Jazz Douche

How do you know if you are a Jazz Douche?

Here are some common indicators...

1. A beret that looks as if it was kidnapped off of the tete of Marcel Marceau's bastard nephew

2. A storage space with alphabetized vinyl in milk crates

3. Your facial hair requires constant attention yet still looks like some sort of rabid animal attack

4. You wear a fanny pack

5. You say things like 'Dig?' and 'Cool, daddy-o.'

6. You know that Hector "Gobble-Neck" Ramsay played on the first take of The Kansas City Trio's version of 'Chatanooga Choo-Choo' but then he ate some bad fish so they had to call in Arizona Smith for the second take. But, see, on the second take, they had Arizona set up in the bathroom and his stand-up bass kept scratching up against the faucet so they wound up using Gobble-Neck's take anyway, in spite of the fish.

7. You can't play an instrument.

8. You play Santana records to get in your wife's pants.

9. You smell like bologna.

10. Your pants have pleats.

11. For a brief shining moment, you thought Yes was going to change EVERYTHING.

12. Listening to Frankie 'Two-Tone' Walters' recording of 'Opus Etude Interlude No. 27 in A Minor' for the first time was the catalyst for ending your second marriage.

13. You wrote a short novel imagining a militia led by Miles Davis overthrowing the MTV Total Request Live set and playing 'Sketches of Spain' on an endless loop.

14. You used to have a hoop earring in your right ear until your boss at the convalescent hospital made you take it out because it was unsanitary.

15. You have an 'I'd Rather Be Be-Bopping' bumpersticker on your Ford Escort.

16. Your eyelids are heavy.

17. After you've had a few cocktails, you start raving about how everything would have gone differently if Chet Baker hadn't died...he'd have been the teen idol, the Beatles wouldn't have made such a splash, and the world would be grooving to Chick Corea a little bit more.

18. You have bad dreams about guitars.

19. You like Pauly Shore comedies.

20. You are deeply ashamed of it, but you secretly prefer Julie Andrews' version of "My Favorite Things" to Coltrane's.

There. If you need any further help in identifying a Jazz Douche, either in the mirror or in your general vicinity, check back in with me.

A Comprehensive List

I am now going to attempt the almost impossible. I am going to reach back into my memory and try to remember every live show I've ever seen.

Some of these names are well known. Others you will have to trust me that they exist and that I've seen them perform.

The 1980's list is primarily from Rhode Island clubs and the outdoor arena Great Woods in Massachusetts. The 1990's is that list as well plus 6 years of NYC showgoing. I will keep coming back to this list and adding names. If you've been to a show with me that I've forgotten, please let me know.

Time Period: 1980's

The Fixx
The Outfield
Squeeze
Romeo Void
Steveie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
The Fabulous Thunderbirds
Shithaus
Pussy Galore
That'll Learn Ya
Two Guys and Another Guy
7Seconds
Circle Jerks
Verbal Assault
Violent Femmes
The Replacements
Husker Du
The Ramones
UB40
U2
The B-52's
Del Amitri
Stevie Nicks
Jungle Dogs
Neutral Nation
Elvis Costello
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Oingo Boingo
Blues Traveler
Sugar
The Goats
G. Love and Special Sauce
Bob Mould
59 Teeth
fishbone
All
Billy Bragg
Coat of Arms
Plan 9
Neil Finn
Simply Red
Level 42
Indigo Girls
The Hooters

Time Period: 1990's

Sonic Youth
Superbug
Backwash
Neo 90's Dance Band
Jeff Buckley
Morphine
Paul Westerberg
Prince
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Henry Rollins Band
Guns 'n Roses
Faith No More
Soundgarden
The Saints
The Blake Babies
Buffalo Tom
Emmitt Swimming
King's X
Combustible Edison
Barnyard Playboys
The Candy Butchers
The Samples
Andre Williams
Pat McCurdy
Fugazi
Mono Puff
They Might Be Giants
David Gray
Beastie Boys
Smashing Pumpkins
Primus
A Tribe Called Quest
Alice In Chains
Dr. Mars
Viva
Jack Logan and Liquor Cabinet
Rasputina
The Cure
Nine
Luscious Jackson
Hellmen
Spacehog
Sister Hazel
Rev. Horton Heat
Doc Watson
CoCo Cohen
The October Project
Jim Farmer
Dinosaur Jr.
Arrested Development
Tool
George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic
The Breeders
American Music Club
Medicine Ball
The Two Dollar Pistols
The Smoking Jackets

