My little black machine! Occasionally I remember how insane it is that I can sit by while a piece of technology sifts through every song I've ever purchased and chooses them at random. If I were in high school I'd be holding a clunky Walkman and lugging around 20 cassette tapes that I'd meticulously created IN REAL TIME. Put tape in, press record, play album, listen to song, press pause when song is over, lift needle, take album off turntable, put away, pull out next album, put on turntable, unpress pause to continue recording, place needle on selected track, etc.
EXHAUSTING.
And this little machine does that all on its own.
1. 'The Return of Sathington Willoughby' by Primus from 'Brown Album'
Here's what I picture in my head...Les Claypool has been reading '1984' or watching 'Brazil' or reading the news. He is also stoned. He starts noodling on his bass and improvises a Big Brother type speech that accompanies the music. He presses record and does it again. He brings in the other members of Primus and they blow the song out to its logical conclusion. When the music is done, he lays down his vocal track, approximating the improvs he's been doing all along.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for any political statement that rails against fascist rhetoric, program, society, etc. But there is something lazy about it, as if you were hedging your bet a bit. How can you DISLIKE a song that denounces evil? I don't dislike the song, but I am a bit bored by it. The reason '1984' is still around isn't because of the politics it contains but because of the art of its execution.
2. 'Cater 2 U' by Destiny's Child from 'Destiny Fulfilled'
Ah, the crazy iPod! From a tuneless bluster about totalitarian regime propaganda to Beyonce asking me if she can give me a manicure. By the end of this song, she's put on my doo-rag, fed me, promised to keep rockin' the sexy outfits, and reassured me that she wants to serve.
Funny, but this is high art.
3. 'Roll All Day' by Ice Cube from 'War & Peace, Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc)'
Poor Ice. All he wants to do is get busy in the back of his switch laden pimp mobile. She seems good to go until they clash and she steals his car. He needs a Beyonce to reconfirm his faith in womankind.
4. 'Complicated Shadows' by Elvis Costello and the Attractions from 'All This Useless Beauty'
This song is famous now because of The Sopranos. This is one of my favorite Costello albums, partly because it seems tossed off, spontaneous.
5. 'And In Every Home' by Elvis Costello and the Attractions from 'Imperial Bedroom'
Really? 2 in a row? When something like this happens I remember why I stopped listening to Elvis on a regular basis. 2 songs in a row seems like an ETERNITY.
6. 'Pacific Theme' by Broken Social Scene from 'You Forgot It In People'
This instrumental track had been rolling along for about 3 minutes before I pulled the iPod out of my pocket to see who it was. I had thought it was a Bossa Nova Rolling Stones number but when no singing kicked in I had to check. I'm not overly familiar with Broken Social Scene...my buddy Jon configured the iPod for me and gave this album to me. It's quite good.
7. 'Damage, Inc.' by Metallica from 'Master of Puppets'
Ha! These guys are out of their minds. This song is so fast, so precise, so brutal. As a musician I truly don't know how they do it. The funny thing is that they are SO serious...I'm listening and I know I'm supposed to be all swept away by the darkenss but the music is so outrageous that it makes me laugh.
8. 'Better Version of Me' by Fiona Apple from 'Extraordinary Machine'
She really knocked it out of the park on this album. On her previous efforts, if you stripped her voice away you would be bored silly. Here? The music stands on its own. That's the mark of a true artist.
9. 'Start' by The Jam from 'Greatest Hits'
Whatever.
10. 'This Song Has No Title' by Elton John from 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'
You can't get away with shit like this anymore. This song was buried on side one or two and they hoped he'd be done recording his next hit by the time it had to be played on the radio. No title? No purpose is more like it. Never heard it before, don't know why it's on the iPod, don't need to ever hear it again.
11. 'Stay Free' by The Clash from 'Story of the Clash, Vol. 1, Disc 2'
Ah, that's better. All is forgiven lil' iPod. If I have to even expend one ounce of breath telling you why The Clash were so great, you haven't done enough homework on your own.
12. 'Within Your Reach' by The Replacements from 'Hootenanny'
How did The Replacements NOT become mega stars? Seriously. 'Say Anything' came out in 1989 and this song is on the soundtrack. Huh? How does that happen? Or how does that not happen?
Never seen no mountain
Never swam no sea
City got me drowning
I guess it's up to me
I could live without so much
Die without a dream
Live without your touch
Die within your reach
I can't believe this song in that movie didn't catapult them to mega fame. I'll never understand that.
13. 'Are We The Waiting' by Green Day from 'American Idiot'
This is the weakest song on this album. By far. And it is still great. I'm still flummoxed by this album, by the creative leap this band made almost 20 years into its existence. That kind of thing just doesn't really happen. I thought they'd start to fade away. And then they come out with an album that renders all of their previous releases irrelevent. Amazing.
14. 'Conrad' by Jets to Brazil from 'Orange Rhyming Dictionary'
These guys are a treasure but I can't quite say why. There is something mathematical about their sound, something so measured that it loses all restraint, something so dry and unmannered that only the purest emotional resonance remains. This is not the best song on this album, the only album I have of theirs...the one that will forever slay me is 'Sweet Avenue' which is one of the greatest yearning love songs in all of rock history.
And that my friends is that. Another edition of iPod mania. I'll be going on hiatus for the next couple of weeks...no public transit so no iPod shuffle. But we'll have some more fun after the 14th!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
No iPod
Today I was accompanied on the bus by the Cashman. So I didn't need the iPod to occupy my mind. We each read our respective books, an Iron Man treatise and 1984.
Beats a random selection of 7,000 songs any day.
Beats a random selection of 7,000 songs any day.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Sound Track Mind
Day 2 of the iPod chronicles with today's playlist accompanied by a few pages of George Orwell's '1984'. Nothing like a little totalitarian nightmare to get you ready for a day at work.
Another fascinating collection of songs...
1. 'Criminal' by Eminem from 'The Marshall Mathers LP'
The first time I heard of Eminem I was living in Brooklyn with my cousin Timothy, aka Pimp Fu. I hadn't heard the music but I'd read of his supposed anti-gay lyrics. The homophobia bothered me and I vowed to write some sort of a come-on song, you know, 'Eminem can melt in my mouth' that sort of baloney. I'm glad I never did this. I came to view his charged lyrics as the ultimate pressure valve. I sense a great moral compass in his work, which might seem like a contradiction but don't forget the guy who recommended we take care of poverty by eating the poor. Mr. Swift and Eminem would get along famously.
2. 'Milk' by Kings of Leon from 'Aha Shake Heartbreak'
These dirtbag revivalist heathens get the dirtiest groove you've ever heard rolling on this album and don't seem interested in backing off from it, seeming to demand conversion and sin simultaneously.
3. 'Avenue C'd' by Siobhan O'Malley from 'Alibi Bye'
I don't know how many of you have a wildly talented sibling who writes songs. I do. So I have to describe this song in two ways...as a brother and as a listener. I know the story behind this epic croon of lament and desperation so I am affected. I almost think, however, that an unrelated ear would be almost unable to withstand the insight creeping along the city streets of this song. Finely wrought, each carved word she utters disintegrates in the wake of the story she tells. This song is a killer.
4. 'Sha La La' by Al Green from 'Greatest Hits'
The iPod must have known that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because here comes Al Green laughing and singing nonsense songs and trying to get into some pants.
5. 'Sticks & Stones' by The Divine Comedy from 'Absent Friends'
Another sister turned me on to The Divine Comedy. This guy has the balls to appropriate DANTE??? Not reference it, use it as inspiration, quote it, no. HE IS THE DIVINE COMEDY. If the first line of this song doesn't stab your heart at its weakest point then you've never been in love.
'You and I/Go together/Like the molar/And the drill'
His velvet tone smooths over the insistent violin behind him, as if he's ignoring the very song he's written.
6. 'Mass Hysteria' by The Mahoneys from 'Live From the 20th Century'
Ah, another track from my band The Mahoneys! This one has our secret weapon Danilo Torres on it. Yesterday was 'Hollow Moon', a recording session he couldn't get to. Neal we called him, a Fillipino Buddha of a man, and one of the best guitar players you've never heard of. I wrote the following lyrics in 1989...
'Tylenol with Cyanide/What a lovely treat/Ralph Nader sweeping cigarettes into my hot dog meat/Mass hysteria'.
7. 'Waiting Song (Unlisted)' by Pat McCurdy from 'Showtunes'
This instrumental track ends one of the strangest most compelling albums I've ever heard. I don't think Pat McCurdy can be described in any appropriate way. Not even gonna try. Just do a little digging and listen.
8. 'Going to Graceland' by The Dead Milkmen from 'Bucky Fellini'
When I was 15 The Dead Milkmen were hilarious. I am now 38.
