bands I'd fallen in love with since. It was like a revelation. I dug out my damaged copy of "Never Mind the Bollucks" and attempted to burn it onto my computer. I managed to copy most of the songs, and downloaded the remainder. It held up. Hell, I liked it better. It's been on a pretty steady rotation ever since.
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols is, in my opinion, the single best example of punk rock ever recorded. Sure, there are plenty of faults with the band, their formation, talent, originality, convictions and image. They were a punk-themed boy band manufactured by a guy who had previously managed the New York Dolls and failed to coax Cock Sparrer into the role he wanted. I don't think any of that is up for debate at this point.
The thing is, once you get past all the hype and Sid & Nancy bullshit, you have this timeless, genuinely awesome album. It's abrasive, brash, offensive, ballsy and angry. It delves into subject matter like abortion and the holocaust that are still taboo nearly 40 years later. In fact, it's such a solid album that it's kind of the punk equivalent of Dick & Jane. It's often the first punk album people explore and, frequently, that leads to people who have been fans of the genre for a while to start taking it for granted. I was totally guilty of that.
....
My first encounter with the Sex Pistols came one summer night when I was ten years old. My older sister, Kate, and her pen pal from Bangor were watching Sid & Nancy in the living room, and invited me to watch it with them. I was still very sheltered and the drug use in the movie made me really uncomfortable. I eventually walked out, not quite sure why anyone would want to watch people shoot up.
A few months later, however, I saw Return of the Living Dead at a Halloween party at my family's very liberal church, and decided that I wanted to be a punk after all. I asked Kate if she had any of the music from the ROTLD soundtrack. She didn't, but she gave me a tape with the Great Rock N Roll Swindle on one side and Ministry's "The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste" on the other.
I never made it past the weird Malcolm McLaren opening on Swindle, and just skipped over to the Ministry side because it was the loudest, hardest and fastest thing I had ever heard. Dumb decision, maybe. Whatever. I later played the Ministry side during my 6th Grade Christmas party after my teacher proclaimed her hatred for the New Kids on the Block Christmas album and asked if anyone else had music. I think that makes my misstep forgivable.
Over the next few years, I'd hear the "Anarchy in the U.K." and "God Save the Queen" pretty frequently on mix tapes, WRBC's Hardcore Happy Hour or while hanging out with my sister and her friends, but they weren't really that interesting to me.
Then I turned fifteen.
Fifteen was an ugly year for me. The summer of my fifteenth birthday opened with me finding my mother convulsing in a pool of blood after she had a seizure and split her head open. Meanwhile, my father's PTSD stemming from Vietnam had gotten to the point that he had to spend most of the Summer at the Togus VA hospital. No one really happened to notice that I was pretty severely traumatized by the whole experience because my family was just struggling to get by.
On top of all that wonderfulness, my parents had enrolled me at a private school that had claimed to be better equipped to handle my attention deficit disorder than Lewiston High School. So on top of suffering from severe insomnia, depression and a complete lack of self-worth, I was suddenly having to adjust to a new school that, among other things, was full of wealthy, waspy pricks.
Suddenly, the Sex Pistols music made a lot of sense to me. Beyond everything else, they were a symbol that I could hide behind when I wanted the entire world to just fuck off and leave me alone. But they also had some pretty great songs. I could relate to "No Feelings" and "Pretty Vacant", that desire to kick people in the head, mocking people's joy, ridiculing how hollow the beautiful, happy people around me seemed.
One of the worst parts about the school was that the bus ride in and out took nearly an hour. I'd have to get up at five and wouldn't get home until nearly six thirty most days. I spent the bulk of those rides slumped up against a window near the back of the bus, drowning out the world with my walkman. "Never Mind the Bollucks" was one of my albums of choice for those rides.
...
Eventually, I stopped listening to them. Maybe I burned out on them, or maybe I just scratched the CD too much for it to play in my stereo. Whatever the reason, I don't remember listening to them very often between the ages of seventeen and thirty-two.
One day, while cleaning out my apartment during my move from 77 to 48 Congress Street, I was listening to the Casualties station on Pandora, when "No Feelings" came on. Suddenly I was hearing the song with an adult set of years that had been actively listening to and learning about music for a good fifteen years, dissecting and interpreting its meaning and appreciating how influential it had been for so many bands I'd fallen in love with since. It was like a revelation. I dug out my damaged copy of "Never Mind the Bollucks" and attempted to burn it onto my computer. I managed to copy most of the songs, and downloaded the remainder. It held up. Hell, I liked it better. It's been on a pretty steady rotation ever since.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Damage Case #1: Rancid
I've decided to just start listening to my favorite bands/albums and just write about my experiences relating to them. I'm not sure where it will take me, but I'm just hoping to get the creative juices flowing with it.
....
Two years ago, my wife came back from the local market up the street, looking perplexed. When I asked her what was up, she explained that this kid at the store had seen our two year old son's D.I.Y. Rancid shirt and felt the need to tell her that he had liked their first album, but felt that they had subsequently sold out. She was really confused as to why this fucking kid felt the need to talk shit about my kids shirt. I explained to her that he was an elitist, hipster fuck.
Rancid are, hands down, my favorite band of all time. They're the band that made me fall in love with guitars and the band that my friends and I bonded over in high school. They've consistently put out great punk albums for the last twenty years. They've done more to support the worldwide punk, oi!, ska and psychobilly scenes than any other band I can think of. They've employed friends of mine and given smaller bands chances to open for them.
