pimpled and angry

Open letter to that guy and his friends at The Shins show who were standing by me and insisted on screaming their conversations to one another over the music.

Thank you for your company.

I am glad that you are such a big fan of The Shins. How do I know you are such a big fan? Because when you had your back to the stage and were screaming over the music I heard you telling your friends what a big fan you were. That is awesome. I am glad that you can enjoy a great show by a great band with your back turned and without paying any attention to the band whatsoever.

I would also like to thank you for sharing details of your life with me and the other people standing near you while we were trying to watch and listen to The Shins. Here are some things I learned:

1. That girl; the one you flirted with all night. She does not want to have anything to do with you. I gathered she is a friend’s sister or roommate or something, she is trying to be nice, but she really wants to tell you to fuck off.

2. That story you told about how you were upstairs looking for your friend Thompson and you walked up to someone that looked like Thompson from behind and you were screaming, “Thompson, Thompson!,” but the person you were yelling at just stood there oblivious. That was a great story. By the fifth time you screamed that story to your friends I became convinced that the person you were screaming at upstairs really was Thompson and he just didn’t want to talk to you. I can’t blame him. If it was me, as soon as I heard your voice screaming my name I would have run away into the crowd and prayed that you didn’t follow me.

3. You are not who you think you are. People are laughing at you, not with you. I am sorry you had to hear this from me. I hope it doesn’t affect our relationship.

So, in closing I would like to thank you for stoking my anger once again. I hope the next time we go to the same show you have laryngitis and a broken hip.

Love,

Me

A Metro Article

Here is an article that appears in the April issue of The Metropolitan.

Wedding Bells

I know nothing about weddings except that when I go to them I usually get drunk and make and idiot of myself out on the dance floor. I never put much thought into the planning of an event as important as a wedding. Even while I was buying a ring, I never thought about things like caterers and reception sites and flowers. This was a major oversight on my part. There are things I never knew existed like people whose entire job is planning weddings. I never knew that if you plan on getting married you need to book a place to do it well in advance. I thought it was like making a dinner reservation, that you just called a golf course or a hotel and said, “Yeah, I’ve got 150 people coming in two weeks so you might need to push some tables together or something.”

It doesn’t work that way.

Dreams

Larry always dreams of black helicopters and explosions and death. His first apartment had railroad tracks in the front yard. Twice a day, three in the morning and three in the afternoon, a locomotive sped by. At first Larry would wake up in fright every time the train went by, later he dreamt straight through. It was here that the nightmares began.

As Larry watched from blocks away, a construction crane dropped a pallet of explosives on the roof of a high-rise apartment building. Larry sweats and pants and wonders why he is the only one that is panicked. People keep walking their dogs, riding their bikes, or moving to the beat of their headphones. A second explosion destroys the neighboring high-rise, still no one notices.

Black helicopters survey the scene circling the destruction like a swarm of flies. Suddenly there is silence the helicopters turn towards Larry just as a third explosion occurs beyond Larry’s view, behind the first two explosions. Finally, there is chaos. Priests dressed in robes of white are running with their crucifixes clutched in their fists. They are running from the explosion towards Larry. There is one priest emerging from the smoke and then Larry notices two, then Larry sees twenty or thirty of these cross-wielding padres running fervently in his direction. He notices the dark around their eyes, deep creviced wrinkles and frothy mouths.

Larry wakes subtly. He is used to the weirdness and destruction. He just stares at the ceiling and tries to think of nothing at all.

The Telephone is not Your Friend

The first ring.

I pretend like I don’t hear the phone. “It must be in the cube next to me.”

The second ring.

I look at the small round red light blinking on my phone. My palms are starting to sweat. I look at the clock on my PC and wonder if I can just say it is too close to quitting time to answer the damn phone. I look casually over my left shoulder to see if my boss is there watching me. I stare at the blinking red light again.

The third ring.

Shit. Shit. Shit. It is probably some stupid user. “Why don’t you just reboot? you stupid ass?” I wrap my fingers around the hand piece of the phone, but I do not remove it from the cradle. I can fell my armpits sweating into my sweater. Shit. Shit. Shit.

The fourth ring.

“What is going on here? Why can’t I just pick up the phone?”

The red light is still blinking. The plastic of the hand piece is wet with hand sweat. I can smell my deodorant.

