BLACK TEETH AND BUSTED DREAMS

Book 'Em, Danno...

2012-01-03T01:14:00.000-08:00

A library card is a magical thing. You go sign up for this card, they hand it over to you, and then you go into this big-assed building filled with books, right? And then...and then...(sorry, I get excited) and then they let you pick any of 'em that you want to take home with you. You read 'em, bring 'em back, and get more. You can also get DVDs, CDs, audio books, magazines, newspapers, and all kinds of cool, groovy stuff. For free. Yeah, I know that some of you nitpicky assholes will beat your chests, elbow your way to the podium, and proceed to tell me that it's NOT free - that YOUR precious tax dollars go to fund the library. Well so do mine, and I actually wish that more of what comes out of my pocket could get funneled directly to the library system. As a matter of fact, I say that maybe instead of huffing off and cracking open that refrigerator you should walk down to the local library and crack open a book or two. After all, MY tax dollars pay for it, and I'm inviting you to partake.

Ye Olde Library Card

I've loved the library since I was a kid. It may be the only public place where I have ever felt completely at ease. Maybe it's because there's nothing expected of you while you're there. You just go in, browse, get lost. Take your time; take all fucking day. They don't care, just as long as you're bringing the books back on time. It's not like a bookstore where they expect you to purchase something and where there are usually gobs of assholes talking loudly on cell phones, blocking the fucking aisles with their laptops, or slurpingly loudly on their overpriced coffee drinks. Books are an afterthought in most bookstores these days. They're just fast food coffee shops where people go to put on intellectual airs. "Look at me. I'm in a bookstore therefore I am smart." That kinda shit.

Not the library, baby. There are usually some truly fascinating people at the library: aging hippie sorts looking for hydroponic cultivation books, cantankerous old ladies with bags of romance books and mysteries, the strange, sweaty guy with taped-up glasses looking for books on how to make bombs with household cleaners, homeless guys just looking for a place to take a load off - and I never see any of them trying to grab other people's attention with their overtly loud cell phone conversations or sitting around mainlining $6.00 coffee while trying to act like they're doing something of earth-shattering importance on their goddamned MacBooks. C'mon. At best, those buffoons are posting something on an idiotic blog (like this one). You won't find that kind of pretense at the library. I'll take an honest bum looking to take an air-conditioned nap with his face under a newspaper over some jerk-off with perfectly mussed hair laying on the "I'm-a-writer-don't-you-want-to-ask-me-about-it?" routine any day.

(I must clarify everything above by stating that I absolutely loathe the university library. I mean, there's tons of great books and shit in there, but the feel could not be more different than that of the public library. I don't even like having to set foot in the library at the U. I've never been able to get a single lick of work done in there thanks to asshole kids eating stinky food, watching YouTube videos at full volume, talking at the top of their lungs, and...you get the picture. It makes Barnes & Noble look like heaven.)

My Current Stack O' Shit

My only problem with the library is that I go in there, and having no monetary restrictions placed upon me, wind up checking out way too much shit. Overload. Even when I go to pick up one specific item that I've had placed on hold, I somehow wind up walking out with an armload of shit. Then, if I don't read them all, I feel like I've somehow neglected or abused them. I also feel jilted because I didn't have the pleasure of taking in every word on every page of every one. Perhaps this is the way Mormon guys feel about their wives. I only had time to really fuck Arvalee and Strawberry this week, kinda jerked off on and fingerbanged Jarrica a little, and just didn't get around to servicing poor Odonna and Valeeta Joy at all (hey, I got those names from a baby name website for Utah Mormons, so don't look at me, alright?).

Right now I'm sitting on a stack of books taller than Billy Barty. I've got graphic novels, old pulp crime shit, a couple of Marx Brother books, and so on. I'm halfway through the new Little Willie John bio while also reading the newest Fables collection and cherry picking chapters out of Our Band Could Be Your Life. Again, I'm kinda feeling like a Mormon husband. How am I supposed to concentrate on just one woman, when all this other snatch is right there in the house as well?

Since school let out, I've torn through the Ace Frehley autobio, the Duff McKagen book, the Steven Tyler thing, that huge Tom Waits bio, the massive Stephen King book about the Kennedy assassination, Jack Grisham's (TSOL) book, and every new volume of Spiderman and Batman shit that I could get my hands on. As much as I'd like to say that I'm a wide reader, this list kinda points to the fact that I probably don't read as wide as I'd like to think I do. All those fucking rock star tell-alls are pretty much the same: made some decent records, got rich, got laid a lot, got ripped off, got hooked on drugs/alcohol, got sober, made a bunch of shitty records, wrote a book about it. Stephen King? Comfort food, I suppose. Why the fuck am I still checking in with Batman and Spiderman 35 years later? Is anything different really going to happen? Batman finally comes out of the closet? Peter Parker quits being a wishy-washy loser?

Stuff I Own I Ain't Read Yet...

Maybe I'm just wasting my time. I used to laugh at these people that took themselves so seriously because they read books, but the books they were reading was shit like Danielle Steele and Dean Koontz and that horrible James Patterson shit. Am I any different? Reading shit by washed-up, drug-addled rock'n'rollers sure ain't any better. Well, maybe a little, but we are down to splittling blonde pussy hairs if we're gonna argue the point. Some would explain this by saying we refine our tastes as we get older, but it's really more like we confine ourselves by sticking to the same old shit. That's why it's always good to go to the library, find a section that you never normally frequent, and randomly check out a book about something that you know absolutely jack shit nothing about. Get a book on the history of sewing, Guatamalan folk art, Scandinavian religious iconography, or the mating rituals of red-assed baboons. Whatever it takes to challenge yourself and actually learn a little something. I think that's what I'll do tomorrow.

Then again, I did read 145 books (yes, you read that correctly) for a lit class last semester. And that was all stuff I woulda never in a million years picked out to read on my own. So maybe I'm owed a little literary pablum. Probably not, but it always feels good to rationalize one's actions and feel a little self-righteous - don't it? Either way you go, man, the library has you covered. You can expand your brain or help it rot away a little bit; both are good for the soul. As for me, I'm saying fuck it. I'm gonna go snort up some of this Captain America book like the sweet, sweet printed nose-candy that it is...

Later, gator.

I Hate You, I Hate This House, and I Hate Christmas!

2011-12-26T03:15:00.000-08:00

The missus and I, being socially-awkward atheistic types with no family living within 1700 miles of us, don't really do anything for Christmas. We have no religious reason (neither do Christians, really) to celebrate the holiday, we've got no kids, and we don't really buy into that whole buy-a-bunch-of-shit-you-don't-need-don't-want-and-can't-afford-to-try-and-force-a-special-moment schtick. I'm not trying to piss on your holiday traditions, I'm just talking about my own. Sure, we often make plans to load up burlap bags with tall-boy cans of Steel Reserve and deliver them to all the bums hanging out in the park, but we always back out because we assume most cops are already grumpy about having to work on Christmas day. I'm sure there's nothing they'd love better than to lock up some folks having fun, especially if said folks are encouraging the indigent population of the county to do the same. God forbid the homeless get any kicks while the man is having to punch the clock.

This year was slightly different, however. We actually did do something for Christmas. It wasn't on Christmas day, but it was Christmas themed and all that jazz. It was even a Christmas gift of sorts. What'd us two old humbugs do? We went to see the second date of the John Waters Christmas Show tour (thank god he's not one of these stuffy and obviously self-important assholes that think boycotting Arizona will actually accomplish anything; I love the way those idiots think non-action is some sort of revolutionary stance). Even better, we decided to purchase the VIP meet-and-greet package for the show. Well, that's true if "we decided" means that I laid my unemployed ass down on the ground and begged the missus to try and somehow rationalize the expenditure on our rather tight budget. So, as a combined Christmas/birthday/all-other-holidays-for-the-year-2012 gift, I fired up the old AmEx card and had at it. That's right, I did something that I would probably make fun of anybody else for doing: I paid to meet somebody. Confession is supposedly good for the soul, but oh how it burns me up to admit that.

Oh sure, there's a whole bunch of different ways I could rationalize my actions. For starters, the price of the meet-and-greet tickets weren't really any more than what seems to be the standard going price for most concert tickets these days. In fact, it was less than or roughly equal to what I've paid to see a lot of acts in the past half dozen years or so. And it wasn't like it was one of those ridiculous "meet-the-star" deals where a $350 addendum is placed on top of the concert ticket price which then allows you to meet some washed-up 1970s rocker. And it did include tickets in the first row for the performance. BUT - it was still an inflated ticket price that I put down money on solely because it came with the opportunity to meet someone. Who in the world pays to fucking meet somebody? I guess I do.

The question is why? I consider myself to be a fairly logical person. So what in the hell does a fairly logical person think is going to be gained by this sort of thing? It's not like you're bumping into somebody in a bar, hitting it off, and having some sort of conversation that's mildly entertaining to both parties. It's not like this person is getting anything out of meeting you (except for the extra dough on the end of that ticket). And let's be real honest - it's not like you are going to come up with some sort of revelatory question that is going to spark this person's interest and really make 'em open up. They really have heard it all a million times before and are probably pretty sick and fucking tired of talking about it. Odds are you might even find out that somebody you admire enough to pay to have some sort of simulated interaction with is a complete cunt. Jesus christ, it's not like you're even gonna have a decent story to tell afterwards unless you (a) lie or (b) think you won't look like a total jackass when you say, "Oh yeah, I paid to meet so-and-so the other night." Hell, I could have met Ozzy a few months back by simply buying a copy of his book and still refused to do it. I didn't have to pay to meet Lemmy Fucking Kilmister or Jim Dandy Mangrum for god's sake, why in the hell would I pay to meet anybody else? Can you tell my violation of my own pseudo-code of ethics is driving me crazy? Some people in the world have real problems, but me - I agonize over this kinda shit.

So the night of the show winds up being an unusually cold and rainy night. Didn't I move to the desert to get away from that kind of mess? Cold as it may be, I'm sweating bullets because I had to give a presentation in one of my classes that would have potentially conflicted with us being able to get to the meet-and-greet in time. No presentation = failing the class. Wouldn't that serve my celebrity-chasing ass right? Pay for that ticket and not be able to use the goddamned thing. Rising to the occasion, I was able to lay on some hillbilly charm and ditch the class early, whereupon the missus and I headed downtown to stand out in the freezing drizzle along with the other twenty or so folks that felt compelled to be a part of this so-called VIP experience.

About thirty minutes before the doors opened to the general public, us "VIPs" (is that my sense of class-consciousness I'm trampling all over just about now?) were escorted through the club, out the back door, through more freezing drizzle, and into a small room that looked like it coulda been the lair for some creepo sex killer. I guess it was actually a standard issue backstage area for a mid-sized rock'n'roll club; I've been in a lot of those areas over the years, and they all look like lairs for creepo sex killers. There in the middle of the room, twirling his reading glass around his fingers, was Mr. John Waters. Dressed in a holiday-red jacket, Mr. Waters greeted us all and told us he felt like he should be giving us lap dances to make those tickets worth their price. Instead, he opened the floor to questions and talked back and forth with the crowd for about thirty minutes or so. He was charming, down-to-earth, and funny as hell. After the first half hour, he sat down at a table to sign books, posters, and whatever else people had brought and continued to converse with those in line.

What do I have to say to this guy I paid to meet? Nothing. Nada. Zip. I'm a blank. I coulda asked about working with Stiv Bators. I coulda asked about who he would've wanted to work with had he been able to do a screen adaptation of A Confederacy of Dunces. I could have asked if he thought the dialogue during the police radio bulletin scene of Last House on the Left was an homage to him. Instead, I had nothing. God knows I'd had plenty of time to come up with something. Anything. Hell, we'd had the tickets for over three months, and furthermore, we were in the very back of the line which gave me an additional twenty minutes or so to come up with something.

The Offensive Photo

Instead, I thought maybe my killer photo that I'd brought to have signed might spark some sort of nostalgic reaction from him. I bought it when the Baltimore Sun was getting rid of tons of their original newspaper photos. It shows John circa Pink Flamingos with long, greasy hair, big Elvis-style glasses, and a western shirt. I think he looks about as cool as a human being can in this photo. Why else would I have bought it? When I laid it on the table, Mr. Waters wrinkles up his face and says, "Ewww. God, where did this come from?" before hurriedly scrawling his name across it and pushing it back towards me like it was carrying small pox.

Despite not liking the photo of him that I'd brought (my wife says: "It's like when people have pictures of you when you were, um, bigger...you know how you hate those..."), he still graciously allowed us behind the table for a photo - the only problem being that we had to turn the camera over to some bonehead that worked at the club and rely on him to snap the shot. At first glance, I couldn't believe that this guy had fucked up my one shot at having my mug in a picture with Thee John Waters. I wanted to be able to lie to my children about this photo one day. But upon blowing the photo up in the lobby, I realized we couldn't have much improved on this picture if we'd staged it. The two of us are flanking Mr. Waters and looking semi-hostile and disinterested, not quite meeting the camera dead-on. He's looking right at the camera, leaning forward, and smiling. We look like two creeps on trial for murder, and he looks like he's our sleazy public defender. It is the best worst photo ever. It is the perfect John Waters photo (and I'm only including half of it here because my wife doesn't like having her mug plastered all over the intra-net.)

After this, we were escorted back to our seats in the club. There we had fifteen minutes or so to laugh at our bad picture and talk about our shared social ineptitude. Then the house lights dimmed, and the man that we'd just paid to meet came out on stage and absolutely fucking killed it. I couldn't tell you the last time I guffawed out loud so hard, let alone in public. I laughed until my sides hurt and my eyes watered. I wasn't alone. I don't know if I've ever been in a place where that many people were laughing so hard and so freely. That's as close as I'm likely to ever come to feeling something akin to this "Christmas spirit" that people always talk about. After all, when again will I ever be caught up in a communal holiday moment with several hundred other people as we all share a holly-jolly laugh about a man telling a pro-life demonstrator: "You filthy impregnator! I wish I was a woman so I could get an abortion!"

So, in spite of all this shit I've spent the last thirty minutes going on about, would I still buy that VIP ticket if I had it all to do over again? How could I not, if the opportunity was present? Did it improve the experience of the show at all? I don't think so. The show would have been no less enjoyable had I not done the meet-and-greet. So, why do it? I guess it is because I think Mr. Waters is a unique talent and one of America's finest living writers. I have enjoyed his books, films, and various other works on a level that I've enjoyed few other things in life. The man is right up there with Carlin and Groucho in my personal pantheon of truly witty motherfuckers, and I guess I would always regret not buying that ticket more than I would having to fess up to the fact that I had. And, it gave me and the missus something to do for Christmas...

All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth (and a few of them on the side, maybe that one in back?)

2011-12-20T11:06:00.001-08:00

How long has it been since I posted here? What the hell's been the hold up? Well, it was a rather brutal fall semester that occasionally left me with almost enough free time to wipe my ass. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I'm fully aware that I'm getting a second shot at something that a lot of my bruthas and sistas never get the first shot at. And while I may have failed spectacularly (or maybe just not ever really tried too hard) at many other aspects of life, I refuse to roll over for even an instance in this higher education endeavor. I figure if ditzy, self-involved eighteen-year-olds can pass these courses, I should be able to nail 'em to the wall and make 'em call me "daddy" (the courses that is, not the ditzy, self-involved eighteen-year-olds). Maybe that would explain my stellar 4.0 average for the semester (and not-so-shabby 3.867 cumulative average). Toot, toot, motherfucker; that was my horn you just heard.

I don't think making those kinds of grades requires the cognitive aptitude of a mental giant. In fact, I'm basically the proof that it doesn't. What it does take is the willingness to prioritize your time. I think so many people fuck up college the first time around because they're young and away from home and all that bull mess. Their priorities are drinking, fucking, partying. Who can blame 'em? Sure, they'll regret it come the day they realize they should have done something with themselves instead of pounding watered-down drinks at over-priced college bars and having unfulfilling sex with partners who were as clueless as themselves, but such is the folly of youth. Right? Lucky for me, nothing sounds more hellish than the thought of "partying," I pretty much limit my drinking to pounding a couple PBRs and shots with my pal Terry every other Friday, and the only time I chase tail is if the missus really feels like making me work for it. Therefore, I can concentrate on the matter at hand.

When school's in session, everything else has to take a backseat. And this blog sits way the fuck in the back of my bus. The only thing worse than writing papers all day only to come home and write about writing said papers would be reading that bullshit. I've had a couple of people ask me why I don't "get serious with the blog." How fucking serious can you get? It's a goddamned blog. These things are basically for middle-school kids and dimwits. If I got serious about this in any shape, form, or fashion, I would have to seriously question my own sanity on a much deeper level than I already do.

The real trick about this school shit is not in prioritizing your time when you're in school. That's easy. Like I said: classes go up front, everything else in the rear. The real trick is in prioritizing your down time. I'm looking at roughly one month of time to do whatever in the hell I want to with. That's a rarity for me. So much so that it has mildly intimidated me and driven me pretty near bat shit crazy over the first few days of this winter break. What to do? What to do? So much shit and so little time. The options are many. How do I cram it all in? HOW?

I've got books (that thankfully have absolutely nothing to do with my major) stacked waist high that I've been unable to get around to. I've got movies on loan from the library. I've got ideas for things to write. I've got ten thousand hours of unlistened to music and podcasts. And then there's all the collateral damage that comes with having to let everything slide for the last four months. You know, the shit that you shouldn't let ride for that long but have to: cleaning up all the dog turds outta the back yard, patching the roof, painting the bathroom wall, changing the oil in the car, making some fucking cash to help pay for next semester. Thank god we don't even really acknowledge the holidays; that might be enough to cause my head to literally explode.

