With a pulse

Mullet Watch: Day 10

hipsterdiet:

Still.  Not.  Trimmed.

I’m searching for mullet trim DIY tutorials.

Will, all you have to do is hang upside down from a swing set and then cut it flat. Instant mullet.

loose canons and scotch

It’s 4 in the morning and I was trying to get arrested, mouthing off
to a half dozen cops that were loitering around the convenience store
that I had just sumbled in, some where in the middle of nowhere
between Macon and Athens Ga. I vaguely remember this. More things
happening that are not me but maybe at one time was me, in that moment
but more than likely just the scotch.

Macon is like a ghost town. Oak leaves swept into piles; it is winter
and the trees have become bare. Every other business in the downtown
is vacant. We pull into a space near the club and there is a business
party going on inside. I go back out and sleep in the van for an hour.
Barker makes a PBJ sandwich. Chris drinks. Craig finds a dark corner
somewhere. The opening band has a silly name but they are a guitar and
drum duo that sounds like the cold war kids. They ask me to sit in on
bass even though I do not know any of their songs. It rocks. We are
all very happy. A handfull of locals have showed up to stay, and some
more of the openers friends decide to make a night of it.

But as mentioned before in past exploits, this band seems doomed half
the time. The last tour was a rout, and in the middle of a gas crisis
that left us deserted, then stranded, and then rained out.

Now on stage my amp is broken. The switch is busted, it will not turn
on. The thing is built like a tank, and extremely expensive, and one
little tiny on and off switch is preventing it from working. I take it
apart and immediately get electrocuted. It’s only 110volts. It sorta
tickles. I go and have a plug of whiskey and 3 more beers. I wind up
playing through a vocal monitor. It actually sounds pretty good. The
booking agent is there. He is name dropping like crazy and determined
to get me wasted. We have some more whiskey shots. Now we are on
stage. Everyone that is there comes up and stands right in front of
us. We melt their faces. They hang on every word. They genuinely give
a damn and are very thankful that we are there and they are there.
They all have that look that they can’t believe that they are seeing
and hearing what is in front of them.

I throw some whiskey on Chris. He doesn’t notice. I toss my guitar on
the ground. No problem. We finish the show and everyone proceeds to
get loose. Now the booking agent and I are proper soaking drunk. I
turn around and the van is loaded up. Then I sort of forget what
happened but it got more interesting from there.I met some girl that
started singing opera to me. I told some emotionally inspiring story
to some rock and roll guys about cougar shit. Chris found me walking
the streets giggling and tried to take a video of me pacing back and
forth in the street, laughing like a hyena so I punched the camera
into his head, and he got in a good one with his fist in my face
before Barker got him. I think I laid on the ground for a while, and
then they got me in the van. It was a couple hour drive to Athens and
the conscious members of the group were terribly lost.

Then I tried to get the police to arrest me. Not literally of course,
but I was told that they warned me to get the hell far away, like to
another city, and fast. Then I woke up in a nice futon, in the Redneck
Ramada, the sanctuary of Jenn in Athens Ga, god bless Jenn. We eat a
breakfast of pancakes and bacon, and salt cured ham. I stumble around
for a couple hours trying to remember what the hell had happened the
night before, and all I can get for a while out of anyone is that I am
very funny and that they all forgive me for being a lunatic. My face
hurts. Craig is still wearing a top hat and he is extremely creepy,
and refuses to sleep. I don’t think that he has slept in a week. He
keeps telling everyone his name is Solomon.

Today only furthers the notion that I have the most bent to hell luck
of anyone I know. I found someone to fix my amp, but then when I get
back to Jenn’s house where the rest of the band is I discovered that I
have cracked the headstock of my guitar. But I have spare guitar. But
the spare guitar pops strings right off of it every time you look at
it wrong. We go into town and eventually down to the venue. We eat at
the Clocked diner again, and have fried pickles. We go to the Tasty
world and have to carry all of our gear up 2 flights of stairs because
the venue no longer has shows in the main room anymore. The show is
dead. Super dead. 4 people came to see us, and the other bands
loitered around. Meanwhile there are 100 people in the main room
downstairs for a Sorority Date Auction. I decide that I don’t want to
play the Tasty World ever again.  Barker’s cable breaks. Another
string flies off my guitar. I bounce that one on the ground too. Craig
looks like his eyes are about to pop out of his head. Someone steals
Chris’ sweater. Chris looses his mind because someone stole his
sweater. Craig dissapears. We get to load all the gear back down 2
flights of stairs. I am very depressed.

Athens is not the city it once was. When one of the most renowned
venues in town has to have the lower half become a frat party pad, you
know something is wrong. Music is hurting. People don’t give a damn,
they are too busy with their studies, or watching cable tv to givea
damn.

Thank god for you Jenn. We get back to the house and warm chicken and
dumplings are waiting in the kitchen. Saves me from depression.

