Festering Carbuncle

I'm so glad they named it twice...

I'll never get you back, so you'll never be sad

My mom is a sextagenarian. She claims that she was into Johnny Cash when all the kids were gah-gah over Elvis. I cannot verify this, I must take her word. It is, as they say, a curse of youth. What I can verify is that she watches and enjoys American Idol. I find myself, from time to time, scoffing when she mentions that it is Idol night, and she must make haste to the television. I stop myself, however, mid-scoff, and tell her that I think it is just the bees knees that she enjoys the show, because, after all, it is a show that is meant to be enjoyed. It is a lie I tell, one of those lies, you know the ones, you tell them all the time, you lying bastard.

You may be thinking to yourself that there is a certain nobility in lying to ones mother in order to spare her feelings, or perhaps you see an acknowledgment of subjectivity and personal honesty in my actions, but the reality is that I think my mother hopeless. If you are personally honest with yourself, you will admit that you find your mother hopeless, too.

Ok, so my mom's not hopeless at all; she's a fucking saint, Lollards be damned. We share with each other music and love, but with both there are limits; I don't slip her the tongue and I don't play for her The Mentors. We have boundaries and we are thankful for them. Nevertheless, early in this century I played for her one day, on a drive toward some unremembered destination, Babybirds' "There's Something Going On." I suppose I was emboldened, to an extent, by the first-hand knowledge that the first time you hear Babybird you have absolutely no fucking idea what is going on. You hear pretty vocals and pretty melodies and competent arrangements that put pretty pictures in your head of pretty things. It is foremost a pretty pretty experience, for most.

She liked it. How could she not, really? But I never played it for her again because I love her, and eventually Babybird will kill you. If you spend enough time with Babybird you will see that all that is pretty comes from pain, and that pretty is, in fact, derived solely from pain. It is a crushing revelation, one that will make you wish to cry, but you will find that you can't because your pain won't make tears that are pretty enough.

I know this from experience; I am the living dead. I walk the earth with an insatiable hunger for brains as my own have long since left me. I struggle on a day to day basis to form comprehensible sentences; a string of words that are remotely similar in meaning to the way I feel. It is futile, I realize, but when I close my eyes and listen to this song I find comfort for reasons unknown, or at least for reasons not communicable.

mog.com

More about this song

Share

uniform combustion biome

Say you have to be at work at six-thirty in the morning.  And say you go to bed at ten-thirty.  Then let's say you look at the clock and it says eleven-thirty, and you think to yourself, "Wow, I'm pretty much not tired."  Say all those things happen, and when they happen, what do you do?

Do you think to yourself, "Boy, I bet I know someone else who isn't sleeping, and I bet that someone else wouldn't be averse to drinking gin until last call?"  Do you, moments after having said thought, call up said friend and invite them to the space room for stiff gin drinks?  Do they accept your invitation and spend the rest of the night drinking well gin at rock bottom prices?  One and one half hours into the whole affair does someone walk over to the free-of-charge juke box and put on some Al Green?  Does hearing Al Green make you wish inside that you could hear "Let's Stay Together?"  Does Jesus intervene and make the next song to play be none other than "Let's Stay Together?"  Does everyone in the bar decide that "Let's Stay Together" is the kind of song that makes them want to sing along?  Do you join in the chorus?

Do you order one last gin drink to celebrate a rare good fortune?  Do you follow it up with another gin drink to celebrate your last gin drink?  Does your companion commend you outside the space room for ordering a radio cab?  Do you tell your companion that you didn't order no fucking cab, but that you intend to drunk drive, but that it's cool, you're just going over the bridge?

Is Jesus a little disappointed in you, after all he's done to make your night special?  In spite of his disappointment, does Jesus allow you to get home without incident?  Fucking A, that Jesus, man, huh?  He's pretty alright, don't you think?

So, lets say all this happens, and you make it home, alive and well.  Let's say you open the fridge and find a beer.  Let's say you open that beer and make with the drinking of it.  Does your head fill up with questions?

