Gang Bands

I was running full long into a day that was not starting well. John on KEXP played “Where Is My Mind?” by Pixies, and I thought, “well all right.” He then did “Pictures of Matchstick Men” by Camper Van Beethoven. Not my top choice for a Camper Van Beethoven song, but I’ll take it.

This for some reason got me thinking about that radio show Loveline. Now back in the day, Loveline was a local show in LA on KROQ, it was not syndicated. In fact, for those of you out there who are fans of Heathers, the show that Veronica and green Heather rush to the room to listen to while yellow Heather talks of suicide is based on the old Loveline. The DJ in the movie is in fact the Poorman, who used to host Loveline.

And all of that for this…

One such back in the day show talked about gangs. As much as the news would have us believe differently, us kids in south Orange County didn’t have much to fear in the way of gangs, so this seemed an odd choice. But some guy calls up to defend the idea of gangs, that he was in a gang and they weren’t thugs and didn’t go out to hurt people; his gang was a group of guys who supported each other in their musical endeavors.

This, by the way, is not a gang. This is called a band.

But, in honor of this, the first day of Rocktober, I say unto thee that I want to start a band and act like it’s a gang.

We’ll have initiation rites where we pummel a new member with a C and E combo two chord jam. We’ll get into tussles with other bands where we spank each other with cables, twiddle the knobs on some other guy’s effects peddle and effectively whacking out the tone on the distortion they’d spent so much time crafting just right. Other bands would write songs about our lifestyle.

And then those bands would eventually get arrested for possession; of song books probably, or at least tablature sheets. We would eventually do public service tours, talk to youngsters about how they don’t want to join bands, live clean, praise Jebus.

It tastes like glory good people, and glory tastes like banana popsicles.


Rocktober Song of the Day: “Debaser” by Pixies.

These Dreams

I’m totally bogged down with work stuff that I have to do, but I’m taking a few minutes for me, right now.

Dig it.

I had this dream the other night, where I kept finding all of these extra rooms in the house I was living in. I found a door inside the washing machine, and when I went through it there was this huge room. The door off that room led to this short hallway where there was another door to this huge room.

I remember thinking in my dream, “man, I can put so much stuff in here.”

It was as if the former owner of the place had completely forgotten that these rooms were there – and no wonder, being you had go through the washing machine. There was a chest of drawers and a television; the random detritus of a quick move out where what’s not necessary gets left behind.

This dream left me feeling hopeful, I can’t say why. I also had the feeling that if I were to do some investigating into the meaning it might break that fragile little feeling of hope.

So you think that I would have known better than to go to work trying to hold onto that.

Yeah, blah blah work, blah blah you hate your job, blah blah some nimrod in another department did something incredibly stupid that will unfortunately effect you and your team badly, blah blah someone in charge, instead of going about fixing things rationally, is taxing you with fixing this problem in the most inefficient way possible as if you were the guy with the shovel made just to use when someone else poops. Blah blah…

So… I’m up and getting ready to head in at round abouts 5:30 this morning, already feeling the seething come in. It had rained last night, but was clear and cold. There was this sliver, this shaving of ice, this baby’s fingernail of moon hanging over a big, dark pine tree. It threw off enough light to just touch the clouds and excite ‘em a little bit. And a few bright stars, the light blending in with the cold air... It was shockingly beautiful. I could feel everyone asleep around me, and I began to wonder if wasn’t still sleeping as well, feeling the cold because I’d managed to kick off the blankets again.

Now, I don’t like to spend a lot of time up before the sun (and with the coming winter I don’t have a lot of choice), but if they could all feel like that, it wouldn’t be half bad. I put the seething away for a bit, tried to remember that early morning scene, and those extra rooms.


Zeptember Song of the Day: “Baby Come On Home”.

The Curse Of Lono

I was standing in the backyard, waiting impatiently for that moon, way too large and bright for its own good, to rise up over the trees. I could make it out between the branches, I could make it dance when I swayed myself, but the damn thing just wouldn’t get any higher. But oh, that PBR tasted good.

I got to thinking about the last time that I had a backyard. It was back in the early nineties, when grunge was ripping through the world, and I was slowly realizing that Santa Barbara was not the place I needed to be at that particular time.