9. 'You and Me Song' by The Wannadies from 'Romeo & Juliet'
I am writing this at 9:53. I heard this song at about 8:30. I can't remember it.
10. 'In a Little While' by U2 from 'All That You Can't Leave Behind'
I can't pinpoint the moment when I stopped being a fan of U2. So even though Bono's singing on this song is extraordinary, even though the texture that the band creates is dense and powerful, even though each part is perfect in its own way, the sum total leaves me cold. Maybe I would care if Bono ever took those fucking sunglasses off. So over the sunglasses. And if he doesn't look out, he's going to wake up one day and Robin Williams is going to be playing him in a movie.
11. 'The Lamb's Book of Life' by Sinead O'Connor from 'Faith and Courage'
Another Irish propagandist who now bores me silly. I'm a nun. I'm a rasta. I'm a lesbian. I love cock. I love my babies. I hate my mother. I have big eyes. I am Britney Spears for the intelligentsia. I am a sleeping pill!
12. 'Complete Control' by The Clash from 'Live: From Here to Eternity'
The Clash live. Their sound is larger, more difficult to contain than their recorded work. The melody AND bombast both are amplified. They also did cool things like having Screamin' Jay Hawkins open up for them, or Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. They weren't interested in giving their audience an easy ride. Rap music at a punk concert in the late '70's??? Everyone gives Aerosmith/Run DMC credit for that connection but these guys were way ahead of that curve. Ahead of every curve.
13. 'Banditos' by The Refreshments from 'Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy'
This whole album is perfect. PERFECT. PERFECT. Seriously...as a guitar player it's like having ice cream at the beach. As a lyricist it's the scrape of the pen lifting off of the last word. As a singer it's the trill coming back off the tile through the pulse of the shower. BUY THIS ALBUM.
14. 'A Season' by Emmet Swimming from 'Wake'
Emmet Swimming are the reason I met Melody Garren. So even though they sound a bit like a fat kid imitating The Cure via REM I love them.
15. 'L'Ame Slave' by Jacques Higelin from 'Boris Vian et Ses Interpretes'
There is something inherently ridiculous about French music. The language itself is so musical and florid that putting it to music is redundant and vulgar. I know that is a giant generalization but it is truly how I feel. I lived in France and have explored the music as much as I can take which isn't much. Even Edith Piaf sounds like an 8th grade production of 'Fatal Attraction'.
But Boris Vian cuts through my prejudice. Google the guy. He died at 39 years old but had the output of someone twice that age. He wrote novels, plays, screenplays, articles, essays, poems, reviews and songs. He was an actor. He was a director. He invented things. He translated American and English novels into French. He was incredibly prolific. His most famous song was 'Le Deserteur' which tells of a soldier refusing to fight in a letter to the President.
I bought this album while living in France. A 2 CD set, the first disc is Vian's versions of his own songs and the second his 'interpreters'. I prefer the first because it is raw and unpolished, his singing stinks, and the recordings are scratchy and compromised. When big stars get their hands on his stuff they flatten it out into the heinous dreck that passes for popular French music.
I am as anti-xenophobic as they come except when it comes to French music. It is awful.
16. 'You Can't Take It With You' by Paul Kelly & the Messengers from 'So Much Water So Close To Home'
The title of this album comes from a Raymond Carver short story which Robert Altman filmed in 'Short Cuts'. A trio of friends go fishing way up in the mountains and discover the body of a dead girl. Instead of cancelling their trip and immediately reporting her death, they fish for three days before coming back down out of the mountains and letting the authorities know. They've agreed to make it seem as if they found her on the last day but the wife knows her husband is lying. All connection with her man is lost. The title track takes the story and shoves it into a four minute country lament. 'You Can't Take It With You' is a catchy reminder that life is short and material things don't matter. But it is the title song that sticks and hurts.
The sun is shining and Los Angeles rushes around me. My iPod reminds me where I come from, what I've been through, and ultimately that I can't take it with me. Also that I have it right now.
Another fascinating collection of songs...
1. 'Criminal' by Eminem from 'The Marshall Mathers LP'
The first time I heard of Eminem I was living in Brooklyn with my cousin Timothy, aka Pimp Fu. I hadn't heard the music but I'd read of his supposed anti-gay lyrics. The homophobia bothered me and I vowed to write some sort of a come-on song, you know, 'Eminem can melt in my mouth' that sort of baloney. I'm glad I never did this. I came to view his charged lyrics as the ultimate pressure valve. I sense a great moral compass in his work, which might seem like a contradiction but don't forget the guy who recommended we take care of poverty by eating the poor. Mr. Swift and Eminem would get along famously.
2. 'Milk' by Kings of Leon from 'Aha Shake Heartbreak'
These dirtbag revivalist heathens get the dirtiest groove you've ever heard rolling on this album and don't seem interested in backing off from it, seeming to demand conversion and sin simultaneously.
3. 'Avenue C'd' by Siobhan O'Malley from 'Alibi Bye'
I don't know how many of you have a wildly talented sibling who writes songs. I do. So I have to describe this song in two ways...as a brother and as a listener. I know the story behind this epic croon of lament and desperation so I am affected. I almost think, however, that an unrelated ear would be almost unable to withstand the insight creeping along the city streets of this song. Finely wrought, each carved word she utters disintegrates in the wake of the story she tells. This song is a killer.
4. 'Sha La La' by Al Green from 'Greatest Hits'
The iPod must have known that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because here comes Al Green laughing and singing nonsense songs and trying to get into some pants.
5. 'Sticks & Stones' by The Divine Comedy from 'Absent Friends'
Another sister turned me on to The Divine Comedy. This guy has the balls to appropriate DANTE??? Not reference it, use it as inspiration, quote it, no. HE IS THE DIVINE COMEDY. If the first line of this song doesn't stab your heart at its weakest point then you've never been in love.
'You and I/Go together/Like the molar/And the drill'
His velvet tone smooths over the insistent violin behind him, as if he's ignoring the very song he's written.
6. 'Mass Hysteria' by The Mahoneys from 'Live From the 20th Century'
Ah, another track from my band The Mahoneys! This one has our secret weapon Danilo Torres on it. Yesterday was 'Hollow Moon', a recording session he couldn't get to. Neal we called him, a Fillipino Buddha of a man, and one of the best guitar players you've never heard of. I wrote the following lyrics in 1989...
'Tylenol with Cyanide/What a lovely treat/Ralph Nader sweeping cigarettes into my hot dog meat/Mass hysteria'.
7. 'Waiting Song (Unlisted)' by Pat McCurdy from 'Showtunes'
This instrumental track ends one of the strangest most compelling albums I've ever heard. I don't think Pat McCurdy can be described in any appropriate way. Not even gonna try. Just do a little digging and listen.
8. 'Going to Graceland' by The Dead Milkmen from 'Bucky Fellini'
When I was 15 The Dead Milkmen were hilarious. I am now 38.
9. 'You and Me Song' by The Wannadies from 'Romeo & Juliet'
I am writing this at 9:53. I heard this song at about 8:30. I can't remember it.
10. 'In a Little While' by U2 from 'All That You Can't Leave Behind'
I can't pinpoint the moment when I stopped being a fan of U2. So even though Bono's singing on this song is extraordinary, even though the texture that the band creates is dense and powerful, even though each part is perfect in its own way, the sum total leaves me cold. Maybe I would care if Bono ever took those fucking sunglasses off. So over the sunglasses. And if he doesn't look out, he's going to wake up one day and Robin Williams is going to be playing him in a movie.
11. 'The Lamb's Book of Life' by Sinead O'Connor from 'Faith and Courage'
Another Irish propagandist who now bores me silly. I'm a nun. I'm a rasta. I'm a lesbian. I love cock. I love my babies. I hate my mother. I have big eyes. I am Britney Spears for the intelligentsia. I am a sleeping pill!
12. 'Complete Control' by The Clash from 'Live: From Here to Eternity'
The Clash live. Their sound is larger, more difficult to contain than their recorded work. The melody AND bombast both are amplified. They also did cool things like having Screamin' Jay Hawkins open up for them, or Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. They weren't interested in giving their audience an easy ride. Rap music at a punk concert in the late '70's??? Everyone gives Aerosmith/Run DMC credit for that connection but these guys were way ahead of that curve. Ahead of every curve.
13. 'Banditos' by The Refreshments from 'Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy'
This whole album is perfect. PERFECT. PERFECT. Seriously...as a guitar player it's like having ice cream at the beach. As a lyricist it's the scrape of the pen lifting off of the last word. As a singer it's the trill coming back off the tile through the pulse of the shower. BUY THIS ALBUM.
