Life and Life Only: Just Not That Cool

When it comes to music my generation just ain't that cool. We have some good bands and maybe a handful of great ones, but really... they're not that cool. Sure I like Foo Fighters and I have been listening to My Morning Jacket before they were featured in the movies “Elizabethtown” and “The Lookout,” but I'm not exactly sure how the future will paint them if they are at all.

Case in point: you can't go a day watching television without hearing a Zeppelin song selling a car, someone using a Janice Joplin song, or even an investment firm referring back to the summer of love. There's also “Rockband” and “Guitar Hero,” games designed for my generation of slacker wannabes who, while incredibly gifted with hand-eye coordination from years of Playstation, just don't have the communal idea of creating a garage band itself. I guess that if you can't get your friends to help you form a band you might as well grab a plastic guitar-shaped controller and try to play along. Let me know how you do on “Thunderstruck.”

There's no one central reason why we're just not that cool. Some could reason that technology has killed music. While you can promote your band on MySpace there's about a million others of you. Technology has made more types of music available as opposed to 40 years ago when you had to have serious drive and passion just to make it through the Studio system. Now, any balding white guy with the right software on his laptop can cut an album in his apartment (see also: Moby). “Studio production” technology has affected music as well. Would Brittany Spears sound as good if she wasn't performing to a synthesized beat?

Or maybe it's the magic and mysticism of a time I never knew; “the good old days.” There's something fascinating about listening to someone say, “Mick Jagger and the rest of the stones dropped by my farm and did some acid in 1967.” “I remember that night: the Fillmore, 1968.” “Me and David Crosby had to go rescue Neil Young from a jail in Alabama thirty minutes before the concert...” “I woke up in bed with Grace Slick.” “I was at a concert in New York helping Jim Morrison stay on stage while he was completely drunk and falling everywhere.” The best that my generation can hope for is, “I helped knock over a corner store with Maroon 5 because they were low on Red Bull.”

Rock music, especially in its infancy, seems to have this aura of youth, rebellion, love, and change. Or at least it's marketed well that way. And while we have classic rock music stations playing the same 8 songs by the Eagles, Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the rest every day, at least they're being played. I'm not so sure that 10 years from now anyone will still be listening to Puddle of Mudd, Default, Staind, or any of the others.

I've mentioned technology as a culprit but really it's just collusion. We can blame the RIAA for forcing bands to put out albums that are slated to be big sellers right out the door instead of fostering good music. We can blame a culture wrapped up in the one-hit-wonders of the past two decades to bother listening to any full album by the “wonders.” We can blame studio “de-regulation” or the fact that the Internet has made music more accessible but snows us under with its mediocrity (your MySpace band probably sucks). Or we can blame our culture which seems to promote making a buck over making educated expression.

Aside from some catchy riffs and a lyric or two, there's nothing cool about the music of now. Rap/RB/hip-hop speaks of money, power, and fashion but little substance. Country music has not only infiltrated the pop scene as it has for the last 30 years but now sounds like rock music from the late Eighties. As for Rock music it sits in a quagmire of lyrical retardation waiting for something to happen as if it will catch the cultural throne again and rule. Until then it ceaselessly churns out ballads.

Gotta go. I'm going to raid the liquor store with Nickelback.

Nerdicize, or Could I Bench-press Bangor?

(previously unposted – dated late August 2010)

“It was a Monday, just like any other day…”

Sitting here and the world is safe for Democracy. Or maybe the crazies of the world have settled down for the moment which gives me ample time to broadcast my week to my readership.

The good, bad, and fugly of it all…

Was hugely busy for most of the week. Did laundry, made dinner, virus-scanned computer and watched “Green Zone” all at once. Who said Windows was the only thing you can use to multi-task? That’s how it goes for me –shuffling forth and back doing about four things at once in my apartment. It’s about how anything gets done in the place.

