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You can’t ask that of me, we’ve only just met

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Listener – You Were A House On Fire

A little over a year ago I drove up I-5 from Los Angeles to Seattle with the cruise control set at 75. I cranked the music up over the road noise. The incessant vibration and blaring radio jarred me into near senselessness.

I stumbled out of my Civic at a rest stop somewhere in the middle of Oregon and blinked a few times. A happy homeless man bounded up to me.

“Hi, I’m Keith. Can you spare any change? I’ve got to buy a sack of hot dogs for my wife and dogs.” He gestured to a lady chatting to the owners of a van a few spots down the parking lot and at two large dogs tied to the wall near the bathroom.

“Today’s your lucky day,” I said, and dumped well over $5 worth of quarters (a roommate’s idea of a joke in payment for a minor debt) into his outstretched hands. Our fingers brushed; his skin was rough and scarred.

But his face was bright, soft, grinning dumbly like one of his mutts.

“Where ya headed?” he asked.
“Up to Seattle. I’m moving from Cali.”
“You should keep on driving right on up to Everett, get a job with Boeing. That’s what I did after the war. Pays real great and with the benefits.”
“You were in the war?” I asked.
“Yeah, Nam. Me and my buddy Robbie were there before we came here. We camped just across the freeway down there.” He pointed over the highway to a dirt road that led around a hill. “He’s not around anymore.”
“Hey, listen, we can keep talking, but I’ve got to piss something serious.” I usually don’t pull over unless I have to get gas or am about to piss my pants.
“Oh, of course, by all means. You can enjoy my music too. Go right ahead.”

Keith had the male restroom door propped open with a jukebox which blared AC/DC. I kicked it aside to let the door close, filling the bathroom with tinny guitars and thin vocals as I held my dick in my hand and peed into a toilet millions of men had peed into before.

I propped the door back open and went to see the two dogs. They sniffed and licked my hand; their fur was gorgeous and lush, not the fur of a homeless man’s dog. I think they were half Boxer.

“What are their names?” I asked when Keith came over.
“The mom, this one, she’s Nance. This one’s named Robbie. I was going to give my friend Robbie one, but I can’t, so I named it after him instead. He died on that highway right out there. Little Robbie’s the only one of the litter left.”
“Oh yeah? How many did you have?”

Keith told me a convoluted story about how the policeman who came around the rest stop had threatened to take his dogs away, but eventually Keith had talked the officer into buying one for his niece. Keith seemed especially proud of that one.

We slowly meandered back to my car, chatting. He sometimes spit chunks out when he talked, and I could see the back of his mouth. It dawned on me that Keith wasn’t completely there, but he seemed good natured enough. I asked him where he was headed that night.

“Oh me and the wife are camped out across the highway, same place me and Robbie found a while back. Robbie, he was my best friend. He saved my life, you know. We were in Nam, and I got shot in the ass. They got me right here,” he turned around and pointed to his butt cheek. “But Robbie, he carried me out of there. Slung me right on over his shoulder and carried my ass to safety. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.

“He died right over there. We were headed back to camp after dark, and I made it across alright, but Robbie didn’t make it. A car hit him wham! and then drove off. And he was dead. Robbie, he saved my life, but I couldn’t save his.” Keith was openly weeping now, all tears and spit and distorted face. “I cut back across the highway and I dragged him to the shoulder, but he was already dead, man. Nam couldn’t get him, but a minivan did.”

I wiped some snot off my upper lip. I could see it: the pitch black, Keith – driven half insane by war and menial jobs and America – holding his only friend in his arms, as Robbie’s body cooled and stiffened with death.

Keith quickly moved on, telling me the story about the cop and the puppy again. I smiled, and put my hand on his shoulder and said it was nice to meet him, but I had to get going, a life was calling up north. And I drove on off up the freeway where Robbie died.

[Wooden Heart.]

Posted on January 16, 2011 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

The way we get by

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We Have Band – How To Make Friends

The cab leaves me at the corner of Union and Bond. I’m tired. I’m drunk. I’m pretty sure my friend is hanging onto the back of the car, ready to jump off and berate me for leaving the bar early. (It’s 1 a.m.) I look back; he’s not. I reach into my pocket to get my phone and read the text messages he’s sent.

It’s not there. It’s on the backseat of the cab, having slipped out of my pocket for the second time tonight. The cab is a block and a half down the street, picking up speed. Without thinking, I take off running.

I have two chances to catch him: The light seven blocks away and the one two blocks further. Once he takes a left onto Atlantic, It’s “hey AT&T, here’s $500.”

I’m sprinting. I am Jason Bourne. I know I can run for half a mile, flat out, without getting tired. I don’t know how I know this, I just do. I am flying. I’m catching this cab.

Except I’m not. I am Matt Damon playing Jason Bourne, if Matt Damon were a drunk kid, running in skinny pants and skate shoes, rapidly losing wind. There’s no way I’m catching this cab.