14. 'A Season' by Emmet Swimming from 'Wake'
Emmet Swimming are the reason I met Melody Garren. So even though they sound a bit like a fat kid imitating The Cure via REM I love them.
15. 'L'Ame Slave' by Jacques Higelin from 'Boris Vian et Ses Interpretes'
There is something inherently ridiculous about French music. The language itself is so musical and florid that putting it to music is redundant and vulgar. I know that is a giant generalization but it is truly how I feel. I lived in France and have explored the music as much as I can take which isn't much. Even Edith Piaf sounds like an 8th grade production of 'Fatal Attraction'.
But Boris Vian cuts through my prejudice. Google the guy. He died at 39 years old but had the output of someone twice that age. He wrote novels, plays, screenplays, articles, essays, poems, reviews and songs. He was an actor. He was a director. He invented things. He translated American and English novels into French. He was incredibly prolific. His most famous song was 'Le Deserteur' which tells of a soldier refusing to fight in a letter to the President.
I bought this album while living in France. A 2 CD set, the first disc is Vian's versions of his own songs and the second his 'interpreters'. I prefer the first because it is raw and unpolished, his singing stinks, and the recordings are scratchy and compromised. When big stars get their hands on his stuff they flatten it out into the heinous dreck that passes for popular French music.
I am as anti-xenophobic as they come except when it comes to French music. It is awful.
16. 'You Can't Take It With You' by Paul Kelly & the Messengers from 'So Much Water So Close To Home'
The title of this album comes from a Raymond Carver short story which Robert Altman filmed in 'Short Cuts'. A trio of friends go fishing way up in the mountains and discover the body of a dead girl. Instead of cancelling their trip and immediately reporting her death, they fish for three days before coming back down out of the mountains and letting the authorities know. They've agreed to make it seem as if they found her on the last day but the wife knows her husband is lying. All connection with her man is lost. The title track takes the story and shoves it into a four minute country lament. 'You Can't Take It With You' is a catchy reminder that life is short and material things don't matter. But it is the title song that sticks and hurts.
The sun is shining and Los Angeles rushes around me. My iPod reminds me where I come from, what I've been through, and ultimately that I can't take it with me. Also that I have it right now.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Do the iPod Shuffle
I've not written in a little while because I didn't know what I wanted to write about any longer. I'd covered the concert memories and a few specific extra tales from my past but I am not a compulsive diarist so I was a bit stumped.
As I rode the bus to work this morning and listened to my iPod on shuffle, I thought to myself, "Wow, the iPod is on fire today! What a great mix!"
Now, a few words about my iPod. I have the U2 Special Autographed Edition, black with a red keypad. It was a gift from my cousin Mike on the occasion of a production we opened of his play 'Diverting Devotion'. He gave each cast and crew member this iPod. We gave him a Matchbox car. I'm still slightly ashamed of that but what're you gonna do?
I have about 7,000 songs on the iPod. So sometimes the shuffle option can be a challenge. There are times when I don't want to hear Lee Perry and the Upsetters sing 'Beans and Cornbread', times when Bebel Gilberto is just too damn mellow, times when Minor Threat is too fast and loud for a morning commute. But it is an exercise for me, a random sampling of my past brought to instant life.
The mix today made me know what I could possibly write about every day here.
I catch the bus at Wilshire and Western and take it all the way to Santa Monica. It takes roughly an hour door to door. I tend to hit play the second after I lock my apartment door and take the earphones out as I walk into the office. Today it played 15 songs. The length of an album. An album that takes me to work.
Here is what I heard this morning...
1. 'Cheeze Surprize' by Pimp Fu from the album 'Shocker'
Pimp Fu is the alias of my cousin Timothy O'Malley. The opening refrain is repeated throughout the song - 'Pass me the bottle/Yeah pass me that too/You think I'm-a change/Well the joke's on you/I cannot explain but you're stuck with the Fu, bitch/Outta my way'. Pimp Fu is one of my favorite artists, funny, disturbing, sad, absurd, all put to crazy beats that sound like the inside of a madman's head, which they are.
2. 'Hollow Moon' by The Mahoneys from the album 'Live From The 20th Century'
What are the odds? The Mahoneys were the band I had when I lived in Providence in the early 1990's. 7,000 songs and the iPod picks two in a row written by O'Malley family members. We recorded this song, a song I still play today, in Steve Clary's basement in a haze of marijuana. And when I say haze I am not speaking metaphorically. He had soundproofed his basement so nothing escaped. You could see the smoke floating throughout the entire rehearsal. It took me a long time to be able to perform music without leaning on weed.
3. 'I Wonder U' by Prince from the album 'Parade'
This album has 'Kiss' on it so it might be absurd to say it is under appreciated but it is. Sonically it is on a par with 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' in terms of complexity and tonal quality. There are layers so carefully constructed that they seem ancient but so funky that they are instant and modern at the same time. Imagine you are in a rocket ship with a holograph deck that has taken you to the Moulin Rouge. That is the music from 'Under the Cherry Moon'. The movie is as bad as the music is good.
4. 'I'll Be Gone' by Dwight Yoakam from 'dwightyoakamacoustic.net
I know a lot of people who discount country music completely. The mere word 'country' music has such negative connotations that they literally cannot hear the music. Same goes for rap. I'd say it was a racial/cultural thing, but I think it has more to do with commerce than anything else. Deep thinkers hate commerce and both these genres embrace the commercial unabashedly. Now, don't get me wrong, both genres have their purveyors who aim at the lowest common denominator (Toby Keith, Garth Brooks, Ja Rule, DMX, etc). Then there are the mavericks, the real deals. Yoakam is the real deal.
5. 'Sleep to Dream' by Fiona Apple from 'Tidal'
Sometimes I don't want to hear Fiona Apple at all. I especially don't want to hear anything from her first album because I think she's made incalculable leaps as a writer/singer. She strikes me as a good actress on a bad show in this first album. By the end of her run people won't even remember the first album.
6. 'Pride and Joy' by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble from 'Greatest Hits'
Wow. I play guitar. I've played guitar for 20 years. Listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan makes me want to smash my guitar and give up. He makes me feel like I just figured out that you aren't supposed to play the guitar with your elbows.
7. 'Career Opportunities' by The Clash from 'Story of the Clash Vol. 1 Disc 2'
This sounds like a pop song now but to the ears of the English public in 1977 it sounded like a cannon aimed at Buckingham Palace. I don't mean to overstate the impact popular culture has on a political system but the English gutter punks basically dropped the guillotine on the past, snarling that they didn't like cake, they couldn't afford cake, they wouldn't eat cake if they could afford it.
8. 'The Pressman' by Primus from 'Pork Soda'
No idea what this song is about and don't care anymore. Primus shifted from quirky and absurd to indecipherable for me. I lost interest after this album.
9. 'My Little Problem' by The Replacements from 'All Shook Down'
I could write about The Replacements all day every day. This is from their swan song and it is a duet with Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde who scares me. By all accounts she scared Paul too, coming in and singing the song and leaving, having barely said anything besides the lyrics he'd written for her. It was and is jarring to hear another voice on a Replacements track. On its own the song works like an evil charm, telling the story of that couple everyone knows who can't stand each other but can't stop running off and screwing.
10. 'Dice Behind Your Shades' by Paul Westerberg from '14 Songs'
I'm telling you, this iPod is unbelievable. From the last Replacements album to Westerbergs first solo? My favorite moment from this song is when Paul sings, 'The avant guard/Unlocks your cage' while a cello mimics the creak of a door finally being forced open. It's about as arty as Westerberg gets and I bet he's embarrassed by the conceit even at the same time he's proud as hell.
11. 'Lockdown' by Fugazi from '13 Songs'
From Westerberg's '14 Songs' to Fugazi's '13 Songs' could not be a further stylistic leap. I still remember hearing this album for the first time, having been a huge Minor Threat fan, and wondering if Ian MacKaye was just another teen who needed to get his ya-ya's out before disappearing into real life. But no, he was in it for life and this album is one long Declaration of Independence. If you don't know Fugazi shame on you.
12. 'Family Portrait' by Pink from 'Missundaztood'
No idea how this got on here but it isn't bad.
13. 'She Loves You' by The Beatles from '1'
So these 4 guys from Liverpool...how is it that I am not tired of this song by now? It's like a piece of bubblegum that I've been chewing for 38 years and it tastes like I just popped it into my mouth.
14. 'No' by They Might Be Giants from 'No! Pre Release Demo CD-rom'
John Linnell himself handed this to me. He had rented out the basement under my ex-wife's condo as a recording studio in Brooklyn. If you don't have kids and haven't heard 'No!' because it is 'for kids', get over it. It might be their best album.
15. 'Hunting For Witches' by Bloc Party from 'A weekend in the...'