I was drunk at the time...

As a matter of fact, I still am.  And speaking of matters of fact, the fact of the matter is that I was, earlier tonight, reminded of the fact that I love this song.  It was a pizza shop that did the reminding.  The pizza shoppery was vicarious, though; a friend told me about it as I was too cowardly to experience it first hand.  We've all, at some point in our lives, been traumatized by a pizza shoppe.  It's a part of growing up, nigh on unavoidable really.

Another one of those things you can't avoid, though, no matter how much one might wish to, one of those unavoidable things is friends.  You put on your best evil face, the one you honed for hours in front of public restroom mirrors and unleashed on panhandlers with small cups  in preparation for those rare instances when one human being, one soul more miserable than yourself might attempt to latch on to your independence.  When you're young the practice fails to make perfect and you inadvertently wind up with people who say that they are your "friends."  You and I know that they are liars, but that doesn't absolve you from responsibility.

These are the people, these inglorious bastards, they remind you of the heartaches of pizza shoppes past.  You tell them in no uncertain terms that you want to hear no stories of pizza shoppes and guys named Ben, but they won't stop.  They have that freedom, that freedom to overstep established boundaries because they are your friends, and there is an unconditionality that comes with such a weighty distinction.  These folks saw right through your evil face, and as a consequence you must let them in on your darkest secrets and, more tragically, you must listen to their stories about their herpes positive boyfriend whom they love despite the lack of full disclosure.  It's not even the fact that they now have herpes that bothers them; it's the ambiguity of expression from Ben.  Ben acts as though he doesn't love them, but all girls know that you don't give herpes to someone you don't love.  Thank god for absolute truths such as those; without them the world would be so enigmatic.

scientifically evil

I posted this a long time ago but I deleted it when I sobered up because sobriety does crazy things to people.  The song came up tonight in conversation and I wished to share this whole rest of it, but it wouldn't have worked.  It is so hard talking to new people because you don't know how long to wait before you let them in on the fact that you are totally fucking insane.  Anyways, here's the old stuff:

As I sit here half, nay, three-fourths drunk on unfiltered sake, I have no choice but to ask the question: Why the fuck am I 1 /1 drunk on sake?!? Well, I’ll tell you why. First off, it’s part way a gamble, a gamble that I won’t be working in the morning, but that is rather esoteric, so I won’t waste anymore time on it. Secondly, and by secondly I mean most importantly, it is because I was in the store last night and I saw some shimmering blue bottles of wine, and I can’t resist blue bottles. The bottles are guilty.

You see, there’s this song, a Babybird song. The song is called Aluminium Beach (aluminium being British for aluminum), and in this song there is a verse that says:

<i>There’s sunshine in your eyes,
It shimmers like blue bottle flies.</i>

But I, with my affinity for blue bottles, always heard the verse as:

<i>There’s sunshine in your eyes,
It shimmers like blue bottled wine.</i>

So, what I’m driving at is that sometimes we hear the lyrics as we want to hear them rather than as they actually are, which is one of the beautiful things about music. Like most other forms of art, we are able to interpret songs in the manner that we best see fit. As someone who has been known to be meddling with a pencil/pen/microphone/camera, I understand that the mission of the artist can be to eliminate all interpretations other than that which is intended, but I still adore the fact that things will be interpreted as they are interpreted.

That being said, there is this one song that I used to hear the lyrics all wrong to, and I still do when I want those special feeling that it used to give me. It’s a Nirvana song, a song called Lounge Act. But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. You see, there was this thing a few years ago. This thing were I was explaining the same thing to this dude, this dude who I slowly but surely realized was much smarter than I could ever give myself credit for, despite the strong bias in my favor. This dude, this dude he tells me about how Black Francis once explained that his initial lyrics for the song Tame focused strongly on the word Pain, and that Mr. Francis opted for Tame instead for reasons best left unparaphrased (but I bet you can figure out for yourself). In the same conversation it came up that although Mr. Francis sings “I am Un Chien Andalusia,” which sounds a lot like “I am a shit and a loser,” the actual name of the movie is Un Chien Andalou. It became apparent to me at the time (and surely to my friend long before) that perhaps some of the best lyricist of my generation, and of many generations prior may have seen fit to take advantage of assonance to be more oblique. I tell you, as not one of the greatest minds of any generation, I don’t know for sure, but it seems like just the sort of thing a genius might do.