But of course, Rancid committed the cardinal sin of being slightly successful in the mid '90s. Therefore, idiot kids who were still shitting their diapers when that happened who feel the need to score street cred spew canned put downs when you mention that you like them. Its a fucking bullshit attitude that runs deep through the punk community, this double standard not applied to the Clash, the Cramps or any of the older bands by people hoping to count coup.
....
I purchased Rancid's "Let's Go!" at the Strawberries in Auburn on the Friday of the first week of my sophomore year of high school. My friend Erin worked there, and I'd gone in hoping to see her. It was a random purchase. I didn't realize the Op Ivy connection, and just picked it up because of the picture of the band on the back of the cover looked badass.
I will never forget hearing the opening feedback of "Nihilism" through my headphones for the first time. It was like a sucker punch to the gut. I immediately fell in love. They were singing about their lives, their friends, their neighborhoods, feeling poor and alienated. It was the first time I really ever felt a personal connection to music. It changed my fucking life. I work in a record store today because I want to facilitate that experience to other fucked up kids.
....
It was late in the afternoon. The North Hamptom Fairgrounds were hot and dusty. I'd fought my way to the front of the crowd to see Rancid's set at Warped Tour '98. They were going on late and would only be playing a short set. The rumor I'd heard was that The Cherry Poppin' Daddies had been little bitches when it was raining during their scheduled performance time because they didn't want to damage their zoot suits. This, in turn, had cut into the time allotted for Dropkick Murphy's set. Now, this was Dropkick's only show in the Boston area that summer, and the New England punk and skinhead scene was there in full force to see them. Rancid had supposedly volunteered to give up some of their set time so that DKM could play a full set.
It was over 100 degrees, and water cost an arm, a leg and a decent view of the stage. I opted for dehydration and claustrophobia, and clutched the guard rail to see my favorite band. I honestly don't remember all that much of the actual performance because I was so uncomfortable. But at the end of the set, I found myself directly in front of Lars as he was unplugging his guitar. He had a bottle of water at his feet. Slightly starstruck, I summoned up some courage and asked him if I could have what was left of his water. He smiled and passed it over to me. It was like the kid getting the football players towel.
....
About eleven or twelve years ago, I was looking through the rockabilly vinyl at Amoeba Records on the Sunset Strip while visiting my cousin in LA. I noticed this guy on the other side of the bin dressed in a floppy hat and a loose fitting white shirt had a 101ers tattoo on his neck. After a moment of disbelief, I realized that it was, in fact, Tim Armstrong. We made eye contact and exchanged nods, then went back to browsing. Two music nerds being nerdy in Music Nerd Mecca. It was this amazing, quiet moment, something I will always treasure.
....
Two years ago, my wife came back from the local market up the street, looking perplexed. When I asked her what was up, she explained that this kid at the store had seen our two year old son's D.I.Y. Rancid shirt and felt the need to tell her that he had liked their first album, but felt that they had subsequently sold out. She was really confused as to why this fucking kid felt the need to talk shit about my kids shirt. I explained to her that he was an elitist, hipster fuck.
Rancid are, hands down, my favorite band of all time. They're the band that made me fall in love with guitars and the band that my friends and I bonded over in high school. They've consistently put out great punk albums for the last twenty years. They've done more to support the worldwide punk, oi!, ska and psychobilly scenes than any other band I can think of. They've employed friends of mine and given smaller bands chances to open for them.
But of course, Rancid committed the cardinal sin of being slightly successful in the mid '90s. Therefore, idiot kids who were still shitting their diapers when that happened who feel the need to score street cred spew canned put downs when you mention that you like them. Its a fucking bullshit attitude that runs deep through the punk community, this double standard not applied to the Clash, the Cramps or any of the older bands by people hoping to count coup.
....
I purchased Rancid's "Let's Go!" at the Strawberries in Auburn on the Friday of the first week of my sophomore year of high school. My friend Erin worked there, and I'd gone in hoping to see her. It was a random purchase. I didn't realize the Op Ivy connection, and just picked it up because of the picture of the band on the back of the cover looked badass.
I will never forget hearing the opening feedback of "Nihilism" through my headphones for the first time. It was like a sucker punch to the gut. I immediately fell in love. They were singing about their lives, their friends, their neighborhoods, feeling poor and alienated. It was the first time I really ever felt a personal connection to music. It changed my fucking life. I work in a record store today because I want to facilitate that experience to other fucked up kids.
....
It was late in the afternoon. The North Hamptom Fairgrounds were hot and dusty. I'd fought my way to the front of the crowd to see Rancid's set at Warped Tour '98. They were going on late and would only be playing a short set. The rumor I'd heard was that The Cherry Poppin' Daddies had been little bitches when it was raining during their scheduled performance time because they didn't want to damage their zoot suits. This, in turn, had cut into the time allotted for Dropkick Murphy's set. Now, this was Dropkick's only show in the Boston area that summer, and the New England punk and skinhead scene was there in full force to see them. Rancid had supposedly volunteered to give up some of their set time so that DKM could play a full set.
It was over 100 degrees, and water cost an arm, a leg and a decent view of the stage. I opted for dehydration and claustrophobia, and clutched the guard rail to see my favorite band. I honestly don't remember all that much of the actual performance because I was so uncomfortable. But at the end of the set, I found myself directly in front of Lars as he was unplugging his guitar. He had a bottle of water at his feet. Slightly starstruck, I summoned up some courage and asked him if I could have what was left of his water. He smiled and passed it over to me. It was like the kid getting the football players towel.
....