I know I should care about this band but I don't. Great band name, good sound, smart music, and I just fell asleep typing that sentence.
Tune in tomorrow for what my iPod shows me next.
As I rode the bus to work this morning and listened to my iPod on shuffle, I thought to myself, "Wow, the iPod is on fire today! What a great mix!"
Now, a few words about my iPod. I have the U2 Special Autographed Edition, black with a red keypad. It was a gift from my cousin Mike on the occasion of a production we opened of his play 'Diverting Devotion'. He gave each cast and crew member this iPod. We gave him a Matchbox car. I'm still slightly ashamed of that but what're you gonna do?
I have about 7,000 songs on the iPod. So sometimes the shuffle option can be a challenge. There are times when I don't want to hear Lee Perry and the Upsetters sing 'Beans and Cornbread', times when Bebel Gilberto is just too damn mellow, times when Minor Threat is too fast and loud for a morning commute. But it is an exercise for me, a random sampling of my past brought to instant life.
The mix today made me know what I could possibly write about every day here.
I catch the bus at Wilshire and Western and take it all the way to Santa Monica. It takes roughly an hour door to door. I tend to hit play the second after I lock my apartment door and take the earphones out as I walk into the office. Today it played 15 songs. The length of an album. An album that takes me to work.
Here is what I heard this morning...
1. 'Cheeze Surprize' by Pimp Fu from the album 'Shocker'
Pimp Fu is the alias of my cousin Timothy O'Malley. The opening refrain is repeated throughout the song - 'Pass me the bottle/Yeah pass me that too/You think I'm-a change/Well the joke's on you/I cannot explain but you're stuck with the Fu, bitch/Outta my way'. Pimp Fu is one of my favorite artists, funny, disturbing, sad, absurd, all put to crazy beats that sound like the inside of a madman's head, which they are.
2. 'Hollow Moon' by The Mahoneys from the album 'Live From The 20th Century'
What are the odds? The Mahoneys were the band I had when I lived in Providence in the early 1990's. 7,000 songs and the iPod picks two in a row written by O'Malley family members. We recorded this song, a song I still play today, in Steve Clary's basement in a haze of marijuana. And when I say haze I am not speaking metaphorically. He had soundproofed his basement so nothing escaped. You could see the smoke floating throughout the entire rehearsal. It took me a long time to be able to perform music without leaning on weed.
3. 'I Wonder U' by Prince from the album 'Parade'
This album has 'Kiss' on it so it might be absurd to say it is under appreciated but it is. Sonically it is on a par with 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' in terms of complexity and tonal quality. There are layers so carefully constructed that they seem ancient but so funky that they are instant and modern at the same time. Imagine you are in a rocket ship with a holograph deck that has taken you to the Moulin Rouge. That is the music from 'Under the Cherry Moon'. The movie is as bad as the music is good.
4. 'I'll Be Gone' by Dwight Yoakam from 'dwightyoakamacoustic.net
I know a lot of people who discount country music completely. The mere word 'country' music has such negative connotations that they literally cannot hear the music. Same goes for rap. I'd say it was a racial/cultural thing, but I think it has more to do with commerce than anything else. Deep thinkers hate commerce and both these genres embrace the commercial unabashedly. Now, don't get me wrong, both genres have their purveyors who aim at the lowest common denominator (Toby Keith, Garth Brooks, Ja Rule, DMX, etc). Then there are the mavericks, the real deals. Yoakam is the real deal.
5. 'Sleep to Dream' by Fiona Apple from 'Tidal'
Sometimes I don't want to hear Fiona Apple at all. I especially don't want to hear anything from her first album because I think she's made incalculable leaps as a writer/singer. She strikes me as a good actress on a bad show in this first album. By the end of her run people won't even remember the first album.
6. 'Pride and Joy' by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble from 'Greatest Hits'
Wow. I play guitar. I've played guitar for 20 years. Listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan makes me want to smash my guitar and give up. He makes me feel like I just figured out that you aren't supposed to play the guitar with your elbows.
7. 'Career Opportunities' by The Clash from 'Story of the Clash Vol. 1 Disc 2'
This sounds like a pop song now but to the ears of the English public in 1977 it sounded like a cannon aimed at Buckingham Palace. I don't mean to overstate the impact popular culture has on a political system but the English gutter punks basically dropped the guillotine on the past, snarling that they didn't like cake, they couldn't afford cake, they wouldn't eat cake if they could afford it.
8. 'The Pressman' by Primus from 'Pork Soda'
No idea what this song is about and don't care anymore. Primus shifted from quirky and absurd to indecipherable for me. I lost interest after this album.
9. 'My Little Problem' by The Replacements from 'All Shook Down'
I could write about The Replacements all day every day. This is from their swan song and it is a duet with Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde who scares me. By all accounts she scared Paul too, coming in and singing the song and leaving, having barely said anything besides the lyrics he'd written for her. It was and is jarring to hear another voice on a Replacements track. On its own the song works like an evil charm, telling the story of that couple everyone knows who can't stand each other but can't stop running off and screwing.
10. 'Dice Behind Your Shades' by Paul Westerberg from '14 Songs'
I'm telling you, this iPod is unbelievable. From the last Replacements album to Westerbergs first solo? My favorite moment from this song is when Paul sings, 'The avant guard/Unlocks your cage' while a cello mimics the creak of a door finally being forced open. It's about as arty as Westerberg gets and I bet he's embarrassed by the conceit even at the same time he's proud as hell.
11. 'Lockdown' by Fugazi from '13 Songs'
From Westerberg's '14 Songs' to Fugazi's '13 Songs' could not be a further stylistic leap. I still remember hearing this album for the first time, having been a huge Minor Threat fan, and wondering if Ian MacKaye was just another teen who needed to get his ya-ya's out before disappearing into real life. But no, he was in it for life and this album is one long Declaration of Independence. If you don't know Fugazi shame on you.
12. 'Family Portrait' by Pink from 'Missundaztood'
No idea how this got on here but it isn't bad.
13. 'She Loves You' by The Beatles from '1'
So these 4 guys from Liverpool...how is it that I am not tired of this song by now? It's like a piece of bubblegum that I've been chewing for 38 years and it tastes like I just popped it into my mouth.
14. 'No' by They Might Be Giants from 'No! Pre Release Demo CD-rom'
John Linnell himself handed this to me. He had rented out the basement under my ex-wife's condo as a recording studio in Brooklyn. If you don't have kids and haven't heard 'No!' because it is 'for kids', get over it. It might be their best album.
15. 'Hunting For Witches' by Bloc Party from 'A weekend in the...'
I know I should care about this band but I don't. Great band name, good sound, smart music, and I just fell asleep typing that sentence.
Tune in tomorrow for what my iPod shows me next.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Outside Kenyon's Hardware Store, Circa 1975
By all accounts I have a terrible memory. Scroll through the various posts on this blog and you will find many "I have no idea what happened next" or "No idea what follows" or "all recollection escapes me". I'd be a great White House Chief of Staff.
When it comes to childhood things get beyond fuzzy. My sisters all remember word for word conversations while my storage banks are more like montages from sepia toned 1970's home movies.
There are moments, however, that have survived the haze and remain clear.
My mother cutting my father's ear instead of a strand of his hair in the apartment we lived in before moving to Paul Ave.
Waking up in the house on Paul Ave and having to crawl downstairs because my leg hurt. It wound up being synovitis, which I'll get into another time.
Sitting in a wheelchair after having been in the hospital for the aforementioned synovitis looking out the bay window of the living room at a thunderstorm.
Singing along to Don McLean's 'American Pie' and making my sisters let me go solo on the final line because I knew how to sing it right.
Sliding into third base in the Quinn's backyard and finding to my horror that my hand had managed to gather up an entire pile of their dog Pepper's shit. I ran home without a word to anyone.
Billy Hodge going through the bushes in my backyard to retrieve a home-run ball from the canoe that hung from the Fisher's shed...he burst back through the shrub shrouded by a cloud of bees, screaming bloody murder.
Seeing my Mum's curly hair after a perm and crying.
Listening to the Red Sox in the dark in my room.
On the nights they didn't play listening to a talk show host named Larry.
Liking the smell of Caladryl so much that I would spray it into the air and breathe it in.
Picking raspberries from the bushes that grew wild on the side of our house.
Getting stung by a bee at the Quinn's house on the inside of my ear.
Going to the doctor after an earache and having him inject water into my ear...the pain was so intense they gave me some sort of painkiller that left me hallucinating the little bear in the boat in a painting on the wall actually sail away.
A war that took place on bikes holding garbage can lids that involved throwing real rocks at real speed.
Crashing my bike into the governor's limo which would be parked across the street from time to time as our neighbor was a state cop charged with driving the gov around.