I reassess the situation. The cab, now three blocks ahead, looks like it will get stuck at one, if not both, lights. That’s a positive. There’s a kid lazily riding his bike 10 feet behind me. I gasp: “My phone’s in that cab. Can you try to catch it?”

He looks at me. He considers my plea.

He takes off down the street.

I am excited. I sprint faster in solidarity with my new friend and his rusting mountain bike. I’m running fast; he’s riding much, much faster. Both he and the yellow vehicle are disappearing in the distance.

Fatigue sets in. I can barely see. I just focus on sprinting. I don’t know why I’m still running; it just seems important. I’m not paying attention to what’s happening ahead of me. There’s just the pavement and my increasing urge to vomit.

My compromised senses note an object winding its way towards me. I look up. It’s the kid and his bike, riding uncommitted s-curves in my direction. The cab is nowhere to be seen.

He gets closer. Something in his hand is forcing him to ride erratically. My phone.

He hands it over, and I try to give him some money from my wallet. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “That was amazing,” I pant with far too much enthusiasm. “I kind of lost my car,” he says. “Well, I don’t know if it got lost or towed. I parked it on Union and Bond.” “Can I help with that?” I ask. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, and rides off.

When I finally make it back to the corner, he’s there, riding slowly around searching for his car. He nods at me and shrugs. I nod back, then walk into my apartment. He continues looking.

[Buy.]

Posted on January 15, 2011 - Tunes - 2 Comments » Share

By the time we met the times had already changed

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Garbage – Only Happy When It Rains

Soon after Garbage broke through in the United States, fire-haired frontwoman Shirley Manson mentioned to Spin that she joined a rock band for the sex. For some reason likely related to minor teenage rebellion, I relayed this fact to my mother one afternoon. In a teachable moment she said that was nice for Shirley, you know if that was the kind of sex she wanted to be having.

I listened, then ignored. Manson was famous, beautiful, and outwardly sexually aggressive; I was 14, shy, and in love with a woman on the cover of a magazine. Teenage boys can dream, can’t they?

Nothing happened, obviously. The singer married and then divorced a Scottish sculptor best known as the “ex-husband of Shirley Manson.” I grew up, wandered happily single around New York, and learned I wouldn’t want to date a rock star even if I could.

We both ended up in the right place. But the antiquated part of me can’t help wondering whether Manson would be happy during other weather patterns as well if she found herself in a committed relationship.

[Spend your money on Garbage.]

Posted on January 13, 2011 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Persons

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Arrested Development – People Everyday

A song made, in four minutes and four seconds, of cigarettes and thickshakes in the Georgian afternoon wearing an apple-red silk shirt under bright yellow suspenders. Its been years now, but on the first day Sly cried: “Different strokes, for different folks!” It’s still right.

Speech married young. He lived in a one-room apartment on the west side of town with his bride, Laura. She worked long hours at the bakery and he roamed the streets, doing odd jobs to make ends meet. In the evenings, he cleaned the place from bottom to top, vacuuming stray crumbs from the carpet and wiping down the windows. He touched his hands to the bed, carefully smoothing out the creases in the blanket. Every night, Laura waited until he left the room before slipping in and ruffling the sheets, throwing the pillows across the room. Speech would go into the kitchen, toast some bread with crispy bacon and scrambled eggs with sprinkles of ham and tomato. He would make two. Speech called Laura into the living room and she would come, smiling quietly. A breath of something sweet in her ear, a touch on his arm, then they would sit side to side and ease into their toasted sandwiches. [Buy.]

Posted on January 11, 2011 - Tunes - 1 Comment » Share

The skin never forgets a deep abrasion

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Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip – Rapper’s Battle

I have seen an obscene amount of penises in my life.

Between a decade of dorms, a job which pits me in locker rooms, and a lack of modesty among my friends, I’ve seen enough dicks to make a whore blush.

White dicks. Thick dicks. Spaghetti dicks. Uncircumcised dicks. Crooked dicks. Sacks drooping down below dicks. Meticulously shaved dicks. Reassuringly lacking black dicks. Grower-not-shower dicks. Girthy dicks. Just all sorts of fucking dicks.

What most interests me about the locker room scene is that modesty has no correlation to penis size. The majority, regardless of endowment, slink to their corner sheepishly, towel tight around their waists, or at least with something held at their fronts. Others are more bold. I remember one Hispanic player in Los Angeles who, without fail, casually strolled out of the shower with his towel draped across his shoulders, his impish genitals hanging out like a jaundiced wrinkle of skin.

That’s an image you can’t easily discard. Believe me, I’ve tried.

[Occupy your mind elsewhere by buying and listening to Angels or by watching the video below.]