2000's

Weezer
Big Mondays
Superdrag
Shark
Radiohead
Rolling Stones
The Lemonheads
Rufus Wainwright
Tori Amos
The Roots
The Klaxons
Willie Nelson
Rage Against the Machine
Rob Wasserman
10th Planet
Queens of the Stone Age
The Pixies
The National
Broken Remotes
Biirdie
Cold War Kids
Eyes Adrift
Luna
Throwing Muses
Liz Phair
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Barenaked Ladies
Guided by Voices
Fun Lovin' Criminals
Dance Hall Crashers
Elemenopy
Dan Zanes
Sparklehorse
Cake
The Goodies
Huge
Marah
John Williams
Rachel Sage
Wiley
Wheat
Blackmarket
The Realistics
Missy
Jen DeMartino Fugazi Tribute Band
Quincy
Goldspot
Joe Firstman
The Bennett Cale Project
Jay Nash
Neurotic City
Reign for Rent
Manu Chao
Paul McCartney

Robert DeNiro Movies

From the title of this post, you might think a discussion of 'Raging Bull' vs. 'Midnight Run' was about to follow. Sorry! Another time, another blog. (For the record I would choose 'Midnight Run' if I had to show someone one piece of work to define DeNiro...don't even argue, I'm right.)

No, this post is far more obscure than the title suggests. Once again, I must go back into the murky depths of my past.

Somewhere, out there in this enclosed space we call Earth, a cassete tape or LP sits. On it, a song called 'Robert DeNiro Movies' rests, unplayed. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

I spent 4 years of high school and 5 years of college in Kingston, RI. Music then, as it is now, was my passion, my escape, my obsession. From the moment I got my driver's license I made constant road trips to Providence to see punk bands in the various shitholes that presented all-ages shows. I scoured the local and national newspapers for any story that vaguely mentioned this underground world I'd become a part of.

A local URI band seemed to be gaining quite a bit of popularity and notoriety. Called That'll Learn Ya, they were comprised of 5 guys. 2 guitars, bass, drums, singer. This would have been 1984 or so. I think the guitarists were brothers. They had entered some Snickers songwriting contest and a record contract seemed quite possible.

I saw them play at the Student Union on the URI campus while I was still in high school. Occasionally I'd be on campus to visit my dad in the library, or go shopping in the record store that had the strange stuff I was into. Quite often in the afternoons That'll Learn Ya would be rocking away on a small stage. People wandered in and out, it seemed more like a public rehearsal than an actual concert.

I'd also seen them play an outdoor show on the Quadrangle and I think I'd seen them open up for a traveling punk band at a club in Providence. I bought the 45 they put out that had a great REM jangly number called 'Pulling Up the Night' on it. Think REM with a more growly Eddie Vedder type on vocals. I remember them being quite good live and I thought the few songs I heard on the 45 were okay.

But they had a masterpiece. I bought a small hand made cassette of theirs. Red construction paper insert with strange little cartoons on it...4 songs or so on each side. I think I paid $4.99 for it, or something like that.

I remember nothing of 7 of these songs. But one has stuck in my head for the last 20 some years. 'Robert DeNiro Movies'. I can hear the damn thing in my head. Unfortunately, I lost the cassette somewhere along the way. It is the only piece of music that I wish I had access to that I cannot get access to.

The snippet of lyric that comes back is as follows:

God, are you the one who rents me Robert DeNiro movies?
When you get drunk do things mean more than they should?

I can sing those two lines.

I'm putting it out into the ether right here and now. Anyone know the dudes in that band? That'll Learn Ya. I think the singer was named Terry Fallon.

In my mind it is like a pebble thrown out over a lake that will never drop into the water, creating the preordained ripple. I want that ripple.

