One of the many benefits of being a music nerd, er, journalist is the sheer amount of music that passes through my home and ears. 69% of it is complete hogwash, 25% is passable but rarely warrants repeat listens. The remaining 6% becomes a staple in my healthy diet of clickity-clackity-chugga-chugga. It is this minimal chance that I live for - people, this is my lottery, though it’s free. Best lottery ever. I wouldn’t say that it’s my booze because that would be booze.

Every once in a blue moon I get a CD, mp3, or whatever the label wants to give me, of a band that I am already familiar with. This happened recently with a magazine that I haven’t written for in over a year, yet I still get loads of music from (via a secret link to a secret website that has an enormous list of full albums for download…score) and, for obvious reasons, I haven’t filled them in on this fact. Included in this last “shipment” was the long-awaited follow up to the Walkmen’s A Hundred Miles Off, entitled You & Me. Being the music hermit that I’ve become (I shouldn’t say become, after all it was a teenage me that spent nearly every night in my room in front of the stereo, between the pages of music zines [Creature, the Christian Death Metal zine was a favorite], learning Hendrix tabs, or watching things as horrid as Tourniquet’s Video Biopsy whilst marveling at their metal shenanigans, all caught on home video [not typical metal shenanigans, mind you, but CHRISTIAN metal shenanigans like funny voices, hanging out, and practicing].) I nearly passed gas all over my britches. If one can’t surmise from my near-wind-breaking, I’m a fan. In my mind I’ve built up an imaginary relationship with these guys. An ex-girlfriend went so far as to call them my boyfriends. And I didn’t argue. Since then, I’ve called them the same.

SIDE NOTE - OTHER FELLOWS I’VE ALSO DEEMED “BOYFRIENDS”:

1. Slayer (duh, it’s Slayer)
2. Tom Waits (he actually owns the night, for chrissakes)
3. Don Knotts (this is entirely unexplainable, but his name seems to come up quite a bit in my conversations, i.e., “What would Don Knotts do?”)
4. Bob Odenkirk (master of comedy and, for one reason or another when he screams it completes me)
5. Harry Nilsson (anyone that uses a choir of elderly people to sing a song titled, “I’d Rather be Dead,” complete with lines such as, “I’ll tie my tie/’Till the day I die/But if I have to be fed/Than I’d rather be dead,” is an ace pilot to me.)

Now, these Walkmen gents…it was 2002 when my pally Patrick clued me in on their awe-inspiring debut Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone. I didn’t know what to make of the sparse instrumentation (”The piano sounds like it’s in my bathroom right now.”) and Hamilton’s voice, a long nasal drawl learned from (my guess) years and years of not being able to sing very well (though his voice sounds nearly identical in his last outfit, the Recoys, circa late 90s), didn’t really grasp me on the first few listens. It was just that I had never heard anything so disconnected, swirling, and ballsy. It was only after a few months of constant rotation (and the climbing feeling that I realized that I was already becoming a rabid fan, if not obsessed) that I discovered that they have that thing that makes music eternal; over time the songs actually change. Listening to “We’ve Been Had” today is not the same as listening to it then. It evokes no memories, no regrets. It is as poignant now as it was then. Timeless might be a better word for it.

While in the studio with my old band, Patrick and I played for our producer Everyone… and his explanations on how they got this sound and what-not deepened my affection and wonder even more.

Their follow-up, the much touted Bows + Arrows, caught on as slowly as Everyone…. The expansive sounds remained, but a more “rock” approach hindered my smiling at first. Again, hours and hours of relentless sitting with headphones on 11 (something not good for the ears, but wonderful for the soul) opened up the songs in a way that I began to understand them more fully, I think. They had actually progressed, and not vice-versa like I first thought. The lyrics had more of a storyline than before (which were more of statements such as, “I don’t care much for the go-go/Or the retro image I see so often/Telling me to keep trying,” from “We’ve Been Had”) where people are actually living and breathing, waiting for trains, and pounding on the door because, “Goddamn it, baby, it ain’t over yet.” (Those are not lyrics, just my interpretation of the events surrounding the song, “The Rat.”) Damn it guys, you’ve trumped my taste again.