Going to Homer Ladas' house and everything had onions and mayonaise...I nibbled hoping to fill up on dessert which was chocolate ice cream with coconut so I went home hungry.
Playing with Playmobil sets at Norman Silverman's house.
One of the Fratiello girls spitting on me from a tree house in their backyard.
Seeing 'Star Wars' in a double feature with 'Heroes' at a drive-in, the only time I've ever been to a drive-in.
Crying when the Red Sox lost the seventh game of the World Series to the Cincinnatti Reds.
Staring at a kissing couple on Scarborough Beach.
Getting lost on Scarborough Beach and a man with the blackest skin I'd ever seen save my life by taking my hand and bringing me to the Lifeguard Chair.
Missing the bus at South Road Elementary School and having to wait for my Dad to come pick me up and being TERRIFIED until he got there and bursting into tears once I got into the car and he laughed and told me it was okay.
Walking to school across Mrs. Diamond's farm and fearing the bull.
The crow that would accompany us to school across Mrs. Diamond's farm and wait for school to get out to follow us home.
Outside Kenyon's Hardware Store, circa 1975, I opened the door of our station wagon and prepared to enter the store with my Mother when I was struck by the unavoidable fact that I was going to die some day.
For anything else you'll have to ask my sisters.
When it comes to childhood things get beyond fuzzy. My sisters all remember word for word conversations while my storage banks are more like montages from sepia toned 1970's home movies.
There are moments, however, that have survived the haze and remain clear.
My mother cutting my father's ear instead of a strand of his hair in the apartment we lived in before moving to Paul Ave.
Waking up in the house on Paul Ave and having to crawl downstairs because my leg hurt. It wound up being synovitis, which I'll get into another time.
Sitting in a wheelchair after having been in the hospital for the aforementioned synovitis looking out the bay window of the living room at a thunderstorm.
Singing along to Don McLean's 'American Pie' and making my sisters let me go solo on the final line because I knew how to sing it right.
Sliding into third base in the Quinn's backyard and finding to my horror that my hand had managed to gather up an entire pile of their dog Pepper's shit. I ran home without a word to anyone.
Billy Hodge going through the bushes in my backyard to retrieve a home-run ball from the canoe that hung from the Fisher's shed...he burst back through the shrub shrouded by a cloud of bees, screaming bloody murder.
Seeing my Mum's curly hair after a perm and crying.
Listening to the Red Sox in the dark in my room.
On the nights they didn't play listening to a talk show host named Larry.
Liking the smell of Caladryl so much that I would spray it into the air and breathe it in.
Picking raspberries from the bushes that grew wild on the side of our house.
Getting stung by a bee at the Quinn's house on the inside of my ear.
Going to the doctor after an earache and having him inject water into my ear...the pain was so intense they gave me some sort of painkiller that left me hallucinating the little bear in the boat in a painting on the wall actually sail away.
A war that took place on bikes holding garbage can lids that involved throwing real rocks at real speed.
Crashing my bike into the governor's limo which would be parked across the street from time to time as our neighbor was a state cop charged with driving the gov around.
Going to Homer Ladas' house and everything had onions and mayonaise...I nibbled hoping to fill up on dessert which was chocolate ice cream with coconut so I went home hungry.
Playing with Playmobil sets at Norman Silverman's house.
One of the Fratiello girls spitting on me from a tree house in their backyard.
Seeing 'Star Wars' in a double feature with 'Heroes' at a drive-in, the only time I've ever been to a drive-in.
Crying when the Red Sox lost the seventh game of the World Series to the Cincinnatti Reds.
Staring at a kissing couple on Scarborough Beach.
Getting lost on Scarborough Beach and a man with the blackest skin I'd ever seen save my life by taking my hand and bringing me to the Lifeguard Chair.
Missing the bus at South Road Elementary School and having to wait for my Dad to come pick me up and being TERRIFIED until he got there and bursting into tears once I got into the car and he laughed and told me it was okay.
Walking to school across Mrs. Diamond's farm and fearing the bull.
The crow that would accompany us to school across Mrs. Diamond's farm and wait for school to get out to follow us home.
Outside Kenyon's Hardware Store, circa 1975, I opened the door of our station wagon and prepared to enter the store with my Mother when I was struck by the unavoidable fact that I was going to die some day.
For anything else you'll have to ask my sisters.
Monday, June 2, 2008
I Meet My Waterloo
Only once have I ever gotten a job in the entertainment field by answering an internet posting. By the time I finished the job I would wish the number had remained at zero.
It was the summer of 2002. I was bartending in NYC at Dempsey's down on the Lower East Side. But I wasn't pulling enough shifts so I needed other work. I'd occasionally take temp work that lasted a few days but that led to pure insanity as I'd work during the day and then hoof it down to Dempsey's until closing only to drag myself out of bed on 2 or less hours of sleep to do it all again. To this day I wonder whether the emotional crackup I went through has direct antecedents in those frenetic days.
I had noticed that my commercial audition schedule had almost been obliterated. 9/11 had killed the biz but no one had quite realized it yet. I faithfully sent out headshots to Backstage postings, went to open calls, and, in a new twist, scoured Craigslist for Film/Theater opportunities.
One day I noticed a need for someone who could do an authentic French accent to portray Napoleon Bonaparte. Eh bien! My lifelong interest in French had come about from doubling over with laughter at the Inspector Clouseau movies combined with my Bastille Day birth. I'd lived in France. If there was an accent I could nail it was French. (Unlike Scottish. My worst audition EVER was with a Scottish accent. I'll tell that tale sometime.)
I wrote an hilarious reply to this posting. I think I might have spelled everything in a phonetic French accent. When they got back to me and wanted to meet with me I was tres happy.
Until I found out EXACTLY what the job entailed. It had been a vague posting, yes, and maybe my depserate financial situation left me unable to read between the lines, but I'd been sure it had been something that was to be FILMED. But, no.
A small public relations firm had been hired to try and jumpstart recognition of a movie coming out starring Ian Holm as Napoleon Bonaparte. The conceit of the movie is that Napoleon is in exile...he escapes by replacing himself with a look-alike. He then heads to Paris to begin plotting his return. Before he can do this, his look-alike DIES. So noone will believe that he is Napoleon.
OK, so, whatever. It's a comedy.
Why would they put an ad on Craigslist for a movie that's already been shot? How would I be playing Napoleon?
Wellllll....
The public relations firm had come up with the brilliant plan of dressing EXCELLENT actors as Napoleon and unleashing them on the city with flyers that promoted the film. Not passes, mind you, that people could use to see the film for free or anything like that, just FLYERS.
Why I didn't run for the hills at that very moment I'll never know. Instead I turned on the charm even more. Sure I didn't want the gig but I certainly couldn't handle NOT getting such a stupid gig. What would that say about my career?
Long story short I got hired. There were two Napoleons. The other was actually French and short. Since he was short he got the good costume. It looked very Napoleonic. Mine looked like something an extra whomping away on a trombone in The Music Man might wear.
Was it his authentic Frenchiness that caused him to be so beloved and me reviled? I don't know, but consider the following...
He showed up outside The Today Show and was so embraced by the long line of people and security guards that he was interviewed by Al Roker. The VERY next day I was asked to leave.
I'm sure you can remember a time when you walked down the street and saw some loser in an outlandish costume passing out flyers. You altered your trajectory so as not to come into contact with them. They might as well have had leprosy.
Now imagine being the object of that scorn and rejection. While wearing a Napoleon outfit that more closely resembles a high school band uniform. Oh, did I mention that it was SUMMER? And HOT? Somehow this other little French dude could prance around the city sweat free and seduce legions of jaded New Yorkers into taking these postcards. I, on the other hand, stood forlorn on street corner after street corner like an ancient whore who can't fathom that she has ceased to be attractive to anyone for anything.
The worst part was that I had to get to and fro either wearing the costume or carrying a bag big enough to hold it in. I admit, I took to dropping off the flyers at nearby coffee shops and reading the paper near the stacks. If I saw anyone from the public relations firm I'd tell them I was just taking a break, that I'd get back into my costume in a second.
My evil girlfriend actually took a picture of me in the get up somewhere at Midtown.
I don't like to look at it.
It was the summer of 2002. I was bartending in NYC at Dempsey's down on the Lower East Side. But I wasn't pulling enough shifts so I needed other work. I'd occasionally take temp work that lasted a few days but that led to pure insanity as I'd work during the day and then hoof it down to Dempsey's until closing only to drag myself out of bed on 2 or less hours of sleep to do it all again. To this day I wonder whether the emotional crackup I went through has direct antecedents in those frenetic days.
I had noticed that my commercial audition schedule had almost been obliterated. 9/11 had killed the biz but no one had quite realized it yet. I faithfully sent out headshots to Backstage postings, went to open calls, and, in a new twist, scoured Craigslist for Film/Theater opportunities.