Open Letter to Prince

Yo Prince!

Let me preface this whole thing by saying that I am a gigantic fan. I vividly remember hearing 'Little Red Corvette' for the first time...I was in Junior High and hormones were laying waste to my sanity. That song let me know that I wasn't crazy, and the sound gave voice to what I could not articulate. Mainly that I needed a love slave.

I was already on the bandwagon when 'Purple Rain' came out, I still count 'Under the Cherry Moon' as a sadly overlooked masterpiece (the album, not the movie...if you'd performed the songs live in the movie it would be a camp classic instead of a heinous vanity project), and I saw 'Sign o' the Times' in the theater. OK? I ordered 'Crystal Ball' on the internet. I am a true believer!

I dug it when you shaved 'Slave' into your facial hair. I cheered when you shook off the corporate puppeteers and reclaimed your name.

Here's what I've been missing from you...ROCK. All capital letters blistering guitar solo cock of the walk ROCK. I feel like you lost all your old Hendrix records and are stuck listening to Al Green and Joni Mitchell. Now, don't get me wrong. I love these influences and how they play out in your music, but we have so few guitar gods these days. You are one of them. With great power comes great responsibility. That's a line from 'Spiderman' but i thought invoking a strange guy in tight clothes with a mysterious identity might inspire you.

Now that you know that we are pining away for some ROCK, I have the perfect solution. And it can be just another facet of your diamond lake of personalities...

I have three words for you...

Are you ready? (Those aren't the three words, I'm just building suspense!)

NEW POWER TRIO.

You need to put out an album by the New Power Trio. An Are You Prince-perienced phallus of soaring guitar solos and howling electric blues ROCK. And then you need to tour with that band. Strip away the keyboards, the horns, the lutes, the samples, the back-up singers, the choreography, the instrument shifting, the strings, all that shit. Strip it all away until it is just you, a bass player, and a drummer.

NEW POWER TRIO.

You've done the Sgt. Pepper psychedelia thing, the Parliament thing, the hip-hop thing...what about the time honored tradition of the power trio? Check out the following list...

The Jimi Hendrix Experience...need I say more? We all know you spent hours as a teen hopping around your bedroom wearing scarves and learning these songs note for note. Turn that private obsession out, oh Purple One!

The Who...I know, they had Daltrey, but whenever Pete sang they were a power trio. Unstoppable.

Cream...terrible production, lame singing, stupid lyrics. But holy macaroni, what a noise! 'Disraeli Gears'??? That's almost as pretentious as 'Graffiti Bridge', are you gonna take that lying down?

Husker Du...not so well known as the above triumvirates, but these guys came from your hometown, they exploded all over each other over the course of several amazingly diverse albums, and they somehow managed to be a huge punk success without anyone catching on that the two main songwriters in the band were gay. Their gay-ness only fueled their ROCK. I know you love the ladies, but your androgynous history has to respect a dirty gay punk power trio. Check out 'Zen Arcade' for sheer insane scope of vision.

The Minutemen...c'mon, don't tell me you don't know The Minutemen, P. Rog Nelson! These three guys tore the country apart for a few years before their hefty lead singer died in a van crash. Political, absurd, breakneck, hilarious, ultimately tragic. Listen to 'Double Nickels On The Dime' and try not to be inspired.

King's X...more gay music! And Christian, too! These guys clearly listened to you a good bit so you have to return the favor. Their Wizard of Oz homage is titled 'Gretchen Goes to Nebraska' and it is a killer. Take ZZ Top and throw them into a blender with the Chili Peppers with a dash of Judy Garland worship and voila! King's X.

Speaking of ZZ Top...ZZ Top! 'She's got legs. And she knows how to use 'em'. Imagine yourself covering that song in some Texas amphitheater. Wouldn't that go a long way towards healing the divide between North and South in this country?

Nirvana...sure, they added Pat Smear at the end, there, but that was only three for the most part. And the noise? Immense! Aren't you challenged by the punk rock pop tart 'About a Girl'? Don't you think Kurt Cobain was trying to bait you into answering with a gender bending punk riff 'About a Boy'? Just sayin'...

