Archives : all posts by Dan

The Walkmen - "Stranded"

The sun was coming up. Time to head home, I suppose. These goddamn signing Irishmen make it seem like eleven-thirty all night long. They seem to sing louder when they see the sun, like they want to raise it up with their voices, stand it up like one of their drunken mates. My mouth tasted like an ashtray and my shoes were still wet from last night's rain. My coat smelled like a toilet. I had morning sweats, the kind that sit cold on your face and your neck like caked-on stage make-up. I headed to the bodega to get some hair of the dog and a carton of Veruca Slims, and I reached for my wallet. My goddamned wallet. It was slowly coming back to me. Something about a trade, a bargain, a deal. For some unfathomable reason I'd handed over my every piece of valuable identification, bona fide and otherwise, in exchange for a ripped piece of paper with half a name on it.

"Three dollars, mac."

I left the butts and the booze on the counter, and started out into the white bright sun of the morning. The kind of sun real people see when they go to work. The kind of sun that makes regular neighbours say "gee, today is gonna be a scorcher". The kind of sun that makes me want to be sick. My head was pounding, my feet were aching and wet, and only then did my chest choose to remind me that I must have been manhandled by some lousy goons the night before. I started up 49th Ave past the Castlemain Hotel and the Martian Club, taking the shoelace express to the one person in the world who would care about this piece of paper in my pocket.

[pre-order]

Ty Segall - "Caesar"

"What do you think he's gonna be like? I bet he'll be tall."
"It's hard to tell from the pictures."
"It's definitely hard to tell. I think he'll be tall. He has such a sweet face, I wonder if it'll change at all."
"Because of us?"
"Because of us, and because of all the people he'll meet because of us."
"I bet it'll change a lot. You start to look like the ones you love."
"Do you think so? I hope so. God, I love him already."
"I know what you mean. You see pictures and pictures but you can only see so many pictures, it's a totally different thing standing next to someone. Holding them for the first time."
"Oh, I definitely can't wait to hold him. Squeeze the life out of him."
"What do you think his first words will be?"
"His first words? Well, he's had plenty of first words."
"Sure, but I mean his first words to us."
"Yeah. Maybe 'hi'?"
"Or 'hey'..."
"Oh yeah, from those pictures, probably 'hey'."
"I'm gonna ask him if he's hungry"
"I'm gonna ask him how his flight was."
"I bet he's tall. I bet he's gonna be taller than his ol' dad."
"Aw. If he is, don't be upset, okay?"
"I won't be. I'm not upset. I'm proud. He's our son." [Buy]

Devo - "Come Back Jonee (live)"

The receptionist at my work keeps only a few things on her desk: a bag of baby carrots, a glass of water, and a little laptop that she keeps in the corner. It's open all day long, and on it she has her boyfriend on video chat. He works from home, and they live together. It's as if they are sitting in the same room, it's as if he were sitting next to her in the reception area. It doesn't distract from anything, they're not making lovey eyes at each other all day, in fact they barely speak to each other, save the occasional "who was that?" when they get off a call, or a slight smile when they make eye contact. But today it became very clear how unusual this is. The camera in her boyfriend's home office faces the window, so on the screen you can see a tree behind him. And as she was watching the screen, snapping a baby carrot, she watched a bird fly into his room. And she began to act as if a bird had flown into our room. She was flailing her arms and hooting "Oh! Oh! Honey! Oh!" until it was gone, he shooed it out with a broom. A lukewarm silence fell over the office. Although I half-expected it, no one suddenly broke out in laughter, no one chose to make it light. Because it wasn't so much ridiculous as it was foreboding. We all felt like this kind of connection, this kind of relationship was destined for us all, and we would all look as silly as that one day. Technology is not making us more isolated, in fact it's warping our ability to be isolated. But this is not a curmudgeonly complaint. I don't have any grandfatherly ideas about what "being human" is supposed to mean. I'm no chauvinist to reality. Reality isn't actually all that great. It hurts, it stinks, it's expensive, it dies. [Buy]

(image source)

Les Cox (Sportifs) - "John E. Millais"