Speaking of getting things done I finally did my Federal taxes. I had been putting them off for a while because I just wasn’t in the frame of mind to concentrate on them. Want my opinion on a book? Fine, not a problem. Need me to balance my checkbook? Whoah, buddy. Ground Control to Major Debt…

But that checks off another thing on my giant To Do list so I can get out from underneath everything. Still need to find a new car. And a new apartment. And new clothes. In fact, can I just trade in everything I got now for new crap? I think there’s a story somewhere in there…

Went on a photoshoot with the SmugMug group. I’m now a member of both photography groups in town. Wednesday night I plowed my car through intermittent rain and met with the group in front of the Jimmy John’s on the corner of Baxter and Highland Ave. Some there were seasoned professionals/hobbyists. One guy opened his backpack and had a kit of supplies along with actual pull-film for a camera nearly 60 years old. The main person putting on the event, Missy, is an older, blond woman who was taking pics using a monopod. There was the guy whose company is Dresden photography –he works for the VA hospital on most days and saves up for two weeks in a year and travels and does photography then. I also ran into Sarah, a part-time wedding photographer who works in a boutique as well as another guy whom I had met months before at the other photography group who said he really liked my film work.

During the photoshoot we walked up Baxter Ave. to the church and took some pics of it. We then turned around and walked back to Flannigan’s Ale House and had drinks/dinner. Along the way we met a biker who allowed us to take pics of him on his bike. After everyone left Flannigan’s we returned to the Walgreen’s parking lot but not before stopping to take pics of a Lamborghini outside the Starbuck’s Coffee shop.

So I’ve returned to the wonderful world of exercising. I “invented” my own routine in my living room and it works fairly well. After reaching up and down for 5 mins I walk to my bookcase and grab 2 hardback Stephen King novels (“The Stand” and “Wizard and Glass”) and use them as weights. Hey, if you have no room for a weight-training set, hardbacked Stephen King novels wouldn’t be your worst choice (Dan Brown…. questionable). I’m going to increase the apartment exercises each week by 5 mins and see what happens. Maybe I’ll get to bench-press Bangor, Maine.

Grab the Fedora and Bullwhip

Yesterday I had the second date with Lisa. On Sundays I usually go to a coffeeshop on Frankfort Ave. to get away from West Buechel livin’. Saturday night I invited Lisa (“I just go up there and work on writing”) and she said she would come along.

About 3:30 I’m on the phone with Ronald, a mutual friend, when she calls in. She’s gonna be a little late but will be there. Cool. Not a problem. By 4 I get off the phone with Ronald and get ready to go, being out the door within 10 minutes.

I make it to the coffeeshop by 4:30, get an iced mocha, and take a table outside. Lisa arrives within 15 minutes, walks in and gets a drink, and comes to sit at the table with me. I had barely made it through a paragraph of review of “Machete” and decided to show her some of my photography of being around the country. She asks if I went alone. “Yes,” I reply. She tells me she couldn’t do it. I didn’t have much of a choice but I don’t let on that yes, it can be scary as hell. But I do have an affinity for the open road…

And sometimes I look into her eyes. There’s a cool, beautiful soul of honesty and simplicity in a sea of blue. I don’t know what to say and I’m probably seeming nervous, something she asks me about later. I reply that I have “nerd disease” (consult your local physician) and try to relay the fact that my emotional response sometimes has a lag time anywhere between a second to longer. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

So I finish my coffee and we go walking around. She tells me that she used to grow up in the Crescent Hill area a while back before living in J’town. We keep bumping and rubbing up against another and I reach over and take her hand in mine. We stroll down a few of the side streets and walk up to the circular court of a prominent historical mansion. I walk around it but she gets bored and calls me back. I tell her that sometimes she’ll have to do that.

Returning to Frankfort Ave. we walk over to the Clifton Center. She says that she stopped there once before because her niece had a recital there. We pick the first wooden bench seat and sit close to each other. I touch her arm and she turns and looks at me. We kiss. She immediately pops up and wants to find a place to eat. I’m still sitting there but rise up and walk with her to the main street.