Rumors began circling of their next album, A Hundred Miles Off, and I honestly worried about what was to happen to my precious Walkmen. A friend told me that he read that Walter (keys) and Peter (bass) had traded instruments to “give it a different feel,” or some bullshit like that. “Fuck, they’ve run out of ideas. That’s really the only thing they could come up with?” The album dropped and I was there on the blessed Tuesday, an important day for music fuckheads like me, and I sat in front of the stereo afraid to play the album. Honestly. “Louisiana” opened and out of nowhere came a cowboy saloon piano and Mexican-ish horn section (which they reproduce live by asking local horn players to join them onstage, with a little forewarning and planning, of course) and I was still worried. Yes, I loved the song but what is coming? Just one of my favorite songs ever recorded, “All Hands and the Cook.” To this day I’ve never heard anything so dissonant, deconstructed, revengeful, regretful, and apathetic as this sonofabitch. Here they’ve regressed, lyrically, to Everyone… in that it is merely a statement and not a story. The sheer scope and beauty, though, is astounding. Two trudging, pulsating parts border the single “chorus” in what appears to be a manic episode. For some reason, this “chorus,” fills my heart with glee. Maybe I’ve felt it, in this order? Who knows: “Stop talking to the neighbor’s dog/I’ve got a temper when it’s late/Break all the windows in my car/Burn down the room when (where?) I’m asleep/Break out the bottles when I go/I’ll dig a hole for all your friends” Maybe it’s just that pulsating bass. Maybe it’s the desperation to retaliate and also give up at the same time. I’ll never know. I had to accept that my taste, and judgment, were trumped yet again.

I knew the Taste of Randolph street festival was going to be wonder for two reasons:

1. At the time my friend, Suzanne, worked for Whole Foods, who also happened to be a major sponsor for the event, which meant free entry and beer for me, and
2. The Walkmen were performing

We crowded to the front and waited. They took the stage in suited glory and opened with, you guessed it, “All Hands…” That was my cue to make this the “Best Saturday Ever.” I got drunk, jumped into the lake, and broke my foot. Thanks, Walkmen. (Now, I don’t blame them, really. It was the aforementioned booze that told me that everything would be fine if I lept with abandoned glory.)

Back onto A Hundred Miles Off…, who closes an epic album with a cover from an unknown band such as Mazarin? The Men, that’s who. And it’s a right good song at that. Though Mazarin doesn’t do it nearly as well.

Now comes the time when the Walkmen surprise me moreso than I thought even possible. The press release merely said that they were going to do a song-by-song cover of Harry Nilsson’s unknown Pussy Cats. The original was recorded during Lennon’s (and Nilsson’s) “Lost weekend,” when both were recently left by their significant others. I was unaware that they were Nilsson fans and I had not expected it. After all, who is a Nilsson fan? Who knows him? Sure, everyone loves the song “One” but think it is a Three Dog Night song. Or an Aimee Mann soundtrack gem. (It is taking all of my gusto to not start penning about Nilsson, my #1 boyfriend when it comes down to it.)

Sure, it was overlooked as bait for their next full-length. The reviews were so-so (it was noted time and time again that they didn’t “do anything” to the songs…but what can you do to a Nilsson tune? Sit back and hush up, and that’s it) and it was merely passed over for the next big thing. No, they did nothing to the songs. They mimicked every sound and mood in each song perfectly. As an homage to their original Maracata studio, it was perfect. Friends, booze, rolling tapes, and percussion instruments galore conveyed exactly what they, and I, wanted when the idea first became realized.

These guys have balls.

Now, to the point. This new record that I’ve mistakenly gotten my grubby paws on (not illegally, mind you) has already eschewed its way into the top spot. It may be a little unfair, though, in that I decided, after realizing Bows + Arrows that anything they put out is going to be ground-shaking and tear-welling, at least in my world. I won’t go into it, either, as I can’t. My official review will be published elsewhere in due time, and as a freelancer it is kind of understood that you don’t write the same articles in two different places.