So here I am in the middle of all this, when god (yes, there is a god...I know this because it's obvious he hates me) prioritizes my time for me. Just as I am beginning to lay out my plan of early morning walks with the dog, mid afternoons lost blissfully in the pages of a book, cooking dinner for the missus, watching old movies at night, and writing until the wee hours, I am hit with the (almost-literally) paralyzing pain of something gone terribly wrong between the gums. This horrible god smites me through the jawline with what feels like a serrated knife blade dipped in some sort of strange exotic poison. Seriously. As you can tell from the name of this little online repository of feel good verse, I am no stranger to the aches and pains of bad teeth. This is different. This is lay-on-the-couch, try-to-block-out-everything, pray-to-die type shit. Oh sure, I wish I was one of these Henry Rollins eat-the-pain, thrive-on-the-misery kinda guys, but I obviously ain't. At least not this time. Hell, I'm only typing this because I'm under the cloud of some super-duper pain killers that fuzz my brain enough to make it not fully register the fact that every nerve ending in my kisser is being stabbed repeatedly by a million ice picks. Right now, I'm only in a state of extreme discomfort. When the pain killer starts to wear off, I'll go back to complete howling agony.

Yes, dear reader, it has come down to this. I concede defeat. Tomorrow I will do the unthinkable: I will go to the dentist. My mortal enemy and I will meet at eleven a.m., and I shall throw myself upon his mercy. He will open my mouth, wince, and then regain his composure as he starts seeing a new sports car or a college education for his own child. My pride and my pocket book will be mangled at the hands of the madman dressed in white. It will not be pretty.

I hope you get everything you desire this holiday season, you imperialist, capitalist, consumer pigs.

Me? Hell, all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. And maybe a couple of the rear ones, too.

PS - I was just kidding about all that god jive. There's no such thing, you silly goose

Gimme Some Truth

2011-09-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

I laugh when I see thirty or forty year olds still dressing "punk." It's silly.

- Jeff Clayton as quoted in INVOCATION OF OBSCENE GODS

god-DAMN!

2011-09-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

That's all I can say about somebody releasing four albums on one day, let alone four really fucking good albums. It mighta took us lesser mortals a decade or so to get that shit done; Hank 3 made it look effortless, when he indeed dropped (count 'em) FOUR albums on the general public this past Tuesday.

Ghost to a Ghost/Guttertown cover

I usually shy away from the word "artist." It's overused and usually inappropriate in its use. I run like hell from people that claim to be "artists" or "work at their art." I much prefer craftsmen. Y'know, people that are devoid of pretense and simply try to consistently become better at their chosen craft. They learn all the ins-and-outs and subtle nuances. They are constantly working and constantly broadening their base of knowledge through diligence, determination, trial, error, success, failure, and the intense examination of the work of other craftsmen that they admire. It makes for long hours and lonely work. Maybe a true artist is a craftsman that can sweat blood to get to the next level of their abilities and make it seem like it just sorta flowed outta their fingertips. In that case, I guess I could pin that artist label on Hank 3. But I think he'd probably much rather be complimented on being one goddamned fine craftsman.

3 Bar Ranch Cattle Callin' LP

It was my honor to be brought in for a track on the Ghost to a Ghost disc and watch this craftsman in motion. I left the Haunted Ranch feeling more creatively invigorated than I had in years. There was that frenetic energy in the air - the kind that's only present when someone is absolutely devoted to getting shit out of his head and making it real at all costs. I knew then and there that these records were gonna be absolute motherfuckers; I was only worried about steppin' in and cruddyin' up the place with my own raggedy-assed self. Then again, I'd be one hell of a liar if I didn't admit to thinking our song came out pretty damned good as well.

In a day and age where every asshole with a guitar is suddenly an outlaw country rebel, it would have been easy for Hank 3 to rest on his laurels and coast comfortably by, rehashing his past work or penning tired and easy cliches. He chose to do neither. Instead, he put his nose to the grindstone and elevated his craft. New textures, new paths, new sounds.

Attention Deficit Domination LP

Anyhow, I urge you all to go listen to the records. It's doubtful that this year will hear anything better than Hank and Tom Waits trading off vocals on the Ghost to a Ghost title song. It's a solid country album with tentacles that sprawl out into directions the dimestore outlaws didn't even know existed. Guttertown is an exquisite and at times beautifully haunting cajun fever-dream. Attention Deficit Domination will satisfy yer doomy rock'n'roll cravings without the bullshit put-on vocals that kill so much of that genre for me. And the Cattle Callin' record...well, that is a sheer mindfuck meltdown of epic hillbilly proportions. Hear it to believe it.

King & 3 - Memphis (?) - 2005 Summer Tour

So go on out and get amongst it. I think you can pick all four of 'em up for under $30 on CD (Ghost to a Ghost and Guttertown are packaged together for the price of one). That's a helluva deal. If you got a few extra bucks, I think they're all available on vinyl as well. Either way, you'll still have money left over to pony up for a ticket to a live show. Dig the dates HERE.

www.hank3.com
https://www.facebook.com/hank3

They Say It's Your Birthday...

2011-09-02T17:42:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't tucked tail and slinked away from the blog. Been a hectic couple weeks for school and such. Just this week I had to read thirty-four books for a particular class. Yep, thirty-fucking-four. I love to read, but that's just pushing it, folks. Not only did I have to read them, I had to provide a summary of each one and then write corresponding reactions. Glory to god in the highest. Speaking of everyone's favorite imaginary man in the sky, I was also reading Penn Jillette's new book, God, No!, for my own amusement. And, well, there's only so many hours in a day, and let's face it - I'm too old and too poor for Bolivian marching powder.

Anyhow. I got an email (actually two) asking me if I was going to post any more of the Kill the Scene GG stuff for his birthday. I responded to these emails by saying that GG doesn't have a birthday anymore - he's dead. Some offense was taken at this statement. That's not particularly shocking, seeing as how most of these wet-behind-the-ears GG-philes are about as goddamned humorless and intellectually engaging as any other type of obsessive collector nerds. I already responded personally, but let me reiterate - GO FUCK YOURSELF. Let me lay this out in bullet points for those of you that might need some help concentrating:

You will never catch me being one of these assholes that claims to have "been good friends with Kevin."
Having said that - I knew the guy. I respected the guy.
That doesn't change the fact that he is dead.
When you're dead, you stop having birthdays! Period.

Baby King and GG - Atlanta '93

A lot of people that I know have died. I miss those people. I do not celebrate their birthdays. I don't celebrate my grandmother's birthday. I don't celebrate my grandfather's birthday. I don't celebrate Jim Croce's, Bon Scott's, or Ron McKernan's birthday. I don't celebrate the birthdays of dead people. The notion is simply ridiculous. A birthday marks another year of life; that kinda goes straight into the shitter, WHEN YOU'RE DEAD. From that point on, at least in my eyes, it makes much more sense to commemorate the date of death instead of the date of birth. Or not. You don't even have to go that far. After all, these people are dead.

In that groovy Penn Jillette book I was referring to earlier, he talks about how he buys a bunch of balloons every year at New Years and lets them go. As he watches them float away, he thinks of all the people he loves that aren't around anymore. That seems even more appropriate. It's shit like that that makes me love Penn, even when his political views grate up and down my spine. And even though I love the big lug, I won't celebrate his birthday when he's dead.

Penn and King - Vegas '09.

O.K., O.K. Yes, it's true that I used to always call in to my shitty Postal Service job on Elvis' (or "Elvis's" for those of you who feel that an apostrophe-S on the end of a word already ending with "S" is proper grammar - god knows there's got to be a few of you assholes out there) birthday, but that was just my way of being an antagonizing prick about all the goddamned days we took off for the birthdays of other dead people! Well, maybe not that many...but one is too many, as far as I'm concerned.

Can you dig it? At all? Doesn't it just slightly chap your ass when you see some fucktard on Facebook or MySpace or whatever site you're wasting your time on these days wishing some dead person a happy birthday? Really? REALLY?

Look, I didn't post Thin Lizzy videos on Phil Lynott's "birthday" a few weeks back, so I ain't gonna post nothing for GG's "birthday" either. I can hold the work (and stellar moustaches) of both men as nearly and dearly to me as ever without resorting to celebrating their no-longer-needed "birthdays." Ugh. For that matter, does ANYONE need a birthday past the age of twenty-one? Probably not. I certainly try to let mine just slip on by these days.

One of the girls in one of my classes just celebrated her twenty-first birthday last week. I overheard her say, "Wow. I guess this is my last birthday, huh?" I coulda kissed her (in a completely platonic, innocent, celebratory kinda way - not in a child-predator, pedophile, creepy-old-man kinda way). What great insight from such a young person. She hit the nail on the proverbial head. Birthdays become pretty irrelevant when you're alive, let alone when you are as dead as old Jacob Marley. And in case you're a complete illiterate, that would be dead as a motherfucking doornail.

Some people counter my point of view with a question like: "Well, don't you want your loved ones to remember your birthday when you die?"

No. Absolutely fucking not. I can be a pretty petty and shitty person right now. How petty and shitty would it be to expect people to keep up with an already irrelevant date once I'm dead? I hope I've done enough kind things to have a few people remember me here and there. But my birthday? C'mon. They have better things to do with their lives. I hope.

Not even your wife?

Her least of all. Goddamn, she had to put up with me while I was alive. What a saint. I hope she takes a trip around the world, goes cock-crazy, dances naked in the street, frivolously spends the insurance money on booze and blow, and whatever else she feels liberated enough to do when I'm dead. That's the honest truth. And while I hope I made her happy enough to think of me fondly by and by, I hope she never ever ever stops to wish me a happy birthday. It won't do either one of us any good. I won't be in some fictitious heaven looking down and judging her for doing it or not, but I certainly hope she never wastes her own precious time in doing so.

In the words of Sir Paul McCartney: "You say it's your birthday...well go fuck you." Or something like that.

Ring, Ring Goes the Bell...

2011-08-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

By all intents and purposes, I should still be laying in bed with the dogs all piled up around me. Taking in the cool breeze of the fan and dozing in and out. Instead, I've been up for hours, making sure I've got all my shit ready for the first day of classes. As always, the start of a new semester is a real pain in the ass. I've had one professor already assign homework (via an email) that is due today - the first day of class. What the fuck? Classes start the 22nd. Today. Have another professor that had posted no book was required for the class and then conveniently drops a $170 tome on us over the weekend. That we need to have. By today. Thanks.

When you're pushing forty and getting ready for the first day of school (and you're not a teacher), you realize that you're either opening a door on a new phase of life or simply taking the last bit of refuge available to a true loser. I guess time will tell.

School has been odd for me, thusfar. I feel like I've taken away a lot from some classes and little-to-nothing from others. I've met a few young people that are really devoted to what they're doing and are quite impressive in how they are going about it, but by and large it seems that the university system is pretty much a babysitting service for over-privileged idiots. I've met professors who I consider profound thinkers and others that I have to wonder how they ever got so far. But what do I know? I'm a late-thirties undergraduate. I come complete with gray hairs and a bad attitude. Not to mention that chip on my shoulder. You know? The one that only gets bigger as you realize that a lot of the shit you always suspected about class, economics, and education in America is not only true, but even worse than you ever imagined. Urgh.

And yes, I gave this stupid fucking blog yet another face lift. The last one (for now). The last one was too busy, the one before that looked like something you'd buy in a big-box craftstore (if you could buy blog templates there). Before that it was complaints of light type on dark screens being equal to headaches among readers. Or of shit not loading properly on "mobile devices." Don't I check these things out? No. I don't have a fucking "mobile device." I'm lucky that I can keep this relic of a computer functioning from week to week. And if it looks wonky on your wide-screen monitor...get over it. Don't have one of those either. If I make any more changes to it, it will be to strip it down to the most basic white screen with black type and nothing else. That's all that matters anyway. Everything else is just bullshit busy-work that gets in the way of what I should be doing.

And now that I've sufficiently spread my joyfulness around, I need to step out into the sweltering heat and make my way to the bus stop. I gotsta go to skewl...

BANNED IN SOCIETY by GG ALLIN (Kill the Scene Archives 1992)

2011-08-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

This article originally appeared in the first issue of Kill the Scene. It is transcribed from the original four pages of longhand sent to me from GG while he was incarcerated at the State Prison of Southern Michigan. I'd seen three shows (Atlanta, Knoxville, and Dalton) on the tour leading up to this last stint in the pokey. After bearing witness to these grandiose spectacles, I knew I had to be a part of this rock'n'roll mess in one way or another; I took Al Flipside's prompting to "be more than a witness" to heart. At any rate, I dropped GG a line that told him I was starting a zine and would be happy to publish anything he wanted to float my way. This is what he sent. I don't know exactly what all I said in that letter, but I must have brought up the infamous Dalton, Georgia show where several crowd members and half the band got arrested (little did I realize that a woman I would marry in a few years time got her ass slung in the can right alongside GG and Dino that night) because he included the following preface:

The police in Dalton are just a bunch of ignorant

motherfuckers just like all fucking cops are.

Enclosed is a piece I wrote about the entire legal system for you to include in your zine. Send me a copy when it

comes out and keep supporting the only real fucking mission that matters.

GG Allin

206045

Now on to the meat and potatoes. I've left the punctuation and grammar as it appeared in the original handwritten piece. Some folks might accuse GG's writing of being a bit thick on the hyperbole and self-aggrandizing, but nobody can accuse it of being boring. The opinions expressed are (were) solely those of Mr. Allin. In light of today's political climate, it would be interesting to see how much press and legal troubles that whole "Rock N Roll Terrorist" moniker would have generated some twenty years down the road.

BANNED IN SOCIETY
Prison 1992 GG ALLIN

The United States of America is not a free country. The United States legal system like the government that protects it sees to it that we are only as free as they allow us to be. And the freedoms that we do have seem to be diminishing at an alarming rate. In other words, if you live by what our society tells you is right and wrong, then you are only programmed to believe that you are living in a free society. But indeed - YOU ARE NOT!!! Those of us who are truly free are the individuals who oppose the rules and laws of our so-called system. Also - do not be fooled - the policemen, the politicians, the courts, the judges and the entire legal system is nothing but a lie, set up at your expense to benefit only those few who try to dominate legislation and all of their puppets who work to kiss the asses of those pulling the strings.

I for one am living proof as to just how far our system will go to remove you entirely from society if you should decide to take the unbeaten path. I was abducted back in 1989 after being tracked down for well over a year by the United States secret service. Then I was handed over to the state of Michigan where I was kidnapped by the judicial panel, who railroaded me into their prison system for two years where I was disected by psychiatrists, therapists, counselors, put in solitary observation units and forced to take part in criminal sexual therapy counseling. Anything they could possibly do to brainwash me and to break my non-conformist attitude. But all the while that this was going down, I kept one thing only in my mind. The GG Allin Mission will remain in full power. Those motherfuckers would have to kill me before I ever in any way would compromise who I am. So no matter what they set out to do or how hard they tried, I could not be broken, they cound not even come close to penetrating the walls of my mind.

But even after those two years were complete and I was released on parole (March 91) I was still not free. My parole agent constantly came to my room at the YMCA at anytime of day and without notice would search through my entire living space. Detectives knocked on my door often with more questioning as police harrassed me on the streets. Then at a jury trial in Milwaukee I was found guilty of disorderly conduct from a stage performance I did up there back in 89. I was fined 1500.00 bucks and given a 60 day jail sentence. That case is now in the court of appeals. Soon after that I went out on the road with my new band the Murder Junkies. But also on this tour Big Brother was still watching. Undercover cops were set up at each show, police raids and club closings took place in nearly every city we played and I was arrested on stage in six states before they finally decided on Feb. 18 1992 in Austin, Texas that it had all gone awry. The GG Allin Rock N Roll Revolution was no part of this society that they were in control of. So again I was abducted and held until authorities from Michigan could once again kidnap me and lock me away in another prison cell. The Austin police held me for eight days until the MI extradition squad came and shackled me in the back of a caged van for five days in which I was transported back to Jackson State Prison where I remain to this very day, so again I ask...Where does freedom begin?

I for one have been violated of my civil and constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression. Not to mention the rights to a fair and impartial trial. Freedom means nothing unless it includes complete freedoms for all...not just a chosen few. It's not the Red Hot Chili Peppers posing nude on the cover of Rolling Stone with their hands over their cocks. Freedom means putting your hands aside and letting what you've got hang out for all to see. Or it's not Ice-T who's Cop Killer is bubblegum compared to my Kill the Police. Because the Chili Peppers, Ice-T, and all of the others are basically playing by the rules of the industry that owns them. An industry that will allow you to go so far..but not too far. They still call the shots. While in my case nobody tells me what to do. I call my own shots. Maybe that is why I am the only real fucking rock n roll underground that really does matter anymore. Because I cannot be bought and sold. I'm sick of all the fucking phonies and frauds. I am the real rock n roll terrorist. So right now I'm sitting in a concrete cage. But only my body is locked up...because just like always, they will never take my mind...it's too strong.

There is no such thing as rehabilitation. It's either your way or their way. And I have always lived by the laws of the wild, untamed, human animal. Right now I am in the process of putting together a group of inmates called P.A.C....Prisoners Against Conformity. I for one will not give in to my abductors in any way. It has cost me a lot of pain and suffering for real. But pain and suffering is what I do best. I'm conditioned for anything. Besides, that's a small price to pay for your integrity..So fuck the law. Doing this time will only make the next GG Allin Revenge Tour that much more bloody and violent. I am unstoppable. The GG Allin Mission will rage on. They are only feeding the fires. The war in my head is on enemy lines.

RockNRoll Terrorist
GG ALLIN
206045

FROM ONE KING TO ANOTHER...