About eleven or twelve years ago, I was looking through the rockabilly vinyl at Amoeba Records on the Sunset Strip while visiting my cousin in LA. I noticed this guy on the other side of the bin dressed in a floppy hat and a loose fitting white shirt had a 101ers tattoo on his neck. After a moment of disbelief, I realized that it was, in fact, Tim Armstrong. We made eye contact and exchanged nods, then went back to browsing. Two music nerds being nerdy in Music Nerd Mecca. It was this amazing, quiet moment, something I will always treasure.
Friday, September 19, 2014
LOCAL MAN CALLS TIM McGRAW ON HIS GEOGRAPHIC IGNORANCE
Westbrook, ME
Local drooler Darrel Wadsworth briefly saw that someone was talking about Tim McGraw's new song "Portland, Maine"on facebook on Wednesday and had some choice words for the musician.
"It's just dumb as all shit." said Wadsworth to anyone willing to listen. "I mean, I don't understand what he doesn't get. It's in Maine, so it's in the Northeast, and then it has the word port in it's name, so it's coastal. Northeast and coastal. It's not fucking hard."
"Look," added Wadsworth, "I barely graduated from high school. The last book I read was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry in sixth grade. I occasionally install car stereos, but mostly get by selling plasma and shitty skunk weed. I'm not allowed to come within two hundred feet of Payless Shoes and Jokers Pizza. I think Gettysburg is in the South. I use the terms homo and philanthropist interchangeably. My mother had to talk me down from devoting all my time and energy to a hip hop career after she pointed out that I was oblivious to the fact that un-ironically calling myself D-Wad wasn't exactly winning the people over. But Jesus Christ, even I can find Portland on a fucking map."
Local drooler Darrel Wadsworth briefly saw that someone was talking about Tim McGraw's new song "Portland, Maine"on facebook on Wednesday and had some choice words for the musician.
"It's just dumb as all shit." said Wadsworth to anyone willing to listen. "I mean, I don't understand what he doesn't get. It's in Maine, so it's in the Northeast, and then it has the word port in it's name, so it's coastal. Northeast and coastal. It's not fucking hard."
"Look," added Wadsworth, "I barely graduated from high school. The last book I read was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry in sixth grade. I occasionally install car stereos, but mostly get by selling plasma and shitty skunk weed. I'm not allowed to come within two hundred feet of Payless Shoes and Jokers Pizza. I think Gettysburg is in the South. I use the terms homo and philanthropist interchangeably. My mother had to talk me down from devoting all my time and energy to a hip hop career after she pointed out that I was oblivious to the fact that un-ironically calling myself D-Wad wasn't exactly winning the people over. But Jesus Christ, even I can find Portland on a fucking map."
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
TEN HONEST STATEMENTS ABOUT ROBIN WILLIAMS
Robin Williams' career existed almost entirely in the span of my lifetime. For a long time, he was a significant, but awkward figure for me, because he did a lot of stuff that just wasn't funny. However, I think he merits a eulogy of sorts. So here goes:
1. I watched a lot of "Mork & Mindy" when I was a child. I'm not lying when I say that the episode where their geriatric child played by Jonathan Winters hatched from an egg helped shape my understanding of actual human childbirth, because it forced me to ask my parents a lot of weird questions.
2. I saw Mrs. Doubtfire too many times in 1994. At the time, I quickly came to resent the non-threatening bowl haircuts and overabundance of Aerosmith, but in hindsight, it's a pretty good depiction of the time. Also, any movie that includes a cameo by Buster the Ape is fine by me.
3. Robin Williams made some awesome movies, including "The Fischer King", "The World According to Garp", "Good Morning Vietnam", "The Birdcage" and "Good Will Hunting". He also made "Bicentennial Man, "Jack", "RV" and "Robots". I never saw any of those latter movies, but I judged his career for them.
4. The first time I saw Aladdin, I thought it was hilarious. The hilarity tapered off after subsequent viewings. There were a lot of subsequent viewings. Now, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Aladdin is I hate that fucking movie, even though I haven't seen it in nearly 20 years.
5. I have often said that I found Robin Williams funniest when he was on cocaine. That really is a horrible thing to say. I think a better way to put it would be, I thought he was funnier when I was a kid. Which, coincidentally was at the peak of his cocaine use. BUT it's not like I was watching a shit ton of his stand up material at that time.
6. Robin Williams had black guy and gay guy voices. He did. You know he did and I know he did. We all know it. You could argue, okay, maybe they weren't really racially charged or homophobic. In an ideal world, maybe that could be just, like, a deep voiced guy and an effeminate guy. But, ultimately, they still were black guy and gay guy voices, and anything I say to defend them is an excuse. However, I also think it also says something about my own awkward relationship with race as a white dude that it makes me uncomfortable, because in a truly colorblind world, it wouldn't matter at all.
7. I like the idea of liking "Dead Poets Society", but the last time I saw it, I was nineteen and actually found it kind of cheesy, ham-fisted and unforgivably affluent.
8. Robin Williams is also partially responsible for my well-documented hatred of Sting. You see, "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" is one of my favorite movies of all time. It was the first film where I remember being keenly aware of just how amazingly shot it was. Sting is in the film for approximately half a second. Robin Williams has a substantially larger role. Sting appears pretty early on in the closing credits. Robim Williams seemingly doesn't appear at all. For a long time, I thought that was a complete crock of shit. It has since come to my attention that Robin Williams is credited instead as Ray D. Tutto. But still, fuck Sting, man.
9. The episode of Happy Days where Robin Williams first donned the Mork from Ork persona still kind of scares the shit of me. Specifically, it's his slow motion finger gun. Even as an adult, the idea of a Robin Williams alien being able to exert that much control over other people by pointing and making a simple, obnoxious noise makes me very uncomfortable. Like, the ability clearly is not temporal in nature, so he's just fucking up Fonzie's neurological functions, and seriously, nobody should be able to fuck with Arthur Fonzerelli. Ever.