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble...pure blues madness. Think of all the old blues chestnuts you could wail on. And your teeth aren't as fucked up as his. And you're still alive.

G. Love and Special Sauce...a bit soft to be considered a power trio, but this guy got all funky for a few minutes there back in the 1800's. You could crush him with your Prinky. (That's Prince's little pinky, by the way).

Morphine...these guys really messed with the power trio formula, substituting a saxophone for the guitar and taking two of the strings on the bass away. I include them to show you that this formula doesn't have to limit the scope of the band. Check out 'Super Sex' for a jolt of weirdness. A two string bass? Genius.

Green Day...they went from bratty poop obsessed stoners to hard hitting pundits. Doesn't the epic sprawl of 'American Idiot' make you want to revisit your political oddity 'Ronnie Talk to Russia'? Don't you think you could write a punk musical about the illicit lesbian relationship between Condi Rice and Valerie Plame? Just a thought.

Kings of Leon...the new breed! The only one who could ever reach you were these sons of a preacher man! If you haven't bobbed your perfectly coiffed head to these dirtbags, you are really missing out. Creedence crossed with Radiohead or some shit. Get on it, Your Lavender-osity!

Neil Young & Crazy Horse...I know, he can't really sing, and he writes the same song OVER AND OVER AND OVER, and all the critical acclaim is a bit nauseating, but honestly, check out 'Ragged Glory'. That's three dudes in a barn.

Primus...ok, these freaks are led by a bass player, not a guitar slinger, but that should just incite your six-string ire. 'Pork Soda' has songs about murder, fishing, and the battle of Wounded Knee, for chrissakes. (Oops, sorry about the Lord's name in vain thing). Don't copy the Penguin suit gimmick that Claypool did. It wouldn't work for you. And for pure pop culture cred, they wrote the theme to 'South Park'. That alone puts them in the pantheon.

Finally, perhaps the original, Buddy Holly and the Crickets. The only rock star geekier than you.

Please, Prince. Read this. Get into Paisley Park with the rhythm section of your choice and get crackin'. We need Prince and the New Power Trio. There are so few talents able to write the great song, sing the great song, and then shred insane guitar licks all over the great song. Are you going to let John Mayer corner this market???

I didn't think so.

Quelle Chanson, Non?

My fifth year of college (!) was spent abroad in Orleans, France at L’Universite d’Orleans. Up until that point, I’d lived in Rhode Island all my life. From the time I was 15 until that year my main contact with the world outside of Little Rhody was through various punk rock bands.

This is what ’83 to ’91 looked like for me…

7Seconds were from out West and toured relentlessly, singing melodic breakneck hardcore punk that thematically took on ‘important’ issues like racism, sexism, and ‘the-world-doesn’t-understand-our-mohawks-ism’.

Minor Threat were from D.C. and not as upbeat as 7Seconds. They were more attuned to the forces that lay behind the ills of society and therefore less inclined to sing passionately about being able to change it. They later morphed into Fugazi, another of my all-time favs.
The Midwest was represented by a two-headed hydra of searing punk rock, The Replacements and Husker Du. The Replacements were the ill-advised Thursday night booze-off before a big test and Husker Du was the all-night study session for a political science exam that devolves into a meth-fueled rage against some machine.

All these bands were connected to other lesser lights. Before the internet, there was DIY (Do It Yourself) punk rock. They started their own record labels, they printed their own LP’s, they drew their own posters. They toured the country in vans sleeping on the couches of their biggest fans.

Rolling Stone didn’t write about them, radio wouldn’t touch them with an any length foot pole, MTV was already in the business of creating megastars, and the majority of the public winced at anything that was LOUD. I vividly remember playing a Replacements song for a friend of mine in high school. This guy was a musician, a guitar player who liked heavy metal for Pete’s sake, but he simply COULD NOT HEAR THE SONG. All he heard was noise.