John Everett Millais was not a Pre-Raphaelite painter, he was a heartbreaker and a grade-A creep. He took lemon in his coffee and he once told a mistress of his, "May you die shallowly, may death grate your life away like so much aged Cheshire". [Buy]

Boney M. - "Ma Baker"

Ma Baker was not a bank robber, she was a sweet old woman who held Sunday night dinners, where anyone was invited. She'd get attendees from three counties, and legend has it she met more people than the President in the year of 1931, because he told her so himself. It is said that he asked for a place to stay that night, and that they had become intimate. Thought unproven, similar things had happened often at Ma Baker's dinner parties. Something in the plumberry wine. [Buy]

Prince - "Lavaux"

Dear Pinchetta,
How's Heaven? I'm good. My life sucks. My life is over. David's going back to Hamilton on Monday and I think I'm going to die. I love him so much. Theresa says I'm too young to know what love is, but if this isn't love then I don't want to feel love cuz I think it'll just kill me. David is the greatest he says he would rather die than break up with me. The most embarrassing thing happened today we were saying goodbye in his driveway and he hugged me and said "you're not wearing a bra". I almost died. I said "it's too hot to wear a bra," but that just made it worse cuz now I'm talking about my sweaty body AND that I'm a late bloomer. Crap like that sucks major, but nothing sucks as major as that he's leaving. Sometimes I wanna have a baby with him and sometimes I wanna just die, and sometimes, and these are the best times, I forget all about that he's leaving and we just talk about stuff. Like today we talked about the Prime Meridian and the Equator. About how the Prime Meridian is an apple and the Equator is a grapefruit. I love him so much.

[you can't buy this album]

Bill Callahan - "Lapse"

Saying that one is a "God"parent is a pretty archaic idea. But I am a godparent, a godfather to be exact. And by "exact" I mean totally wrong about religion and totally not entirely right about gender. But I am a godfather nonetheless. To little Andrew. Andrew is 11 and is headed fists-clenched into those worst years of his life. I was over at his parents' house (they are close friends) on the weekend, and his older sister was having a sleepover party in the basement. Just girls, they had rented Harry Potter 4 and Mean Girls (again!) both on Blu-Ray, and were planning to stay up all night drinking homemade horchata and singing top 40 in whisper-voices. I noticed Andrew was nowhere to be found and asked where he was. Vanessa, Andrew's mother, shushed me and pointed to the ceiling. "Hear that?" and I did. There was a dull thumping coming from upstairs. "Andrew gets really upset when Brianne is having a good time." I looked up at the ceiling, as if he'd be there, like some fish in a fish tank.

"Why?"
"I don't know, I think it's a phase, he just claims it's not fair. Not fair that she should have fun while he's not having any, I guess."
"But does he want to join in?"
"No. He refuses to join in. He just goes to his room."
"Can I go talk to him?"
"You can try."

I headed up the plush carpeted stairs. Andrew usually talked to me, I couldn't think of a time when he had refused to talk to me, so I was confident. When I knocked and he let me in, I found him bleeding from the head. He had been thumping his head on the wall that entire time, and his knuckles were red from punching the corners of his wood-frame bed. On his wall was a poster for Death Proof and a motivational scholarly poster that said "Never Never Never Give Up!" I held his arms pinned against his sides, and forced him to make eye contact with me.

"What's up, Andrew?"
He was blubbering, barely intelligible. "I just want them to go home, I want the party to stop."
"Why, buddy?"
"Because it's not fair."
"It's not fair that they're having a party?"
"Yes."

This was it. If ever there was a moment where my role as godfather were pertinent, this was it. God doesn't care if you beat yourself to hell, and your sister definitely doesn't care. Too callous. And you don't need to talk about God. Fuck God. Beating yourself up is never never never going to stop people from having fun. Think of every person in the world who's ever lived. Every single one of them has died forever, and still people have fun every single day. Too morbid. Might give him suicidal thoughts.

"I used to beat myself up like this," great, now I'm lying to an 11-year-old. "I used to punch myself and kick myself," --how the fuck do you kick yourself?-- "and cut myself with a razor from the bathroom."

He had clearly never thought of that last one. His jaw dropped a bit and he stared at me with disgust and admiration. I thought, do not touch his blood with your bare fingers.