2011-08-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

The greatest tirade ever. I first heard this about a half-dozen years ago when a friend gave me a bootleg CD set of the whole show. It was entitled "Desert Storm" and was one of those crazy-expensive real silver disc bootlegs. He looked a bit upset with the whole situation. When I asked him why he was just giving it to me, he replied, "You'll see. I've debated all morning on whether or not to just throw it in the trash. Nobody should have to hear Elvis talk like that. It's just not right. " What can I say? People in the South take their Elvis pretty seriously. I, however, think it's extremely right. I think it's right-fucking-on. I think it's so right-fucking-on that you can bet your sweet ass I'm wearing my custom-made STRUNG OUT baseball jersey today. Pop a cold one and have a listen. In memory of the King, on this anniversary of his passing.

KILL THE SCENE BIBLIOGRAPHY & COVERS GALLERY

2011-08-09T02:16:00.000-07:00

As promised, we're gonna start unloading some of the old Kill the Scene archives this week. I thought I'd start off with a covers gallery and some brief info on each issue. Have fun with it.

ISSUE ONE. 22 pages. Half-sized so it could be stapled and sent out on a single stamp. Ahhh, the good old days. Featured a three-page article entitled "Banned in Society" by Mistah Allin. Seeing as how this was written expressly for my little publication, I certainly felt like I was shitting in high cotton. This baby-legged first issue also features a smattering of reviews, stuff on Ed Gein and Charles Manson (hey, it seemed outre and superwickedhardcoreunderground at the time), and some good old teenage rage directed at the fucktards that tried to be scene kingpins back in my old hometown. Outside of the GG article, it was pretty standard stuff. I must have been pretty productive back in those days, seeing as how the article was postmarked August 6, 1992, and I have another letter from Jackson Prison postmarked August 29th commending me on an "impressive" first issue. Therefore, I think we can use deductive reasoning to put this issue as being produced sometime around the second week of August '92. Must have put in some late nights at Kinko's. That's what no-pussy-gettin' motherfuckers did back then.

ISSUE TWO. Another 22-paged, half-sized testament to a nineteen-year-old kid's baptism into the world of punk rawk. ANTiSEEN cover that features the hairiest and scariest lineup ever. Look at them bee-a-yoo-tee-ful mugs. This one has some short and by-the-number interviews with Jeff Clayton (ANTiSEEN) and Merle Allin (Murder Junkies). No detailed conversations, as I was just getting to know all these guys at the time - not to mention, the interviews were done by mail. You know, the kinda mail where you have to actually put a stamp on shit and hand it off to the guy in the smashing blue uniform. I had no clue how close to these two guys I'd become as time went on. There's zine reviews, show reviews (The Mentors and Motorhead), record reviews (Rhino had just reissued the MC5's "High Time" and "Back in the USA" and until that point, those titles had been extremely hard to find in my neck of the woods ), and another exclusive piece by GG called "Ice-T's Cop Out." This was back when the big hub-bub about "Cop Killer" was going on. I've had a sort of love-hate relationship with Ice-T's work over the years, so I guess he's doing something right...This one hit sometime in the fall of '92.

ISSUE THREE. The David Allan Coe cover. Why David Allan Coe? Because while I was driving all over the South to see punk rock shows, I was also following David Allan Coe around like a goddamned Dead Head. Little did I realize that by putting him on the cover I would effectively isolate and seriously piss off all the up-tight assholes I'd been trying to irritate this whole time. Go figure. Still the standard 22 half-sized pages. The content was starting to get a bit meatier on my end. There were a few flashes of some decent writing and the enthusiasm level was still balls-to-the wall. It was with this issue that word really started to get around and a whole lot of folks started plunking down a buck to get a fix. My first interview with Cocknoose was done through the mail right after I heard their first seven incher. Still the most pole-axed I've EVER been by hearing an unknown band cold. I was in no way prepared for that fucking masterpiece. I think that was probably the most divine record-listening experience I've ever had. Also interviews with M.Physema of Shrinkwrap and a conversation with GG from the pokey. Record reviews, pissed-off and pissy teenage diatribes, and an obligatory FEAR show review. I'd guess this one came out in early 1993.

ISSUE FOUR. Bloody Mess and the Skabs cover. 22 half-sized pages. Interviews with Tesco Vee (the "Hate Police" record had just come out), Bloody Mess, and Vomitose. This issue was interview-heavy, which was probably a good thing. It also included my review of the first ANTiSEEN show I ever attended. What a way to spend my birthday week. I actually saw them in Atlanta and Athens within a week's time. Jeff Clayton still likes to tell the story of me laying down issue #3 in front of him while they were playing. So began my almost twenty-year association with the Boys from Brutalsville. Goddamnit, fellers - we're gettin' old. Seeing as how this issue contains a copy of GG's prison discharge, it must have been put out sometime around March of 1993. I can only imagine what my poor mother was thinking at that time. I was receiving phone messages from people with nicknames such as "Widowmaker" and "Animal," getting collect calls and tons of mail from prison facilities, and having nasty punk rock girls fill my mailbox with nudie pics and stinky panties. If she'd only known the half of it. Dear god, was that my peak in life?

ISSUE FIVE. The Ric Flair cover. The magazine was still half-sized, but now enough people were coughing up the cash to make the leap to 46 pages with a lot of reduced type. I think this issue is the one where everything kind of came together. Looking back, it's hard to believe I put this much goddamned work into anything. It's kind of impressive. This issue had interviews with The Motherfuckers, Brick Halo, and ANTiSEEN (this time a rather lengthy phone interview that was reprinted in the Destructo Maximus book). Lots of zine and record reviews, plus the premier edition of "Bad Blood," a wresting column penned by Mad Brother Ward. In this issue the Mad Brother interviewed the legendary Iron Sheik (no shit!). This issue also had a lot of poorly reproduced photos of the GG Allin and the Murder Junkies Atlanta stop on the Terror in America Tour. Skeeter from Vomitose also sent pics and a story from GG's appearance on the Jerry Springer Show. There was also a DAC show review and a feature where most of the folks that would make up the core of the Confederacy of Scum gave their favorite and least favorite wrestler picks. I'm guessing this hit the streets in late May or early June of 1993.

ISSUE SIX. Another 46-paged opus. Unfortunately, it was a bummer of a fucking issue in which I had to report on the untimely demise of our scumfuc superman, GG Allin. The issue had exclusive photos and a show review of the last show at the Gas Station. These were contributed by long-term reader Steve Laxton. Of course the issue is heavy on clippings, obits, and testimonies from fans and friends. Also included is a rather lengthy interview with The Whiskey Rebel of Rancid Vat/Alcoholics Unanimous, tons of record, book, and zine reviews, and a show review of an ANTiSEEN I drove up to Charlotte to see (and oddly enough, was the last time I saw GG - about a week or so before his death). The "Bad Blood" column featured Dirty Dutch Mantell and there was a lot of cool artwork contributed by a cat named Pat (who also sent me bizarre Polaroids of trashy chicks getting two-thirds air-tight...). A lot of folks have told me this was their favorite issue. It definitely wasn't my favorite. While I've never been one of the jackasses that claimed I was best buds or great pals with Jesus Christ Allin, it sucked infinite ass saying goodbye to a dude I looked up to.

ISSUE SEVEN. Thirty-four half-sized pages. The page count might have dropped, but the goddamned zine was packed to the gills and had no wasted space inside. This might be my personal favorite issue. I've got the cover tattooed on my arm, fer chrissakes. This issues focused mainly on the big ANTiSEEN ten-year anniversary gig and party in Charlotte. What an amazing time for rock'n'roll and an amazing time in my life. I got to meet tons of people I knew only through the mail at this gig: the Cocknoose guys, Malcolm Tent, and many others. Outside of that massive gig, the issue has interviews with Joe Coughlin (one-time GG biographer, Tiny Tim aficionado, and long-time pal o'mine), El Duce of the Mentors, and my Uncle Merle. I always appreciated the shit out of that Merle Allin interview as it came at what had to be a tough time for him. Later on he told me, "I wouldn'ta done that for any other asshole...but it was the King." Almost twenty years and god knows how many stages shared later, I still thank ye, sir. I'm humbled to be the asshole you let slide. My first-ever Cocknoose show review rounds out the issue and paves the way for KTS becoming the "Official Publication of the Confederacy of Scum." As best I can guesstimate, this issue came out around December of 1993.

ISSUE EIGHT. Thirty-six half-sized pages of tiny type. Still only a buck. Goddamn, I musta been shit-house crazy. Who does all this shit for a buck? It probably cost almost a buck to print the motherfuckers up (although I think I was able to keep it at a buck because the mighty Thor was scamming me free copies from his workplace). The focal point of this issue was Mad Brother Ward stepping out of his contributor's role and into the spotlight for an interview. The dude did have one of the best careers in punk rock: two blue pure perfect seven inches followed by a lengthy hiatus from music. That's the shit future legends (and high-dollar pieces of wax) are made of. The issue also contains interviews with Bulge and The Texas Nazis, both one-time GG backing bands. There's a great smattering of show reviews: David Allan Coe, Johnny Paycheck, and The Ramones! These days that might seem commonplace, but back then folks thought you were crazy as shit to be digging on hardcore honky-tonk and punk rawk. My love for both was about to derail Kill The Scene for a couple of years; I was starting my own fucking band. Why not? I'm guessing this came out around May of 1994. Outside of the Murder Junkies tour diary, Kill The Scene would be dormant until August of 1997.

MURDER JUNKIES TOUR 1994 - TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS. 22 full-sized pages of extremely tiny type. I should have made the type larger, doubled the size of the zine, and charged motherfuckers more than a lousy two greenbacks for it. Yep, I served as videographer, part-time driver, merch-guy, and all around lackey/hanger-on for the 1994 Murder Junkies tour. This handy little publication documents (almost) every sordid detail of those three weeks. From NYC to Graceland to Nuge's Ranch to Hostile City USA. From George Jones to Buzzov-en and back again. It was during this tour that I decided I had to be doing this shit on my own. Cramming into a van and driving around the country stirring up shit seemed like a great way to spend your life. Oddly enough, I met a girl named Kris at our Richmond stop on this tour. It was sheer hatred at first sight. Within a year we'd be getting hitched and riding out the next decade together. Life is too fucking weird to ever claim to have a handle on it, huh? I think this came out in 1995. I was too busy starting my own band and getting married up to have it out in a timely manner.

ISSUE EIGHT. Cosmic Commander cover. August 1997. First full-sized issue. Snazzy pink cover (this issue was bootlegged with a plain white cover). 20 pages. First issue after a long hiatus. By this time my band had already been formed, broken-up, and pieced back together for the 1997 Confederacy of Scum Supershow in Lawrence, Kansas. This issue features interviews with the Cosmic Commander of Wrestling, Elvis Irwin, and Jeff Skipski of Baloney Shrapnel Records. Outside of the interviews, the content is pretty fucking weak. I was too caught up in playing rock'n'roll and all the drama and headaches that entailed. Hindsight being 20/20, maybe I shoulda just stuck with the writing thing. I think I mainly did this issue to appease those faithful folks that thought I should still be writing instead of wasting my life working at the United States Postal Service. Most of them were gonna be at the Supershow in Kansas, and I didn't want to let them down by showing up empty-handed. It wound up being a great weekend; I met some grade-A people and some grade-A assholes. I'll wager dollars to donuts that three of us in attendance would have told you you were fucking crazy if you'da suggested that a dozen years later we'd all be living in the same town out in the barren wastelands of the Sonoran Desert. Remember what I said about life being fucking weird?

ISSUE TEN (THE FINAL ISSUE). Twenty-six full-sized pages. Perhaps the densest issue ever. A fitting note to go out on. Interviews with: Eric Perfect of Rancid Vat/Limecell/Kadillac Tattoo, B-Face and Duke of the Tunnel Rats, Todd Goss of the Blue-Green Gods/Jettison Records (one of the most over-looked yet important and influential components of this whole R'n'R scene at that point in time), Widowmaker of Cocknoose, Nothing But Puke, Born Bavarian, and The Granddragon of Country Music. This issue also contains my run-down of the 1997 Supershow where I had the good fortune to meet and befriend Eric Perfect, Simon Stokes, Walt and Joel from Before I Hang, B-Face and Duke from The Tunnel Rats, and Smelly Mustafa from Plainfield. It also contains a column by Elvis Irwin, a whip-smart lad who was probably still in elementary or junior-high at the time. Let's not even talk about how old he is now. Best cover ever by B-Face. All the punk-rock dildos back home got their asses chapped that a one-time member of The Queers was having anything to do with anything I did. Joke always was and always will be on you, motherfuckers.

Well, there ye have it folks. Starting tomorrow, I'll be posting some of the better content. You can expect some sweet scans and good photos in the mix. Thanks for indulging me on this trip down memory lane. And if you didn't want to indulge me, you can always go fuck yourself. Some things never change.

Sherman, set the WABAC machine to Terror in America...

2011-08-04T04:11:00.000-07:00

Last week I found myself over on the west side of town with a few minutes to kill, so I decided to run in one of the local media retailers and have a quick look around. You know the kind of place I'm talking about? They generally bill themselves as "bookstores" but probably make most of their money on numbskulls buying the over-priced used DVDs, CDs, and video games that the store pays other numbskulls cents on the dollar for. Mostly they're staffed by condescending assholes with stupid haircuts. Yeah, you've been in one or two in your day.

Anyhow, as I hit the magazine racks to see if anybody's dumped off any old 70s issues of Mad (I'm high-brow like that), what should happen to catch my eye? This rusty old eyesore:

"What in the Sam Hill is that?" you ask. That's the April/May 1999 issue of HIT LIST magazine. As best I can remember, HIT LIST was a magazine started by Jeff Bale as a "more rock, less politics" alternative to MRR. It was staffed by Bale and some fellow MRR columnists that jumped bail and split for greener pastures. The remaining staff was comprised of a smorgasbord of other underground rock-n-roller types. It was a pretty solid mag that ran for several years before it bit the shitter. American Zine History 101 lesson aside, the reason I picked this up was because of the Confederacy of Scum cover story. I hadn't seen a copy of this mag since it initially hit the stands, but I knew one thing about it: I was in there, right alongside all my old running buddies. Kinda nostalgic and kinda fucking creepy at the same time. And while I'd like to say I just wanted to reminisce about old friends, what I really wanted to do was see how absolutely fucktarded I looked with over a decade's hindsight in the old rear view.

I found a quiet corner (science section's usually the best) and peeled the pages back. There I was, albeit younger, fatter, and much hairier. How weird. I slipped the magazine under my arm and slunk to the register like I was buying an arm load of hardcore third-world pig-fucking porn or something. I handed it to the fat chick with too many facial piercings and a bad dye job, hoping she wouldn't linger on it or try to make some chit-chat. What if she thumbed through it and landed on that picture of me? The horror. Not that I'm ashamed of my musical endeavors or that anyone would even recognize me compared to that photo - I just find some things unsettling. Coming face to face with twenty-four-year-old me in the pages of a twelve-year-old magazine at the local bookstore is one of those things.

The article, written by Jeff Skipski of Baloney Shrapnel Records, actually aged pretty well. There's a little profile of me where I even come across as semi-coherent and almost-but-not-quite funny. I can live with that. But what really caught my attention was the mention of the old zine I used to do way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Hell, sometimes I forget that's what launched me into this whole rock'n'roll mess in the first place. Allow me to quote Herr Skipski:

"The Confederacy of Scum was now in full force, with each band, ANTiSEEN, Rancid Vat,

and Cocknoose, swapping each other's records to seel and spreading the word

about this new collection of r'n'r outlaws. Around this time, a zine popped up in Ringgold,

Georgia, started by a country boy...a big fan of all things scum, including GG Allin, the

Mentors, and outlaw country music. KILL THE SCENE started having features on

the COS bands, interviewing them and reviewing the shows that he traveled

hundreds of miles to see..."

Yep, I'm that country boy. Yep, Kill the Scene was my little brainchild. Yep, those were some damned good times. It always amazes me when anyone actually brings up those old tracts of teenage rage and middle finger fury, but I guess a few folks that are getting long in the tooth (like myself) do still remember 'em. I've had two small record labels offer to put 'em all together and reissue them in a square-bound format at various points in time...alas, the stars just never aligned to have all the details fall into place properly. Hell, they were just your good old fashioned photocopied and stapled punk rawk zines anyway. I think the biggest print run on any issue was just this side of five hundred. Some of the early ones might have only ran about fifty.

Reading this article prompted me to dig into the back of the closet and fish out the old master copies. The zine ran for ten issues, from late 1992 to June 1998. There was also a Murder Junkies tour diary from my stint as the band's Boy Friday on the 1994 tour, bringing the total number of official Kill the Scene publications to eleven (somebody bootlegged some of the GG shit into one issue, but I don't really count that). While a lot of my writing is painfully juvenile, some of the shit contributed by bands is phenomenal. There are interviews with ANTiSEEN, El Duce, Cocknoose, Tesco Vee - and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Not to mention, the record and show reviews provide a pretty good snapshot of what was going on under the underground during those years.

Of course what really stands out is all the shit GG contributed to the zine. He wrote articles, sent artwork, consented to interviews, and - upon being released from his last stint in the pokey - allowed me and my camera quite a bit of up-close-and-personal access to him during the Southern swing of what was to be his final tour. Helluva guy. It might sound odd to say it, but I hold all those interactions with "the most spectacular degenerate in rock & roll history" extremely close to my heart.

So, being too lazy to reprint all this shit, I figured I'd spend the next ten or eleven days posting some highlights from those gloriously mad six-or-so years. This stuff should be out there amongst it, not crammed in the back of my closet like old trinkets from a carnival that's long since left town.

We start tomorrow.

Now, aren't you glad I bumped into myself at the bookstore?

Some Days They Say That You Eat The Bear...