Just listen, for a second, and I can assure you, as a possible Walkmen fan, that you will be perplexed, dumbfounded, and equally elated at what these Men have been up to in these years since their last original excursion rocked little more than my own world.

Enjoy this bit from the Taste of Randolph (”Look Out the Window,” from the Walkmen/Calla Split):

enjoy my mixtape of bleederz.

Click on the song to hear it. The entire thing. You don’t have to buy the Mp3s. Duh.

CAUTION: It’s all metal. Deal with it.

So, last night I went to meet Johnny and his GF for some drinks. By the time I showed up (10:00pm) they were hammered. Just blasted. They left after about 30 min. and I stayed for a few beers and talked with Jackie, the bartender. I rode my bike home and happened upon a congregation of cops a few blocks from my house. I asked one what was up and she told me that there were shots fired and someone injured. I asked if I could take some pictures and she told me, “Hell, no. This is a crime scene. You should get moving. The shooter is still loose.” I moved about ten feet and watched them investigate for a while and struck up a conversation with another cop. “I’m usually in bed at this hour, so is this a common thing?”

“Oh, yeah. Probably three times a week.”

“Huh.”

He was super nice and some of his “bros” joined in on the conversation. It was pleasant. As I told a friend at the Pride Parade after watching the four wheeler cops stop and talk to people drinking on the street, conversationally and not enforcefully, “Nothing makes me happier than a cool cop. I don’t know why.”

I continued home and grabbed the bitch for a walk. Upon returning, about an hour later, I was accosted by a drunk, trashy, crippled dude. “You got another cigarette?”

“Nope.”

“I bet you do.”

“Well, I do, but not for you.”

“Can I have the one you’re smoking?”

“I think you already know the answer to that.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Of course I’m not going to give you this cigarette. I’m smoking it, dick.”

“You wanna fight?”

“No. I want to smoke my cigarette, MY cigarette, in peace. Fuck off.”

“Is your dog mean? Will she bite me if I hit you?”

“She’ll bite you if I tell her to. Don’t try me, pal.”

“Oh, are you big stuff?”

“Listen, you’re hammered. Where do you live?”

“None of your business.”

“I’m just asking to see if I could help you home.”

“How could YOU help me?!”

“Alright…go fuck yourself,” and I continued on as he stopped at the intersection. I was a little pissed, but not enough to engage in fisticuffs.

And then he he yelled from half a block away, “Fuck you and your skinny dog! She’s skinny because her owner’s poor!”

For some reason when he brought Emma into it, I lit up. Heart pounding and fists shaking.

I walked back to him and asked, “Why are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

“Cause you’re a faggot.”

“I’m not, but that wouldn’t have anything to do with it anyway. You’re a completely crippled moron who sounds as if you dropped out of school before you learned basic etiquette. Now my advice to you is to go fuck yourself far, far away.”

He stood there.

“Trust me.”

“And if I don’t?” He drew very close and I knew he was going to swing. So I did it first. Right in the middle of his trashy face. I knocked him out cold in the middle of Marine Drive.

“Oh, shit…,” I thought. I stood in the middle of the street with a curious dog overlooking a body in the street. A body that I made still. Fuck.

I called 911 and told them that there was a man in the middle of the street. Two cops showed up within minutes and…what do you know, it was the ones I had had a conversation with earlier!

“What happened?”

So I told them the story. “Yeah, we know this fella. He lives a few blocks up in that crazy house.” They smacked him around and he came to. “We’ll take it from here. You go on home.”

“Okay.”

I smiled at the dude as he looked around wondering what the fuck happened. I felt like a sunbeam. A potentially violent sunbeam.

…the “locked-in-my-house-for-days” black metal edition.