The red light stops blinking and is now unlit. There is no fifth ring. I look around to see if anybody sees me. I hold my breath and listen if anybody is talking about me. I try to make myself invisible. I feel cool as the air conditioning vent above blows dry the nervous sweat my pale skin is covered with.

I stare at the phone looking at the light that lives next to the word PHML. I am waiting to see if it lights up or if I truly avoided something. If I am lucky, the stupid user called someone else.

The light next to PHML illuminates. I decide that I do not notice it and go back to surfing the internet.

Finally, a Radio Station Worth Listening to?

Here is an article I wrote a few weeks ago about the new radio station in town. The CP article today motivated me to post. It is weird how much press this MPR-backed station is receiving. I think the backlash is beginning...

Music radio is a good idea, in theory. A person sits in front of a microphone and a CD player playing DJ for a party. Shelves of music surround the DJ. The DJ plays what the audience wants to hear. That is the way it is supposed to be. At some indefinable point in the last fifty years, the concept has shifted from a personal relationship between a listener and a station to a concept of listeners as customers and radio stations as giant profit-driven companies. Somehow, this presentation of artists and their art turned into marketing plans and sales figures and people in suits buying each other expensive dinners. I can not remember exactly when I lost faith in radio, but I can remember when I was saved.

As “The Current” staked their claim in the radio landscape they gave local hip-hop duo Atmosphere the opportunity to plant the flag in the ground. “I wanted to write a song about my hometown”, were the first words sung on the air. These lyrics begin the song “Shh”, which is an anthem about the joys of living in Minneapolis and the Midwest.

The first day in the life of “The Current” filled the airwaves with the kind of eclectic music play list that would have had the president of Clear Channel clutching his heart through his chest. They played local music old and new such as The Replacements and The Owls. They played legends like Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Robert Johnson, and Al Green. They, of course, played new below the radar bands like Death Cab for Cutie, The Arcade Fire, and Marah.

“The Current”, 89.3, is a radio station that realizes that people over the age of twenty-five still care about music. They realize that just because their listeners have kids and day jobs does not mean they do not still feel passionate about new music.

There is a rich history of music in Minnesota. The big swing bands would come through in the thirties. Rock and roll was revered in the fifties and sixties. There have been many regional and national music legends in Minnesota. From Prince to Atmosphere, from The Replacements to Happy Apple, a diverse and talented musical legacy exists.

Unfortunately, for most artists there has been no place to be heard on Twin Cities radio for the last ten years. There use to be a fostering radio relationship with artists as far back as KDWB in the fifties to REV in the early nineties. Corporations have “killed the radio star.”

“The Current” is an interesting concept: the station is part of an ever-growing Minnesota Public Radio family. MPR is hardly an independent entity. They are, in every sense of the word, a corporate entity. When the new MPR-backed popular music station was announced, it had many people scratching their heads wondering what it would be. On one hand, there was the idea that a public radio station would have a better understanding of what the Twin Cities public lacks in a radio station. On the other hand, MPR being a sprawling corporation, there was a definite chance of this being another in a long line of mediocre corporate radio stations.

In the weeks leading up to the launch, there was a blog started by the 89.3 staff that worked as a communication tool between the clamoring public and the sculptors of the new format. Hope was given via the blog. The blog’s readers were informed of the new DJs and staff being hired and were given the chance to suggest what kind of music they wanted to hear.

The on-air talent that was being assembled was impressive. Thorn Skroch and Mary Lucia, both REV veterans, are respected music aficionados in the Twin Cities. Mark Wheat helped form Radio K, the University of Minnesota’s student radio station, into one of the most respected college stations in the country and is also a highly respected club DJ.

So far “The Current” has been living up to the promises and expectations. The few days following the launch the streets were buzzing with excitement. The local hipsters in blogs, bars, and record stores were all uncharacteristically optimistic. An inevitable backlash will occur just because that is the way the backbiting and gossipy music scene works. Let’s just hope that The Current can fight through that by staying true to its eclectic vision.

The Metropolitan

An article I wrote appears in this months Metropolitan.

More boring by the day, but they pay me...

I work in corporate America.

Corporate America is soulless and depraved.

Does that make me soulless and depraved?

The company I work for has been around for almost seventy years, but has grown wildly in the last twenty. The practices of my company are in direct conflict with many of my personal beliefs. This is not a diverse company. All of the many vice-presidents are middle-aged white men. If you walk the halls of the sprawling suburban corporate campus, you will see an alarming lack of minority employees.