2011-07-27T00:51:00.000-07:00

I was reading an LA Times article about a guy that got killed by a bear while hiking in Yellowstone National Park. According to this newspaper story, getting charged and killed by a grizzly bear is a "one in three million" occurrence. Those are long-shot Vegas odds, and the way I see it, this guy hit the jackpot.

Oh sure, you can poo-poo me all you want, but I'm serious. It seems that when we speak of our impending demise, we are only allowed to say that we want to live as long as possible before dying peacefully in our sleep. Well, odds are that ain't gonna happen - unless you consider the quite dissimilar prospect of dying in your sleep while suffering through some horrible disease. The stats over at the CDC website show that most Americans are biting the dust due to heart disease, stroke, and cancer. No thanks; I'd rather not.

My grandfather was eaten alive by a rare form of brain cancer. One of the most vital men I ever met went to his great reward while delirious and helpless - an end unfitting the man. My first wife went through an anguishing death courtesy of some kind of fucked up E. Coli poisoning that the doctors couldn't even explain. Toxic shock, kidney failure, multiple-strokes at the ripe old age of thirty-one. The tenacious spirit of a pitbull extinguished by microscopic bacteria. Various cancers, heart-disease, leukemia, auto accidents, ODs, burned out livers, violent assault - I've seen friends and family get hit by all of the above. So why do people look at me like I'm crazy when I say I'd much rather take the bear?

It's kinda funny how people toss around all these hackneyed platitudes about life. "You only live once" has gotta be the ring-ding daddy of 'em all. How many times have you heard that one? I don't know about you, but I usually hear that one trotted out as justification for something that is financially retarded. "I just put a ten-thousand dollar vacation on my nineteen-percent-interest credit card. But hey, you only live once..." or "Yeah, I couldn't really afford it, but I went ahead and bought that $35,000 sports car. After all, you only live once..." Ugh.

And while it is true that you only live once (unless you're James Bond or a whacky religious type that thinks you're so super-duper special that you'll go to Candy Land when you die), odds are you'll have several hours, days, years, even decades tossed into that mix. You'll most likely get to experience a wide variety of things - many of them several times over. Just because you don't get to experience something today doesn't mean you won't get that chance eventually. Death is a rather different matter; it's an absolute this-time-only, no do-overs, no refunds kinda deal. There's a million ways to go, but you're only gonna get to experience one of 'em. You might want to die peacefully in your sleep, but if I only get the one shot at it, I want to by-god have the chance to feel it. And I sure do like the sound of that bear.

Well, it doesn't have to be a bear. While there are some bears around here, the odds of me meeting my end at the hands...er, paws...of a mountain lion are much more likely. A "panther," as my grandmother would have called it. We even heard one howl while we were up in the canyons one day; a delicious sound that made my neck hairs stand up and my balls draw back. Can you imagine the feeling of those claws slipping through your flesh like butter, the teeth hitting bone, the smell of its hot breath on your face? Now imagine the feeling of being in a hospital bed with tubes running up your nose, in your arm, and in your cock. If you're not in constant pain, you're blacked out from some kind of pharmaceutical being dripped into your veins. During moments of lucidity, you're trying to figure out who in the hell the stranger is that's wiping your ass from where you just shit all over yourself. Animal attack sounding pretty good right about now, no?

The only bad thing about the mountain lion or bear scenario is that these animals are probably not gonna eat you after they lay you out. I'd personally like for my death to be as trouble free as possible. For real. The missus and I have been kicking around the idea of a get-away to South Africa to do some of that shark-cage diving. That has real potential. I'm thinking a shark would probably completely devour my ass. What they don't get will be lost to the ocean. No funeral arrangements, no cremation or burial plans, and no snake-oil undertakers trying to stiff my loved ones out of money in a time of grief. That is damn near perfect. Not to mention, it's an eco-friendly death; I would just get shit out into the ocean as part of the great circle of life. Hakuna matata, indeed. Or even better, maybe the shark would get poached before it completely digested me. Imagine the look on the faces of the sonsabitches when they slice it open only to find huge chunks of my mangled-ass carcass inside. What a story.

That's another thing that appeals to me about the bear/mountain lion/shark attack: the story. Maybe I'm just a hog for the spotlight, or maybe I just love a good story more than anything. Who knows? I won't be around to tell it, but I will be at the center of it. That's even better. I think the guy that got killed in the bear attack was somewhere in his mid-to-late 50s. That would be about perfect. My wife would still be in her 40s. Her family members seem to live a pretty long time, so that would give her several years to revel in telling people all the gory details. "My first husband was killed by a BEAR. It was quite dreadful; would you like to hear about it?" Nobody wants to hear about people lingering on just shy of forever in a hospital or dying in a car crash or any of those rather pedestrian means of expiration, but who in their right mind could refuse hearing a story about someone that got devoured in the wild? I certainly couldn't. And just think, no man she meets after me will ever be likely to top it. He could have more money, better looks, and all that shit, but I will always be the one that gotten eaten by a bear. Top that, killer.

Sure, you can accuse me of having some raging ego so all-consuming that I dream of feeding it post-mortem. Isn't that better than the ego-trip most everybody else is on? The one that dictates they cling to life even after their vitality is long since gone? The one that makes them think their life is so valuable that they should be a burden on all their loved ones financially and emotionally just so they can have a few more minutes of existence. There is a big difference between life and existence, you know? I just want to be at the center of a story, I don't want my wife's last and most vivid memories of me to include spoon-feeding me Gerber and changing my diapers. Certainly I want to live as long as it is possible for me to still be coherent and somewhat useful, but when that coherency and usefulness start getting called into question more often than not, I'd rather be called out. Who's got the out-of-control ego, now?

I'm sure some of you will write me off as being a smart-ass, while others will be offended at what they regard as my "cavalier" attitude towards the tragedy of death. All I can say is that death is not a tragedy, it is a guarantee. I'm sure some of those that get their panties in a wad will walk away muttering, "I hope that son-of-a-bitch does get eaten by a bear or a shark or a mountain lion." Now we're talking. For once, I hope YOUR wish comes true.

Painting Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley. 1778.
Mountain lion warning sign photo by yours truly.

ANOTHER GOODBYE TO ANOTHER GOOD FRIEND...

2011-07-21T03:09:00.000-07:00

...well, sorta. On Tuesday night, while Bob Dylan was playing over at the casino amphitheater and rain was pounding the living shit out of my groovy little hippie pad, one of the giraffes over at the local zoo was meeting a very premature demise. The tagline in the paper stated, "Toxic vegetation kills giraffe." Perhaps a more truthful statement would be: "Zoo employee kills giraffe by feeding it toxic vegetation." I guess somebody got careless and put oleander clippings in the giraffe's stalls. Oleander can be fatal when ingested. In this case, it only took about twenty-four hours to stop the heart of six-year-old Watoto, the zoo's only male giraffe.

I'm sure this will spark some local debate over the pros and cons of zoos. I see both sides of the coin; which side of the coin I come down on usually depends on the zoo I've most recently been to. To be completely honest, we were just over at the local zoo on Saturday. Like most zoos, I think they've got quite a few really good habitats coupled with some that are just depressing. I've always been fascinated by animals, so my completely self-centered side loves the idea of spending a day amongst them. In fact, zoos and libraries were about the only two types of public places I felt comfortable in during my youth. However, as I get older, I tend to notice how small most of those habitats really are and how little education is really taking place at the expense of these creatures. Like I said, I see both sides, so I won't sit here and try to debate the ultimate good or bad of zoos. For a more thorough exploration of the pros and cons, I would suggest reading A Different Nature: The Paradoxical World of Zoos and Their Uncertain Future by David Hancocks. My wife bought it as a gift for me a couple of Christmases ago. No matter which side of the fence you happen to be on, this book will probably make you rethink it somewhere along the way.

Of course, some animals have little real-world options other than a zoo. I'm talking about animals that need rehabilitation or that might not survive on their own in the wild. Such was the case with Hank, the Chimp King of Chattanooga. In the late 1960s, a very young Hank was captured in Africa and acquired by a circus. By 1976, Hank had been donated to the Warner Park Zoo. Being just three years old at the time, I practically grew up with Hank. During my high school years, the Warner Park Zoo was a pretty dismal place - they didn't have a whole lot to work with. We used to cut class and go hang out and watch Hank all day. I guess I felt as trapped and fucked up as I imagined Hank did. In my mind, we shared some sort of bond, but I'm sure I was just another ugly old face to Hank.

As the years rolled by, the Warner Park Zoo morphed into the Chattanooga Zoo. Through the hard work of its tireless staff, the Chattanooga Zoo blossomed into what I will still say is the absolute best smaller zoo I've ever been to - and Hank was the star attraction. It was rarely a month between visits for me. I always had to pop in and wave to Hank. Weird how we build those affections for animals that are oblivious of our individual existence. Or maybe it's just me; maybe I'm the only weirdo that does that. I suppose Hank was some sort of constant through every phase and stage of my life; that alone must serve as some sort of comfort blanket on one level or another.

In the year or two preceding our move west, Beans and I would spend a lot of time hanging out at the zoo. She had a season pass, so we would pop in on the fly to see Hank whenever we were out that way. I'd say there were times we were stopping in as much as once or twice a week. It was always the damnedest thing; whenever Hank would catch a glimpse of Beans, he would make a bee-line to to the window and put his face up against hers and making kissing faces. There could be a group of people standing around trying to get his attention to no avail, but we would walk in and ol' Hank would hotfoot it right on over, park himself in front of my wife, and commence with the make-out faces. We'd even get people asking if she worked there or if Hank "knew" her (read whatever implications into that overly-generalized phrase that you will). I was just jealous - hell, I'd been coming to see him for twenty years...

One of the first things we did upon relocating was to buy a year's pass to the local zoo. We were unemployed and had a lot of time on our hands. I'm completely captivated by capybaras, so we spent a lot of sunny afternoons watching them graze. It just wasn't the same without Hank, however. People would often ask me what I missed about "home." Hank, of course. After an explanation of who exactly Hank was, I would get a strange look along with the occasional reply that the zoo here "has monkeys." Hank was no mere monkey...

Unfortunately, Hank passed away in January of this year. Aged 42. Heart disease. We keep his picture on the wall. Hank was one of eight animals at the Chattanooga Zoo that died between December 10th, 2010 and January 24th, 2011. While this series of deaths was ultimately declared "an unfortunate series of unrelated events" after investigation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, it still brings my mind back around to the pros and cons of zoos. And I'm still straddling that fence...

Picture of Watoto the giraffe via Reid Park Zoo
Tattoo of Hank on my inner arm by Bugsy at Sanctity Tattoo - Tucson, AZ.

BALLS OF FIRE! My Interview with JIM DANDY MANGRUM of BLACK OAK ARKANSAS!

2011-07-18T15:36:00.000-07:00

This interview originally appeared in issue 23 of Carbon 14 magazine back around 2002. I think they still have a few stray physical copies for sale. If you're interested, you can try your luck HERE. My chat with Jim was done in conjunction with the band celebrating thirty years of rockin'. As they're hitting forty, I thought it only fitting to share this conversation with those that might have missed it on the first go-round. It's kinda long, so strap yourself in. When Jim starts to open up, he goes full-tilt boogie; I was thrilled to have the opportunity to try to hang on for the ride. The interview was transcribed by C-14 in such a way as to hopefully capture Jim's unique cadence; it's partly revved-up backwoods mystic, partly laid-back drawl, and completely rock and fucking roll. So without further ado, I give you:

YOU CAN'T STAND TALL IF YOU'RE AFRAID TO FALL

A Conversation with Black Oak Arkansas' Jim Dandy Mangrum

It was in the late 1960s that there came a mighty rumblin' way back in them Arkansas hills. It was fueled by moonshine and wanderlust and came to manifest itself in a group of backwoods rebel rousers with long hair and electric guitars. This cosmic boogie outfit dubbed itself the Knowbody Else and hit New Orleans like a hurricane in late 1969/early 1970. There, on the gritty streets of the French Quarter, the group paid its dues and honed its chops until the earth shook and God clapped along. By 1971 the group had changed its name to Black Oak Arkansas and was on the fast track to taking over the world with their cocksure attitude and blistering live stage shows. At the center of it all was the band's leader, Jim Dandy Mangrum. With his long blond hair and skin tight pants, washboard in hand, he stood out like a latter day hedonistic deity conjured up by some hillbilly mojo man. Some thought of him as heaven-sent, while others railed against him as a demon.

Black Oak Arkansas charted ten albums between 1971 and 1976 and found a top 30 hit in their cover of Laverne Baker's R & B classic, "Jim Dandy." While many uneducated rock-critic type folks would tell you that BOA fell off the radar in the late 1970s, Jim and various line-ups kept the torch aloft via independent releases and self-supported touring. Be it a roadhouse juke-joint or Anaheim Stadium, Jim Dandy and Black Oak Arkansas have always delivered to the highest degree and continue to rock harder, longer, and nastier than nearly all so-called "cutting edge" bands half their age. Rhino Records has recently released a superb DVD retrospective on the band, entitled Black Oak Arkansas - The First 30 Years, that I can't recommend strongly enough. A week before the DVD hit the stores, Jim was kind enough to take an hour out of his day and shoot the breeze. I've gotta go on record and say that I've conducted countless interviews over the years and no one has ever been as gracious or enthusiastic as Jim was. KEEP THE FAITH.

I wanted to ask you about the DVD, The First 30 Years - is that a totally different thing from the home video you guys released a while back?

It was part of it, but that was released before it was actually OK'd to be released. There's bits and pieces in there, which we've found, that I've really enjoyed. This is a retrospective, so the first thing you wanna do is start at the beginning, and start to fill everybody in. Everybody's been wanting me to do this - VH1, we had a little, let's say disagreement. I believe the viewers are as bored, or even more bored, than I am about seeing how managers rip you off and stuff like that. Everybody in the '70s and '80s got ripped off by their managers; there's nothing unique about that. I just wanted to talk about the good things. 'Cause no matter how much you rip me off, I'm still gonna have more friends, more fun, and more lovin' than the man who took my money. Some people's character shows - or it shows they don't have character - when they get money and they have something to lose. They asked me if I was in it for the money, and I said, 'No,' and they took the money - that wasn't funny. My parents and my children weren't uplifted at all by all the things I did. I generated a lot of money. I'm tired of hearing about it but they say 4.4 million dollars or something like that. I don't know. It's nothing compared to a lot of people. I mean when I met John Fogerty at Peabody's here in Memphis, he told me, 'Well, Dandy, it could have been worse. It was fourteen million for me! If you'd had more, they'd have taken more.' I said, 'Well, that's probably right.' Anyway, regardless of popular belief, I'm still alive and well. In fact, I'm better than I ever was, much to the dismay of my fourth wife who told me not to ever change and that she loved me the way I was, the way they oughta do. And you know, they still don't understand when you get married when they're twenty-two and you're forty-four and ten years later at fifty-four, you love more than you ever did and you're doin' more than you ever did and they just don't - somehow they just didn't picture that. Look at the Rolling Stones, you know.

In spite of all the bumps in the road, what keeps you going after thirty years?

It ain't what's keeping me going, it's what's out there that's keeping me from it. It ain't big or little; it ain't the career. Forget that word, that's an ambitious word. All I'm talking about is if you love it or not, and if you love it, why should you stop doing what you love?

Very good.

I mean, you know, if somebody tried to stop me from doing what I love, I'm gonna have to kill 'em. I'm sorry. No, I'm not sorry. I'd rather shoot them than a deer. I mean it's always season on me, ain't it?

When you guys started out, thirty years ago, you were way ahead of your time. Nobody was doing what you guys were doing.

Well, it was an accident if it was. It wasn't anything planned. We were from Arkansas, we didn't know what they were doing out there. If we'd known what they were doing out there in California or up there in New York, we'd have been doing it too. But we just had no way of knowing. Back then they weren't even playing country music around Black Oak, Arkansas; it was a dry county. There's no people around there at all hardly. I left at fifteen and there were two hundred and seventy-two people there. I'll be a double nickel pickle by the end of this month. I'll be fifty-five years old. But of course my father will be eighty years old four days later and my mother was just seventy-six a couple weeks ago. I did a benefit for the Ronald McDonald House at the Hard Rock here in Memphis. I messed up too, my sister set me up.

What'd she do?

She set me up. On the radio, I told my mama happy birthday, and that she's seventy-seven years old. I broke my back like eleven or twelve years ago on her birthday, which is why I never forget her birthday anymore. I fell asleep at the wheel and hit an oak tree, which wasn't very funny. But anyway, my parents are sharper than I am, they're still alive, and I'm a very fortunate man just for having them as parents. And having the adventure I've had and being taught I could do whatever I wanted to do. There's a lot of things I could have done. It fascinates me, the world, and I wonder about people. If these policemen like me or if these policemen don't like me because they imagine what they would have done in my position. You know the world judges the world by their own standards. That's why a lot of people are very worried and paranoid, because they've been doing people wrong and they don't think that's anything but normal. So they think everybody's out to get them. But I've had a very, very, very fortunate life, great parents, great friendships that have gone for decades and decades; friendship is the greatest value in the world. I would have liked to have ended up with the money too, that way I could have said that I made money, but I just generated it. It didn't really bring my family's lifestyle up much. My children don't really have...my daddy says don't leave 'em nothing, it'll ruin 'em anyhow. But that was no problem with me because I didn't have nothing, except for what I've got. What you see is what you get. I'm there when I'm there and I ain't when I ain't. I don't write many letters 'cause I'm busy writing songs. I love to do what I do, there's nothing better than what I do. I'm truly the happiest in my life when I'm on stage or when I'm getting to create with somebody. It's not that I don't really want to just do it by myself but whoever's there with me, the interplay and being able to write with somebody is fascinating to me a lot of the time. All of the time, if it's somebody good.

How do you approach songwriting? Are you always writing lyrics or do you and Rick get together?