10. Robin Williams was one of those people whose face alone could make me deeply uncomfortable. It could convey a lot of emotion, but it also always seemed like a mask mugging for the camera, like it somehow existed in the Uncanny Valley despite being attached to a human being.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
RANGER GROOVY
It was a sunny morning in Santa Rosa, California in the Spring of 1985. I was six years old and had rosy cheeks. I had the requisite bad haircut, my mother still dressed me for the most part and I still thought that scientists built Frankensteins and giant robots. My world was still very small, happy and relatively care free.
My kindergarten teacher, Ms. Lewis was a seven-foot-tall puppet monster made of scouring pads, a green Captain Cody Elementary School soccer jacket and dry, dead skin who hated children with every fiber of her being (1). That morning, she announced that she had a surprise field trip for us. You'll notice that I did not call it a fun surprise field trip. Ms. Lewis did not do fun.
At 11am, this husk of a formerly passionate teacher ushered the class out of the olive drab double-wide that served as our classroom, along the metal staging that ran in front of building, down the steps and out to the grass in front of the school. A painted, decommissioned short bus was parked on the lawn, and folding tables had been set up all around it. As we approached the bus, Ms. Lewis introduced us to an individual that I'm going to call "Ranger Groovy".
Ranger Groovy was tall and skinny. The combination of his high-cut, brown, official-looking shorts and grimy Birkenstock sandals made his hairy legs look impossibly long, and an unwashed ponytail dangled out from under the ranger hat he wore on his head to the small of his back. I'm pretty sure that he was wearing a tie-dye shirt under a poorly buttoned boy scout shirt. He had come to teach us all about pollution using his menagerie of taxidermied animals who were killed by litter.
Ranger Groovy first walked us past a dead raccoon propped up on a log in a surprisingly lifelike pose. The poor little critter had a six pack ring draped around it's neck. Nearby, there was a rattlesnake on a square of astroturf with a bag of nacho cheese Doritos jammed in it's gaping maw. There was a trout with a six pack ring around it's neck and a family of chipmunks that had apparently become so distraught by the election that they also decided to commit mass suicide by six pack ring. An incredibly stupid beaver who had decided to chew on a can of Old Milwaukee instead of a log, and then died when he attempted to floss it out with a six pack ring sat in a kiddy pool full of crisp, white foam cups.
Lesson learned, Ranger Groovy. Six pack rings are the most efficient killing machines ever devised by man.
After we completed our stroll through his museum of crappy natural history, Ranger Groovy gave a speech about the responsibility each and every one of us has to make the world a better place. While his entire message genuinely had a profound impact on me, there was one phrase he used that has stuck with me for twenty nine years for all the wrong reasons. At the very end of the speech, he pointed at me and said "Remember, we're all captains here on Starship Earth."
Upon hearing the term "Starship Earth", I became skeptical of the horrors that Ranger Groovy had on display. It was possibly the dumbest combination of words that I had ever heard.
Don't get me wrong. People who litter are fucking douche bags and litter definitely harms and kills animals. I'm not in any way disputing this fact.
All that I am saying is that, given some of the other characters (2) that lurked around my school, I am not convinced that Ranger Groovy wasn't just some dude who lived in a bus behind Ms. Lewis's decrepit swamp shack (3) and did the poor old broad a favor by mildly traumatizing her students once a year by flinging the contents of an old Alpha Beta (4) bag from the back of his bus on a bunch of stolen taxidermy that he couldn't pawn for drug money.
(1) Okay, yes, that is probably a grossly inaccurate portrayal of the woman, but she did tell me and my classmates that we were the worst students that she had ever had (a statement she had notoriously repeated to at least the last five classes she had taught).
(2) My music teacher, Mr. Hadlock for example, was clearly just a creepy drifter with an acoustic guitar. I say this because he had a photo of a topless hula dancer inside his guitar case and the only time I saw him outside of school, he was buying a rack of beer and snarled "Scram, kid." at me. Ere go, scary drifter.
(3) There's no way that she didn't live in a swamp shack.
(4) Alpha Beta was a California-based chain of liquor stores. I don't know if they are still a thing. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere near the Alpha Beta up the road from my house as a kid.
My kindergarten teacher, Ms. Lewis was a seven-foot-tall puppet monster made of scouring pads, a green Captain Cody Elementary School soccer jacket and dry, dead skin who hated children with every fiber of her being (1). That morning, she announced that she had a surprise field trip for us. You'll notice that I did not call it a fun surprise field trip. Ms. Lewis did not do fun.
At 11am, this husk of a formerly passionate teacher ushered the class out of the olive drab double-wide that served as our classroom, along the metal staging that ran in front of building, down the steps and out to the grass in front of the school. A painted, decommissioned short bus was parked on the lawn, and folding tables had been set up all around it. As we approached the bus, Ms. Lewis introduced us to an individual that I'm going to call "Ranger Groovy".
Ranger Groovy was tall and skinny. The combination of his high-cut, brown, official-looking shorts and grimy Birkenstock sandals made his hairy legs look impossibly long, and an unwashed ponytail dangled out from under the ranger hat he wore on his head to the small of his back. I'm pretty sure that he was wearing a tie-dye shirt under a poorly buttoned boy scout shirt. He had come to teach us all about pollution using his menagerie of taxidermied animals who were killed by litter.