If there is a successful locally run small business in any town in America that does what my company does, that mom-n-pop business will be targeted. We will saturate the town with salespeople and try to steal their customers with prices lower than the local business can afford. If this is not successful in putting that company out of business, we then offer the owner of that small business a large sum of money and a director’s job with the company. We then absorb that locally owned company in to the giant corporate behemoth that is my company. Of course, those low prices do not stick around and that saturation of salespeople does not last.

Therefore, the people of that town are stuck with one company to fill their needs.

Us.

Listen to music

Juan Appagado

Bubba Loo Hugby

We're gonna need golf shoes...

“Don’t take any guff off those swine.”

I was shocked to hear the news this morning about Hunter S. Thompson. He took his own life this past weekend. When thinking about the life he has lived it makes most people’s lives look like they were lived as puritanical shut-ins. I think it is amazing that he lived this long. There is no way he could die from natural causes. He was obviously super-human, impervious to the wounds that wear down normal people. He grew stronger. The only way he could die is by doing it himself. Can you imagine Dr. Gonzo in a nursing home?

I wonder what the legacy will be: great American writer or great American lunatic. He invented a style of writing, gonzo journalism. He told the truth through the filtered lens of his whirring and ebullient mind. His mind wired unlike any other, spinning backwards and curling upwards; turning inside out and spitting up brilliantly mad prose.

His insanity was not an act. He knew he wasn’t like you. He kept to himself, for your safety. Fear and loathing at the gates of hell.

In the morning

Larry drove towards downtown on Lyndale Avenue. His head was pounding and all the thoughts within that head were fuzzy. As he drove slowly and cautiously, the façade of the CC Club shone in the corner of his eye.

Larry decided it made more sense to go there now than go home, sleep on the couch, and suffer the demons of hangover. It was 9:41am according to the digital display on the car radio.

The CC did not open until 10:00am.

He found a parking spot on a street behind the bar. As he parallel parked, he may or may not have passed out momentarily. He stumbled out of the car, stepped in a puddle of melted snow, and broke through a thin pudding skin of ice on the top.

The cold morning air attacked his nostrils and mouth and suddenly Larry did not feel stable. He tried to run behind an abandoned building, but he could not make it. He stood knee deep in the front yard of a run down duplex. His hands were on his knees as a steady stream of vomit and mucus exited his facial orifices. The hot vomit melted the snow and formed a perfect spray pattern. It also turned the blinding blue-white snow to a putrid shade of yellow-green-brown filth. Larry had not remembered the last time he ate, but apparently, corn was involved.

He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel and walked around the corner and up the block to the door of the CC Club, which had just been unlocked.

Valet is Contagious

Valet don’t get anywhere in a hurry. They don’t scream for you to follow them. They don’t boast of the greatness they are achieving before they have achieved it. No. Instead, they come to you casually, they get you to buy them a drink and then say, “Hey. Did you hear about Johnny Ace?”

The bed of music where these stories lie is the kind of perfect pop that reminds you of other local bands like The Hang Ups or a less bombastic Olympic Hopefuls. When the band drops out and singer Robin Kyle and his guitar backpedal from a former lover you realize that sprinkled on top of those sugar melodies are a dirty, nuanced, and dark lyrical world.

The dive bars are where the characters in Valet’s world live. They are picking up pieces of their lives, their relationships, and their memories of the night before. While not a concept album there is this theme running throughout. That is the idea that we are all searching for an answer for what to do next. We do this by drowning our sorrows at Stand Up Franks. Or by driving out of town while Dylan is cranked. Or by trying to sew the last remaining threads of a relationship back together.

This is not unfamiliar territory for a rock band. There are as many songs about girls, booze, driving, and death as there are bands to sing them. Robin Kyle, however, doesn’t play the victim in these vignettes. He just paints the picture and lets you judge and that is why the songs work upon repeated listening.

This is the band’s second full-length record and it arrived with much buzz. What is unusual about that is that Valet are collectively recluse. They rarely play shows, so in turn they rarely promote themselves. That is why it is astounding that this CDs release was accompanied by mainstream press coverage and a packed Turf Club show. I think it very surprising in this decade that music can sell itself just by being great music. It gives hope to the cynical, withered music lover’s soul.

The answers

1. I thought it was green.

2. Oh, that naked santa.

3. 33 1/3

4. The green hillside of an irish town on a crisp autumn morning.

5. boobies.