Artist: Book of Black Earth
Album: The Feast
Format: LP

This has been sitting on my shelf for months and I just never slapped in on. Why? I have no idea. If I would’ve known it was music on the scope of Dimmu Borgir with a Leviathan sensibility, I would’ve been blasting it a while ago. It’s American (Seattle, WA), yes, but it has only been a matter of time before the red, white, and blue caught up with the…uh, other red, white, and blue. Dense and brutal, like my dog.

Artist: Nachtmystium
Album: Assasains: Black Meddle Part I
Format: MP3

I attended a wedding last weekend. There I met a fellow by the name of Luke who clued me in to these guys. He described them as black metal mixed with a Pink Floyd vibe. I have to confess, me likey an open, country road and a j and a copy of Dark Side of the Moon like every other American (that likes British music)…but.

But nothing. It works. I feel like an idiot…they’re from here, Chicago, and I’ve passed over them numerous times. No chance given. The blow was when I found out that they played with Watain (my top black metal pick of 2007) here…on my birthday. Fuck, I’m an asshole. I blame my ex-girlfriend.

UPDATE: At the moment I was writing this, and I mean the very seconds, Nachtmystium was playing a CD release show for this very album followed by an after party at the soon-to-be-legendary Kuma’s. This is merely proof of my own shortcomings as a human being. (To further pile on the irony, the aforementioned Luke works at said legendary Kuma’s.)

Artist: Leviathan
Album: Mass Conspiracy Against All Life
Format: LP

The darkness heard on previous forays (2003’s The Tenth Sublevel of Suicide and 2004’s Tentacles of Whorror) got the point across loud and clear…well, kind of clear. Our fellow, Leviathan, enjoys the whole “lo-fi” thing that the younguns are so into these days. It’s just that, for me, lo-fi doesn’t cut it.

I want power.

I want clarity.

I want the pure destruction that is Mass…

It is not hi-fi by any means, but it is the most disturbing, poignant, and damaging I’ve heard him. Clear enough to shake in my boots, friend! Get it.

So I will attempt and not sound like a complete asshole that assumes that anyone reading this would be interested in how my musical tastes have evolved and changed throughout my life.

Now, let the assholery begin.

I was listening to my acquired copy of Robert Pollard’s Waved Out. I had listened to Guided by Voices numerous times before (at this time in my life it was 1999) but just never got into it. I picked up this solo outing (one of hundreds, as you may already know) on the fact that I liked the cover art (see right). A few songs stuck out (”Subspace Biographies” and “Wrinkled Ghosts” will always be in my top 50 songs of all time) but the album, as a whole, seemed fragmented. It was obviously recorded at different times, and in different times in his life. What I didin’t get, though, was that, with Bob Pollard, that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was this:

He has actually written this many songs with little-to-no repeating of riffs, meoldies, or ideas.

Sure, there is a string that connects everything…a seemingly distant, fuck-you attitude for those that may not be into the artier additions (”Showbiz Opera Walrus” comes to mind), the sparse, and sometimes addled, lyrics (”What more is this beyond the evil cause?/I have no time alone/Believing and leave by any old couple of doors,” from “Pick Seeds From My Skull”), all the way to the brilliant (”Make use of the boring young heroes/Their efforts not wasted/Reward them for what they turn out/Of this we are proud,” from “Make Use”). Bob, or Guided by Voices, has been, and will be, for at least the foreseeable future, a force in underground/mainstream/DIY/produced Rock ‘N’ Roll.

I really got into it when I tripped on mushrooms for the first time. SURPRISE! I listened to Waved Out countless times in a single night while locked inside of my first true bedroom outside of my parents’ house (there is the stint in the cult, but those details are to be released at a later time) with only a kitten named Ian. I blacked out after a while, but what I do know is this:

• it was the perfect album for such a foray into the unknown, and
• I have no idea how the mirror got broken and why there was saliva smeared over each fragment and, subsequently, no cuts on my tongue.

My re-purchasing of it was my thirst to do hardcore psychedelics, but not having the true desire to actually take them, merely bring into my life the things that remind me of them the most.