Ranger Groovy first walked us past a dead raccoon propped up on a log in a surprisingly lifelike pose. The poor little critter had a six pack ring draped around it's neck. Nearby, there was a rattlesnake on a square of astroturf with a bag of nacho cheese Doritos jammed in it's gaping maw. There was a trout with a six pack ring around it's neck and a family of chipmunks that had apparently become so distraught by the election that they also decided to commit mass suicide by six pack ring. An incredibly stupid beaver who had decided to chew on a can of Old Milwaukee instead of a log, and then died when he attempted to floss it out with a six pack ring sat in a kiddy pool full of crisp, white foam cups.
Lesson learned, Ranger Groovy. Six pack rings are the most efficient killing machines ever devised by man.
After we completed our stroll through his museum of crappy natural history, Ranger Groovy gave a speech about the responsibility each and every one of us has to make the world a better place. While his entire message genuinely had a profound impact on me, there was one phrase he used that has stuck with me for twenty nine years for all the wrong reasons. At the very end of the speech, he pointed at me and said "Remember, we're all captains here on Starship Earth."
Upon hearing the term "Starship Earth", I became skeptical of the horrors that Ranger Groovy had on display. It was possibly the dumbest combination of words that I had ever heard.
Don't get me wrong. People who litter are fucking douche bags and litter definitely harms and kills animals. I'm not in any way disputing this fact.
All that I am saying is that, given some of the other characters (2) that lurked around my school, I am not convinced that Ranger Groovy wasn't just some dude who lived in a bus behind Ms. Lewis's decrepit swamp shack (3) and did the poor old broad a favor by mildly traumatizing her students once a year by flinging the contents of an old Alpha Beta (4) bag from the back of his bus on a bunch of stolen taxidermy that he couldn't pawn for drug money.
(1) Okay, yes, that is probably a grossly inaccurate portrayal of the woman, but she did tell me and my classmates that we were the worst students that she had ever had (a statement she had notoriously repeated to at least the last five classes she had taught).
(2) My music teacher, Mr. Hadlock for example, was clearly just a creepy drifter with an acoustic guitar. I say this because he had a photo of a topless hula dancer inside his guitar case and the only time I saw him outside of school, he was buying a rack of beer and snarled "Scram, kid." at me. Ere go, scary drifter.
(3) There's no way that she didn't live in a swamp shack.
(4) Alpha Beta was a California-based chain of liquor stores. I don't know if they are still a thing. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere near the Alpha Beta up the road from my house as a kid.
CHAPTER 183: UNTITLED DIALOGUE #12
AUTHOR'S NOTE: What follows is the result of a writing exercise where I attempted to create an original, funny idea for a superhero movie parody. It went horribly, horribly wrong, and in the end, I had to turn it into a conversation between two screenwriters.
...........
"How's the new Hulk project coming along, Steve?"
"Ugh. Why is it so hard to make a movie about a guy who gets mad, turns green and throws cars at an old man in a tank and maybe a monster or something?"
"Did you read my script?"
"Banner: Rise of the Incredible Hulk?"
"That's the one!"
"Yes. I did."
"Aaaaaand?"
"It... well it's... just... horrible."
"It forces you to confront your prejudice against people exposed to gamma rays. Is the metaphor lost on you?"
"No."
"But it affected you?"
"Yes, it profoundly affected me. It made me want to travel back in time and abort you with a coat hanger."
"Look, someone needs to change the dynamic of the summer blockbuster. Turn it on its head before everything goes stale and we're left with Paranormal Activity clones and Melissa McCarthy road movies as the tent poles. I'm juxtaposing heroism with the stark reality of life. This could be the Citizen Kane of superhero movies."
"Yeah, no. Not so much."
"Why not?"
"Because it's wrong."
"No. You're just closed minded. The Hulk can be a vehicle for drama. There was an episode of the old TV show where Banner was on a plane that was about to crash and he had to change into the Hulk to pull it out of a nose dive. It was amazing!"
"INTERIOR. DAYTIME. BRUCE BANNER OPENS THE FIRE DOOR OF HIS FLOOR OF STARK TOWER, pulling off his baseball cap, revealing green splotches. He hurries down the hall, passing HAWKEYE, pretending to scratch an itch in order to hide his condition from his teammate.
This is literally a script for Philadelphia that you pulled off of newsgroups. You just replaced the Tom Hanks character with Bruce Banner! Your climax has Bruce Banner losing a court battle against Tony Stark and Captain America, then Hulking out and brutally assaulting an already hospitalized MODOC. Having read that out loud, I am going to throw up on behalf of all humanity!"
"What if it were Wolverine, instead?"
"Now you're talking!"
...........
"How's the new Hulk project coming along, Steve?"
"Ugh. Why is it so hard to make a movie about a guy who gets mad, turns green and throws cars at an old man in a tank and maybe a monster or something?"
"Did you read my script?"
"Banner: Rise of the Incredible Hulk?"
"That's the one!"
"Yes. I did."
"Aaaaaand?"
"It... well it's... just... horrible."
"It forces you to confront your prejudice against people exposed to gamma rays. Is the metaphor lost on you?"
"No."
"But it affected you?"
"Yes, it profoundly affected me. It made me want to travel back in time and abort you with a coat hanger."
"Look, someone needs to change the dynamic of the summer blockbuster. Turn it on its head before everything goes stale and we're left with Paranormal Activity clones and Melissa McCarthy road movies as the tent poles. I'm juxtaposing heroism with the stark reality of life. This could be the Citizen Kane of superhero movies."
"Yeah, no. Not so much."
"Why not?"
"Because it's wrong."