It's not always anything. You can't generalize it at all. Sometimes it's like necessity is the mother of invention, there are times when no on can be there with me - see, I'm the only one that really never has had a real job. Even after we got famous, after we came back down to the Earth as they say. I don't know. I never really did. Touched one toe maybe. But they say, even Ricky and Dirty say, 'Hey, when are you gonna grow up, man? Every now and then you've gotta have a real job, something to fall back on,' and I don't understand that because I'm not falling back. If I fall, I'll fall up, and if I ain't dead, I'll get back up and brush my pants off. Nobody would hire me for a real job anyway. The only thing anybody ever paid me for was what I do. I never knew how to drive a nail, made sure of that. And I don't know how to work on cars, I ain't no yard mechanic. I ain't no good for fixin' things around the house, like carpenter work and plumbing and all that shit. In fact, I'm worthless as a useful mate. I want everybody to know that and give up on that right now. The domestication of the Dandy has been a total failure. In fact, I'm hardly domesticated at all. One thing all my kids have in common with all four wives is they all end up asking my wife at the time, their mother, 'Dad ain't like other dads, is he?' [laughter] Well, maybe I'm not. I'm not telling the other dads to be like me at all. I think stability is the main thing...we're here to have children and to be able to relate to your god as a father, and I hope I haven't really pissed him off by keeping my vows and my oath in my blood that I did when I was a kid. 'Cause I haven't been sorry about it at all. I do miss my children, all of 'em, because you never end up keeping 'em. I'm probably a bad influence anyway. I don't know why, except that I'm not like other dads. [laughter] So they won't know how to be a dad if they stay around me very long.

Like you said, it's people measuring by their own standards.

True. But you know, I do believe in the Good Lord. I do believe in Christ but I'm not a holy roller; I ain't been born again 'cause being born once with my mama, Elsie Rose, is enough. I mean she's song leader in church, that's why every now and then I go and play my guitar and sing with my sister. She sang with me once, we did "I Shall be Released" by Bob Dylan, but they didn't know it. I mean the congregation didn't know where it came from. They thought it was a spiritual song. They didn't know he was in a drunk tank for a weekend - and he sounds like he's in there for life. But that's 'cause he's a great songwriter. After we were done, my son Blue, and this really hit my heart - he's the only one I really spent any time with when he was young - he said, 'Dad, Aunt Nancy sounds like an angel and you sound like a real singer.' I said, 'Well, Blue, I am a real singer,' and he goes, 'Dad, you know what I mean. Not rock and roll, you know, like real songs.' But I'm just glad 'cause he sat there by himself while his grandma was up there being song leader and his aunt was up there singing with his dad and everything; he was sittin' by himself in the pew being good. But you know, life is a wonderful thing, and I can't wait to get to the second grade...'cause I hear the girls there are even better and the fuel is even better, and that the transportation is unbelievable - you don't even need wheels. I'm just an optimistic person. I feel like after you pass to the next life you'll be wondering about why you held on so tight to the one before. We had this old song called "Everybody Wants To See Heaven But Nobody Wants To Die." It was number one in Boston - figure that out, [laughs] that's the only place we ever got played - but it's a jug band kind of country song: "Man made seconds, man made minutes, man made hours, days, months, and years. Man believes there's a hereafter but running out of time he fears." Now how much faith does that show.

Not a lot.

Well, you know, I don't believe they're much different than me. They ain't seen much smaller than a bread crumb; they don't really know whether to believe in amoebas and any kind of...I don't even know if I've got a brain. They say I've got one but I've never seen it. I don't know if it's been lost or misplaced, maybe it wasn't even ever there. Maybe I'm now just talking like a butterfly in random.

You spoke about your children, and on a different kind of level you've definitely spawned other children like David Lee Roth, Vince Neil, and Jesse James Dupree. There are a lot of people who've heavily borrowed from Jim Dandy; how does that make you feel?

Well, they don't have to borrow it. I always told everybody there ain't no stealin' what I got, 'cause I got it for nothing. Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll, you know what he told me when he told me to do "Jim Dandy To The Rescue" on the telephone?

What?

George Klein told me he'd call exactly at two o'clock, the same time you're calling me. I was at Wally Heider Studio and I was scared to death. I said, 'What have I done, George? Is it something I've done?' 'Cause I thought I was in trouble. Elvis always kept up with the bands from around the locale, around Memphis, which is where I live now. And he says, 'No, it's not what you have done, it's what you haven't done. He'll talk to you about it.' And exactly at two o'clock, bingo, there he was callin' on the phone. I could hardly talk. He wanted me to do this song called "Jim Dandy To The Rescue." I'd never heard of it and I've been Jim Dandy since I was nine years old - 'cause my daddy started calling me that. It's kind of a hard life to be Jim Dandy in Arkansas, and the only longhair. I had five fights a week behind the same barn and I didn't even want to fight. But that's sort of what shapes you and makes you what you are. Being Jim Dandy, I was sort of like a seed squeezed out of a grape. To me, all I know is what he told me at the time: Elvis said, 'You know, a disc jockey created rock and roll for his own pocketbook, and I'm kinda proud to see that the kids have taken it under their wing and are making it their own thing, not his thing, you know.' I'm looking at Elvis right now as I speak; I keep my pens in a can that says "The Sun Never Sets On A Legend," and it's got Elvis on it. I've got a big ol' portrait that was painted of him up here too, and one of The Beatles, even David Allan Coe and Steve Cropper - I've got people all over the wall that are friends of mine.

I'm very fortunate for the life I've had. But Elvis liked me, and he treated me good when he didn't have to. I finally got to meet him about ten months before he passed away, at the Macon Hilton in Macon, Georgia. He said, 'It comes through us, not from us. We're just in the best seat in the house.' And I think that's the most wonderful thing that was ever said to me because it's true. In a sense, it's like channeling. I ain't trying to be Shirley MacLaine or nothin', there ain't nothin' wrong with her, but it's true, we can't own anything like this. David didn't steal nothing from me, in fact, I love David; I always thought he was the Shecky Greene of rock and roll. At least Van Halen had a sense of humor when he was with 'em. Or at least he did, so the band did. But it seems that they maybe didn't have enough of one. I believe that if David had a wife of his own, which is doubtful, I'll bet he would have been making jokes about her too - just as much as he was Eddie's wife. Eddie picked a woman that looks just like him, what the hell does that say? I love 'em all. I love the way Eddie plays guitar. I love the way the band was. Hell, I love Bob Dylan. I love everything. I'm a person who's been able to enjoy my life to the utmost. I came from outta nowhere, and I took my time to reach there. It ain't over yet, and it ain't got nothin' to do with no fat lady. It's got to do with the person that's livin'. You can't stand tall if you're afraid to fall, and if you're always trying to keep up and count your stuff more than the bank does, then give it up. Because their whole life is counting your stuff.

Has there ever been a point in your performance history where you've thought, 'This is it, I've made it. I'm at the top.' Are you ever gonna reach a pinnacle or is it something you continuously strive for?

No. I don't continuously strive for it. I never even worried about top or bottom or out or in. [laughs]

You just wanna play music.

Let me tell you something. You're on the top of your game when you're not worried about the top. That's ambition, and I'm not down-rapping ambition, it's good to have some goals and it's good to have a will. Because will means more than anything in this ambitious world, because this is not really the music business. In the music business, you get the business. And it's a personality personification of truth, that's what the real truth is. What sets Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley apart from the others is personality. That shine you can feel when you're not even looking at 'em, when you got your face at the front desk of a hotel and all of a sudden you can feel it; somebody just walked in there behind you and everybody takes notice to it. That's when Muhammad Ali or Elvis walks in. Fuck the President! [laughs]

So you mentioned a new song. Are you guys working on a new album?

Yes. It's kind of a Memphis album in a way, but you wouldn't know it. If you're a fan of Jim Dandy, you know nothing can be normal. It's always Abby Normal. Let's say it's a little Memphomania. Jim Memphomania Dandy; yeah, that's it. I'm gonna do at least one more Tommy Bolin song. Every album, I've gotta do at least one or two. I used to love Tommy. I met him before I met Johnny, my drummer. I finally met Mac, Doctor John, and he said, 'Tommy's a special person, not just a musician but a person,' and he was. When I met Tommy we were in a place no other musician ever found themselves being at all. We weren't afraid at all, since we were probably the only two people in a room of about a hundred or so who hadn't killed anybody that week. It was odd they loved us like they did but - and I'm not saying these are bad people. I mean they're killing people over in Baghdad right now but they're doing it in an impersonal way over lines that are drawn by people - not by god - and fighting over things that were given to us all. I'm not like what the Mafia says - if you're gonna fight, fight for your own family; I'm not like that either. I don't think anybody should fight at all, I think we should let go of things we're trying to keep. It's like letting go of your kids, they come back like boomerangs. All this worry about possession, possession, possession, property, property, property. They're doin' that and they end up going to the same places, and clog up the streams like cloggin' up blood clots in the veins of a body. It's Mother Nature's veins being clogged up. There's plenty of room here, there ain't no population explosion. The sky ain't gonna fall. If there ain't no such thing as money, we'd all be rich and everybody would do what they know how to do and everybody's virtues and talents and attributes would be apparent. No man would be more of a man than another because they had more money. The smallest things don't mean as much as the biggest things. But...this will never happen because this was never supposed to be no paradise or no utopia. There's a lesson that's supposed to be learned and we're gonna have to learn it one way or another. I don't care how redundant it's gonna have to be. But like I say, I just wanna go on to the second grade at least, I don't wanna stay in the first grade forever. I mean I've already outlived dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse. [laughs]

It just still don't seem to hurt my sex appeal none. It's a wonderful life, and I don't mean Jimmy Stewart either. It's been a thrill and an adventure. My mama still asks me, 'Jim, are you still cursed with the wanderlust?' And I have to tell her, 'Mama, I love you but I guess I still am because I can't stay here.' So now it's two hundred and seventy-seven people and I'm fifty-five and it's grown five people since I left. But it's a dry county, there ain't no place to go there. There ain't no girls - not that I need girls anymore, I mean, really. It's nice; need ain't the word though. I've had a full life and I'm tired of trying to deal with multiple personalities; in the sense of having a band like I've had. I didn't realize there was no real Three Musketeers or no real Robin Hood and his Merry Men. I didn't realize The Beatles didn't really like each other as much as they acted like they did, and that most bands out there are traveling on different buses and in different planes! At least we're a real band and we loved each other and we went through hell together. We went through making an adventure together that can't even be put into words. We had only seen three concerts before we were playing 'em, and we were scared to death. Most people said we didn't look scared, but that's because we were in motion the whole time. They say I started off the movement on stage for a lot of people because I was doing the catwalk. I was running in place. I was going on a forty-foot stage side to side while I'm singing', and then in between songs I wasn't even sounding like I was out of breath. I don't understand how I did it either. It's just something that comes over you when you get out there if you it as much as I do, and I LOOOOOVE IT. God, I love what I do. I love to perform for people. I love to take them up to another level, to where they walk out feeling like they've had some kind of revelation or some kind of uplifting thing and they can't put their finger on what it is.

But still, it's like in the beginning, when I first started going out front. I started on drums. But like I said, I was fighting behind the same barn five days a week because they said they didn't like what I stood for, whatever the hell that was. One of these fights I had was over forty-five minutes long and I couldn't hold my hands tight long enough anymore; I broke every finger on both hands except for one thumb. I couldn't hold the drumsticks so I went out front, that's the last time I played drums. I realized I had some kind of talent - not so much for singing - I learned how to sing and talk between songs just because I love to communicate with the audience. I love to agitate change. I love to say the things that they're afraid to say, and that's what they love about me the most. Ricky said, way back when, 'Don't you think that could end up being a little bit dangerous, Jim?' I said, 'If it ain't dangerous, Ricky, I don't wanna do it because there ain't nothin' dangerous around Black Oak.' I mean that to me is a little bit exciting. I ain't afraid to die at all. Dying well is like...knowing how to live is one thing, knowing how to die is everything. It gets down to a point of faith and whether you believe or not. Some people have spiritual conviction and strength and confidence and know where they're going. Like John Lennon said, I'll never forget this. Paul McCartney said, after Brian Epstein died, 'We've gotta have leader of the band, now more than ever. John, you picked us all, do you wanna be the leader of the band?" And John says, 'Look, don't call me no leader. I know where I'm going, and if you wanna follow me you can.' [laughs] I thought that was the most beautiful thing I ever heard. I met him, too. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Can we go talk?' And I was worryin', thinkin' 'I hope my tongue'll work...I hope I can talk.' He told me never change, and he wasn't really talkin' about my music. He was talkin' more about the Bob Marley and John Lennon side of me.

Do you think that side of you is what has inspired such a devout following? 'Cause you have such a devout following of fans that get off on what you do, do you think that plays into it? That spirituality?

I don't try to figure out what it does, I'm just happy to have it. If you really have the truth inside your heart, if you're a real world true heart, then you know they can't stop what you are and they cannot do anything. They cannot even get as far as you're gonna get. People ought to take the smaller realities and the smaller goals - they accept the here-now thing and they forget about the hereafter. They don't worry about generations to follow them even. Some of these ambitious people are even fucking up the atmosphere for their own generations that follow them in their own family. They don't believe, and it's obvious they don't believe in the hereafter. The here-now is all they know; bird in hand. That shows very little optimism and very little strength of soul. I've got a rubber soul that keeps bouncin' back. I guess that's good. I love being here, and that's well and good, but I don't wanna get so old to where I'm having to be a burden to everybody. Cause I will do what I do until I die. I mean, I don't care if I have to you out there on a stretcher or in a wheelchair, I just love what I do. And it don't matter - until they stop my mouth, I can do what I do.

Well, I hope you continue to do it for a long time.

Thank you, brother, I appreciate that.

Animal, Vegetable, or Mind Your Own Fucking Business?

2011-07-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

My wife actually got worried about my drinking so much regular milk, you know, so she got me into rice milk and now soy milk, which I greatly enjoy. A soy mocha's a fine thing. - Willie Nelson.

I quit eating red meat a long time ago. I'm a vegetarian, but not by a moral issue or any kind of stand. I still eat dairy. And I quit eating sugar about the same time I quit eating red meat, but I eat fruit. - Dwight Yoakam

I wonder how many lentils I've ever eaten? - Neil Pye, The Young Ones

So, I'm standing in line at the grocery store. A rather heavy-set woman is directly in front of me. She's already paid, but doesn't seem in any big hurry to move on out of the register aisle so that the rapidly expanding number of people behind her can pay up and get on with life. She's moving her buggy back and forth while whispering to the cashier, "I'll leave in a minute. I'll leave in a minute. Almost there. Almost there. I'll leave in a minute." It's kind of frustrating, but it's a Sunday afternoon and I got nowhere else to be. Not to mention, I think maybe the lady's got some kind of problem. Maybe she's got a strange phobia or mental condition. Maybe she's hardcore obsessive-compulsive or agoraphobic or some shit. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. Hell, I've got some fucked-up mental quirks myself.

As she pivots around to survey the line she's causing to build up, I can sneak a peek around her rather massive frame. What I see is a buggy stacked up past the top with case upon case of this Four Loko alcoholic "energy" drink. You know the shit I'm talking about?

Sitting on top of all these cases of fruity rotgut is an infant in a baby carrier. The lady has one hand wrapped around a bottle that's stuck in the baby's mouth; the other hand is being used to rock the buggy back and forth. Where's my camera when I need it?

Like a logical human being, I think this broad is gonna move on out of the way once she sees that the line is backing up all the way to the frozen food section. After all, it's the day before the Fourth of July, it's 110+ degrees outside, and a monsoon has rolled in to give us the kind of mind-killing humidity that prompts folks to go more than a little bat-shit crazy. People in line are starting to get cranky. But instead of doing the logical thing and high-tailing that big ol' keister on out the door, she removes her hand from the buggy and sticks one Vienna-sausage finger to her lips and "shhh"shes the line. "I'm trying to get my baby to sleep," she mock whispers in a voice loud enough to be heard in the automotive supply store at the other end of the block.

Amidst the groans, sighs, and mutterings, she begins to turn back around to her child, but not before she decides to scan over my groceries spread out on the conveyor belt. The same groceries that she's virtually holding hostage. Two onions, a dozen eggs, four single-serving bottles of orange juice, a couple packs of meatless beef strips, a couple packs of meatless meatballs, and a pack of meatless chorizo. Her beady eyes immediately zone in on the meatless meat products. If her face hadn't been so fat as to disallow it, I suppose those ratty-little eyes might have bugged out of their sockets. Possessed by some unknown spirit, her muscles work overtime and help shift the blubber padding her corpulent face into a mask of outrage. With all the fury of a backwoods pentecostal preacher, she jabs the finger that had just been used to "shhh" everyone at my offending soy products. Forgetting that her unfortunate offspring is on the verge of sleep, she practically shouts, "Ewwwww! That's gross! How do you eat that?"

Before I can think twice about it, I point at her buggy full of hooch, look directly into those black, rodent eyes, and ask "Is that the reason why you're not breast-feeding?" The cashier bursts forth with a small yelp of laughter and quickly turns her back to us. The rage on the face of the bovine Loko drinker turns into a sort of confused indignation. She knows she has been insulted, but she can't quite figure out just how. Living up to her cartoony features, she lets out a "Hurumph" that seems like it should be inked above her head in a word balloon. She turns her nose in the air and storms out the automatic doors as fast as her porcine little legs will take her.

These days I try not to do stuff like that. I try to just ignore stupid shit and let it all roll off my back. Why bother? A lot of people are grade-A fucktards that you just have to overlook in order to preserve your own sanity. And just like in this case, most of 'em don't even fucking get it when you do come back at 'em. Clueless. But I'll be damned if I'm gonna stand in line at the grocery store and get harangued by some lard-ass stew-bum of a woman that is offended by my choice of food products. What the hell is it to her? What the hell is it to anybody?