But, boy! Can I go on and on! I am sorry for polluting the MOG -O-SPHERE. What I really want to share is this song, the wrong lyrics that used to (and still do) mean so much to me, even though all the official records tell me that they are diffr’nt. So now I share with you they way I heard lounge act for ten years, before I found out I was so wrong:

<i>TRUE  ,  CALL IT INSECURITY
I COULD  let you smother me.
I’d like to but it couldn’t work,
Trading off and taking turns.
DON  ‘T  REGRET A THING

and I got this friend and  SHE  makes me feel,
like I wanted more than I could steal
I’ll arrest myself and wear a shield
I’ll go out of my way to prove I still
STILL LOVE YOU

Don’t tell me what I want to hear
Afraid I’ll never know a fear
Experience anything  UNIQUE
I’ll keep fighting jealousy
Jealous fucking  GUY

And I’ve got this friend, and  SHE  makes me feel
like I Wanted more than I could steal
I’ll arrest myself, I’ll wear a shield
I’ll go outta my way to prove I still
STILL LOVE YOU

TRUE  –  CALL IT  insecurity
I could let you smother me
Like to but it couldn’t work
Trading off, taking turns
Don’t regret a thing
And I’ve got this friend, and  SHE
makes me feel like I
Wanted more than I could steal
I’ll arrest myself, I’ll wear a shield
I’ll go outta my way to make you a deal
We’ve made a pact to learn from who
And ever we want  THEN WE WILL DO
AND IT STILL WON  ‘T  STOP WHAT WE DO

I’LL  GO OUT OF MY WAY TO PROVE I STILL
STILL LOVE YOU
AND I STILL
STILL LOVE YOU</i>

But the real lyrics, the internets tell me, are as follows:

<i>Truth – covered in security
I can’t let you smother me
I’d Like to, but it couldn’t work
Trading off, taking turns
Don’t regret a thing
And I’ve got this friend, you see
Who makes me feel and I
Wanted more than I could steal
I’ll arrest myself, I’ll wear a shield
I’ll go outta my way to prove I still
Smell her on you

Don’t – tell me what I wanna hear
Afraid of never knowing fear
Experience anything you need
I’ll keep fighting jealousy
‘til it’s fucking gone

And I’ve got this friend, you see
Who makes me feel and I
Wanted more than I could steal
I’ll arrest myself, I’ll wear a shield
I’ll go outta my way to prove I still
Smell her on you

Truth – covered in security
I can’t let you smother me
Like to but it couldn’t work
Trading off, taking turns
Don’t regret a thing
And I’ve got this friend, you see
Who makes me feel and I
Wanted more than I could steal
I’ll arrest myself, I’ll wear a shield
I’ll go outta my way to make you a deal
We’ve made a pact to learn from who
And ever we want without new rules
We’ll share what’s lost and what we grew
They’ll go out of their way
To prove they still

Smell her on you
They still, Smell her on you
Smell her on you</i>

SMELL HER ON YOU  ?

I totally get what the song is saying, but that doesn’t take those ten years away from me. The last five years I have been able to smell her on the other girls, or at least see her on the other girls, but for the first ten, it was all about the misheard lyrics, and if it hadn’t been the song would never have meant as much to me.

maalox is the best friend I ever had

So, long story...  I had just spent about twenty minutes fucking off at work, and by fucking off I mean sitting, alone, sheltered from the rain, but not the wind, watching dozens and dozens of geese gorging themselves on what smelled like shit, but looked a lot like wheat.  The time had finally come for me to be done fucking off in that particular manner, so I put the forklift in gear a headed back for the shop.  Halfway back to the shop, give a take a yard and a half, in pops "Sin City" to my head.  It was like one of those epiphanies, those "moments of clarity" that alcoholics have.  At the moment my brain and I weren't communicating through language, per se, but a rough translation into English might read something like "Holy Fuck!  It's so fucking beautiful!"