But this isn’t about him, or them. Directly. It is about me, as is wont the case.

As I was listening and enjoying, I thought, “How did I get to this point?” (Not in the same way a heroin addict says the same thing right before ODing…more of a positive vibe, in that, “I like this, but nowhere in my young years does this music speak…”) I began thinking about my first concert (New Kids on the Block, Market Square Arena, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1989), my first album (actually two simultaneously…Mr. Mister’s Welcome to the Real World and David Lee Roth’s Eat ‘Em and Smile [still a favorite to this day]), and when I started heading down the path that would eventually lead to Waved Out (Being forced to watch the propaganda-infused laugh-fest that is Hells Bells: The Dangers of Rock ‘N’ Roll in church when I was between the grades of 7th and 8th…a night that, ultimately, changed the way I listened and discovered music from that day forward. So, for that, American Christian Church and all of your paranoias and your unwillingness to know people before you judge people, thank you.).

The more I thought about it, the more extensive it became. Was my young love for John Denver’s “Grandma’s Feather Bed” reminiscent of my penchant for spending the night at my grandparent’s house? What about my sister and I making up stories, usually involving witches, to the music of Beethoven? And what about when I mistakenly bought Air Supply’s Greatest Hits, thinking that it was a release by the much more badass Aerosmith?

There was the Christian death metal bands in high school (Mortification, Betrayal, Living Sacrifice, Tourniquet, among a few others….ooh…the Crucified, although that was more thrash…you see, I was not allowed to listen to secular music and, to this day, feel weird when I buy records at the shop in Greenville, SC [Earshot Records, check it out], while visiting my parents when I bring home Pig Destroyer’s Phantom Limb or Venom’s Black Metal, both purchased with my mother in the store. Oh my, how I’ve progressed!), the “secret” stash I had of secular music (all stolen and consisting of Guns N Roses, Corrosion of Conformity, Black Sheep [my short stint in figuring out what this "rap" was all about], Metallica, Nirvana [a fave], to name a few), and my eventual desire to find the most outlandish, evil metal on the planet, Norwegian black metal.

The whole point of all this hubub is that I began an outline placing everything in its respective place and explaining everything clearly, so as to write a memoir of sorts.

Q & A

“Well, what about that book you were writing?”

I still am, dick. Seven chapters are done, but well, yes, I’ve dried up. A few new ideas have come about that I am considering.

“Aren’t there too many memoirs out there already?”

Yes, and if even though only a slim majority are penned by Augusten Burroughs, he has already saturated the public with his tomfoolery. But, as in life, I write as if there is no Augusten Burroughs. I don’t expect anyone to care about mine, unlike him. I just want to write it.

“What about your dog, Emma? Is she cool with this?”

Totally.

“Will it talk about when you had a braided tail in sixth grade, much like Jordan Knight’s (of The New Kids on the Block)?”

Yes, yes it will.

I thank you for your questions, and good day.

Years and years (two, to be exact) I’ve thought about getting a dog. A boxer, namely. (The original idea and current wish is that it would be a talking dog.) I awoke inexplicably at 7:30am yesterday and layed and watched the sunrise over Ugly Building West, now Mayonnaise Place, and thought, “Why don’t I just go down to the shelter and check out what they have.”

I perused online and saw everything from beagles to pit bulls. With all these needy pets and my penchant for a cracking heart when I look into their eyes, I knew that I would be coming home with a dog if I went. I didn’t care what kind it was, just as long as we had some sort of connection. Johnny came over and we headed to PAWS, a beautiful no-kill shelter in Lincoln Park.