"I blamed my parents for all of it. I told them they were responsible for all my wounds. And my mother was hysterical. 'What can we do?' she would scream, 'What can we do so that you'll stop?' And when I really thought about this, when I really put my mind to this question, it came to me: nothing. There was nothing too great they could do for me that would make me stop. If I went down there and told all those girls they should be ashamed of themselves for having fun while your head is bleeding, and I told them all to leave and I poured the horchata down the drain and broke the DVDs over my knee, would that make you happy? Would you stop then?"

He paused, his lips red from biting them, his teeth white and wet as he thought.
"Yes."

Now, it's possible he was just being contrarian, he is 11 after all, but I left the room anyway. I went downstairs and put my shoes on. "His head is bleeding," I said as I walked out the door. I heard them running up the stairs, and I got a text about 5 minutes later that I didn't even answer. Godfather fail.

[Buy the Chris Knox benefit album]

(happy birthday, cari)

Sunglasses - "Whiplash"

"Lacking one of your senses does not make the others stronger, that is like saying how wonderfully a boat without wheels must compensate by rolling on its sails."

Kevin Malcolm Benjamin Martin. With a name like that who needs names. Kevin Martin sounded like a curler or a character actor. Kevin Malcolm Martin is like having pudding in your mouth, and Kevin Benjamin Martin felt like a betrayal of Malcolm, since it was, after all, there first. KMBM sounded like a radio station call sign, so Kevin Malcolm Benjamin Martin opted for what he thought was the most non-threatening version of his name, but was secretly the worst one of all: K-Mart.

K-Mart arrived home to find the house cluttered but empty. Half-drank juice glasses, old t-shirts on the stairs, a bike with muddy wheels left leaning by the coats. The banister had a greasy stain on it, the door to the basement was dark and ajar, the kitchen smelled like soggy toast. The summer was here, the heat was baking everybody's judgement into a lazy puddle, and the neighbour's swimming pool was the only release. K-Mart had still not taken off his shoes and stepped on an army man, cracking him in two. He paused and looked at the dusty television. On the kitchen table, there was a note covering a jam stain: gone to Joe and Helen's, pizza tonight? K-Mart took the note without expression and folded it. He picked up the cracked army man and went upstairs. He passed open comic books, pencil nubs, and he could see there was a cactus in the bathroom sink. He went into his bedroom, the clean and tidy sanctuary at the end of the hall, and went carefully to his dresser. In the bottom drawer, he crouched and half-opened a large tupperware, marked "Don't Forget", and put the note, and the cracked soldier, a grenadier, inside.

[Site]

(drawing by Lindsey Nolan)

Y La Bamba - "Monster"
Herbcraft - "No Hope for Mankind"

Did you find this note? Did you find it tied with string and dried from rain? Did you find it and does it look old? Did it crack when you unfurled it? Does it unfurl like it should? Are these questions still at the top or have the years shaken up the order? Are you still the way you used to be? Have you changed? Are you taller, do you have a beard, bad breath, a baby? Are you over that heartbreak yet? Has it changed you, are you scarred? Does the scar bump out the back of your shoulder blade? Are you self-conscious now when you wear tank tops? Are you scared it'll happen again? Are you dumber for it or smarter for it? Do you see them around? Did they ever apologize? Do you still sit down in the shower? Do you still cut your chin when you shave? Have you eaten fruit today? Does your neck still sweat two packs a day? Do you still cough hellfire in the morning? Does the morning still feel like it'll kill you with its weight? Are the same people still running your life? Have you told any of them to fuck off yet? Have you done any of the things you said you'd do? Can you still dance? Do you still dance like you're gonna kill someone, punching the air and with wild serious eyes? Are you still a lazy soul? Do you still swim treading water and not with a stroke? Do you still talk to those old friends you used to have? Do you keep note of all the things that interest you, do you collect them or do they run across you like rain? Do you save anything? Do you trade 'tidy' for time? Have you reached that point where the days can click like seconds? Do you still eat grass? Do people still call you that nickname? Are you ever going to get help? Aren't you going to get some help? Can't you tell when you need all the help you can get? Click, click, click.

[Y La Bamba]
[Herbcraft]

(photo by Lola Dupré)