The backyard wasn’t ours necessarily, and it was long drop from the back porch. The downstairs neighbor claimed that part of the yard, we got the scrabble of dirt and the occasional pop up of wildflowers that came from a drunken toss of seeds one fine afternoon.

There was the three of us in the house, and Raf. Raf was an older, womanizing, Social Security cheat that didn’t partake in the inebriating excess that we did. The three of us were trying to figure out what it was we were. Part of me loves that devil-may-care, try anything attitude – part of me desperately needed to travel the road to get where I am – but mostly I feel like we were trying too hard.

I was spending a lot of time drunk and writing truly stream of consciousness pages when I could. What little money I could scrounge went towards whiskey. I once, at the daring of one of the others in a moment of figuring out if I was a shoplifter, stole a bottle of Jack Daniels from the liquor store.

One thing that Corado and I decided to try being was dog owners. We went into this with the same amount of preparation that went into most everything else we did at the time; none. “We should get a dog,” one of us said stonily. “We totally should,” the other answered. And off we went to the pound.

We got ourselves a black lab/pit bull mix and we named him Lono after the Hunter S. Thompson book The Curse of Lono. We were all Thompson fans as he made being an inebriated smart ass seem like a logical career move.

Lono ate my hat. Lono spent about ninety-five percent of the evening hours barking his face off. When I took him on a walk one afternoon after class, he went apeshit and tried to attack a Hispanic gardener up the street, the dog literally dragged me across the asphalt while the man ran for his life. Lono welcomed one of Raf’s aggressively under aged girlfriends with wagging tail and doggy smile, only to corner her in the doorway with bared teeth and the sort of emanating growl that spoke of tearing out a throat when she attempted to leave.

I guess it would have been a good idea to pay attention to the Humane Society’s warning that Lono had attempted to maul a kid when he was the dog formerly known as Lightning, but we figured hey, we don’t have any kids. We didn’t take into account Raf’s proclivities.

We also didn’t take into account that we were irresponsible, drug addled, wannabes who had no business owning a dog.


Zeptember Song of the Day: “Heartbreaker” followed by “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman)”. I hate to seem them split up, it hurts a bit.

Dot Dot Dot

This poor blog, it’s like I’m in a depression and this blog is my general hygiene and appearance – ignored.

Truth be told, I am fighting a depression, but this has nothing to do with why I can’t get it together to post something, it’s the job.

Again with the job, I’m tired of talking and writing and bitching and moaning about this job.

The funny thing about this depression, is that I seem to be getting better at handling them. Instead of months of closing myself off in a room with cigarettes and Cure albums, I go through a few hours, half a day, of absolute despair and then clue in that I got some pretty good shit goin’ on. Positive movement, right?

You’d think so, but each time I’m able to crawl out of my boiling pot of self pity, I think it’s over, that I’ve concurred this demon depression. Then the next day I’m cock smacked in the face by it all over again

It feels like falling down a hill, limping back up said hill, just to have some hairy stranger pee in my mouth.

It’s not really like that at all. But then I start to think that I only see the negative of this situation because I’m fighting a depression, and then I get dizzy with the vortex my head begets.

And then I think I might need a haircut. But then I think I sort of like where my hair is now.

Then I think about those fish deep in the ocean, with the glowing dangly things that come off their heads and lure unsuspecting fish to their mealtime deaths.

Then I think about getting all done up on Ouzo, laying out in a field somewhere and laughing.

Then I think about the fact that with fewer postings here, I hesitate in typing out something just off the cuff and bizarre.

Then I think about how we should all be in Greece right now.

Then I think about how it’s Zeptember, and the Zeptember song of the day is “The Rain Song”.

Song

There’s a little ritual that I’ve been indulging in for quite awhile now that is pretty much my favorite part of the day - Oxycodone.

I kid of course. Seriously, I’m kidding.

No, it’s putting Kickers down for sleep every night. I’m sure this sounds dumb, and I’m way “kidding out”, so I apologize ahead of time.