The dogs all sat in their own rooms with descriptions hanging outside each of their doors. These descriptions were written in first person, so I felt a sense of relief. “Well, maybe they can’t talk but their writing isn’t all that bad.” To pet the dogs, I needed to fill out a short survey asking pertinent questions such as ‘How long are you away from home,’ ‘Name and ages of other pets,’ etc. With pass in hand, I wandered the somehow un-stinky hallways and gazed at the happy dogs. A Mastiff caught my eye at first, but the sheer size of the beast prevented me from getting to know her. I just feel that it would be cruel to keep a dog like that in an apartment while its legs just ached to run up a mountain and bring fresh water to its faltering master. Mutts played, slept, played with the volunteers, and were, well, dogs. Through one quiet window, though, my heart exploded leaving invisible blood and gore all over the window. Sleeping on a pillow was Emma, a seven-year-old Bull Boxer. “Can I pet her?”

“Of course.”

She awoke and gingerly wandered over and began licking my jeans. She was full-grown, mean-as-shit looking, and softer than fresh baked bread. The volunteer had no info on her (for that’s not her job…her job is to merely walk them, play with them, etc.) so I went to the front desk to inquire. I was met by a tiny, red-haired older woman (her position was “Adoption Counselor”)that had the patience and kindness of a kindergarten teacher. She found Emma’s file and we sat in a small room and went through it. “She was relinquished by her former owners because she is an alpha-female.”

“She doesn’t get along with other dogs?”

“Well, she’s fine with submissive ones, but she tends to fight for superiority when it comes to other alphas.”

I nodded in silence but in my head said, “That little bad ass.”

“Everything is current, as far as shots, but she does have anxiety that she takes medication for.”

“I think I may have dated her before.”

Luckily, she snickered and continued, “Knowing what you now know, do you still want to proceed with the adoption paperwork?”

“Yes. Oh, yes I do.”

The lengths that PAWS goes to to insure a good, healthy home is admirable. Here are a few of the clauses of the contract which I signed:

• “I agree to hold the dog in the highest regard as a member of my family, and to provide the dog with proper care, wholesome food, water, shelter, medical attention, socialization, love, and affection.”
• “I agree to return follow-up calls/emails about my adopted PAWS dog. If I do not, then I agree to allow PAWS to inspect my home, the adopted dog, and the adopted dog’s living quaters at any time. I understand that if PAWS finds this contract is being violated or that the dog is not being cared for properly, PAWS has the right to reclaim the dog and the adopter will surrender the dog on demand and make no further claims against PAWS. This shall not be considered a trespass and no money shall be refunded.”
• “I understand that I am adopting this dog as a permanent member of my household and the dog shall reside in my home. The dog will not be kept outdoors, in a doghouse, on an outdoor porch, or on a chain.”

Needless to say, it was a bit frightening (”What if I fuck this poor animal up?”) and reassuring knowing that they care this much. After signing, we sat and talked about how to live with a dog such as Emma.

“Don’t let her walk you. Always be the first to go through doors, turn corners, etc.” “Sprinkle her anxiety medication on top of her food.” “Play and run with her. She needs exercise.” You know, typical dog things. A few more steps and she was mine.

Luckily, PETCO opened a store directly across the street so they held her for a little longer while I went and bought a collection of dog things I, obviously, didn’t have. Leather collar with studs, check. Heavy duty chain leash, check. Weird dried meat thingys, check.

Luckily, Emma loves cars so it was no problem getting her into Johnny’s backseat. She came preloaded with knowledge of commands (in English and German), so even walking her is a cinch. She sits at crosswalks, only moving when being told, doesn’t bark (but makes a hilarious noise as if someone is laughing really hard and trying to catch their breath), and loves her butt scratched.

I got her home and after exploring for a minute, she drank some water and then stood at the couch, where I was seated, and looked at me. I patted the couch and she jumped up, sighed, fell asleep, and, I swear, snored. Wow.

We went on a nice, long walk through the bird sanctuary and park where she smiled the entire time. Sticks are a favorite, so much so that nearly the entire walk she gripped one as long as her in her powerful jowls and grunted and, eventually, decimated the useless nature garbage.

This dog is incredible.

I wanted to rename her, but she is seven, after all, and has never known a different name. What with this anxiety, I didn’t want to add to it a self-image problem, so Emma it will remain.