This scene would be replayed throughout the late ‘80’s for me, both in high school and in my first few years in college. I had my circle of like-minded friends. There were four of us. Tom, Justin, Joe, moi. We were occasionally a band, but more often than not we were intense spectators. To be a fan of this music meant a certain level of danger. Concerts were rag-tag affairs in which the crowd threw itself against itself as ferociously as possible. There were violent elements who were attracted to this kind of freedom and we often found ourselves rescuing punk maidens from slam-dance circles and avenging uncalled for elbows with punches. Skinheads, completely missing the point, weren’t dancing so much as they were trolling for conflict. Depending on our mood, we either gave it to them or didn’t.

Outside the shows this underground element would collide with ‘normal’ American life. The leeriness of capitalism was astounding. The feeling of ‘us vs. them’ was overwhelming. Restaurants would refuse to serve you. Store owners would deny you their products. Business owners would REFUSE YOUR MONEY. I could romanticize that whole aspect as having added some level of enjoyment, but to be honest, it just sucked. I had thousands of ‘what is the deal with THAT’ conversations with my co-conspirators. The justifications we concocted on behalf of our oppressors could never quite be pinned down into any certain set of criteria. Suffice it to say, we were, by definition, outsiders.

Did this status affect my view of said mainstream? In other words, was I as much of a douchebag to the world as the world was a douchebag to me? Of course not. I bought ‘Thriller’ like everyone else. I rocked out to Van Halen’s ‘Runnin’ With The Devil’. I lusted over Sade. I never cared for Madonna, but I didn’t SPIT at people who did. I even had some classic rock in the collection. My tastes ran towards punk rock but I could appreciate Duran Duran, perhaps the weirdest boy band ever. And Prince was from Minneapolis like my other two favorite bands. What wasn’t there to like about Prince?

But my open-mindedness was definitely not reciprocated. For some reason the music that meant the most to me was not just disliked, it was seen as a threat.

So, college happened in there somewhere. In between punk rock concerts, I did a ton of plays at the wonderful University of Rhode Island theater department. I had a series of disastrous relationships and abused alcohol. I HAD A BLAST.

I kept three majors. Theater, English, and French. My youthful enjoyment of Inspector Clouseau had improbably turned into a major. Thus everything about my French studies seemed vaguely comedic to me. The opportunity to live in France for a year was going to be a laugh riot. I’d completed 4 full years of college and only needed 9 credits to graduate. 5 classes per semester equals 15 credits, so you do the math. Over the course of my two semesters in France, I only needed to do less than one semester of work. France was in trouble, people.

That summer wasn’t exactly a victory lap of an exit. I got Lyme’s Disease and went through a horrific breakup. I left the country an emotional wreck and very unhealthy. In fact, I took the last of my antibiotics right before I got on the plane, hoping they’d done their work. I invested in an expensive CD Walkman and a small set of speakers. I brought two notebooks of CD’s with me, perhaps 20 of my favorites.

My first couple of months in France were primarily recuperative. I went to classes with my other Foreign Exchange students, I ate pleasant dinners with my host family, I went to every movie in town to get used to listening to French when I didn’t have to respond. I read in my little dorm room. I ate the same meal twice a day at the cafeteria. Slowly the language unfurled itself to me and social situations became bearable.

Two of my American friends had joined a local American football team and made some French friends. This was what I was after. Instead of hanging out with my classmates, other non-French speaking foreigners, I began hanging out primarily with French people. But America was about to reach out to me.

The campus of L’Universite d’Orleans is a 20 minute bus ride outside of the city of Orleans. We all began to spend far more time in the city and very little on campus. On one of these excursions, we stopped in at FNAC. FNAC (said as one word by the French, hilarious) was the French version of Tower Records. In a ‘holy shit I feel old’ side note, Tower recently disappeared off of the face of the planet.

I’d been in France a couple of months and I’d yet to buy any music, preferring instead to start smoking. So I wasn’t all that into going to FNAC, to be honest. I loitered, looking at French chicks. A song came on over the in-store stereo system. I AM NOT EXAGGERATING ANYTHING THAT FOLLOWS.