Am I supposed to justify my diet to random strangers? Am I supposed to go over my health history and point out why I eat the things I eat and how I benefit from them? Do I need to carry copies of my last doctor's physical and blood tests with me? Or photos of back when I used to be a big fat-ass myself? Fuck all that. Just. Leave. Me. Alone.

I find it fairly amazing the reaction you get out of people when they suspect that you might be a vegetarian. A lot of folks seem to take it as some personal assault on them. Why, I'm not sure. Why should anybody care what the hell somebody else is eating? It ain't some big statement, and it ain't like I'm out trying to convert people to my eating habits. I don't care what you or anybody else in the world chows down on. I don't care that ol' Jabba the Hut at the grocery store probably subsists on a diet of Twinkies, Doritos, and Four Loko. Maybe diabetes, heart disease, or some alcoholic mishap will weed her out of the Darwinian landscape and the world can move forward without her ever holding up another grocery checkout line again. What a beautiful thought. It just made my pecker tingle a little.

While I was taking abuse at a grocery store on the home front, my wife was suffering through a bit of the same thing in Chicago. When she politely declined some seafood at a family dinner, she was faced with a deluge of questions seemingly aimed at picking apart the "ethics" of her diet. Guess what? Maybe there's no fucking ethics involved; maybe it's simply the diet that serves her best. She never asks for special accommodations or tailored menus, she's never snide or high-and-mighty about it, and I've never seen her try to convert anyone to her culinary regimen or make comments about what anyone else chooses to eat. So why do so many other people find the need to comment? Or worse yet, why do so many other people try to turn the simple matter of what somebody eats into some pro-wrestling political argument...fuck me with a celery stalk.

We've decided to just start telling everyone that we're picky eaters. Nobody seems to get upset about that. "You don't like Jello or creamed corn? Why on earth not? What are you trying to say? That seems pretty unreasonable to me. What DO you eat, then?" Yeah, I never hear that. Hell, I've got a friend that I watched throw a whole plate of just-prepared Mexican food away because the rice had corn in it. I didn't assume he was making some aggravated assault against my sensibilities. I didn't try to talk him out of it. I didn't look for deep-seated political motives behind the trashing of his food. I didn't think twice about it. Why? Because he paid for it, and he doesn't want any motherfuckin' corn in his motherfuckin' rice (that would sound cool if Sam Jackson was narrating this). It really is that simple.

I know it's hard to believe, but your opinions are not precious. That may be difficult to swallow in this digital age when everyone feels compelled to sit in front of their computer keyboards and comment on EVERYTHING from royal weddings to red carpet dresses to global warming to the collapse of the housing market to the cast of Jersey Shore. But here's the real scoop: nobody fucking cares what you think. Okay? So take those two cents and put 'em back in your pocket. Keep it to yourself. Mind your own business. Leave your ill-informed and barely literate presumptions in the Yahoo chat rooms and anonymous internet message boards. Don't take 'em for a spin out in public lest a fired-up vegetable-eating hillbilly embarrasses you in a way you're too damned stupid to even fully comprehend.

Jesus Christ - only I can get hassled by some random morbidly obese person for trying to eat healthy...

The Change Was Made Uptown (concluded)

2011-07-03T02:18:00.000-07:00

PART ONE: Click HERE
PART TWO: Click HERE

On December 2, 2002, I called in sick to my shitty job at the United States Postal Service and motored down to Atlanta where I finally laid witness to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. We were way up in the rafters, of course. No big deal; after all this time, I was happy just to be in the building. It was a good evening. It was a good show. It was solid. It was also a bit somber and gloomy. Let's face it - The Rising was not the feel good album of the year, and considering its themes of death, loss, mourning, and search for rebirth, it shouldn't have been. I think they did about 22 or 23 songs that night, and 10 or 11 of those were tunes from that album. It was phenomenal. It was touching. It was beautiful, at times. It was not the rip-snorting rock'n'roll show I'd been wanting to see since I was still squatting to piss and spending my lunch money on cassettes.

That probably sounds shitty and shallow. Trust me, I've never been above being shitty and shallow, but that's not the case here. I was happy with the show. Hell, I bought the thirty-dollar t-shirt with the tour dates on the back and all that jazz. I respect and admire folks that gain your trust enough for you to follow them through new and different doors. Folks that can carry their true weight without having to resort to an hour and half medley of their greatest hits. I didn't expect a three and a half hour sweat-soaked marathon; I figured I had long since lost my opportunity to see those kind of crazy, epic shows of yesteryear. That was then, this is now. Now is fine - it's all we've ever got. But if I sat here and told you that the eleven-year-old deep inside of me wasn't screaming out in hopes for some Agora '78 rock'n'roll revival fury, well, I'd be a big old goddamned liar.

A few years later I got to see Bruce play live and solo to a much smaller crowd on the Devils and Dust tour. Underwhelming turnout for solo Bruce meant better seats for me. I was sitting about twelve or thirteen rows back on the floor and could just feel that high cotton rubbing up against my ass. It was a commanding performance. It takes some inner grit to come out in an arena all by yourself and try to captivate an audience for two and half hours. It takes some fucking talent to pull it off once you're out there. The highlight for me was a solo "Lost in the Flood" at the piano. Probably my favorite song of his. I still find it amazing that somebody in their early 20s wrote that tune. When I was in my early 20s, I was writing shit like: "I might be a dumb hillbilly, but my fists are made of rocks..." and "She's got the stank, you want that thang." Not exactly the stuff legends are born of - or even footnotes, for that matter. But I digress...

He also played tremendous versions of "Incident on 57th St" and "Sad Eyes." He even picked up a banjo and turned that old MTV chestnut "I'm On Fire" into something that sounded like it floated straight down outta the high lonesome hills of eastern Kentucky. As the encore hit, The Boss encouraged the folks on the floor to get up out of their seats and come on down front. My wife grabbed my hand and dragged me down to the lip of the stage as fast as she could. That was for me, not for her. I don't think she could have cared much one way or the other. I remember thinking how small he looked. Probably a sure sign that I had built the guy up too big in my mind, or perhaps when all those tunes mean that much to you it is simply impossible for the conduit to ever seem as big as the body of work they've transmitted over the years.

As the last note echoed out, Bruce made some bows and shook some hands. As he shook hands with the lady next to me, his head turned in my direction. It was one of those weird moments where I was suddenly that fat kid again, only this time I was standing in front of my hero. "Thank you," I mouthed - it's the best and truest thing I had to offer. He kept eye contact, grinned and nodded, said "thanks," and carried on down the line. On the drive home, Kris told me she had never seen me so attentive and immersed in a concert; she even humored me and let me play The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle on repeat all the way home. Little did I realize that in almost exactly two months I would watch her die in a hospital room that smelled like industrial antiseptic and floor wax. The memorial cards at the funeral had a verse from "Land of Hope and Dreams" on them...

And now you're asking yourself why the fat kid's ode to The Boss had to take that turn. What kind of pat answer do you want? Because that's part of the story? Because those are the turns life takes? Because...what? Because during the days and months following her death, I fell into the music as a means to stay together, stay sane, stay alive. Because that formerly depressing The Rising suddenly took on a depth that I'd never before realized was there. Because the words contained within that eloquent slab of loss, mourning, and rebirth did what Jesus, booze, family, friends, the music I was making, and everything else under the sun could not. Because my musical friend of over two decades was still providing solace and comfort. Because I sometimes wanted to put on Greetings From Asbury Park and be that fat, ugly kid again for an hour or two. Because I wanted his problems instead of mine.

Or maybe it's because of the passing of the Big Man that I wonder who consoles the consoler? Do the words that provide a blanket of security for countless others accomplish anything for the man that wrote them? I don't know, but I kind of doubt it.

To leave the narrative now and take a side trip through my years in the wilderness would defeat the purpose. Let's suffice it to say that I spent a lot of time pursuing the fool's errand of trying to get out of my head while simultaneously trying to get my head together. Life twisted, turned, and I did a lot of stupid things. And even though I was not able to always reach the strength I wanted, I found a whole lot of that strength and motivation within my old pal's records. Each misstep was my own, but I'll gladly credit the ability to take any step at all with those records. Those magnificent fucking records. I am not a religious man, but I do have my own Bible - one that I have carried with me since I was in sixth grade.

Somehow I wound up back in Atlanta during the Magic tour with a good friend of mine in tow. It was April 25th, 2008. We had been wondering if the show would even take place, as Danny Federici had just passed away on the 17th. Somehow, someway, the show did go on. The show went on in a big, bad way. It started with a slide show of Danny that segued into "Reason to Believe" before hammering full-tilt-boogie into "Out in the Street." It was an amazing display of tenacity, reverence, and pure celebration of life. There was no mourning, mullygrubbing, or self-pity involved. It was everything I had been doing wrong.

The next two plus hours pulled me from the arena and into a trip through my life. The tour could not have been more appropriately labeled, for it was sheer magic. It was THE show I'd been waiting over two decades to see. I couldn't have hand-picked a better set list. Standing there in an arena packed to the gills, the framework was laid for finally coming to terms with a lot of things. I had a great friend by my side, an amazing new partner in life waiting back home, and the spirits of those who had gone before me dancing in front of my eyes. I laughed, I sang, I shouted, I cried. I did not walk away a changed man, but I do think the impetus for taking a closer look at myself, my life, and my relationships began then and there. I still had many more mistakes to make, but I could see the gauntlet thrown down in front of me. The fat kid and the adult melded into one.

The encore was "Thunder Road" into "Born to Run" into motherfucking "Rosalita" into "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out." I'd never been a huge fan of that last tune until that night. With that tune, the music trumped everything. We were all lost in some semi-fictitious fable for the ages. We were THERE. I can think of few things that ever elevated my soul in such a way. Overkill, you say? Hyperbole, you say? Fuck you. I've never been more deadly serious. And at the center of it all were these two dudes playing for dear life. It was like the devil was after their souls. Scooter and The Big Man. Words will never describe what I felt during those few, brief-yet-immortal moments of time.

And now - The Big Man is gone. Half of the equation that equaled one of the greatest moments of my life. What happens now? That, I do not know. All I can do is wish one of my only heroes the comfort he has provided me for over a quarter of a century. I can only wish the Big Man the peace that I hope comes at the end of all of our journeys. I hope the music continues, new and fresh. I hope it continues to provide the soundtrack for my life. I hope we all can celebrate the glory of the lives gone before us while embracing the wonders of today. I will continue to sip from that great well of comfort provided me by someone I will never really know. I stand before you today and say that I, for one, am a much better man for having seen Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half...

Afterward: I didn't get to see the Working on a Dream tour. I was working on a dream of my own and getting set to leave for a move all the way across the country on the morning after the night of the Atlanta show. I did find this tour t-shirt in a thrift store in my adopted hometown just a couple months ago, however. I was happy to find it - it's got pictures of quite a few friends on it.

I'd also like to add a small aside to my beautiful wife, the lady that has shown faith in the man when the man had no faith in himself:

Well, my ass was draggin' from a passin' gypsy wagon

Your heart like a diamond shown

Tonight I'm laying in your arms, carving lucky charms

Outta these hard luck bones

These are better days.

May you all (except for those of you'ns that are complete bastards) find a song to see you through -

The Change Was Made Uptown (cont'd)...

2011-06-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

Click HERE for part one.

I guess it was just impossible to get away from this Jersey cat in that year of our lord, 1984. The machine was in motion and that motherfucker was EVERYWHERE. Quickie cash-in magazines and books littered the shelves of supermarkets and bookstores. Every bad teen comedy had at least one doofus wearing a sleeveless denim vest and a red bandana and every bullshit TV show had some kind of Broooce reference. Hell, I can even remember that Growing Pains episode where that kid that grew up to be a complete whacko christian fucktard was gonna take the dad character to a live show. Technically 1985, but within that year Boss fever had become so entrenched in the nation that they went so far as to use the one-word title "Springsteen" for the second episode of this horrific sit-com. If you want to torture yourself, you can watch it HERE (or if you really want to torture yourself you can go YouTube some of Kirk Cameron's fairly insane and completely illogical fundamentalist christian spiels...). I mean Born In The USA was right up there with Thriller, Purple Rain, and the Los Angeles Summer Olympics on the oversaturation-turning-into-overfuckingkill scale. I guess it's no wonder that I somehow wound up with a copy.

I can't rightly recall how I came by it, however. I don't remember being the actual purchaser of this cassette with a close-up of a guy's Levi's-clad ass as the cover. Very Village People-esque, no? I'm a fat, on-the-cusp-of-pubescence kid that's just starting to realize his tallywhacker is for more than pissing. As lame as my tastes were, I'm pretty sure if it had been me making the rare purchase of a full-length recording, I would have gone with this:

Notice the big, naked cans? Much more enticing that this:

Notice the big (most likely hairy) man-ass?

I figure this was probably a purchase my mother made in an effort to steer me away from shit like Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot. I would occassionally be gifted audio atrocities such as Billy Joel, Hall and Oates, and even Air Supply, as a way to try to hijack my tastes into a blander, more acceptable arena. My tastes may have been (and still are) pretty unrefined, but I just couldn't hang with that shit. I do remember plugging in the Springsteen tape and half-way listening to it. We'd just gotten cable and I'd heard a few of these songs played to death on MTV. Didn't love it, didn't hate it, didn't think much more about it than I did anything else in heavy video rotation (back then MTV actually played nothing but MUSIC videos - that's what the "M" stood for). But by the time that tape rolled onto track five, the gloriously gloomy "Downbound Train," I was hooked. Out of a twelve song album, seven of those songs were released as singles; "Downbound Train" was not one of them. Go figure. I guess it's too much of a fucking downer. In hindsight, it's a wonder that it made the album at all.

This song still grabs me by the short hairs. It has a beautiful sadness to it that puts it square in the realm of Leon Russell's "Me and Baby Jane" and Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." Heavy company by anybody's standards. It was with this song that I became I fanatic.

Thanks to the popularity of BITUSA, the K-mart tape bins were also stocked with the Springsteen back catalog. It was here that I gave up singles and started saving money for the long players. Being too young to get any kind of paying work, I started saving the daily dollar my parents gave me for lunch and a snack at school. As a fat kid, the benefits of this were two-fold: I could squeeze out at least one Springsteen cassette a week and I was also losing some excess calories along the way. Thanks, Bruce.

I started at the beginning: Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ. What a fucking record. Still love it (as evidenced below by my donning the swank t-shirt gifted to me by my groovy mother-in-law). I quickly ran through the catalog in more or less the sequence of release. The River escaped me for a long time due to the inhibitive cost of a "double" cassette. Those double-length cassettes always immediately got clogged up and ripped apart in the goddamned tape player anyway.

Like a true-old fart, I'll tell you that was a magical time in my life. There was no internet to grant me the immediate gratification of my desires. I had to read the back of the albums to figure out the chronology of album releases, the contents weren't spoiled and picked apart by a million dimwits posting their two cents in Amazon reviews, and each record was a gamble with my money. And each album was like taking a journey into parts unknown; there wasn't much of a way to have heard most of this stuff before. I think in many ways it provided a much more intimate bond with the music. Is that too pretentious, yet? Probably.

Another thing I got out of that whole experience was the thrill of wondering what this stuff I listened to must be like live. Of course MTV was gaining ground in tearing that wall down, but there was still this need to connect with someone whose music you were that into. See the myth made flesh and all that shit. I was too young to actually go see these shows, as if any of them would ever hit our backwater burg anyway. Didn't stop me from daydreaming about it, though. I wouldn't feel that way again until almost ten years later when I was feverishly ordering small-run punk singles through the mail, receiving almost weekly packages from labels like Baloney Shrapnel, TPOS, and Jettison. The big difference being was by that time I had both a job and some wheels. Gas was a buck a gallon and I thought nothing of jumping in the car and putting several hundred miles on the odometer in order to check out my current obsessions.

But alas, the stars never aligned for me and The Jersey Devil. By the time I had the license and the wherewithal, I no longer had the inclination. I had held the Springsteen flag aloft all through my high school days, but by the time I was outta school, I was more interested in punk rock noise...and Bruce was putting out E Street-less albums like Lucky Town and Human Touch. That "other band" tour woulda been the one I was most apt to see and I just wasn't very interested in seeing Bruce head up a band of studio musicians - I wanted to see the cats that made THOSE records. At some point in time, I took my Springsteen collection to the local trade-in shop and got my thirty pieces of silver for selling out the guy I had once been such an ardent disciple of. I suppose we're all bound to kill our idols at some point in time. Probably a natural thing to do. Never mind how much enjoyment and comfort I had found in the words and music for years - after all, wasn't this guy one of them corporate-minstrel fat cats writing for a buck? I had succeeded in turning myself into one of those myopic, jaded, joyless jackasses that validates themselves through their record collections. My loss.

Flash forward to 2001. I'm walking through a local used CD shithole and what should catch my eye? That Live/1975-85 box set. Twelve bucks. Impulse buy. I grabbed it, took it to the register, threw in the first disc as soon as I got in the car. I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe some comfort food from days gone by. I was floored. Not only were the songs as good as I remembered - they were better. Pushing thirty, I could see a lot of things I'd missed the first time around. While the twelve-year old me had been hooked by the youthful pangs of "Growin' Up," the heading-towards-middle-age me could identify with the themes of desperation, hope, and love that have permeated so much of Springsteen's work. Just like that, I was hooked again. I immediately started repurchasing the back catalog along with copious amounts of bootlegs and anything else I could get my hands on.

Sometime in the midst of all this, Springsteen was said to be coming out with a new album. His response to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Towers - the very Towers he referenced in "Darlington County" way back in the BITUSA days. Count me in. I could only hope there would be an accompanying tour. I'd had my head up my ass back when the E Street Band had done that fabled reunion tour, but now I might have my shot...