"No. You're just closed minded. The Hulk can be a vehicle for drama. There was an episode of the old TV show where Banner was on a plane that was about to crash and he had to change into the Hulk to pull it out of a nose dive. It was amazing!"
"INTERIOR. DAYTIME. BRUCE BANNER OPENS THE FIRE DOOR OF HIS FLOOR OF STARK TOWER, pulling off his baseball cap, revealing green splotches. He hurries down the hall, passing HAWKEYE, pretending to scratch an itch in order to hide his condition from his teammate.
This is literally a script for Philadelphia that you pulled off of newsgroups. You just replaced the Tom Hanks character with Bruce Banner! Your climax has Bruce Banner losing a court battle against Tony Stark and Captain America, then Hulking out and brutally assaulting an already hospitalized MODOC. Having read that out loud, I am going to throw up on behalf of all humanity!"
"What if it were Wolverine, instead?"
"Now you're talking!"
Saturday, April 26, 2014
That's Edutainment?
As a person born in California in the late '70s, every form of media that I was exposed to for the first few years of my life was at least moderately psychedelic. Regardless of whether it was a McDonald's ad or a Disney movie, The Electric Company or a Public Service Announcement, everything was just slightly groovy. Even the filmstrips about the pilgrims we were forced to watch had weird Moog soundtracks and Yellow Submarine character designs.
Things took a drastic change around 1984, when Nancy Reagan decided that she wanted to keep me off drugs. The conflicting environmental messages and survival tips (don't litter, but if you get lost in the woods, use one of the many discarded trash bags you find as a poncho) edutainment and public service messages suddenly shifted to very special episodes. Secondary characters on Webster became addicted to nonspecific drugs and wound up working as unpaid, one-handed meat packers. Margot on Punky Brewster was so wracked with guilt after the refrigerator incident that she cut off all her hair, crashed her mother's car and started her own infanticide club. Skippy never recovered from his experiences in El Salvador, and Screech became a nun. Mostly, it was about drugs though. And once people started warning me about the effects of drugs on the human brain, I put two and two together and it became obvious to me that anyone who had ever tried to simultaneously entertain and teach me anything had probably done a shit ton of acid.
Suppressed by the cold, hard reality of the '80s, my memories of "Free To Be... You And Me", "The Point" and "H.R. Puffinstuff" were crammed into the dark recesses of my brain, where they have festered for thirty years, occasionally bubbling to the surface and leaving me wondering if they were real or imagined. They are stored in a nether region of my subconscious, even more distant than that well-guarded utopian playground where I suspect "Shamelessly Happy Matt" skips and dances about. Here, in an abandoned, day-glo rock-n-roll church in a field of swirling sunflowers beneath a purple paisley sky, a faceless projectionist in massive, flower-print bell bottoms and a brown, fringed leather vest is playing a perpetual loop of rambling, senseless edutainment shorts, cobbled together from half-memories and engrams scarred into my psyche by well-meaning adults.
These shorts depict a rainbow colored Brooklyn and a technicolor alphabet hyphenation forest where Doctor John mercilessly torments and mocks your inability to find your way out. Crude proto-muppets representing babies tell me about the differences between their respective genitalia as Michael Jackson sings about self-acceptance. Six-Million Dollar Man Big Foot and Leonard Nimoy encourage me to go for nature walks and to seek out new age powers, but not to venture into construction sites. Papa John and Mackenzie Phillips sing songs about the importance of family, accompanied by sexually aggressive mimes and then Witchy-Poo suddenly segues in and tells a knock-knock joke.
Only it's never a funny joke.
Wendy Carlos music starts up and two teenagers in earth tone pants and blood red turtlenecks head into a locker room to have an awkward discussion about the changes their bodies have been going through. Next up, Wayland Flowers and Madame explain that your parents probably still love you, even if they are getting divorced while a lifeless Charlie McCarthy puppet sits in a corner collecting cobwebs. The Solid Gold dancers spill in, and Bootsy Collins tells a kid who can't play the sitar to never give up before a star wipe brings us more Witchy-Poo.
Oh, look! It's Alan Alda and a group of kids sitting inside a geodesic dome! And they're discussing aspirations. And they all want to be astronauts. Luckily, according to all the latest data, we'll all be living on the moon by 1991! Mamma Cass wants a pet alligator, but Meadowlark Lemon shows up on his flying phantom fire hydrant to tell her that it's a lot of responsibility. John Lennon dishes some parenting advice to Eric Clapton in an over sized nursery, then Robert Blake talks about resolving conflict with a parrot. Orson Welles stares at the camera for several minutes without blinking, breathing heavily while the Mummenschanz perform their infamous clay face genital routine. Finally, the camera fades to black, with only the continuing sound of Orson's breathing for another two minutes.
Now let us never speak of this part of my brain again.
Things took a drastic change around 1984, when Nancy Reagan decided that she wanted to keep me off drugs. The conflicting environmental messages and survival tips (don't litter, but if you get lost in the woods, use one of the many discarded trash bags you find as a poncho) edutainment and public service messages suddenly shifted to very special episodes. Secondary characters on Webster became addicted to nonspecific drugs and wound up working as unpaid, one-handed meat packers. Margot on Punky Brewster was so wracked with guilt after the refrigerator incident that she cut off all her hair, crashed her mother's car and started her own infanticide club. Skippy never recovered from his experiences in El Salvador, and Screech became a nun. Mostly, it was about drugs though. And once people started warning me about the effects of drugs on the human brain, I put two and two together and it became obvious to me that anyone who had ever tried to simultaneously entertain and teach me anything had probably done a shit ton of acid.