Lonely on the floor

I tried to feel your eyes upon me from the stage, but the noise and the lights got in the way. I saw you across the room after the show, but you were talking to him and my head was still spinning down. All the hand shakers were telling me how great I was. I thought I didn’t need you anymore.

Our eyes met as I carried my guitar out the door. I tried to shout and scream with my eyes, but I know they only looked drunk, tired, and blue.

I’ll be drinking and driving all night long. If anyone needs my I’ll be stranded on the side of the road.

Before Lemmy

Larry spent his high school years living in a trailer with his Mother Irene and his little brother Thomas. This wasn’t a fancy trailer like you see in movies. This was an aluminum box designed to be on wheels but was now supported by concrete blocks and timber. They lived “off the grid” and pretty much off the face of the earth.

This aluminum box sat in what Larry supposed was an abandoned farmer’s field. There was a dirt road a quarter of a mile outside the front door of the trailer. There was an ever-growing pile of trash a half mile outside the back door. They cooked their food over the same kerosene heaters that they used for heat. There was convenience store a mile down that dirt road that had an active water spigot behind the building. Irene, Larry, and Thomas would lug jugs and bottles down to the store to fill them up for water with which they would bathe, drink, and cook.

Irene worked at the Burger King in town once. That was the only job Larry remembers her having during his high school years. She, of course had an affair with the manager and when the manager was through having fun with her, well, Irene was collecting unemployment again.

Larry tried to keep up with the kids in his class. No one knew where he lived or how he lived. He would steal nice clothes, but from the wrong stores. He would always be on the tail end of fashion. He would steal a polo shirt and bugle boys from the Kmart and show up Monday morning to see the kids wearing tie-dye and acid wash. He would steal acid wash jeans and an OP sweatshirt and the kids would be wearing flannel and converse.

Larry barely graduated and not long after he met a girl while jockeying the register at a Pizza Hut. After a month of dating, the girl really wanted to see where Larry lived. Embarrassed while she drove the three miles that he walked everyday between town and the aluminum box, he kept his head down and looked away the entire three-minute ride.

There was a look of fright in the girls eyes and Larry would have seen it if he could bring himself to look at her. Irene was at the door smoking a Marlboro and wearing a housecoat. The girl let out a barely audible gasp. Then she was struck by a trembling, unwashed, ashamed, open fist.

The girl cried and ran to the car and drove wildly home.

Irene cried for herself and for her son. She walked over, with a closed fist struck, and drew blood from Larry’s nose. Then she just stared with shame and fright.

Larry cried and did not wipe the blood from his nose. He looked up at the gray dusk sky and then slowly walked in the opposite direction of town.

A Useful Phrase

Here it is:

"You dirty sonuvabitch."

enjoy.

James Brown, Introduction, Part one

James Brown is a chocolate easter bunny. His whole life is dedicated to making kids happy on Easter Sunday Morning. He lives in a forest. A forest of licorice and gum drops and edible ferns. His best friends are a trio of triplets named the licorice whips. Leon, Karl, and Sylvester Whip. They are of the gum-drop forest Whips; an esteemed family of candy kingdom royalty.

Big Mama

It was a party night in Chicago. Dan drove hurriedly through the streets pointing out landmarks along the way. We were headed to The Baton for a song and dance review.

As Dan told tragic stories of Cabrini Green, I stared at the wet street zipping by and wondered if I was ready for my first drag show. I was not sure what to expect. Was it going to be fat guys with five o’clock shadows dressed in cheap thrift store cocktail dresses lip-syncing badly to It’s Raining Men. Was it going to be erotic and sensual thus making all the straight people a little nervous.

There was an ill-tempered little man working the door of the club as we tried to enter. Refusing to show even the slightest sign of a smirk he alternated scowls towards me and then at my out of state ID. Eventually after a consultation with some sort of management figure, I was allowed to pass through the doors.

It was dark. There were low red lights hovering above the tables and a few scattered white lights behind the bar, but mostly it was just dark. It was also the best smelling bar I had ever stepped in -- and I have stepped into many, many bars. It smelled like Christmas. After all the presents are open and there is that paper and sweat and joy in the air. All of that with a hint of bubble gum and gin lingering just beneath.