I point out Clifton’s Pizza. She’s also interested in sushi. I suggest a place down the road called the North End Café. She agrees and we walk.

After the fact, I swore she would kill me.

I didn’t have a pedometer on me BUT in hindsight I’m fairly certain we walked at least 3 miles roundabout. She had on a pair of flats that were killing her. I kept looking ahead and saying “just a few more minutes” but didn’t realize how far away the place really was. She would say “Thank God I didn’t wear my wedges today” and I nodded. Once or twice I offered for us to turn around but we were on our way there so…

We finally get into the café and sit at a booth. I feel bad for making her walk the whole distance and know that she’s feeling it. She orders ravioli with goat cheese and I order a Caesar salad. We sit and talk some more.

She sets the next date: watching movies at my place. I just have to provide what I already have –TV, disc player, surround- and order pizza. Fair enough. We plan for Thursday night.

Walking back I notice a few more things I want to take pics of in the area. She gets a clearer view of a fashion store with vintage clothing and wants to come back. We walk to her car and talk for another moment. We kiss three times before she tells me to “Go home.” I walk back to my car and head to my apartment.

Back on the West Buechel side I get to my apartment and turn around. I need to work on my review of “Machete.” I get out of the car and Lisa calls me. She’s alright and doesn’t want me to feel bad about her feet hurting. I do anyway but it was nice of her to call. I tell her that I have to work on submitting my review but I would be home after. She tells me that she had a weird dream about me –the LAS group we’re a part of had a meeting, two other friends were there, etc. I thought I might have an idea at what it meant but I really don’t. I say that I’ll catch up with her later and go inside.

One of the barristas gets me a free coffee and I work on the review some. I get back to my place then go downstairs and talk with Bob, resident apartment guru. We talk until 11:30 whereby I walk back up to my place and call my friend Pete. He calls me back and we catch up.

I go to sleep at some point after 1am which is usual for me. I had already e-mailed my review to Daniel and took a bath. And I SLEPT.

I woke up this morning and the world was fine. No worries. No concerns. Nothing bothering me. Traffic is lite because it’s a holiday. I think she’s thinking about me and I feel good. Out the door and off to work…

Writing us a (Part)

Danger! Danger!

Writing is a dangerous profession. No, I’m not busting heads or shaking down wheelers and dealers. I’m not denying a mortgage, giving a kid a failing grade, running skip traces, pushing drugs, or coming by to audit you.

Sitting in my living room where the phosphorescent overhead kitchen light pervades the darkness I stare at a thin black line blinking and waiting for stimulus. I regurgitate the triumphs and tribulations of entertainment that people have poured their money, if not their hearts, into. I wax laconic about days past, the people I have met, and the things I have done. I slit my wrists and let the blood fill the spaces between the keys. I find those places and spaces within most people don’t want to talk about and pull them up, ripping out the tendons in my arms and zombie-walking after.

I’m sober. I’m drunk. I’m tired. I’m wired. I’m happy. I’m pissed. I’m whatever the spinning wheel lands on that day.

If anyone asks, wants to know, the most difficult part of writing it’s people. The ones that I create. The ones that already exist and all I do is illustrate them on a page. The fictional ones never hurt you back but take everything in filling in their blanks –their lives, their loves, their loneliness. The ones based on real people run the risk of being read by the ones I emulated.

Even worse is when I directly write about those I know. My friends. My enemies. People I don’t even know. I’m not scared so much as I have to make sure the med kit is stocked when I do. I’ve angered and frustrated several because I shoved them through the same filter as I do everything else. The honesty that so many claim they love about me is a double-edged sword that many would love to thrust back at me when its tip faces them.

And here I fill this white space but resist asking for pity. For my friends that I have trod upon whatever I wrote was not written out of malice but from concern and frustration. For my enemies what bled out onto the page is a congenial jab compared to what I feel. Part of growing up, part of being professional, is accepting the good and bad of what you do and to just keep going.