Suppressed by the cold, hard reality of the '80s, my memories of "Free To Be... You And Me", "The Point" and "H.R. Puffinstuff" were crammed into the dark recesses of my brain, where they have festered for thirty years, occasionally bubbling to the surface and leaving me wondering if they were real or imagined. They are stored in a nether region of my subconscious, even more distant than that well-guarded utopian playground where I suspect "Shamelessly Happy Matt" skips and dances about. Here, in an abandoned, day-glo rock-n-roll church in a field of swirling sunflowers beneath a purple paisley sky, a faceless projectionist in massive, flower-print bell bottoms and a brown, fringed leather vest is playing a perpetual loop of rambling, senseless edutainment shorts, cobbled together from half-memories and engrams scarred into my psyche by well-meaning adults.
These shorts depict a rainbow colored Brooklyn and a technicolor alphabet hyphenation forest where Doctor John mercilessly torments and mocks your inability to find your way out. Crude proto-muppets representing babies tell me about the differences between their respective genitalia as Michael Jackson sings about self-acceptance. Six-Million Dollar Man Big Foot and Leonard Nimoy encourage me to go for nature walks and to seek out new age powers, but not to venture into construction sites. Papa John and Mackenzie Phillips sing songs about the importance of family, accompanied by sexually aggressive mimes and then Witchy-Poo suddenly segues in and tells a knock-knock joke.
Only it's never a funny joke.
WITCHY-POO
Hey Kids! Knock-knock!
KIDS CHORUS
Who's there, Witchy-Poo?
WITCHY-POO
Butter!
KID'S CHORUS
Butter who?
WITCHY-POO
Butter not get in a car with a stranger or they'll find your waterlogged, severed head floating in a canal!
Wendy Carlos music starts up and two teenagers in earth tone pants and blood red turtlenecks head into a locker room to have an awkward discussion about the changes their bodies have been going through. Next up, Wayland Flowers and Madame explain that your parents probably still love you, even if they are getting divorced while a lifeless Charlie McCarthy puppet sits in a corner collecting cobwebs. The Solid Gold dancers spill in, and Bootsy Collins tells a kid who can't play the sitar to never give up before a star wipe brings us more Witchy-Poo.
WITCHY-POO
Hey Kids! Knock-knock!
KIDS CHORUS
Who's there, Witchy-Poo?
WITCHY-POO
Cha-cha!
KIDS CHORUS
Cha-cha who?
WITCHY-POO
Cha-ch-cha-challenger explosion!! Deal with it.
Oh, look! It's Alan Alda and a group of kids sitting inside a geodesic dome! And they're discussing aspirations. And they all want to be astronauts. Luckily, according to all the latest data, we'll all be living on the moon by 1991! Mamma Cass wants a pet alligator, but Meadowlark Lemon shows up on his flying phantom fire hydrant to tell her that it's a lot of responsibility. John Lennon dishes some parenting advice to Eric Clapton in an over sized nursery, then Robert Blake talks about resolving conflict with a parrot. Orson Welles stares at the camera for several minutes without blinking, breathing heavily while the Mummenschanz perform their infamous clay face genital routine. Finally, the camera fades to black, with only the continuing sound of Orson's breathing for another two minutes.
Now let us never speak of this part of my brain again.
THE BROWN PAPER BAG
The following story is complete bullshit.
There were differing stories regarding the origins of the brown paper bag. My friend Jackson and my next door neighbor Randy both laid claim to it's contents - a half-full bottle of Mad Dog and an issue of Lesbian Fire.
It was June 1990 - the first week of Summer Vacation. Jackson and I had just completed fifth grade and Randy was going on to middle school. All three of us were at various stages of being eleven years old. As you can imagine, a half full bottle of fortified wine and a spank mag made for an epic discovery.
"I bought them at the Big Apple yesterday!" exclaimed Randy. "They must have fallen out of my backpack while I was riding home."
"Why would they sell you porn and wine?" asked Jackson.
"Because I'm cool."
That was a good argument. Randy was pretty cool. He was a year ahead of us, after all, and he had his own table saw. One thing bothered me though.
"So let me get this straight." I said. "They'll sell you anything you want, so you went with Lesbian Fire?"
Randy paused and looked at the two harsh looking women on the cover. They looked angry at each other and even angrier at us. This was some seriously gonzo shit, mind you, more of a Tijuana bible than a magazine. I distinctly remember thinking the two women resembled Markie Post and Amanda Bearce (Marcy from Married With Children) after nervous breakdowns and several years of hard drug use. It depicted what heterosexual idiots in 1990 assumed big-haired lesbians did with cool whip, sailor hats and riding crops.
"Lesbians are cool."
Atticus Finch couldn't have argued with that one, either.
Jackson's version of events was a little more down to Earth.
"Remember when I told you I had to mow the lawn before I came over this morning?"
"Yeah."
"Well, as I was mowing, a Trans Am pulled up next to me."
"What color was it?" Randy snarled, skeptically.
"Yellow. The guy rolled down his window, and spat. When I looked over at him, he yelled 'Eat Pussy!' and threw the bag at me. He then peeled out and sped off."
Randy proceeded to tear Jackson's case to shreds. "No one who is smart enough to drive a Trans Am would just throw away a bag full of porn and booze. That's insane."
"That's what happened!"
"Pfft. Bullshit."
The argument over the hobo wine and porn quickly escalated into a small scale civil war that engulfed the preteen male population of Vallejo Drive, Franklin and Pierce Street and several outlying neighborhoods.