Religion Politics and Business

March 1st. 2008

Give anyone enough rope and they are bound to find a way to hang themselves, even if only accidentally. Rosa had beer in his afro last night. I had a bunch of business, political and religious conversations that I cannot remember. Jon got dragged out of the bar by his girlfriend. I prevented 2 different fights from happening that I was not involved in. No one threw Chris out of anywhere (for once). A couple hundred people came to see music. You and your friend tried to save my life by not letting me drive, and I am sorry for being so damn difficult about it. I am also sorry for blacking out in the back of your car. It is very difficult to be attractive and black out.

When was the last time that a look alike stopped you in front of a club and asked you for vitamins? Why would anyone throw water across a bar? Why would someone let you kiss their hand if it’s covered in soap? Why is it so hard for me to be in love? Sometimes I think I need someone to follow me around reciting a disclaimer, like the surgeon generals’ warning. I also should not be allowed to say anything to anyone unless it is in song.


I did an interview the other day where I said: “…some people were so serious that they were willing to give their lives for this music, and now looking back in retrospect, some of us have…”

I rattled that off without thinking about it. It sounds like a good story. But it wasn’t part of a story. I am not bitching about regrets. I meant that. Some of us have sacrificed any semblance of a normal life for the sake of Art, whatever that is. No that does not mean we deserve sympathy or even respect. Some of you that are still alive have given your life for the sake of what you are passionate about. Some of those have died and have been lionized for it. Maybe they are the ones that are better off.

There is this nagging desperation that somehow something, everything just isn’t worth it. There is this constant knife behind the back that there is a total loss of communication and that no one is saying anything ever. Yes we are all talking but what the hell are we saying? The second someone forgets, things cease to exist. Why do we still breathe when we aren’t thinking about it? Why do you think something is attractive?

Don’t talk about getting old. We do not age like other people. No one today grows old in a natural way unless you work on a farm. We make love in front of mirrors to see the proof that man is still an animal. We talk and say things that I don’t remember and I am afraid. How can some of us care so much about certain things ( haircuts, your home team winning the big game, interior decorating) and not really care about others (animal extinction, war crimes, racial and spiritual inequities)? My own pot calling kettles black makes me feel ill. A weather man died this last week and everyone is upset about it. We saw him every day but did we really know him?

Jimmie took me past the velvet rope last night and showed me the several hundred people dancing to disco. As we walked back into the other side of the bar, he mocked them all. I told him that there was something to be said for that because it existed. He said that it was totally irrelevant. I thought that it mattered somehow that five hundred people would want to do that together. In retrospect, I think Jimmie was right. It really doesn’t matter. They aren’t saying anything. They aren’t thinking anything. They aren’t doing anything except for drinking and dancing. But how is it possible to live life in a way that you have an experience every day that you will remember for the rest of your life?

I spent time yesterday at a fair. People were cheerful. An old time exhibit had a woman making rope from twine and giving out heavy analogies with it. Every time I walk through the carnie areas the clown in the dunk tank heckles me, calls me Elvis. The pigs in the agricultural exhibits had sunburns. People are carrying goldfish in plasic bags filled with turqoise water. You know that the fish will not live past a week. It makes you feel a little crazy for giving someone two dollars so you can throw ping pong balls into glass jars. The problem with lost innocence is that we can’t get it back. When was the last time you laid in the grass and looked at the clouds?

I used to drink because everything in the world, when you pay close attention to it seems like it is completely mad. Now when I am under the influences, it just heightens that effect, makes it all seem even more so. Too many things do not make sense, and so we, the people ignore them. When we turn our back to an anthill, it is still teeming and crawling, spooling out ants in all different directions, mindless and yet unified, attending to it’s own purpose and design that is unintelligable to us. Ignoring it makes no difference. In the back of our minds though, we still know it is there.

At the fair, there were strawberry shortcake booths set up run by churches. There were so many people enjoying simple pleasures that it was impossible to ingore. A family was all sitting around the livestock area around their prize cow. They were proud of it. Children ate fresh fried potato shavings with too much salt and malt vinegar. I talked with an old man about his collectible coins. Someone wanted to guess my age and weight. A little girl was doing handstands on the dirty concrete. Somewhere someone said that Charlie Pride was going to perform there. Most of the people there would like to hear themselves be called “folks”. They live in a quaint little town and own a piece of land. They give a damn about their families. They don’t think too much when they look at themselves in the mirror and they fear god.

I think that I have had it all wrong.

I keep having to look at old photographs to prove to myself that I have been places and done things. I keep telling people I love them to force myself to listen to those words. I never feel like I have done enough. I am never content. I am afraid of being content. What happens when a fish stops swimming and sits still? What happens when someone stops being afraid of fate and starts being afraid of time?

For my brunette

You
Swathed in the coal embers of sleep
Buried in blankets and otherwise
Under warm ocean depths
Gasp occasional half thoughts and names
From beneath and above I hear these efforts
And beg silently that those words and names
Are mine