One day I noticed a need for someone who could do an authentic French accent to portray Napoleon Bonaparte. Eh bien! My lifelong interest in French had come about from doubling over with laughter at the Inspector Clouseau movies combined with my Bastille Day birth. I'd lived in France. If there was an accent I could nail it was French. (Unlike Scottish. My worst audition EVER was with a Scottish accent. I'll tell that tale sometime.)
I wrote an hilarious reply to this posting. I think I might have spelled everything in a phonetic French accent. When they got back to me and wanted to meet with me I was tres happy.
Until I found out EXACTLY what the job entailed. It had been a vague posting, yes, and maybe my depserate financial situation left me unable to read between the lines, but I'd been sure it had been something that was to be FILMED. But, no.
A small public relations firm had been hired to try and jumpstart recognition of a movie coming out starring Ian Holm as Napoleon Bonaparte. The conceit of the movie is that Napoleon is in exile...he escapes by replacing himself with a look-alike. He then heads to Paris to begin plotting his return. Before he can do this, his look-alike DIES. So noone will believe that he is Napoleon.
OK, so, whatever. It's a comedy.
Why would they put an ad on Craigslist for a movie that's already been shot? How would I be playing Napoleon?
Wellllll....
The public relations firm had come up with the brilliant plan of dressing EXCELLENT actors as Napoleon and unleashing them on the city with flyers that promoted the film. Not passes, mind you, that people could use to see the film for free or anything like that, just FLYERS.
Why I didn't run for the hills at that very moment I'll never know. Instead I turned on the charm even more. Sure I didn't want the gig but I certainly couldn't handle NOT getting such a stupid gig. What would that say about my career?
Long story short I got hired. There were two Napoleons. The other was actually French and short. Since he was short he got the good costume. It looked very Napoleonic. Mine looked like something an extra whomping away on a trombone in The Music Man might wear.
Was it his authentic Frenchiness that caused him to be so beloved and me reviled? I don't know, but consider the following...
He showed up outside The Today Show and was so embraced by the long line of people and security guards that he was interviewed by Al Roker. The VERY next day I was asked to leave.
I'm sure you can remember a time when you walked down the street and saw some loser in an outlandish costume passing out flyers. You altered your trajectory so as not to come into contact with them. They might as well have had leprosy.
Now imagine being the object of that scorn and rejection. While wearing a Napoleon outfit that more closely resembles a high school band uniform. Oh, did I mention that it was SUMMER? And HOT? Somehow this other little French dude could prance around the city sweat free and seduce legions of jaded New Yorkers into taking these postcards. I, on the other hand, stood forlorn on street corner after street corner like an ancient whore who can't fathom that she has ceased to be attractive to anyone for anything.
The worst part was that I had to get to and fro either wearing the costume or carrying a bag big enough to hold it in. I admit, I took to dropping off the flyers at nearby coffee shops and reading the paper near the stacks. If I saw anyone from the public relations firm I'd tell them I was just taking a break, that I'd get back into my costume in a second.
My evil girlfriend actually took a picture of me in the get up somewhere at Midtown.
I don't like to look at it.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Appendix: Magic Mountain
I was on my parents insurance until 2 months before my appendix burst. I'd graduated from college with no debt and the universe simply couldn't stand such a blemish on the face of higher education and capitalism. So she obliged by blowing me up from inside.
When all was said and done I owed about $8,000. And that was with a discount from the surgeon who was a friend of the woman I acted with in Looking Glass Theater, the theater group I remember seeing when I was in elementary school. My fellow actor was married to a doctor and she pulled some strings to reduce the cost of the procedure which had effectively left me unable to work for the final two months of the school year.
The appendix is a little tube closed on both ends that sits in the lower right corner of your torso and serves no function that anyone can perceive. In certain people it one day up and decides to swell until it bursts. If this happens, your innards are like a computer attacked by a virus. Everything simply dissolves and you die.
Some say it is a vestige of a stomach we used to use to digest sticks and leaves when we were more herbivorous. I say it hurt like hell when it ruptured.
I'd been in the midst of the drama of meeting my now ex-wife in Providence. She was married at the time and we'd been in sporadic tragic touch since the play we were in together closed. It was a Saturday night and I'd gone out and met someone (I can't remember who) in the city for a beer. I was home relatively early and settled in to watch TV on the living room couch.
I soon became quite ill, alternately throwing up and having terrible diarrhea. I thought I must have eaten something rotten. This went on all night. I dragged myself to and from the bathroom, resigned to this night of horror. By 5 AM I was a zombie.
Only one of my roommates was in town, Tom, a guy I didn't know all that well. He popped his head into my room and asked if I ought not go to the hospital. I remember being shocked at this suggestion and realizing that it was the wise thing to do. Luckily we lived right next door to Roger Williams Hospital. He drove me the 100 yards to the emergency room. By this time my side was red and inflamed and I had started to think my appendix was bursting.
A little back story. I'd had shooting pains in my side many times before. Every couple of months I'd double over in pain, always on the right side, always sharp and shooting. I later learned that the appendix can be swollen for years before it actually bursts.
It was Easter morning.
Tom called my parents and they rushed up I-95 from Kingston, cancelling all Easter plans. The doctors began running tests on me. They couldn't give me any pain medication because they needed me to be lucid enough to cry out in pain every time they lightly brushed their hands against my stomach. They took blood, did x-rays, shook rain sticks, basically ran every test in their arsenal to make sure they wound up with enough charges to pay for their Aspen ski trip.
By 10 AM I was delirious from the pain. I felt as if I were surrounded by a several foot thick wall of heat and agony. I moaned as I sat on the white paper in my hospital robe. Finally the doctor came in and said what we all knew...my appendix was in the middle of attempted murder and I'd have to have an emergency appendectomy.
They shot me in the ass with Demerol, I believe. When I say I instantly felt better I truly mean INSTANTLY. I don't know what that stuff is but the Devil is behind it. The liquid came out of the syringe and all of a sudden I felt zero pain.
I had been up over 24 hours at this point and was raving and exhausted. I have a vague memory of being on the gurney being wheeled down to the OR. I remember double doors opening. I'm told they did the whole count backwards routine but they must have woken me up to do that because the Demerol mixed with the fatigue put me out immediately.
I woke up however many hours later to my parents and a nurse. I have no idea who the doctor was, never met him, never spoke to him, have no face in my head to put with the man who ostensibly saved my life. My side still hurt and I claimed that he hadn't taken it out, that it was still in there. They assured me that the pain I was feeling was from the incision and removal, not from the obsolete organ continuing to burst.
My Dad gave me a copy of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann to start reading while I was in the hospital. A month ago I finally finished that colossally disturbing book.
Strangely enough, I still get those shooting pains. Phantom appendices!
When all was said and done I owed about $8,000. And that was with a discount from the surgeon who was a friend of the woman I acted with in Looking Glass Theater, the theater group I remember seeing when I was in elementary school. My fellow actor was married to a doctor and she pulled some strings to reduce the cost of the procedure which had effectively left me unable to work for the final two months of the school year.
The appendix is a little tube closed on both ends that sits in the lower right corner of your torso and serves no function that anyone can perceive. In certain people it one day up and decides to swell until it bursts. If this happens, your innards are like a computer attacked by a virus. Everything simply dissolves and you die.
Some say it is a vestige of a stomach we used to use to digest sticks and leaves when we were more herbivorous. I say it hurt like hell when it ruptured.
I'd been in the midst of the drama of meeting my now ex-wife in Providence. She was married at the time and we'd been in sporadic tragic touch since the play we were in together closed. It was a Saturday night and I'd gone out and met someone (I can't remember who) in the city for a beer. I was home relatively early and settled in to watch TV on the living room couch.
I soon became quite ill, alternately throwing up and having terrible diarrhea. I thought I must have eaten something rotten. This went on all night. I dragged myself to and from the bathroom, resigned to this night of horror. By 5 AM I was a zombie.
Only one of my roommates was in town, Tom, a guy I didn't know all that well. He popped his head into my room and asked if I ought not go to the hospital. I remember being shocked at this suggestion and realizing that it was the wise thing to do. Luckily we lived right next door to Roger Williams Hospital. He drove me the 100 yards to the emergency room. By this time my side was red and inflamed and I had started to think my appendix was bursting.
A little back story. I'd had shooting pains in my side many times before. Every couple of months I'd double over in pain, always on the right side, always sharp and shooting. I later learned that the appendix can be swollen for years before it actually bursts.
It was Easter morning.