My memory of this moment is like one of those long unbroken movie shots…the camera starts up in the very highest corner of the store. The song begins and slowly the camera begins to swoop, capturing the silly French fashions, the funny haircuts, the multi colored crazily buttoned jackets, the pointy shoes, late ‘80’s American culture reappropriated back to Europe and funneled inappropriately into Mass Appeal. The focus of the shot narrows in on the face of an obviously American post-teen. As the music builds, the camera nears his face as his mouth opens, his toes tap, his head bounces. He is obviously AMAZED at this sound. The sound obliterates everything else.

The camera stays in close up. The song ends. The next voice you hear you have to try to imagine a little bit. Do you remember the morning rock DJ in your town? Do you remember the inherent utter hyperbole in their speech? Now cross that with Inspector Clouseau…

‘Eh, mes amis, quelle chanson, non? C’etait le Number One des Etats Unis, la nouvelle son de…”

Interjection: Did I just hear him say that was the Number One song in the United States? When I flew out of Logan Airport, the number one song was ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’ by Bryan Adams. It had just replaced ‘Rush Rush’ by Paula Abdul. Those were the big hits of the summer. Think about that for a second.
Cut back to gape-mouthed post-teen…

“…la nouvelle son de Nirvana! Smells Like Teen Spirit de l’album Nevermind.”

Dropping the camera metaphor, I could barely believe what I’d been hearing. I tore over to the Rock section and found Nirvana. Sold out. I had heard of them after they put out their ‘Bleach’ album in 1989 but I hadn’t bought the album and knew very little about them. I was almost angry. That song was Number One??? What the hell was going on back there???? I turn my back for one second and all of a sudden everyone can handle loud music??? Not only can they handle it, but it is THE MOST POPULAR SONG IN THE COUNTRY????

I seriously thought about getting on a plane and flying back to the States.

Imagine you work for a political candidate, Mr. So-and-so. You’ve been tirelessly campaigning for years. You’ve poured your heart and soul into a race that people seem ambivalent about at best. By some fluke, you are on a deserted island when the actual voting takes place. Your isolation makes you wonder what ever compelled you to get involved in politics in the first place. A plane flies overhead. Instead of rescuing you, it drops a newspaper on your head. The headline says, “So-and-So Elected in a Landslide!”

I’d spent the better part of ten years catching flak for how loud and out of control my tastes were, how what I liked was actually an affront to decent American consumerism, and that such a horrific assault on art and sound was everything that was wrong with the youth of today.

Bryan Adams was considered a ROCK STAR. Huey Lewis (god love ‘im) was a ROCK STAR. Now, I have nothing against either of these guys, but…come on. ROCK STARS? I don’t think so. Rock stars scare people. David Bowie is a ROCK STAR. Mick Jagger is a ROCK STAR. They scared people! They might even have slept together just to show the world they could do whatever they wanted! ROCK STARS change how people view the world.

I have never felt such a sensation of vertigo as I did that day in that French record store. One listen of that song and I knew that NOTHING would be the same when I got back to America. Name another song that could truthfully make such a claim.

One final note. I only got 8 credits and had to take another class when I got back Stateside. C’est la vie!

Mrs. Diamond

When the weather springed, he walked to school in lieu of taking the bus. His neighborhood formed a figure eight that was bordered by a sprawling network of gently rolling fields. His cereal eaten, his orange juice downed, his brown bag clutched in his hand, off he went past the Cape houses, split-level ranches, and A-frames. There was no cul-de-sac, just a bend in the road where no houses had been built yet. Cross the creek on the stones and you were in the first field.

Up to your left you saw a farmhouse that had been burnt down some time ago. An old woman named Mrs. Diamond lived there and she had taken on supernatural qualities in the mythic gossip of 3rd graders. Whether she was a witch or not, she certainly looked and acted the part, wearing a black dress, white apron, bonnet, etc. In his mind’s eye and memory she even carried a broom.

She had cows, chickens, crops. Everyone who walked to school feared these cows; somehow they’d become Pamplona killers, anti-Ferdinands intent on protecting their Mistress’ property. It was as if you had to walk through the end of the 18th century to get to school.