The night will lead to dinner, and depending on the sauce quotient of said dinner, it may lead to a bath as well. There’s a diaper changing where we practice the alphabet or counting (it keeps him from getting upset with me for being all up in his junk), there’s the dressing in PJ’s which eventually itself leads a tickle fest of grand proportions. Afterwards, there’s usually some reading.

All of that’s fine and well, it’s the next step that’s the one. And understand, like most kids, this one is not one for just giving up the ghost and charging into sleep, he likes to fight, fight against the dying of the light. There have been some epic screaming fits, particularly when we rudely took the bottle away.

Like father, like son.

But the routine… We get the blanket, he wraps his little arm around my neck, sort of cocks his head on my shoulder, and man, if I have any say in it, that’s a feeling I want to take with me when I go. Then I start to sing.

I don’t know why, but “Ship of Fools” by the Grateful Dead has become the lullaby of choice. He doesn’t shout out requests, I don’t do encores. When I’m done, I tilt him down to get him into the crib and he’s usually either blinking long and slow as if the Baby Oxycodone has kicked in, or he’s smiling. I ask for a kiss, and get it. Then I say my goodnights and walk out to never a fuss since the singing started.

It’s nice that at least once a day I can do something that actually means something.

Rain

I can’t say that it’s longing for fall, being we haven’t had much of a summer, but we got a metric shit ton of rain in the last couple of days and I was digging it.

On Sunday, the day started out with some promise; mostly blue sky, a fine and fresh smell on the cool breeze. I opened the kitchen window to get some air in the place and was reminded of green things and sunshine, a subtle and slow vitality. Then at some point I heard the raindrops hitting the corrugated fiberglass of the carport.

I was reminded of other times and other memories that weren’t mine, but felt close enough to have been passed down through the blood. There was nothing concrete, nothing visual, just a feeling of calm of having literal shelter from a literal storm.

Kickers went down for a nap and I stood at the window watching all of that muted gray shining through running water. I thought that sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a book sounded like the best damn idea I’d had in a week. A damn fine idea it was, and the pot of red beans on the stove seemed like the perfect set piece.

A little later I was running errands, driving through washed out streets downtown, the wet and deserted, industrial and absolutely shining atmosphere kindly grabbed hands with the Tom Waits on the stereo with a smile and dragged it along for a great ride.

And yesterday there was more rain, heavy rain. There were lightening bolts that while attention getting, seemed almost ashamed to be here and so out of place.

The thing is, I don’t mind it, all this noise of a storm, all the compressed gloom of the clouds waiting to let loose their load, I'm kinda digging it. I know that summer’s leaving quick, that we’re probably in for a dark and wet and cold winter, but somehow my mind, my soul needed this.

I needed something to make me stop and stare the world for a minute, enjoy the quiet music already playing.

Home

Sitting in a sideways seat on the old 22, coming home, I’m struck suddenly by a combination of things.

First, there’s Tom Waits’ “Come On Up To The House” in my ears. It’s a song that’s held a special place from the first time I heard it, a song that really foots the bill at the moment, a song that reminds me that even when it’s rough out there, there’s always a place of solace.

“When the only thing that you can see is all that you lack, you gotta come on up to the house.”

So I got that going on, caught somewhere between a goofy smile and tears. And honestly, that’s one of my favorite places to get caught; way better than between the moon and New York City. I’m noticing the mists and low gray clouds that have come to town in a coach of unseasonable storm patterns. I’m watching all that West Seattle green fold itself inside the gray and can’t help but think that they were meant to be together the way it works so well. They’re like lovers. No, there’s something volatile and fragile about that. They’re like old fiends who have more than once gotten drunkenly naked together – unashamed and still digging each other’s company.

Then the bus passes right by this little house. Nothing fancy, probably four rooms up in there. The front door is open and there’s a boy of about 5 standing in the doorway. He’s looking out at the yard, I’m assuming at the rain gathering in the yard. The look on his face as I quickly passed him by caught for a long second. And I’m totally reading into it, but there wasn’t this look of annoyance at not being able to play in the yard, no sadness, just this serene look of being caught in a moment unguarded.

I caught him, though he’ll never know it. And I held onto those things the rest of the ride, through the walk in the strengthening rain, myself caught once again somewhere between a goofy smile and tears.