To Be Concluded...HERE

The Change Was Made Uptown...

2011-06-20T00:57:00.000-07:00

Flashback to 1984. Sixth grade. Northwest Georgia. I was a fat kid with bad teeth and an even worse haircut. Eleven pushing twelve. That painfully awkward time in a young man's life when girls are suddenly something, these new-fangled things called boners start sprouting up everytime the wind blows crossways, and you've got no idea what to do with or about either one. That time is even more painfully awkward if you happen to be built like a flour sack full of mashed potatoes, sport a Moe Howard haircut, and have a grin that would make an out-to-pasture donkey jack wince with pity. Suffice it to say that while lots of my peers were busy learning the ins and outs of social interaction, I was sequestered in my room surrounded by comics, books on loan from the public library, and records - LOTS of records.

Singles were the order of the day. Well, vinyl singles and full-length cassettes. I had a fuckton of the former, as they fit more into line with the meager budget of my parents. Cassettes were reserved for Christmas and birthday gifts, while vinyl LPs could be occasionally obtained from the dump and cut-out bins at the local K-Mart. Shit, man - damn near EVERYTHING we had came from K-Mart. I can remember exactly where the vinyl racks were and just how fucking sweet it was pouring over each and every picture sleeve on the shelves while my mom was shopping for whatever the fuck it was that sent adults into K-Mart once a week.

I was quickly becoming a record geek, or as much of one as life in a rural backwater would allow. While some of the dear friends that I would meet much later in life might have been seeing Black Flag and the like during that same time period, I was standing in a podunk K-Mart that smelled like soft pretzels, Cherry ICEEs, and body odor, trying to figure out if I should spend that week's two bucks on the lastest Men at Work or Men Without Hats. Maybe some Dexy's Midnight Runners, Rick Springfield, or Cyndi Lauper (who I'll still own up to having an insatiable crush on to this day - and let's not even get into my infatuation with the androgynous beauty of Annie Lennox...I'm already in counseling, fer fucksakes!)?

Let's face it, there was a lot of shit on the racks back in 1984. And in the Rossville, Georgia K-Mart it was pretty much all shit. Top 40 or nothing. Being a young turk, I was of course grabbing some Quiet Riot, Van Halen, Joan Jett, and such when the opportunity presented itself. Being a cornfed hick, I was also grabbing CDB, Bocephus, and Willie records. And by some odd stroke of luck, I was fortunate enough to get turned on to bands like the Kinks and the Stones during my never-ending explorations of my friendly local discount retailer's singles racks. Much like today, I was all over the musical map. If it looked in the least bit interesting, I wanted to indulge myself. MTV was still new to our neck of the woods, the radio was still jammed up with shit like The Captain & Tenille and The Carpenters, and there was no goddamned internet to allow one to check out every kind of music under the sun. It was a smash and grab mentality. For every one Kinks treasure scored, there were a dozen Duran Durans, Aldo Novas, Steel Breezes, and Quarterflashes to suffer through. I was playing high-stakes craps with two bucks a week...is it any wonder I avoided records by a guy with a goofy-assed name like Bruce Springsteen for so long?

C'mon, man. What kinda name is that? I'm praying for Kiss records and here's some guy that looks like he oughta be working over at the bowling alley or something. Give me a break. The first single I remember seeing was "Dancing in the Dark."

Exhibit A:

Need I say more?

Twenty-five years (burnin') down the road and this rabid Springsteen nut will still tell you that's a pretty damned lame record sleeve. I would be absolutely no more prone to buying it today than I was then, truth be told. I didn't know this guy from Jack Shit, but I knew one thing for certain - the only thing more boring than his name was his record sleeve.

Little did I know that my opinion about this character who looked about as exciting as the guy who pumped gas down at the Union 76 was about to undergo a drastic change...

To Be Continued...HERE

We're All Crazy...

2011-06-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Is it therapeutic to talk about therapy? I mean with anyone other than your therapist, counselor, or otherwise "concerned individual?" Just that word - "therapy" - gives me bad vibes unless it's preceded by the word "massage" and is plastered across the front of a seedy looking building adjoining an interstate truck stop. Perhaps I'd find it much easier to go to therapy if it was referred to as a "rap session" or something groovy like that (my predisposition to like anything that seems like it came out of a Billy Jack movie should be apparent by now) . It would also help if "sessions" didn't take place in an office with stark white walls and all the charm of a discount office furniture catalog showplace. I'm thinking these introspective palavers could be much more conducive for a successful outcome if they were to take place in a dark bar, back corner booth, all my favorite tunes on the jukebox. Something along those lines. Then again, my counselor would probably lead me into the territory of that being part of the problem...but of course I'd have to come to that conclusion on my own.

Of course I'm making light of all this counseling stuff - that's one of my "coping mechanisms." Dig the way I'm co-opting the lingo already. Impressive, no? Yeah, you're right - probably not. Anyhow, a lot of my problems might seem to come from the fact that I'm a direct descendant in a long line of Bat Shit Crazy. Or is that just "blame-shifting" and "avoiding responsibility?' Maybe a little bit of all? Or maybe you just get to the age where you realize that consistently punching holes in walls, getting into cuss-fights with random strangers, drinking a daily twelve-pack before noon, and scaring your wife with your nut-house behavior just ain't the best way to live life. Dig the way I "transferred the responsibility" in the previous statement by using "you" instead of "I?" To be quite honest, I got tired of seeing my wife look at me the way my mother used to look at my father as he raged through the house in what seemed like a conscious effort to spoil, ruin, or obliterate any small bit of good feeling that might exist within.

And while I must admit it still tickles me to think of my grandfather pulling every last stick of furniture out on the front lawn and lighting fire to it in a fit of blind anger, these days that'd probably pull a felony rap. Not to mention the fact that he had to rebuy all that goddamned furniture that he was probably still making payments on in the first place. That's called "self-defeating behavior," and if they turned it into an Olympic sport, I could probably nab the silver and look on while my old man basks in the glory of the gold.

One day my counselor asked me what I got true enjoyment out of. If not now, think back to what I used to get true enjoyment out of. After she ruled out drinking and fucking as probably being counter-productive (kidding, KIDDING...jesus christ), we settled on writing as something I've always liked to do. Lyrics, stories, what-the-hell-ever. Not claiming to be any damned good at it, just stating that I like to do it. So here I am back at the keyboard, plucking it outta the air and putting it down. I guess it IS kinda therapeutic...I feel a bit better than I did thirty minutes ago. I feel like I accomplished something - and it didn't involve crushed beer cans, patching holes in walls, or concocting a fitting apology...

What the Hell, Marshall?

2011-06-14T15:45:00.000-07:00

Amazing as it is, I managed to remember my password to log on to this damned old thing ("old" being the operative word). Between school, work, and a perrenial case of lazy-sum-bitch-itus, I really ain't had the time and/or inclination to fuck with much of anything that doesn't revolve around homework, presentations, exams, or the handling of other people's piss, shit, sputum, blood, and jizz in a desperate attempt to pay for the privilege of doing all that goddamned school work. While the piss, shit, sputum, blood, and jizz might sound cool if you're into Vienna Actionists or GG Allin tribute bands, it wears really thin on a day-in, day-out basis for eleven bucks an hour. Even the thrill of getting to wear a lab coat like Dr. Curt Connors has lost every last drop of its glamour.

But seeing as how my summer classes wound up last week, I figured I had time to fire this old jalopy up and give it a spin. Leastways through the summer. After that, who knows? I might abandon the rustbucket on the side of the freeway once again. Not like it matters. Ain't that part of the beauty of it?

I'm gonna try to update the links and the look of things during the upcoming week. I should get some new pictures of my grill up there - I just had another tooth completely bite the dust on me this week. Another black tooth. Another busted dream. These are the things we can rely on...

My Girls...

2009-08-14T11:47:00.000-07:00

Would I be dating myself too much if I made reference to the poster of Loni Anderson that was prominently displayed on Mel Sharples' apartment wall? Does anyone remember Mel Sharples? Alice? Shit, does anybody remember Loni Anderson? If so, I know you recall the poster I'm talking about. And everybody alive has seen the famous Farrah Fawcett poster, the one with her nipple about to pop right out of the paper it's printed on and put your fucking eye out. What about the poster of Cheryl Ladd (Farrah's Charlie's Angels replacement) with the black shirt unbuttoned down to there, with her tits about to flop out all over the place?

These women were considered to be the exceptional beauties of my younger years. It wasn't just Mel Sharples that was whacking his pudd to the red bathing suit clad visage of Miss Anderson. That poster was peeking out from racks at every Woolworth's, Kresge's, and Kmart in the world. So was the Farrah poster, even though they sometimes strategically placed a price tag over her protruding nip on the display copy. And you could always count on some David Wooderson prototype to be hanging around a filling station, wearing a skin-tight t-shirt emblazoned with an iron-on of that iconic image (nice trim magnet, bro). Ho hum. I didn't get it; I never saw the "umph" factor in the WKRP receptionist and never cast my seed upon the ground to thoughts of threeways with the cast of Charlie's Angels. Charlie's girls? Now that's a different story altogether.

When I was around ten, the local librarian, knowing my advanced reading habits and predilection for creepy shit, slipped me a copy of Helter Skelter. She swore it was the scariest, weirdest book she'd ever read. And to top it off, IT WAS TRUE! Yes, I was probably too young for it, and yes, it probably warped me for life. Did it make me want to go out and join a hippie cult and off some pigs? Not particularly. Did it make me want to take massive amounts of drugs until my eyes melted and oozed out of their sockets? No, I'd get to that in my own time. Did it imprint some weird sort of sexual kink on my psyche and make me want to participate in crazy orgies with dirty, stringy-haired, barefoot, psycho hippie chicks? Why yes, as a matter of fact, it did. Hell, the way I saw it, Charlie's biggest crime was screwing up that snatch situation with all that other criminal mess.

Yep, while all my classmates were experiencing sexual awakenings courtesy of flickering TV screen images of Daisy Duke and the Landers sisters and all those supposed blonde bombshells flashing cleavage off of dimestore posters, I was getting off to grainy black and white photos of the Manson girls. While other guys my age were stealing their old man's copies of Playboy or filching copies of Cheri and Penthouse from the magazine racks at the local gas station, I was going through the card catalog at the library, searching down any and every book that might have more pics of Ouisch and Blue and Gypsy. While they were having to hide their glossy jack-off material under the mattress or out in the shed, I could leave my Xeroxed photos out in the open and always claim I was having to do a research paper on "The Sixties" or some such shit. Teachers were always assigning that kind of lame-brained narcissistic crap, anyway. What could seem more natural?

Then on Christmas Eve of my 14th year, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme escaped from prison in West Virginia. Of course, it was big news. The media always likes to trot Manson and the crew out when they've got no real news to focus on. It was amazing that the local news was advising all the residents down in our little corner of Georgia to lock their doors and report any suspicious persons to the police. I remember my mother listening to the radio report and cluck-clucking about "those nuts." She urged my father to bolt the doors and keep an eye on us kids.

C'mon. What were the chances this high-profile, would-be presidential assassin would make it all the way to the peach state, let alone single out our house as a forced hide-out? Yeah. Yeah! What were the chances? And if we won that particular lottery, what would the chances be that this outlaw refugee would want to take advantage of the fourteen-year-old pile of pubescent male meat in our family? I was assuming it had been a while since she'd had any. Me? I'd never had any, but I was willing to take this one for the team - out of concern for their safety, you know? Perhaps it would even be easy to help facilitate the proceedings by engaging Ms. Lynette in a discussion of my vast knowledge of Manson family lore.

This hypothetical scenario was getting better all the time, never mind that it was completely ludicrous. But I figured if the media and my parents could go on a fantasy ride, so could I. Before the holiday was over, I could potentially be losing my virginity to a Manson chick. And not just one of the hangers-on but a real heavy hitter. Oh, I'd rented the videotape Manson and seen all of that footage of Squeaky with the gun, laying down those fantastic raps. I'd seen the nude pictures of her and Blue. She was no Ruth Ann Moorehouse, but still. This could be the best Christmas ever, Hallefuckinglujah. But alas, it was never to be...Squeaky got caught (nowhere near my house) and was returned to prison, while I suffered through another Christmas holiday with my virginity still intact.

Now here it is twenty-plus years later and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme is finally out of jail. I've long since lost my virginity (to a chick that looked more like a bad extra from a Warrant video, as opposed to one of my dream women). I guess the closest I ever got to nailing a Manson chick was "going out" with a perpetually drunk third-rate stripper that refused to shave her body hair, bathed in patchouli oil, and had shitty taste in music. I've the luck of the damned, I tell you.

Then again, the AP says the prison system won't release any news of where Squeaky Fromme will be residing now that she's out and about. I'm sure it's somewhere nice and quiet, and there will be someone around to keep an eye on her. Not to mention, she is kinda old and probably all settled down now that she's eligible for AARP benefits and all that jazz. I seriously doubt she's going to be out prowling around Southern Arizona, or that she's capable of forcing her way into someone's apartment to hole up on her way out to see Charlie in California...

But just in case - I'm leaving the door unlocked.

On The Bloody Morning After...

2009-08-08T00:40:00.000-07:00

I've been in what my mother would call "a tizzy" for most of the night. Had the tragic unsettling events of this evening happened a mere year ago, I would be hitting the bottle hard, drowning my despair in a sea of Kentucky Deluxe with Stroh's chasers (and don't think I'm not hearing the siren song of the fabled Thunderbird right about now). You see, there are very few material goods or possessions in my life that have any sway over my mental well-being. I'm far from a monk, but I'm not chump enough to let these kind of things run my life. Take my autographed Ramones poster and my Angry Johnny paintings and my Johnny Darrell records and my possum skull and my Cactus bootlegs and my dead dog's baby teeth. I hate to see 'em go, but I'll get by. It's easy come, easy go. Gonna leave it all behind someday anyway. There are, however, a few (approximately two) things that I absolutely must have nearby at all times. Tonight one of those things bit the shitter - just when I needed it most.

I knew by mid-afternoon that I was heading into one of my, um, "phases." I'd been getting a bit antsy as the day marched toward evening. That rapidly progressed to fidgety bordering on unstable. It was hell sitting still just long enough to finish the last twenty pages of the book I'd been engrossed in for most of the week. Got out and went grocery shopping, trying to walk it off. Too tightly wound. Building up to manic in my head. All my thoughts a jumble of crap - confused signals bounced around a confused head. I was fast losing my center - not of gravity, but of my very being. I think my wife knew it was coming. A year in, and she's picking up on the idiosyncrasies that have festered in me so long that I don't even attempt to control them anymore. She's a smart one, that woman. She knew exactly what I was going for when I walked over to the shelf and grabbed it. Didn't even look up to see what I was doing. Just stared straight at the computer screen, and as I walked toward the TV, she asked, "Billy Jack?"

I confirmed her shrewdly astute intuition by sliding the precious DVD into the player. I sat back on the couch, already starting to feel my inner turmoil subside. And then...and then...nothing. No. No. No. No no no - NO! This could not be happening. I hastily fumbled the disc out and examined it. What could be wrong with it? I handle it with more care than most curators handle ancient relics in the world's greatest museums. Nothing looked wrong. It looked fine. Pristine. Gotta just be a glitch. A little electronic fart in the DVD player's inner machinations. I put it back on the tray. Sweat fell off my brow and stained the shelf below me with moisture. I pushed the disc in and pressed PLAY. Loading. Loading. Loading. Grunts and groans and that confounded digital blipping. Nothing. "No Disc" flashed across a black TV screen. FUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK!

"Goddamnitgoddamnitgoddamnit...god fucking damn it," said I. "It's got to be the fucking DVD player. It's got to be the fucking DVD player. God knows the disc has been played before. It's got to be the fucking DVD player." A mantra to ward off the darkest possibility that my disc had gone to the happy hunting ground. After all, I could run out at midnight and find a new DVD player in about fifteen minutes; finding a copy of Billy Jack would be a horse of a different color. I would wind up in Phoenix by sunrise, hitting every WalMart, truckstop, and any other place that might by the smallest of margins have a copy, all probably to no avail. I grabbed another disc and slid it in. No problem. Goddamnit. "You're gonna have to buy a new one," my wife said in her calming, humoring tone. "A real one." She let that last bit drip consolingly from her lips, while her eyes glanced at the DVD-R I held in my hands.

You see, I used to go through these cycles of running myself ragged trying to accumulate a bunch of unnecessary crap and then finding out that I was less happy with all my acquired bullshit than I had been without. Inevitably, it would always lead to another cycle of ridding myself of as much of this junk as I could. The old binge and purge. On my last down (or is that up?) swing, trying to purify my soul or some such shit, I really cleaned house. Testing the limits of my earthly existence, I went so far as to rid myself of my Billy Jack box set. Oh man, Job was never tested that hard. It was a true case of having so much stuff that I couldn't distinguish the random rubbish from the items that held true value and importance in my life.

After about two weeks, I slipped over to my friend Ben's house in the dark of night and asked him to burn me copies of The Born Losers and Billy Jack. I'd gone as far as I could go. I was having trouble sleeping. I figured if I kept these burned copies of the first two movies, that was enough of a draw to prove my point to myself (and maybe to Billy Jack, himself). I know, I know. Sounds crazy. Maybe not as crazy as the December day(s) I (stone dead sober, mind you) sat barricaded in the basement of my father's house listening to side three of an Australian two LP Elvis "Best Of" compilation for - as my best estimation would later be - roughly thirty-four and a half hours straight. That's what I needed at that moment in time. At this much later moment in time, I needed my shot of Billy Jack.