Rumor had it that Mrs. Diamond would shoot anyone who tried to cross her property. Perhaps the broom had been a shotgun? He couldn’t remember anymore. But he would never forget the crow.

The crow actually prompted him to walk to school earlier in the year than usual. It was a late spring day, which in his corner of New England meant something like winter. Damp. Chill. A winter coat made you sweat and a spring coat left you shivering. The morning bus stop ritual was exhausting and unavoidable. The worst part was that the school bus stopped directly in front of his house, which was something like having twenty uninvited guests every day. They were only in the front yard, to be sure, but the effect was the same. To walk to school you went left from his house. Two telephone poles down sat the crow.

The bus wasn’t due for another ten minutes or so. He wandered down to look at it. He later wondered if he’d have been as interested if it were sitting on the wire instead of outlined against the gray, underlined by the hard line of the top of the pole. Just as he arrived, it rose and flew two more telephone poles further away from the bus stop. He remembered thinking, “Why the hell not?” This sort of language was out of character for him inside of his own head. With the other boys he’d swear from time to time if he was really angry. This internal curse was his first casual profanity.

Before he knew what was happening, he was walking to school with the crow. It led the way to where the road curved away from Mrs. Diamond’s expanse. It expected him to continue the parabola, pushing up the hill to begin completing the figure eight. But when he detoured across the vacant lot, the crow overtook him and landed in the tree above the creek.

This pattern continued across each field. Sometimes the crow would take off and he thought that was the end of it, whatever ‘it’ was. But the crow always came back. He never broke his stride as he walked past the cow/bull; he didn’t worry about Mrs. Diamond rushing from her blackened husk of a house with a double-barreled shotgun. He breathed in the morning air. He surveyed the tops of the trees. He saw where each of his feet landed. His mind was blank.

When he walked through the back door of the school, he turned and saw that the crow was perched atop the jungle gym. The kids called it ‘The Dome’. Bars formed triangles, the triangles formed the dome. He thought about giving the crow a name and then thought better of it.

The day went by.

Recess came. The crow was gone.

End of day bell.

The crow was back.

They made their way across the fields again. His brain was no longer clear. Questions flooded his awareness like bugs around a picnic. Why him? Why now? What had happened to the crow in the world of crows that made him seek out human company? Would the crow be lonely if he took the bus? Should he feed it as they meandered, draw it closer? Should he call the ASPCA? Should he share this with his friends? His sisters? His parents? Could he train it to deliver secret messages? Would his relationship to this particular crow be some fulcrum on which the entire fate of mankind rested?

That last question was asked in a state of humorous hyperbole. But as it turned out, fate itself was at stake, not solely that of mankind.

Fabricating Sports Animosity for World Series

Normally, this blog is a strange corner filled with spur of the moment fiction. Today is a little different. Since the Boston Red Sox are returning to the World Series and playing the Colorado Rockies, it is time to portray our opponent as the enemy. Here are 5 good reasons for Red Sox fans to go into a rage...

1. Their park is named after a man named 'Adolf'

2. Every time you fly to the West Coast there is turbulence over the 'Rockies'

3. They killed Kenny

4. They had YEARS to come up with a team name and the best they could come up with was the 'Rockies'?

5. There is now a direct link between the World Series and John Denver

Sox in 6.

Good Bye, New York

Soon I will be taking my last train
It's mainly in the evening
That it can all seem in vain
When the pain is raining canes on ya
But you don't have your legs no more
You've got to make your exit
Before slipping out the backstage door

So floor it, honey
Unpop that effing cork
Let's celebrate
Good bye, New York

They may have made mountains of your buildings
They made you walk the bridges home
They made you grieve in tiny boxes
They made you wanna hide your Cadillac chrome
They blackmailed you with severed heads
They made unreasonable demands

Too much tension
Too much torque
Uncelebrate
Good bye, New York

From Grand Army Plaza up to Harlem
Flies a scarred and angry stork
He cries, "It is today! They are forgiven!
Here's a New America baby!
Say hello! Good bye, New York!"