"Sin City" is this song that I haven't listened to in so many decades, such an incredible duration that I had nearly forgotten about it.  Although, at that moment it piped into my head pitch perfect, line for line in glorious stereo.  But why wouldn't it live on unblemished in my lumpy head?  A Country and Western duet by two indie darlings, no doubt topping no less than a half-dozen "guilty pleasures" lists penned by "hipster wannabes" on their "music blogs."  I speak, of course, of none other than Mr. Dwight Yoakam and Ms. K.D. Lang.

But seriously, kids, "Sin City" is a pretty remarkable song, originally a  Graham Parsons tune, and performed by many others, none have, in my humble opinion, ever done it quite as well as Yoakam and Lang do it here.  Go on, take a listen:

mog.com

More about this song

Share

Wonderful, no?  Yeah, I know!  But, its more than just the songs mere wonderfulity that made the moment so epiphanous.  There is also, in fact, the fact that I have been working on a few mix cds for months, and it just so happens that this particular song works so much better in that one spot on that one disc than does that other song that I had in that spot.  And that, my friends, is what you call the double-whammy.  Not only was it requisite that I listen to the actual recording so as to be sure that I was not simply over beautifying it in my head, but I also needed to locate a digified version so I could make the in-progress mix cd more perfect.

"What luck!" I thought to myself, "I have nearly every Dwight Yoakam album right on my hard drive already."  Although, at the time I was struck by a sort of curiosity as to why, if I did in fact already have the song on my compy, why had it been so long since I heard it?  I couldn't be troubled by such trivialities at the time though, because, as you will remember, I was pretty busy fucking off at work.

So, the next thing you know, it's five hours later and I'm at home.  But, I've got other shit going on, you know, so, fast forward another couple hours.  So I finally get all my other important matters tended to and I go about looking for the song, but damn if I can't find it.  I start thinking maybe I've got the name wrong, I mean, the song's not really about a city, now is it?  It's about a town, but "sin town" just doesn't really have that ring to it, now does it?  "Fuck it," I say, I bet Encyclopedia Brown... no, that's not right... Allmusic!  I bet allmusic can get to the bottom of this.  So I check it out, find out that, as usual, I'm right and should never doubt myself.  Unfortunately, the song never appeared on a proper album, just a greatest hits album, a greatest hits album that I had on cassette fifteen years ago, but not now.  No, not now.

So, damn, it's getting late, I've got work early in the morning, and I'm sure as hell not going to be able to sleep if I don't at least get to hear this fucking song tonight.  No recourse other than a mad dash to the local dept. store.  Fruitless!  "Hey clerk, you got any Dwight Yoakam cds that might not be on the shelf here?" I ask the clerk.  Well, whaddaya lookin' fer?" the clerk replies.  "Well, good sir," I reply, "I'm looking for this greatest hits disc, it's called, 'Just Lookin' for a Hit'"  So the dude walks over to where I'm standing, looks down at the Dwight Yoakam section, not the secret, "store-clerk only" Dwight Yoakam section, no, not that one, just the regular one, the one I was pointing at when I said, "Hey pal, you got any Dwight Yoakam CDs that might not be on the shelf here."  He looks at that Dwight Yoakam section and says, "Well, yes sir, right here we have it, see, 'The Very Best of Dwight Yoakam.'"  Although he presented the perfect opportunity for a "Fuck You Friday" moment, I instead thanked the young gentleman and, by talking to him, talked myself into going to Everyday Music.