Beautiful Day

Saturday morning and I have to be up and gone -stuff to do. On Bardstown Rd. heading to Kroger I gaze ahead at the mile or so of road, vehicles, businesses, telephone poles; the entire panorama. And it's beautiful. Crystal-clear azure sky with rows and rows of separate clouds that feels like a quilt covering over the world. Temperature is in the low 70s with a small bit of wind blowing. It's the perfect day.

Walking up to the main entrance of Krogers an older woman, medium build with white hair wearing a muted-yellow t-shirt and blue jeans, is pushing her cart loaded down with groceries. Moving along slowly she accidentally trips on her own foot. The cart topples over and spills the goods into the fire lane. A black woman rushes over from the right while the woman off to the left, selling Louisville and Kentucky t-shirts because of the Big Game, rushes over with a chair. The woman sits in the chair and nurses her foot.
“Are you alright?”
The woman looks up. “Yeah... I just don't know how I'm going to get home.”
“Is there anyone you can call?”
I walk over and get some of the groceries out of the cart before righting it on the pavement. I start putting them items back in.
“The manager's been called and he'll be out to help you in a moment.”
The black woman thanked me and seeing there was nothing else I could do, I went inside to pick up the money my mom had wired to me.

I stop over at Scott and Sandy's house to talk for a bit. My friend Dean calls me on the cellphone and I banter with him for a few moments. As I walk up to the house Scott rushes out.
“Hi. Bye.”
He jumps in his car, a Volvo station wagon, and turns the ignition. Nothing.
“I think I'm gonna need a jump. Good thing you came by when you did...”
I pull my car beside his, the front end butting up against the side of his and we jumped it. First time it didn't work. He gets out and grabs a wrench, tapping the battery's connector. Second time around it cranked right up.
“I'm gonna let this run for at least five minutes. Cut it out then crank it again.”
We go inside and I hang out there for a few. Scott has me give him a ride over to where Sabrina is hanging out/staying for the weekend (their oldest daughter). Due to my brother having removed the passenger seat a while back Scott sits on the floorboard.
“I feel ass scraping against gravel.”
We return to his house a short time later and I'm killing time (“that won't stand still...”) before going out to see a movie with Lisa. I meet the single parent of one of Brandon's friends (Scott and Sandy's youngest). She teaches English at Southern and I talk with her about books and writing.

I make it to RAVE Cinemas (formerly Stonybrook) by 4:20 and wait for Lisa who shows at exactly 4:30. We get our tickets for the movie and talk about it while waiting in the concessions line. I pay five dollars for a bottle of water. Five. I'm slightly teed about that...
The movie: “Machete.” Robert Rodriguez's feature-length movie based on the fake-trailer he did for the “Grindhouse” movie with Tarantino. Overall, a fun flick. I laughed at a few things Lisa probably didn't get and was slightly concerned that the first movie I see with her has excessive violence, nudity, and shit blowing up.
She loved it, except for the first five minutes. “I was like... is this for real?” Once she got past that he really enjoyed it.
“I won't forgive you for making me see Lindsay Lohan's boobs!”
Okay, the other complaint. She didn't have a problem with any other nudity except for hers. Fair enough.
We decide to eat at Old Chicago and split their “Chicago Seven” pizza. We talk about ourselves, where we're from, family, etc. After I suggest we go get some coffee so we drive over to the Borders and get some from Seattle's Best, sitting outside and talking longer. She wants to go back to the Palace, to watch movies at my place, and even workout with me.
Six hours. We stood in the Borders parking lot until 10:30pm talking. We both enjoyed the other's company and plan to sit and have coffee this afternoon. She's nice, sweet, pleasant, cute and fun to be around.
I called and talked with my mom about her, saying that I dated “outside the box.” “She's not shallow, bitchy, or...” I forgot what. Damned if I got little sleep 'cause I couldn't stop thinking about her.