I could close my heart off to them
Write 'em off or back 'em down
I could hate all of their brethren
But that's not how we do it in this town
They have to wait 'til Paradise
We exalt our virgins now
Or were they really after raisins?
Either way I'd have shown them how
This road must fork
Good bye

Too much tension
Too much torque
Uncelebrate
Floor it honey
Unpop that effing cork
Let's celebrate

Good bye, New York

The Unreal Estate Agent

She had walked by this little storefront on her way to work in the haberdashery. When she'd applied for the job, she'd no idea what a haberdashery was. She thought it had something to do with meat. A flyer was posted on a lamp post asking for an assistant. She'd called the number and been offered the job before the call ended. The owner thought her voice was perfect for saying, "Good morning, Uptown Haberdashery, what kind of hat does your head need?" He had very specific ideas about how to get wrong numbers interested in hats.

Today was the 3 month anniversary of that conversation and her life had settled into an almost dreamy state of bliss. The haberdashery smelled fantastic, the pay was decent, and she could walk to and from work in less than 10 minutes. To top it all off, single men always seemed to crave something to cover their heads.

But in those 3 months of pedestrian commuting she'd never noticed this particular storefront. A dark green curtain hung behind the glass. An old fashioned globe sat immaculate on a dark wooden pedestal. In lettering so small she had to frost the glass with her breath, the words "The Unreal Estate Agent" was stencilled.

Her nose twitched and the faint scent of mesquite disappeared before she could place it. A discrete speaker drizzled some sort of clazzical elevator crap. Kashmir by Zeppelin? She couldn't say. Voices inside grew slowly louder as they approached the door. She had the strange impulse to shrink away, hide. Pulling her shawl around her she angled herself to the next door window and pretended to inspect religious pamphlets.

"Thank you so much for stopping in," a voice rumbled. "And I can't tell you how glad I am that you are happy in your new home."

Smoke and flute mixed in the reply. "A woman finds it difficult to trust. The thanks are mine."

Heels moved away.

"You don't really want to be reading that, do you?"

As she turned, she saw the buildings across the street in the window glass, a man stepping out of a shower through curtains, a cloud peeking over a fire escape, the globe on the pedestal behind those reflections, and finally the rumbler in the doorway.

"Come look at something before you go to work..."

Icon Do It

Leaving home was hard back when home could be left. Now you're born without a home so you can never leave. The only way we distance ourselves from our birthplace is through personal upheaval and pain. Used to be folks went off to college to experience another environment. Not anymore. Today you go to college to get your heart broken.

Whitworth was your average guy in high school. Meaning he was unique and anonymous. Girls liked him from time to time and occasionally he liked one of them back enough to ask her out. Things would get a bit hot and heavy in a cinema parking lot and then the girl didn't seem familiar to him anymore. Sensing this gap the girl would reveal more of herself, but that only heightened his disconnect. Then he'd go back to hanging out with his friends, who always seemed familiar, never changed.

Lots of sports on TV with pizza and soda. Waiting for everyone to fall asleep so he could be alone for a little while. Never having enough sleep. College would be different, he'd hear people say. He doubted the transformative power of higher education but longed to see what it was all about.

It sounds same-ol' same ol', but things were different then, only 20 years ago. Catching a glimpse of the naked female form was a big deal, people still got freaked out when musicians screamed instead of sang, and cable TV was a novelty NBC/ABC/CBS pooh-poohed. If you wanted to find out about a band, you had to ask someone who might know. The last truly local generation.

All of a sudden, college. Whitworth now longed to traverse the unfamiliarity that opened up upon physical contact with a girl. The girl seemed to be shocked by this transformation from her high school equivalent. Boys and girls walk around campuses in a constant state of shock at their first unedited contact with the opposite sex. Tragedy and lust now coexist with morning coffee.

Them brains and hearts is exploding all the time. Today? They've been ash and debris since age 3. Zero to sixty in utero. Oh these poor children and the world they'll always know.

Whitworth ordered his first legal beer with no ceremony and punched the window out of his Honda Civic a mere 45 minutes later. They said he couldn't go in there anymore but why would he want to hang out with a bunch of frat boys and coke sluts? He'd quit the whole damn shebang but these were the best times he was ever going to have.