Everday Music is great.  Really far and away my favorite music store in all of the world.  So many orphaned cds just waiting to be mine for pennies on the dollar.  Your kind of rolling the dice going to Everyday Music looking for Country & Western, though.  They do have a Country & Western section, though, and when I arrived I made the proverbial bee-line.  You can imagine my dismay when I reach the end of the rack and see that the section ends with Hank Williams III.  That fucking hack!  How the hell does he merit any space, but nobody X, Y, or Z does.  An Abomination, truly.

So I storm over to the man behind the counter and ask him where a weary man might find some Dwight Yoakam.  He explained that X, Y, and Z were actually across the aisle, in the section marked "contemporary christian" (of course!), he didn't even screw his face and send bolts of you.are.a.fucking.MORON. from his eyes, which was a nice, unexpected treat.

So things are looking up.  I start digging through the stacks and stacks of cds and, whammo, a used copy of "Just Lookin' for a Hit."  I'm feeling so good about it that I decide to pick up a copy of "The Very Best of Dwight Yoakam" just so I can give his version of "Suspicious Minds" a listen (I'm a big fan of Elvis' version, you see).  What the hell, I figure, let's see if the got any Dwight on vinyl.  No dice.

So, I mosey back over to the rock side of the store and, just for kicks, check out the Babybird section.  They've only got one disc, a promo copy of "Ugly Beautiful."  They have had that disc, their only ever Babybird disc, for at least six years.  It cracks me up, both at the time and now, as I'm typing this.  It's just one of those funny things to me.  Who knows?  So anyways, on a complete fucking lark I walk over to the LPs to see if they have any Babybird, but I get distracted on the way by some other band that I am surprised they have 13 LPs of in stock.  It's kind of weird that I can't remember what the name of that band is right now, but it might have something to do with the fact that I flipped back the "B" tab and HOLY FUCK!!!  An original pressing of Baby Bird's "The Happiest Man Alive."  You've got to be kidding me, really, in Portland, at Everyday Music?  Six fucking dollars?!?  Fuck, I could maybe find on on ebay for seventy-five, but here? now? why?

I snatched up the album and pulled out the sleeve, both were in great condition, so I slid the disc out, expecting to find a crayon scarred copy of "Froggy Went A Courtin'" or a completely mangled Babybird record but no, the disc was fucking flawless.  Unbelievable.

I felt like a burglar while paying the doe-eyed blonde cashier, looking for signs of recognition and fighting the near irresistible urge to ask her where the fuck she got this record.  "Bag!  No I don't want no fucking bag, just let me the hell out of here," I didn't say just before I handed her exact change and burst out the door hoping to make it back to my car before anyone noticed that I had parked in front of a driveway.

I realized that fate was smiling upon me that day when I got to my car and found it to be both still there, thus not towed, and unadorned with and fancy windshield fines.  I cradled the fancy new LP in my lap on the drive home, took off my shirt and wrapped it around the cover so as to protect it from the rain as I walked back into my apartment.  Once inside I unwrapped the protective flannel cover and gently stuffed the LP into an old paper box where it will now permanently reside, never again to be touched by human hands nor listened to by human ears, which is as it should be.

my day in pictures, again, in a chronological fasion

hook in hand

Excerpt from In Each Job an Achilles' Heel by Paige Parker, The Oregonian, Sept. 22, 2007

One hour into his shift, Brian Harvey's hands gripped the broom as he swept the grain elevator's floor clean. A conveyor belt rattled above him. A 36-horsepower industrial squirrel cage fan, missing its safety guard, whirred behind him. He drew his arm back to push the broom forward, one hand at the top of the handle.

Something caught.

"The first blade comes around and cracks the skin. The second blade comes around and takes the joints. The third blade . . ." Harvey's voice trails off.

"There was no clean cut about it. It was all taken off in a series of vicious blows."

Alone in the basement, Harvey saw the blood pool beneath his work boots and knew he had to find help.