As my mental meltdown in front of the DVD player continued, I quickly considered the possibility of putting in The Born Losers instead. I reasoned that it is, after all, a superior movie. Possibly my favorite movie of all time. I mean, Billy Jack is practically a remake of The Born Losers with a whole lot more ham-fisted politics and quasi-hippie claptrap thrown in. But there are times when I need that. That is what scratches the itch. Moves the soul, if you will. The Born Losers will not nourish you in the same way that Billy Jack will. Dare I say it? It's almost like a Bible.

As my fevered brain was sludging through all this, I remembered an appropriate line from the film: "We don't know how to contact Billy Jack. We communicate with him Indian-style; when we need him, somehow he's there." Better than prayer, by god. Billy Jack will actually come when you need him. Yes, yes. I closed my eyes, hummed a little bit of "One Tin Soldier" under my breath, and slid the disc back into the player. Nada. Oh Billy, why hast thou forsaken me?

O.K. Fine. Have it your way. You can seek solace in a half-celestial being that watches over the good and rails against the evil-doers, going so far as to give his life on a cross, but I can't do the same in regards to a half-breed Indian ex-Green Beret hapkido expert that watches over the good children of The Freedom School. And, in the end, doesn't Billy Jack pretty much give his life by taking out some pigs? A move way cooler than anything Jesus brought to the table, I must say.

It's even a mess of contradictions like The Bible. Who can forget those groovy posters that proclaimed, "BILLY JACK IS: a bike riding, karate chopping, hip shooting messenger of peace?" What? Come again? Is peace through violence the message we're getting here? But doesn't it feel so right? Fuck yes, it does. Billy Jack is a guy that yearns for peace but knows the folly of falling into the old Ghandi/MLK routine. He's taken enough shit, and he's got enough righteousness for all of us. He's gonna kick your ass, but it's only because you need it. If you learn your lesson, he might even pick you up and dust you off after he's knocked your ass up around your shoulders.

The whole stew of racial injustice, pursuit of peace, rape of natural resources, animal rights, Native American spirituality, and so on gets so heady by the end of the picture that it all becomes a muddle. It gives you all kinds of philosophical fatback to gnaw on and all kinds of shit that just doesn't make any sense no matter how you look at it. I mean there are some parts in this movie where you just go, "What in the fuck are they trying to say here?" Again, kinda like the Bible - you gotta go on faith.

The main difference between the two is that I really, really dig Billy Jack (just in case you hadn't picked up on that). Well, and then there's the added bonus that people don't take Billy Jack to be some sort of real word from on high; they recognize that it is a work of fiction and don't run around committing all kinds of atrocities in the name of Billy Jack like they do with our pal, Jesus. Good thing. I don't think Billy Jack would much like that. Then again, if the atrocities were committed in the cause of sticking it to the man...well, who am I to say?

Anyhow, you've got your Bible and I've got (or had) Billy Jack. And I'll bet you've never gotten worked into such a goddamn tizzy, because you lost your precious Bible, so we'll let that stand as a testimony to who's really got the mojo. I know where to seek my comfort in the storms life tosses my way. And none of this philosophical bullshit is helping me out here. I'm still out of a copy of Billy Jack. What a fucking night. All I can do is hum a few more bars of "One Tin Soldier" and raise my fist in solidarity to my brother. And the first one of you jackasses that laughs at me...I swear to god...no, no...I swear to Tom Laughlin, that "I'm gonna take this right foot, and I'm gonna whop you on that side of your face...and you wanna know something? There's not a damn thing you're gonna be able to do about it." Peace.

The Tupelo Flash and The Rossville Chub

2009-06-17T21:31:00.000-07:00

We were coming back from playing a gig at some dive bar in Nowhere, North Carolina and the sweat was running off of me in buckets, so much so that the seat had turned spongey and was "swishing" whenever I moved. We'd been baking in the blistering summer heat on the side of this goddamn mountain for hours. We'd cut our sorry excuse for an air conditioner off to keep us from overheating and eventually the ignition followed suit to keep us from running out of gas. An eighteen wheeler that was coming down the mountain had flipped and went over the divider, putting what was looking to be one helluva long halt on all the traffic coming up the mountain. I always get double antsy when there's a tractor trailer that's all fucked up anywhere in my vicinity; I half-expect to get even with it and look over and see my old man all mangled up and sticking out of the windshield. We still couldn't see much of anything and it was starting to work on what little nerves I had left.

To take my mind off the heat and the unlikely yet all-too-real-to-me possibility that my old man was splattered across the side of the mountain up ahead, I reached into my pocket and grabbed the wad of bills tucked inside. Maybe "wad" is too strong a word. "We're gonna have to run a clothes line to let this shit dry off," I thought. My jeans were soaked through and the money looked like it had just got out of the washing machine, 'cept it probably smelled a lot more like ball funk and body odor than the mountain streams and spring mornings promised by the makers of dollar-store detergent. Three tens, three fives, and three ones. Forty-eight fucking dollars. We'd spent roughly half our take to nab some sleep at a place that would give the worst roach motels a bad name and after dishing out for a shitty breakfast of powdered eggs and burnt bacon, we were down to forty eight smackers. Subtract another fifteen for the trailer rental plus who knows how much to fill up the two trucks we had to drive (thanks to a van that oh-so-conveniently bit the shitter), and we were looking at only going in the hole by five to ten dollars a man. Not exactly a productive weekend if you had an kind of horse sense about you. But then again, if you had any kind of horse sense, you probably wouldn't be pushing thirty and still doing this kind of shit anyway. Other people my age had worked themselves into the position of having good jobs, children, vacations abroad, and those crazy little perks that tag along with being a responsible adult.....you know, namby-pamby, inconsequential shit like health insurance, retirement funds, savings accounts, and the like. Me? What did I have? A marriage that was getting strained to the breaking point, a dog back home that was being eaten alive by some kind of intestinal cancer and racking up vet bills I'd be hard pressed to pay off any time soon, a shitty job with no guaranteed hours and no benefits, what I thought was a great forthcoming album on a label that (unbeknownst to us) was about to file bankruptcy, and the phone number of some homely gal that had offered to take a shot in the mouth while her old man wasn't around back at the club. All that and forty eight dollars. Top of the world, ma.

Sweets reached into the glove compartment and grabbed a tape, turned the ignition switch back towards himself, and popped it in the player. ELVIS: ALOHA FROM HAWAII VIA SATELLITE. I knew what it was as soon as the opening of "Also sprach Zarathustra" began rattling the tiny speakers in the truck doors. It never fails to make my heart pump a little faster. Just that building anticipation of aural orgasm that finally hits the payoff of "See See Rider" right on into "Burning Love". I knew this album backwards and forwards. It may not have been the King's finest moment, but it was more-than-fine to me. By the time the Big E had mellowed into his pussy-wetting lamentation of George Harrison's "Something", I had flashed back to the house in Rossville. The first house my parents ever owned. Not a trailer, but a real, honest-to-god-on-his-holy-gold-throne house. It was in this house that Santy Clause had left me my first record player on a blustery Christmas morn. One fictional fat man had sewn the seeds of my destruction and another partly-fictional fat man was fixing to water the hell out of 'em.....

It only took a matter of days before I grew tired of the kiddie records that St. Nick had left with my cheap little Otasco record player; I didn't want stories that beep so you could follow the words in a book, I could already read, goddamnit! I wanted some tunes. More specifically - I wanted some Elvis. I hit my parents record shelf with a vengeance. It didn't matter what it was, I gave it a spin. Musty sleeves containing platters by Gary Lewis, Brian Hyland, Herman's Hermits, The Jesus Christ Superstar Original Broadway Cast, John Denver. As you can surmise, my folks weren't much of the rock and rollers. I listened to all these platters indiscriminately, but it was "Elvis' Golden Records" and "Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite" that I separated from the pile and reclaimed as my own , stacking the rest back in the ancient console stereo unit that hogged the back wall of our living room.

Of course I had already been exposed to Elvis - what living, breathing child of the 70s hadn't? My mom watched his movies when they were on TV and played his records while cleaning house. At that point in time you could still hear his records being spun on the radio; he'd only been in the grave a year. Like so many other's mothers, mine cried in front of the TV while watching his funeral procession; the next week there were "collectible art prints" bearing his likeness for sale in the window of the grocery store. People snapped them up as if they were holy relics. Women standing in the checkout line would see his chubby mug grinning back at them from the tabloid covers and burst into tears. You'd see this guy on TV receiving the adoration of millions just for singing and shaking his hips a little, see beautiful women throw themselves at him just trying to get a peck on the cheek, hear the stories about his mansion and jet-setting, over-indulgent lifestyle. They called this guy "The King of Rock n Roll". Everybody did. "THE FUCKING KING of ROCK N ROLL!" I liked the way that sounded and I knew that one day I wanted me some of that.

I played those records to death. Over and over. From sunrise to sunset, earlier and later when I could get away with it. All those great singles compiled on "Golden Records" and the mind-blowing (for a five-year old) "in-concert" experience of "Aloha". I must have ruined Elvis for my parents, but I was caught up in the daydreams inspired by the realization that there was a world out there where people got paid massive amounts of money to sing and be creative and have fun. To a kid from the sticks it seemed like a viable life choice. Hell, Elvis hisowndamnself had been a kid from the sticks, and he was even poorer than anybody I knew. Look at him now....or, rather, look at him while he was still among the living. He'd once been a truck driver. My old man was a truck driver and he came home tired and sweaty and plumb wore out and busted his ass and still struggled with the bills. Why the hell would you want to do that? Why didn't my old man do something like Elvis? In my mind it didn't compute. I was always told that you could be whatever you put your mind and heart into. I didn't understand why everybody else on the planet didn't want to put their minds and hearts into being like Elvis. I knew that's what I was going to do.

Seeing as how my mom wouldn't turn loose of her copy of "Moody Blue", my favorite Elvis record and one that she kept securely out of the path of my record-pillaging self, she did the next best thing - she hauled me to Woolworth's and bought me a 45 single of "Way Down", my ultimate Elvis song. She was probably getting tired of hearing me singing "Hound Dog" and "All Shook Up" day in and day out. Slot the needle in the groove, put on sunglasses, shake hips wildly at self in mirror, and sing as loudly as possible - repeat until bedtime. Now she got to hear me singing "I can feel it (feel it), feel it (feel it), feel it (feel it), feel it (feel it)....WAY DOWN!!!!!!" over and over as morning faded to night. Man, I did it all. The bass parts, the high parts, and, of course, the Elvis parts. Never had one song had me so enthralled. And the best thing was, to my highly trained ear, I knew - I mean I fucking KNEW that I sounded just like The King. I had it down, jack. I had it down so good that I'd keep the Elvis accent going after the records had been put away for supper. "Uh, hey mama, you, uh, wanna pass me sum ah them taters? Thank you, thank you very much," to which my mother would respond by snatching the sunglasses off my face and telling me that we didn't wear them to the table. As soon as supper was over, they were back on my head and I was in front of that record player, and you can bet your sweet ass I was feeling it way down, whatever that meant. I'd even cut the record down and sing it virtually acapella as loud as I could and then smugly ask my mother if she could even tell that it was not Elvis, but her own darling son that had been making those heavenly sounds not a moment before. But, alas, my days of communing with Elvis on a constant basis were coming to an end, school was looming on the horizon.

For my first day of school, I was armed with a cheap, red vinyl Superman book satchel and my uncle's old Planet of the Apes lunchbox, proving I was already rock-star styling with tacky accoutrements and retro-chic trappings long before it was hip to do so. There were no Elvis items available in the back-to-school aisle at K-mart (believe me, I looked) and my folks were trying to keep me sheltered from the likes of KISS, so I settled. I liked school and actually made a few friends rather quickly. We did all the things I liked to do, ya know? Singing and drawing and painting and ABCs and 123s and books and all that cool shit that they get you hooked on in elementary school before they ship you to high school and try to crush your spirit and turn you into a drone.

During the second or third week of school the teacher upped the ante by telling us that this week we were going to do "show and tell" and everyone must participate. We had no idea what this "show and tell" thing was but the teacher explained that we could bring in something special to us and tell about it or maybe even showcase a talent that other folks might not know we have. "Showcase a talent that other folks might not know we have"?????? Man, had I been waiting for this. Hell, I was gonna sew this thing up. I could sing just like Elvis. And of course it was a talent I'd been dying to share, but where do you start? You can't just start singing to folks when you meet them. I'd seen a movie that said Elvis got his start at a school talent show. I was gonna get my start at this "show and tell" spectacle. Maybe I could even get the teacher to make the class close their eyes and then let me discreetly slip to the front of the room and start my song. Hell, they'd flip. They'd think Elvis was back from the grave and standing in the classroom serenading them. They'd think somebody was playing a record. I was going to blow some minds. It'd be catch-a-rising-star from that moment forward. My big break.

This new and potentially star-making development had so completely set my mind ablaze that I became uber fidgety and unsettled while trying to keep up with everything that was going on inside my head. My whole future would be unfolding like some Georgia cracker fairy tale gone mad in just a few days. It was exciting and a bit unnerving. Was I ready? Damn straight.
"What's wrong?" asked my friend Carrie, who had picked up on my suddenly odd demeanor.
"Nothing. Just thinking." I couldn't tell anybody about my hidden talent, I wanted it to hit 'em like a freight train, but at the same time I was dying to let somebody in on my fantastic secret.
"Oh...you're acting funny. Anyway, what are you gonna bring for show and tell?
I looked over my shoulder to make sure nobody was near enough to hear. Dare I divulge it?
I waited on that booger-eater Robbie Brickman to move along and whispered under my breath, "I'm gonna sing like Elvis..."
"What?"
A bit louder now, "I'm gonna sing like Elvis."
"You're gonna sing like ELVIS?" Carrie blurted out with an unbelieving smirk on her face. "Let me hear you."
"Shhhh. I don't want anybody to know."
"You can't sing like Elvis."
"Sure I can. But don't tell anybody. PLEASE!"
"You can't sing like Elvis."
"I can sing just like Elvis. You won't be able to tell us apart."
"Well, let me hear you."
"No. You have to wait until show and tell."
"If you can sing like Elvis, let me hear you."
After several more furtive glances around the room, I moved us to behind the painting easels and let out a barely audible line of "Moody Blue".
Carrie rolled her eyes and said, "You can't sing like Elvis."
"It would sound better if I could do it loudly, but I can't. I don't want to ruin everyone's surprise."
Carrie sighed the exasperated sigh of a woman well beyond the age of Kindergarten and said, "Well, if I were you I'd bring something from home to talk about. I'm bringing a picture of my Dad from when he was in Vietnam."
"What's Vietnam?"
"A country. A war. My dad got shot over there."
"Wow." That was disturbing to me, but not enough to break my mind's current trajectory. "I'm gonna sing like Elvis."
"You shouldn't."
"I'm going to." And the world was going to watch.

When I got home I told my mom all about this show and tell spectacle and how it was fixing to change our lives. I asked her if she thought the teacher would cooperate with my plan of making everyone close their eyes before I began. "When they open their eyes, aren't they gonna be surprised to see that it's me? " She not only thought it was a bad idea, she went so far as to drop the bomb: "You don't sound like Elvis."
WHAT? What was this blasphemous bile spewing from my own dear mother's mouth? I don't sound like Elvis? Are your ears full of chicken shit, lady? Well, clean 'em out and take a listen. I immediately started in on a version of "Teddy Bear" that would have confused Elvis himself as to whether or not it was him or me. "Maybe we should find something else for you to take," my mother said. "What about your....." I didn't even hear the rest. Maybe she didn't want a big house and a pink Cadillac, but I was by-god taking my "Way Down" 45 (or her blue vinyl "Moody Blue" LP, if I could sneak the damn thing out of the house) to school and I was gonna blow the roof off that mother. Hell, I just wished I had something snazzy to wear. I already had the '77 Elvis physique, all I needed was the jumpsuit.

The morning of show and tell came but my mother had confiscated my "Way Down" 45 and how shall we say it? She "coerced" me into taking something else for show and tell and made me promise not to get up and act a fool in front of the class. That would be "disruptive". "Disruptive" children get poor conduct grades and have to go to special classes. What the fuck was so disruptive about trying to emulate the most beloved person to ever walk the face of the earth? Looking back, I don't know if she was trying to save me from embarrassment or herself from embarrassment. Either way, I was threatened with a tanned ass from my father's belt if I dared to spazz out with my Elvis revue and so trudged off to school with some bullshit toy or something that I don't even remember.

"I'm glad you didn't try to sing like Elvis," Carrie told me at recess. I may have been robbed of my first shot to superstardom, but my veins were still full of...

"BURNING LOVE!"
"What?" I said rubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands and seeing the traffic start to slowly inch forward.
"Burning Love!" Sweets said. "That's what we didn't play last night. We should have. The crowd digs it. It's a barn burner. I knew something was missing."
"They missed it at show and tell, too," I mumbled.
"What?"
"Nothing, man. Just shitting around."
Sweets hit the ignition and up the mountain we went. Past a newly-righted and righteously fucked-up rig that contained a driver having a worse day than myself. A driver that wasn't my dad, thank god. Over the mountain and back down into Tennessee, final resting place of The King. Back to my shitty job and fucked up life and moving further and further away from that precious forty-five minutes where I got to live out the dream. I thought back on the kid I had once been and half-way wanted to shout out to him and tell him to listen to the women in his life. Listen to his friend Carrie and listen to his mom. Remember that Carl Sagan guy you saw on Donahue one afternoon talking about dinosaurs and all that shit? Emulate that guy. "Hey kid - St. Elvis of Tupelo died for your sins! Right there on the shitter! He did it so you don't have to!"
"We still got them six shows lined up for the Gulf Coast and New Orleans this month?" Sweets inqured, once again breaking my reverie.
"Yeah," I sighed, damn near moaned. Then way down inside me a chubby little kid's voice echoed back up into my head, "Yeah! And I'm gonna sing like Elvis."