Tom called my parents and they rushed up I-95 from Kingston, cancelling all Easter plans. The doctors began running tests on me. They couldn't give me any pain medication because they needed me to be lucid enough to cry out in pain every time they lightly brushed their hands against my stomach. They took blood, did x-rays, shook rain sticks, basically ran every test in their arsenal to make sure they wound up with enough charges to pay for their Aspen ski trip.
By 10 AM I was delirious from the pain. I felt as if I were surrounded by a several foot thick wall of heat and agony. I moaned as I sat on the white paper in my hospital robe. Finally the doctor came in and said what we all knew...my appendix was in the middle of attempted murder and I'd have to have an emergency appendectomy.
They shot me in the ass with Demerol, I believe. When I say I instantly felt better I truly mean INSTANTLY. I don't know what that stuff is but the Devil is behind it. The liquid came out of the syringe and all of a sudden I felt zero pain.
I had been up over 24 hours at this point and was raving and exhausted. I have a vague memory of being on the gurney being wheeled down to the OR. I remember double doors opening. I'm told they did the whole count backwards routine but they must have woken me up to do that because the Demerol mixed with the fatigue put me out immediately.
I woke up however many hours later to my parents and a nurse. I have no idea who the doctor was, never met him, never spoke to him, have no face in my head to put with the man who ostensibly saved my life. My side still hurt and I claimed that he hadn't taken it out, that it was still in there. They assured me that the pain I was feeling was from the incision and removal, not from the obsolete organ continuing to burst.
My Dad gave me a copy of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann to start reading while I was in the hospital. A month ago I finally finished that colossally disturbing book.
Strangely enough, I still get those shooting pains. Phantom appendices!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Co Incidents
...standing in line at The Louvre in 1991. The big glass Pyramid was off in the distance and the snake of people stretched all around the giant courtyard. As my parents and I walked along the line to reach the end of it we passed Katie Hodge, our next door neighbor.
...Steven Fain had come to visit me while I lived in France. We went on a trip to Amsterdam, then down to Milan, then Rome, then Venice. As we sat in the train waiting to pull out of Venice to head straight for Marseilles, a voice from the corridor chimed in a Cranston accent, "Are you Sandi Fain's brother?" Phonetically it sounded like "Ah you Seeandi Fain's bvutha?" Leigh Denucci had not seen Steven Fain since she'd been over to play with Sandi when she was twelve. She was going to Bah-celona to visit her boyfviend.
...in Las Vegas for the first time with my cousin. His buddies meet for March Madness and gambling occasionally and he invited me to come along. I was riding up one of the outdoor escalators that get you up and over the streets without waiting for crosswalk lights. Who walks by on street level? My best friend from junior high Brian Records.
...walking along in NYC when Beull Thomas punches me on the shoulder. He'd been the lead singer in a band I was good buddies with in Rhode Island. He'd arrived in NYC that afternoon and was wandering around. I had gotten my haircut and walked out onto the street moments before he punched me. When I say he'd arrived, I mean he still had his backpack and suitcase. He'd literally just moved to NYC. And he ran into me twenty minutes after getting off the bus. I hadn't known he was moving from Little Rhody until I saw him on the street.
...at Yankee Stadium to watch the Sox play the Yankees. Sitting two rows in front of me is an actor I knew in Providence that I did 'True West' with 5 years earlier. 50,000 seats and he's not a Yankee or a Red Sox fan.
...working as a bartender at a wedding in Pasadena. In the middle of the party I run out of something and have to run over to the other bar to get a new bottle. As I stand and wait to talk to the bartender, I overhear him talking with a guest about the Red Sox. I join in. Asked why I am a Red Sox fan I say that I grew up in Rhode Island. The random guest has a cousin in Rhode Island, a cop named Mike. Mike Gama? Yep. I tell him that Mike Gama played drums in my punk band. The guest says, "We always thought he was lying about that."
I haven't asked for comments yet but I'd love to start to compile these impossible occurrences so let me know if you have any in your past!
...Steven Fain had come to visit me while I lived in France. We went on a trip to Amsterdam, then down to Milan, then Rome, then Venice. As we sat in the train waiting to pull out of Venice to head straight for Marseilles, a voice from the corridor chimed in a Cranston accent, "Are you Sandi Fain's brother?" Phonetically it sounded like "Ah you Seeandi Fain's bvutha?" Leigh Denucci had not seen Steven Fain since she'd been over to play with Sandi when she was twelve. She was going to Bah-celona to visit her boyfviend.
...in Las Vegas for the first time with my cousin. His buddies meet for March Madness and gambling occasionally and he invited me to come along. I was riding up one of the outdoor escalators that get you up and over the streets without waiting for crosswalk lights. Who walks by on street level? My best friend from junior high Brian Records.
...walking along in NYC when Beull Thomas punches me on the shoulder. He'd been the lead singer in a band I was good buddies with in Rhode Island. He'd arrived in NYC that afternoon and was wandering around. I had gotten my haircut and walked out onto the street moments before he punched me. When I say he'd arrived, I mean he still had his backpack and suitcase. He'd literally just moved to NYC. And he ran into me twenty minutes after getting off the bus. I hadn't known he was moving from Little Rhody until I saw him on the street.
...at Yankee Stadium to watch the Sox play the Yankees. Sitting two rows in front of me is an actor I knew in Providence that I did 'True West' with 5 years earlier. 50,000 seats and he's not a Yankee or a Red Sox fan.
...working as a bartender at a wedding in Pasadena. In the middle of the party I run out of something and have to run over to the other bar to get a new bottle. As I stand and wait to talk to the bartender, I overhear him talking with a guest about the Red Sox. I join in. Asked why I am a Red Sox fan I say that I grew up in Rhode Island. The random guest has a cousin in Rhode Island, a cop named Mike. Mike Gama? Yep. I tell him that Mike Gama played drums in my punk band. The guest says, "We always thought he was lying about that."
I haven't asked for comments yet but I'd love to start to compile these impossible occurrences so let me know if you have any in your past!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Carpal Tunnel of Love
Sometime during the summer of 1991 I was bitten by a deer tick in the woods of Richmond, Rhode Island. I was working at a group home for adults with developmental disabilites. Part of my job was accompanying them on their jobs and aiding the completion of tasks. We were out in a wooded area felling trees to clear the way for a house.
I didn't know I'd been viciously attacked. All I know is that one day I woke up with a rash on my groin. It was fiery red, circular in shape, and roughly the diameter of a small frisbee. I went to the doctor expecting to be told I had a rare deadly sexually transmitted disease. Which, if you really think about it, I did. Lyme's Disease. That deer tick and I hooked up and she gave me lifelong pain.
I had no symptoms. I started taking the antibiotics that day. I had a date scheduled for that evening to go see an evening of one-act plays in Providence. I called my date and she said it wouldn't be a problem if we cancelled but I insisted that I was fine.
A few words about my date. She was a gangly girl who kept bread in her purse and wouldn't let me in her room at her parents small apartment in Newport. I'd been set up with her on a date by an old friend. An old friend who I wound up dating a mere month later. Oops.
We had gone on a few dates so far and shared a couple of cursory good night kisses. She was really cute and funny but I was still quite stung by the relationship I'd just gotten out of and I couldn't refrain from a cold sweat every time the engine of the car cut off and we faced that end of the date lip lock two step.
But I was determined to go see this play. I picked her up in Newport and we headed up to Providence. Now, remember, I'd been at the doctor's a mere HOURS ago. As far as I was concerned, I had to take my medicine but I felt fine. No symptoms except for the rash, which is a lucky break in point of fact, because if you don't get the rash, you might not know you have the disease and then you wind up blind and paralyzed.
My willingness to go on with the date in spite of my illness seemed to signify some sort of fervor to her and she was extra gangly, extra funny, extra cute. I was extra sweaty.
We sat in our seats and awaited the first one-act. By the time the lights went down I was in agony.
It felt like someone had snuck up behind me and cast a spell, weaving a length of rusty chain throughout my skeleton. I couldn't turn the pages in the program. I felt as if the chair I sat in was designed specifically to elicit confessions from terrorists. As the first 10 minute play came to a close I told her I'd have to call it a night.
I struggled out of my chair, each crevice of my joints filling with hot lead. I told her she'd have to drive me home and that I'd call her a cab to take her back to Newport. To her credit she was a good sport about it. She helped me into the car as I writhed around. It's 17 years ago and I still squirm when I recall that feeling.
I spent the rest of the summer on my couch watching Goodfellas and Crimes and Misdemeanors over and over again. I also curtailed the late nights sweating in the car trying not to kiss this new girl and started kissing my old friend instead. This effectively ended their friendship. Like I said. Oops. There was no overlap but it still vaguely reeked of sleaze.
I still fondly recall that afternoon before I felt the symptoms, before standing at an ATM for 5 minutes felt like waiting in line for hours on a cold day, before I slid into that long dark tube of pure adulthood.