Kyle Logan and Dewey LaChance, eighth graders we all normally regarded as bottom-feeding scumfucks, allied themselves with Randy and spent the next few days menacing Jackson. They eventually got bored with it and decided to huff gas, instead. Randy just spent a lot of time by himself building dead falls and Punji sticks in the woods like Rambo. He'd occasionally emerge from the woods, daring us to chase after him.
Jackson, Spencer Garnier from Pierce Street and Sasha Doak from up on Burton Ridge began making regular BMX patrols of the neighborhood. My younger brother and his friends Frank and Dwight Osajima and Scott Seltzer formed their own little clique that switched sides like Afghan warlords. I mostly tried to remain neutral, though at one point I nearly got into a bat fight with Kyle and Dewey because they wouldn't get off my lawn.
In the end, Jackson and Randy reached a truce when a new kid moved into the neighborhood and started stealing stupid shit like bike pumps, dodge balls and old hammers from people's garages. After we all threatened to beat the fuck out of the new kid if he stepped off his lawn, it was time to divvy up the spoils or war. Jackson got the booze, and Randy got the porn. Both precious relics had sat in a tree house in the woods behind my house for nearly two weeks.
The Mad Dog had spilled in the bag, and what was left had bugs floating in it. Jackson proudly downed the remaining swig, describing the taste as a mix of victory, cold medicine and orange crush vomit. We smashed the bottle on the train tracks running alongside Main Street later that afternoon.
Lesbian Fire had gotten wet from what I really hope was condensation. The last time I saw it, Randy had cut the magazine up and placed choice pages in a 3 ring binder with other bits of porn, which he referred to it as "The Dossier". I have no idea why he felt the need to show "The Dossier" to me, but he seemed genuinely proud of it.
Eleven year old boys are fucking weird, man.
There were differing stories regarding the origins of the brown paper bag. My friend Jackson and my next door neighbor Randy both laid claim to it's contents - a half-full bottle of Mad Dog and an issue of Lesbian Fire.
It was June 1990 - the first week of Summer Vacation. Jackson and I had just completed fifth grade and Randy was going on to middle school. All three of us were at various stages of being eleven years old. As you can imagine, a half full bottle of fortified wine and a spank mag made for an epic discovery.
"I bought them at the Big Apple yesterday!" exclaimed Randy. "They must have fallen out of my backpack while I was riding home."
"Why would they sell you porn and wine?" asked Jackson.
"Because I'm cool."
That was a good argument. Randy was pretty cool. He was a year ahead of us, after all, and he had his own table saw. One thing bothered me though.
"So let me get this straight." I said. "They'll sell you anything you want, so you went with Lesbian Fire?"
Randy paused and looked at the two harsh looking women on the cover. They looked angry at each other and even angrier at us. This was some seriously gonzo shit, mind you, more of a Tijuana bible than a magazine. I distinctly remember thinking the two women resembled Markie Post and Amanda Bearce (Marcy from Married With Children) after nervous breakdowns and several years of hard drug use. It depicted what heterosexual idiots in 1990 assumed big-haired lesbians did with cool whip, sailor hats and riding crops.
"Lesbians are cool."
Atticus Finch couldn't have argued with that one, either.
Jackson's version of events was a little more down to Earth.
"Remember when I told you I had to mow the lawn before I came over this morning?"
"Yeah."
"Well, as I was mowing, a Trans Am pulled up next to me."
"What color was it?" Randy snarled, skeptically.
"Yellow. The guy rolled down his window, and spat. When I looked over at him, he yelled 'Eat Pussy!' and threw the bag at me. He then peeled out and sped off."
Randy proceeded to tear Jackson's case to shreds. "No one who is smart enough to drive a Trans Am would just throw away a bag full of porn and booze. That's insane."
"That's what happened!"
"Pfft. Bullshit."
The argument over the hobo wine and porn quickly escalated into a small scale civil war that engulfed the preteen male population of Vallejo Drive, Franklin and Pierce Street and several outlying neighborhoods.
Kyle Logan and Dewey LaChance, eighth graders we all normally regarded as bottom-feeding scumfucks, allied themselves with Randy and spent the next few days menacing Jackson. They eventually got bored with it and decided to huff gas, instead. Randy just spent a lot of time by himself building dead falls and Punji sticks in the woods like Rambo. He'd occasionally emerge from the woods, daring us to chase after him.
Jackson, Spencer Garnier from Pierce Street and Sasha Doak from up on Burton Ridge began making regular BMX patrols of the neighborhood. My younger brother and his friends Frank and Dwight Osajima and Scott Seltzer formed their own little clique that switched sides like Afghan warlords. I mostly tried to remain neutral, though at one point I nearly got into a bat fight with Kyle and Dewey because they wouldn't get off my lawn.
In the end, Jackson and Randy reached a truce when a new kid moved into the neighborhood and started stealing stupid shit like bike pumps, dodge balls and old hammers from people's garages. After we all threatened to beat the fuck out of the new kid if he stepped off his lawn, it was time to divvy up the spoils or war. Jackson got the booze, and Randy got the porn. Both precious relics had sat in a tree house in the woods behind my house for nearly two weeks.
The Mad Dog had spilled in the bag, and what was left had bugs floating in it. Jackson proudly downed the remaining swig, describing the taste as a mix of victory, cold medicine and orange crush vomit. We smashed the bottle on the train tracks running alongside Main Street later that afternoon.
Lesbian Fire had gotten wet from what I really hope was condensation. The last time I saw it, Randy had cut the magazine up and placed choice pages in a 3 ring binder with other bits of porn, which he referred to it as "The Dossier". I have no idea why he felt the need to show "The Dossier" to me, but he seemed genuinely proud of it.
Eleven year old boys are fucking weird, man.
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