Posted on January 10, 2011 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Send me one, please

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Posted on January 8, 2011 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

I need to make a sound

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Gold Panda – You

The spherical beat of You is a provider of limited solace. It’s the drudge and sheer faithlessness of a trapped mind, the shredded skin of love’s coil, the vibrant drown of senseless compulsion. “You! You! You! You! You! You! You! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!” The consistent elation of stolen and kept delirium. On an unapologetic loop, sped-voices puncture as many holes into the sphere as the accompanying electronic drums, with a distant circling of hazy three-note melody washing the backdrop. It is the single moment of uncorrupted obsession, dragged out into an underground dance anthem of lights and stolen senses. [Buy, please.]

Posted on January 7, 2011 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Maybe you shouldn’t be entertained

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Okkervil River – Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe

In “Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe,” Will Robinson Sheff’s lyrics saunter aimlessly around the absurd. It’s wordplay for the sole sake of wordplay, acoustically pleasing phrases devoid of any meaning. “Where the lock that you locked in the suite says there’s no prying / When the breath that you breathed in the street screams there’s no science.” Lovely. Empty.

During the four-minute and 26 second song, Sheff sings 216 words. Only nine of them matter.

The line “It’s just a life story, so there’s no climax” enters right before the minute mark and disappears before sixty seconds end. It is, fittingly, not the pinnacle of the song or even the verse. It’s not the climax of anything, really; more a vital observation masquerading in the place where a throwaway remark should go. A wandering mind will miss Sheff’s best insight. (The following line, “No more new territory, so pull away the IMAX,” returns immediately to light, airy, ridiculous tricks with rhyme schemes.)

“Our Life” eventually peaks, hitting its highest note as pounded chords and a cacophony of noise explode behind Sheff’s silly simile: “Like a pro at his editing suite takes two weeks stitching / up some bad movie.”

The man in question is bored, but he’ll be fine; we don’t live movies. Nor should we. How simultaneously tiring and overwhelming would that get, spending our days trapped along a plot-line that’s crescendo-ing and descending rapidly enough to keep an audience happy? [Buy.]

Posted on January 5, 2011 - Tunes - 2 Comments » Share

Carey Mercer tweets the new Destroyer album

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Destroyer – Kaputt

@careymercer: On a musical note: It wasn’t nice of Reg to call the new Destroyer “Space needle music.”

@careymercer: Especially when it is so devastatingly good

@careymercer: Is it one of the saddest records ever made?

@careymercer: You must listen to it at 3am in the back of the van while driving through North Dakota. The weather conditions must be clear.

@careymercer: There should be a full moon.

@careymercer: What does “Space Needle Music” mean? Could it be anything other than a pejorative?

@careymercer: As a genre, I would rather listen to something called “Space Needle Music” than something called “Chillwave”.

@careymercer: I wonder if the rise of the laptop-samples record could be interpreted in a Marxist sense.

@careymercer: I bet it could.

@careymercer: Everyone piles scorn on music writers. It seems to be the thing to do.

@careymercer: But in the end they will be redeemed: their life pursuit is the contemplation of someone else’s art. This seems unerringly noble to me.

@careymercer: Like St. Julian the Hospitaller, throwing his nude body upon the leper. Yes, that is what a music critic is like.

@careymercer: I thank those music writers who wrestled with Paul’s Tomb this year.

@careymercer: The exact quote “It sounds like music that should be played in the lobby of the Space Needle.” This isn’t positive.

@careymercer: Hopefully there will be many positive, thoughtful reviews to counter-balance this initial critique.

@careymercer: Because it is so good, and also because it itself is a brutal critique.

@careymercer: Of capitalism.

[Pre-order Kaputt. Then buy Frog Eyes‘ Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph because it, too, is so devastatingly good.]

Posted on January 4, 2011 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

11

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Rattail – Green Guitar

Yesterday the city was filled with lights made of confetti and tofu. People walking in clusters of eleven; no less, no more. Everybody awoke that morning with tangled vines instead of their auburn/jet-black/ginger/aqua/golden/grass-green (!) hair. Tangled vines with dead cherubs at the ends, strangled. Planes fell from the sky.

Tezcatlipoca checked his foundation in the mirror, the watery lines of mascara running down his cheeks and staining his lips, staining the cigarette between his teeth casting grey fumes over his troubled expression.

Pre-teens fucked in alleyways. The elderly played Scrabble and snorted cocaine. The middle-aged died in a factory line throwing themselves mindlessly over the edge of the San Francisco bridge. Everybody was suffering.

The cats and rats and Christmas beetles were happy. Cross-legged in lawn chairs out the front of suburban households, sipping on Mai Tais. Phones were ringing in every block; cordless phones in apartment stretches, pay phones out front of Dino’s pizzeria, every iPhone and Blackberry in abandoned suit-pants. Nobody answered. [Buy.]

Posted on January 3, 2011 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

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