His legs carried him up a flight of stairs, through a doorway, down one short staircase and up another. Around silos, across railroad tracks, around a train.

About 20 yards from an office, his feet crunched on gravel, and his legs gave way. He splashed blood on a nearby window to catch someone's attention.

Then he passed out.

Harvey woke up at Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center, his hand wrapped in bandages. His brother had managed to find three of his fingers in the grain elevator's dust recovery system. Doctors tried to reattach one, but the damage was too severe.

After three days, doctors sent Harvey home. Before the bandages came off, Harvey convinced himself that maybe his injury wasn't that bad. Then he saw what was left.

The son of a North Bend marine clerk, Harvey was "born with a hook in his hand," but now, his name was removed from the list of eligible casual longshoremen. Though he was right-handed, Harvey struggled to spearfish, hunt or play soccer. Without a thumb, he couldn't use a spoon.

"My hand -- to a male, it goes back to being a caveman," Harvey says. "It's in your psyche. It's a tool."

He replayed the moment of his injury constantly. Phantom pains racked his hand. Harvey says it took years of psychoanalysis to accept his injury.

"You just cannot ever imagine your hand disappearing one day," he says. "It's not even possible."

Eleven months after his injury, a San Francisco surgeon harvested the big toe from Harvey's left foot and the second toe from his right and attached them to his hand, fashioning a grip. With that surgery, and about 300 sessions with a physical therapist, Harvey regained more than half the use of his hand. Insurance through his union covered his medical bills. Workers' compensation covered his living expenses.

Three years later, after Harvey threatened legal action, his employer rehired him. He worked for eight years as a longshoreman and is now the union's drug and alcohol director.

His first day back, Harvey had to pull a shift in the same grain elevator where he'd nearly died. On his lunch break, he took a trip alone to the basement.

"I just wanted to face it," he says. "You know how you get back on that horse and face your fears? I stood there for a while, and it all flashed back to me. I thought to myself, 'Man I was lucky I made it out of there.' "

To prove how far he's come, Harvey reaches across a desk.

"Shake my left hand," he insists. His grip is so strong, it hurts.

today (sorted by chronology):

The other night (documented photographically)

With the way my job works, a lot of time can pass between the last time you work with somebody and the next time you work with them.  Sometimes this is a blessing, other times it can kind of suck, but mostly it just means that I get to work with a lot of different people and mostly don't have to be around any of them long enough to get sick of them.  In any case, recently I worked with this guy who likes to read books, and I don't mean like no supermarket paperbacks, but real, honest to goodness lit'rature.  So, were down in the hold of a rail ship and he asks me, he says, "So, now that you got your promotion did you quit reading."  "No!" I said, "the last thing I read was... Well... Fuck, I guess I did quit reading, but I guess I make up for it by still writing.  Oh, wait, I don't write anymore either...  hmm... Well, I still watch cartoons.  Yeah, I watch the fuck out of 'em"

So, I get to thinking about this whole exchange the other day, about how I don't read or write much anymore and how it is all work's fault.  I think of D. Boon's lamentations on the soul crushing nature of the workaday life and I feel like a hero, or a martyr, or something.  But then I think of the passage in Bread and Roses that tells about the philosophical atmosphere in the shoemaker's shop, the days spent reading and discussing the masterworks of the greatest minds of all generations, and I can't help but think that maybe it's not work's fault.  I consider this for a moment before I remember those pictures I saw on the tv of Chris Benoit's brain.  Man that guy's brain was all sorts of fucked up.  They said it was from concussions.  So I get to thinking, I wonder what my brain looks like.  I figure it's all sorts of fucked up too, with like, big dead spots that don't do anything anymore, remnants of long lost abilities like maths, empathy, and deductive reasoning.

But anyways, more work pictures, because I know that everybody loves me, and by extension, everything I do and see.

Two spouts in one hatch, 'cause we're crazy like that.

A bridge!

Another bridge!

Ship's gear!

This is where Jesus carried me