As I de-robed for bed last night, she jumped on the bed and waited for me. She remained standing as I became horizontal. I didn’t know what to do, but she needed something. I pulled up the blanket and she buried herself against my leg and completely under the covers. I was so happy that I almost couldn’t fall asleep.

Cheers to you, Emma.

UPDATE: The whole “anxiety” thing was left over from her former home. I asked the vet and she said, “This dog on anxiety medication? Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Take her off. If anything happens, call me and we can get her back on, but it doesn’t seem like she needs it.”

“I didn’t think so, either.”

(I had already weened her off of the medication because I didn’t have enough and couldn’t get more until we went to the vet. As the doses got less and less, her behavior actually got better, which was further proof that it wasn’t medication that she needed, just undying love, one that cannot be given by children and other dogs…only from an opinionated jerk living in Uptown without either of the prior. Oh, and Emma is happier than ever.) I’ve since learned:

• She will only walk on your left side. If you try and move her to the right side, she will only return to the left. I believe this is her penchant for the “Left Hand Path,” as outlined in Behemoth’s “At the Left Hand Ov God.”
• It isn’t that she doesn’t like dogs, it’s just the little ones that angers her, and in this we agree completely. She actually has the ability, with sheer power of her voice, to make those little poops pee all over the sidewalk. And their owners to scream. I warned them, though.
• You can, actually, switch her food to something completely different. As long as the food bowl is not stainless steel on the bottom, she doesn’t care.
• She will not, repeat: WILL NOT, sleep on the couch with me. I actually have to go to “bed.”
• She likes crackheads and their weird ways of saying things, such as, “She’s the big shit, with a capital ‘C!’”
• Flashlights are not something to help you, but something to kill, kill, kill.
• She likes to show me her vagina first thing in the morning. I don’t know why it is, but, yet, every morning there it is.
• She watches, from the third story window, me taking out my trash with the cutest goddamn face in the world.

I’m sure there’s more, but there are years to come.

So the plan was, and is, to camp…and that’s it. Fire, whiskey, stories…do it. The camping/celebration is going to happen the weekend after the actual birthday. Yes, this is when the adventures happen, and the hospital visits. I have the first aid kit, five knives, and pounds of vegetables ready…just give me the campsite and the night and it’s a green light.

The actual birthday, though, is a different story, entirely. As always.

I start the day with whiskey inside of my coffee. Not so different than a regular Saturday, it’s just that this time is on the phone with my Mother. (Father got off the phone when I disagreed with his view as an Obama America being side-by-side with the Socialist Canada and Britain. My response was, “Well, is that a bad thing? I mean they seem happy.”

“Here’s your mom. She just walked into the door.”)

After I hung up, William came over and we talked about music and politics and art. It sounds so faggy but it really wasn’t. The politics consisted of agreeing on our parents’ disagreements and the music was what I chose. We left our frustrations at, “I guess they just don’t get us…,” and I realized that I needed a cab to make it to the play on time.

The play. It was Dave Perez’s pet project for months. I wrote an article. It was a big deal. I had to attend. And I did.

The night before had to be shut down by the cops. Why? Because the articles written (including my own) said $15 tickets. As it turns out the venue cannot charge for a performance of any kind because they didn’t file with that special division of the Chicago City Council that deals with the arts. (I think it was clause #11223344666.) Well, a dude from the City saw the article and sent a bunch of cops down to shut it down.

Thank god they are shutting down a play and not some drug ring. Fuck-nuts.

Long story short, it was invite only the next night. When I was going. Super secret and unfortunate.

I was told to enter through the back entrance. I agreed but knew nothing else.

The cab dropped me off and I began walking down the row of loading docks and potential places to pee.

Suddenly a whistle.

I look over and see a man with a clipboard and lips that are fitting. “Yes,” I ask.

“Are you here to see, Lipstick Traces?”

“Yes.

“What’s your name and can I see an ID?”

“Sure.”

“OK. It says two. Are you just one?”

“Uh huh.