I don't think I've had an ache-free day since then.
I didn't know I'd been viciously attacked. All I know is that one day I woke up with a rash on my groin. It was fiery red, circular in shape, and roughly the diameter of a small frisbee. I went to the doctor expecting to be told I had a rare deadly sexually transmitted disease. Which, if you really think about it, I did. Lyme's Disease. That deer tick and I hooked up and she gave me lifelong pain.
I had no symptoms. I started taking the antibiotics that day. I had a date scheduled for that evening to go see an evening of one-act plays in Providence. I called my date and she said it wouldn't be a problem if we cancelled but I insisted that I was fine.
A few words about my date. She was a gangly girl who kept bread in her purse and wouldn't let me in her room at her parents small apartment in Newport. I'd been set up with her on a date by an old friend. An old friend who I wound up dating a mere month later. Oops.
We had gone on a few dates so far and shared a couple of cursory good night kisses. She was really cute and funny but I was still quite stung by the relationship I'd just gotten out of and I couldn't refrain from a cold sweat every time the engine of the car cut off and we faced that end of the date lip lock two step.
But I was determined to go see this play. I picked her up in Newport and we headed up to Providence. Now, remember, I'd been at the doctor's a mere HOURS ago. As far as I was concerned, I had to take my medicine but I felt fine. No symptoms except for the rash, which is a lucky break in point of fact, because if you don't get the rash, you might not know you have the disease and then you wind up blind and paralyzed.
My willingness to go on with the date in spite of my illness seemed to signify some sort of fervor to her and she was extra gangly, extra funny, extra cute. I was extra sweaty.
We sat in our seats and awaited the first one-act. By the time the lights went down I was in agony.
It felt like someone had snuck up behind me and cast a spell, weaving a length of rusty chain throughout my skeleton. I couldn't turn the pages in the program. I felt as if the chair I sat in was designed specifically to elicit confessions from terrorists. As the first 10 minute play came to a close I told her I'd have to call it a night.
I struggled out of my chair, each crevice of my joints filling with hot lead. I told her she'd have to drive me home and that I'd call her a cab to take her back to Newport. To her credit she was a good sport about it. She helped me into the car as I writhed around. It's 17 years ago and I still squirm when I recall that feeling.
I spent the rest of the summer on my couch watching Goodfellas and Crimes and Misdemeanors over and over again. I also curtailed the late nights sweating in the car trying not to kiss this new girl and started kissing my old friend instead. This effectively ended their friendship. Like I said. Oops. There was no overlap but it still vaguely reeked of sleaze.
I still fondly recall that afternoon before I felt the symptoms, before standing at an ATM for 5 minutes felt like waiting in line for hours on a cold day, before I slid into that long dark tube of pure adulthood.
I don't think I've had an ache-free day since then.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
F.L.A. in L.A.
In my junior year of high school my friend Tom and I were in the same Humanities class taught by Mrs. Franco. She was an enthusiastic lover of all the arts and was constantly perplexed at the lack of interest the hordes who came before her had for the same.
I think she would have been pleased had she heard the following story.
Tom and I had started writing songs together. We'd done covers of Clash songs, Violent Femmes songs, Run DMC songs, but we'd only recently started creating our own works. I sang and wrote lyrics and Tom played guitar and wrote the music.
Tom's style is unique. He's still one of my favorite guitar players even though I haven't heard him play in years. He had the whole quiet/loud thing that The Pixies would hand off to Nirvana down cold. I still think that we should have quit high school and gone on the road. That is if we could have ever found a drummer.
I recently brought all my old notebooks down from storage in my parents attic. The earliest is a typical school notebook with a brown paper/cardboard cover. A pattern is drawn on it, jagged interconnecting lines, almost like bloodshot eyes in a Sunday comic. Within the oddly shaped contours lie letters in my teenage hand.
The F.L.A.'s.
Upon writing our first few songs Tom and I set about coming up with a band name in earnest. Some are unprintable, all I've forgotten. The one that stuck came from something Mrs. Franco had said about an era in painting that came about via several 'frustrated landscape artists'. They'd wanted to paint landscapes but had to constantly paint portraits to earn their keep.
We shortened this to F.L.A.'s and we were off. It wasn't until much later that we realized we'd named ourselves Florida in abbreviation.
Mixing self-pity, a half-hearted death wish, and impossibly innocent romantic ramblings with Tom's buzz saw licks, we had almost an album's worth of material within a month. But something was missing. Like a rhythm section. And another guitar player.
All of a sudden Justin was also in the band. The three of us were already best friends but I had no idea Justin even played guitar. Looking back I think he pulled some sort of Robert Johnson crossroads thing because one moment he was an injury prone football player and the next he was tapping like Eddie Van Halen and making god-awful somehow appropriate noise that layered perfectly over Tom's rhythms.
Justin also contributed music and our sound got more ragged but also more powerful. Our gentle giant friend Chris picked up the bass in order to complete the lineup. By now we'd already changed our name to the already written about classic Fecund Youth.
We never had a regular drummer. We played a couple of parties that live in isolated infamy. At both parties our drummer fell from the drum kit mid song. A recording survives of one of these shows, the one that took place in my basement the day before I saw The Replacements for the first time. How my parents thought going to Canada with the rest of the family the week of my birthday and favorite band coming to town was a good idea I'll never know.
Buried within the myth that is Fecund Youth is a short-lived duo called The F.L.A.'s.
And now, here I am in Los Angeles, a frustrated landscape artist in my own right. I've had success that I can point to, but nothing like the kind I'd envisioned for myself when I started out. I struggle financially. I wrestle with resentment and anger at what almost was, at what might have been.
Those old painters tricked their benefactors by painting portraits that sat on the edge of vast vistas instead of indoor still life. I'm casing joints, looking for ways to circumvent the limitations I've encountered. I'm about to unfrustrate my landscape.
I think she would have been pleased had she heard the following story.
Tom and I had started writing songs together. We'd done covers of Clash songs, Violent Femmes songs, Run DMC songs, but we'd only recently started creating our own works. I sang and wrote lyrics and Tom played guitar and wrote the music.
Tom's style is unique. He's still one of my favorite guitar players even though I haven't heard him play in years. He had the whole quiet/loud thing that The Pixies would hand off to Nirvana down cold. I still think that we should have quit high school and gone on the road. That is if we could have ever found a drummer.
I recently brought all my old notebooks down from storage in my parents attic. The earliest is a typical school notebook with a brown paper/cardboard cover. A pattern is drawn on it, jagged interconnecting lines, almost like bloodshot eyes in a Sunday comic. Within the oddly shaped contours lie letters in my teenage hand.
The F.L.A.'s.
Upon writing our first few songs Tom and I set about coming up with a band name in earnest. Some are unprintable, all I've forgotten. The one that stuck came from something Mrs. Franco had said about an era in painting that came about via several 'frustrated landscape artists'. They'd wanted to paint landscapes but had to constantly paint portraits to earn their keep.
We shortened this to F.L.A.'s and we were off. It wasn't until much later that we realized we'd named ourselves Florida in abbreviation.
Mixing self-pity, a half-hearted death wish, and impossibly innocent romantic ramblings with Tom's buzz saw licks, we had almost an album's worth of material within a month. But something was missing. Like a rhythm section. And another guitar player.
All of a sudden Justin was also in the band. The three of us were already best friends but I had no idea Justin even played guitar. Looking back I think he pulled some sort of Robert Johnson crossroads thing because one moment he was an injury prone football player and the next he was tapping like Eddie Van Halen and making god-awful somehow appropriate noise that layered perfectly over Tom's rhythms.
Justin also contributed music and our sound got more ragged but also more powerful. Our gentle giant friend Chris picked up the bass in order to complete the lineup. By now we'd already changed our name to the already written about classic Fecund Youth.
We never had a regular drummer. We played a couple of parties that live in isolated infamy. At both parties our drummer fell from the drum kit mid song. A recording survives of one of these shows, the one that took place in my basement the day before I saw The Replacements for the first time. How my parents thought going to Canada with the rest of the family the week of my birthday and favorite band coming to town was a good idea I'll never know.
Buried within the myth that is Fecund Youth is a short-lived duo called The F.L.A.'s.
And now, here I am in Los Angeles, a frustrated landscape artist in my own right. I've had success that I can point to, but nothing like the kind I'd envisioned for myself when I started out. I struggle financially. I wrestle with resentment and anger at what almost was, at what might have been.
Those old painters tricked their benefactors by painting portraits that sat on the edge of vast vistas instead of indoor still life. I'm casing joints, looking for ways to circumvent the limitations I've encountered. I'm about to unfrustrate my landscape.
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