I sat down at a small table with a gin and tonic in front of me. I noticed the crowd all seemed to know each other. There were lots of hugs and smiles. There were many good vibes in the air. The sound system was pumping out some smooth jazz muzak tunes. This was a surreal environment.

The lights flickered moments before the stage lights came on. A woman of considerable girth strutted to center stage, glared at the crowd, and instantly took control of the room. It was Big Mama, the MC of the evening’s performance. Of course, technically, Big Mama was more suited to be a papa, but she was a diva. She sang a song and oozed attitude through out its length. The other “girls” came out and danced and shimmied and pranced.

As the show continued, I noticed the performers were actually very beautiful. You could tell they were men, but they were oddly sexy. As I was pondering this revelation, I began to notice the crowd in more detail. The beautiful women were actually beautiful men.

The songs went on. There were girls lip-syncing solo, there were duos and trios as well. They performed Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin. They performed sultry jazz numbers and rave-up disco anthems. Each song built on the last and the momentum continually lurched forward. The crowd was in rapt attention; clapping and yelling wildly every chance we got.

The finale came in the form of a group performance from all the girls that included a chorus line and some Broadway choreography. The last beat hit and the lights went down as the audiences hands went up.

I felt like I was in a movie. The lush surroundings of this red lit bar and electric joy that pumped through all of us infused our mind and bodies with a natural euphoric high. There was diverse cast of characters roaming the bar. None of us knowing gay from straight. We were unable to differentiate genders. This was actually very settling. It took a burden off your shoulders. They were things that didn’t matter inside the four walls of this club.

We left the club and adjourned to a local pub. It was a pub full of stereotypes and prejudices. We assumed everyone was straight. Everyone’s gender was clearly assigned. I thought of the fears I had a few hours prior and realized how naïve they were. I was actually a bit regretful to leave. I was jealous of a community that exists outside of everyday society standards. I wondered what goes on behind closed doors all across the country. I learned that fun is fun, no matter the situation, or whom you love, or what you feel sexy wearing. I learned that men can be gorgeous woman.

Left Hand

Back when I would leave my land
I could take on any man
Using nothing but my left hand

Now I don't see the light
Except when it cuts through the dark
And I can't narrow my eyes enough to fight

Barstool of choice

Larry had been frequenting his pub of choice, The Shamrock, since he moved to Fridley last summer. It was the kind of establishment where mullets, white tennis shoes, and denim were accepted and encouraged. The first time he walked in to the bar, Motorhead was blasting from the jukebox. Therefore, Larry became a regular.

He started coming twice a week, then three or four times a week, eventually he was here pretty much every night. He drank Michelob Golden Light and smoked Marlboro reds.

The Shamrock was a local’s kind of place. Everyone knew each other, even if they didn’t necessarily speak to each other. It was a comfortable domain.

Then one night things changed in a peculiar way. A beautiful man walked through the door to the tune of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town”. Larry would not normally call a man beautiful, but that is the word that immediately came to the front of his brain. The man was with two other squirrelly looking men. They came in sat in a corner booth and kept to themselves until closing time. They were drinking Guinness and smoking American Spirit cigarettes. All the regulars went about their routine: shooting stick, playing cards, and pumping quarters into the jukebox for Motorhead. All the while keeping one suspicious eye on that corner booth.

The next night all the regulars came back plus the beautiful man and his friends. Then something crazy happened, two young, thin, blonde girls opened the front door. They apprehensively scanned all the bodies in the building until their search found it’s aim. Once their eyes locked on to the beautiful man’s they strolled in as casually as two giddy blondes could. They sat at the adjacent booth the beautiful man and his squirrelly entourage and ordered a couple shots of courage.

The following nights followed the same pattern. Within a week, the place was packed nightly with young woman trying their luck at wooing the beautiful man. Larry sat at his barstool of choice, facing the front door, trying to glean insight from the bar chatter. Apparently, the beautiful man was a film actor. Larry heard the man’s name was Colin Farrel. Larry had never heard of him.

After a month, The Shamrock had turned into an MTV-spring break-girls gone wild kind of place. Tanned young ladies baring their boobs in tabletop dances. Mickey the bartender furiously scanning his bartenders guide to find recipes for exotic mixed drinks. Colin sitting quietly in the corner, unfazed.

Then the actor stopped showing up. The nubile young princesses quickly receded. Larry walked in on Wednesday night to a silent smattering of locals, sat down at his end of the bar, ordered a Guinness, and lit an American Spirit.