“Go in and on the top of the stairs you will see the room. Enjoy.”

“Cool.”

The play was amazing. The fellow that played John Lydon was spot on. My personal feeling about the entire project was resting on that. Good job, people. You kept a drunk, birthday boy awake to see your brilliance.

From there I trudged down to an unnamed bar to enjoy the spirits with a crowd of people that I haven’t seen in years. It’s the shame of posting a profile on any website…hell.

A snippet…

(Me) “So, how did you get the gig of opening for Third Eye Blind?”

(Him) “We had the same booking agent.”

“Oh, right. So what are you going to do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“When this fizzles?”

“I know it’ll end. Soon enough. What do you do?”

“I write about music and work in a coffee shop.”

“Right. You wanna come over and hang sometime?”

“Y’all smoke?”

“No, but I drink. I mean, I drink a lot.”

“In that case…” and, of course, plans were made.

I then went to an afterparty for the play. Hell, I hate people. Let alone, actors.

Reason for the story…I woke up alive.

But it wasn’t the true celebration.

Bring it.

…while pacing and questioning that three-pack deal from the corner store.

Artist: Black Tusk
Album: Passage Through Purgatory
Format: LP

Metal from the southland of the USA has its own agenda, its own brutality. What it is, I’m not sure, but goddamn it is scary as the dickens. Black Tusk hail from Savannah, GA, and proudly display the pentagram on the bass drum, but I doubt that they worship anything that doesn’t start with “Pabst” or “Dank”. The fury is evident when the needle hits the groove and you are mesmerized by “Witch’s Spell,” and all of the chest-beating and belting that goes with it. This is the filthy child on the street unspoken for. A hail of the horns not to the Northern Wind but to the Southern Still Humid Air. This is a hot rod mowing you down if you so much as bathe more than once a week. The only problem…it’s too damn short. I’m still listening, hellions.

Artist: Metallica
Album: Ride the Lightning (45rpm Reissue)
Format: LP

Uh, it’s the good Metallica. Duh.

Even thinking about how much Lars Ulrich is a douche now…you can’t deny what he WAS.

Artist: Diamond Nights
Album: Popsicle
Format: LP

“Music to screw to.”

“Music to love your old lady by.”

Yeah, yeah. But what about, “Music to get pregnant to.”?

Here it is in all of it’s roller skating rink glory. Why is it that ugly musicians seem to know so much about sex and fucking? My theory: Being ugly, they’ve fantasized about it their entire lives…but now that they’re rockers they get it aplenty. Now, they’re addicted and all of the music surrounds it in a sweaty, stinky, “I promise” hug that no one could shake free of. With a lickety-split they have the listener sitting with a boner wondering why they are sitting and listening to it instead of hiring the cheapest whore they can find to do the things that this record makes them think of. Truly no-holds-barred bitch-metal. Fuck, yes.

If you happen upon a copy of Garbage Pail Kids the Movie, by all means watch it. If for anything, the scene where each character introduces themselves, and subsequently their “gifts”, is a gem. Foul Phil sums up his life thus far with a emptying, but somehow laughable, line, “Are you my daddy?” “Not in this lifetime,” answers the shopkeeper, Cap’n Manzini, much to the pleasure of everyone else in the room (including Valerie Vomit, Greaser Greg, Nat Nerd, and the precious Windy Winston), save for Foul Phil, who merely lowers his head in complete disgust at himself. Ali Gator, in all his Gator-glory, proudly displays his lunch box full of eyeballs and fingers, even offering goodies to all within earshot, and when they grimace and pass, a simple shrug and an, “Oh, well..” and his world is unchanged. You go, Ali Gator. (Not to be confused with Rax’s spokesperson, Uncle Alligator, who was an avid skateboarder and roast beef eater, not a mouthy, man-eating, three foot tall bad ass.)

An open letter to Dr. Laura Schlessinger from Jim at the Utah Humanist.

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the other specific laws and how to follow them:

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15:19- 24. The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this?

Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted fan,
Jim