Just for Shits and Giggles

As many of the Green Hell "regulars" know by now, my Da died last Thursday, a fact I've made public on both GH and GH2. The subsequent influx of emails (not to mention Animal List responses, and comments and messages on MySpace) was both surprising and moving, and I'm still rather overwhelmed by the warmth and kindness of my friends and readers, both old and new.

Even you, "Baron Harkonnen".

Generally speaking, I view "playing favorites" with great distaste, but I must admit that among the most touching responses was that of my girlfriend, author Maggie West. Although she lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and I in Roswell, Georgia (some 300+ miles apart), she sent me an IM to the effect of "I'm on my way" the moment she received the news of Daddy's passing. She rang at the bell around 13:00, an hour before we were due at the funeral home to make last minute arrangements, and was at my side and my mother's from the moment she arrived until the moment she left for home. All told, she spent six entire (and unplanned) days with us, providing the both of us with moral support, companionship and comfort, and helping us through the maze of distractions and complications that -- in this day and age, as it seems -- characterizes life and death alike.

On Friday afternoon, she accompanied me to my workplace, wherein I picked up the modest sum of filthy lucre owed me by my employers for a week's worth of the sweat of my brow. After I'd deposited my hard-earned swag in the bank, Maggie -- being both as curious as a cat and as persistent as lewisite by nature -- mentioned that she'd yet to hear me play the guitar, and suggested that I purchase a new set of strings for my main axe. I'll own to having had a fair amount of reluctance, initially, but as I'm more-or-less committed to shouldering the aforementioned instrument as a member of Our Band Can Kick Your Band's Ass at the annual Animal List BBQ this year, I had to admit that hers was a reasonable suggestion. I do need the practice, after all.

Over the years, I've noticed that when a woman "suggests" something (anything, really),
said "suggestions" brook no refusal. Behind the cooing tones, and of the fluttering of lids and lashes over doe-like eyes, lurks a silent, "Marleyesque" spectre; one whose unspoken message amounts to: "Do as I say, or I'll well an' rightly cut off yer fookin' nards with a plastic butter-knife an' shoot pool with 'em."

"Yes, dear..."

Need I say more?

And that's something else what pisses me off, like! Yeah, sure and this is a digression, but this is MY blog, and I'll write about whatever strikes my fancy! And you may (and can) rest assured, gentle reader, that this next observation struck me right in the "fancies" as surely as one of my late brother's boots.

This particular paranoid "fancy" reminded me of a verse from an Irish song I heard years and years ago:

Mary an' me mother
Goin' off a lot together
In fact, ye' hardly ever see
The one without the other
An' the people wonder whether
It is Mary or me mother
Or the both of them together
That I'm courtin'

Pardon my improper and uncalled-for Tocharian-B, but what the fuck is up wi' that? Are they plotting to poison me? To sell me to the Turks? To rat me out to the DHS for farting on public conveyances? Worse?

"Friends, beer, and rifles, Bean!", says my "inner voice". "Now stop straying off-topic!"
" Uh, weren't we talkin' guitars before I digressed?", asks I.
"Same thing. Now let's have a beer, shall we?"
"Indeed we shall."

(This digression has been brought to you by the letter Σ and the number of globalism, 666.)

At any rate, twenty or so minutes later, we were walking through the door of Atlanta Music Brokers, in search of strings. I haven't played in ages, but as old habits die hard, I wandered around the place and had a look-see at a few guitars, amps, and signal processors before attending to the business at hand. While thus engaged, I noted that nowhere are the effects of double-digit inflation more evident than in the price of musical equipment. Certainly, the cheap-shit, wouldn't-touch-it-with-a-ten-foot-pole imports have remained relatively consistent, price-wise, but the quality instruments (i.e., the ones one wouldn't be humiliated to be seen playing in public) have become prohibitively expensive.

"Bugger!", I hissed to myself upon fingering the price tag hanging from the headstock of a G&L offering, "I could buy an M1A1 for that much!", and was glad that I'd bought all the guitars I'd ever need well over a decade ago. Shaking my head, I took leave of the instruments and made my way over to the strings. Interestingly enough, the price of strings hasn't increased much at all, rather an odd thing when one considers the price of metals these days.

I can't stand wound third strings. They are abomination unto me, and that I freely admit. My loathing for them is partly aesthetic -- I like the symmetry of three wound and three wire-- and partly practical: Wire third strings increase my soloing range. Owing to these preferences, I was reading the labels on the various packets, trying to determine which did or didn't contain wound G-strings (and man! Is that ever gonna elicit some giggles from the peanut gallery!). I noticed that one brand in particular was actually cheaper than the strings I'd purchased during the eighties and nineties. The parsimonious Scot in me rejoiced, but my inherently suspicious nature rose to the fore, and I bade him drink a nice, tall glass of shut-the-fuck-up for a moment. "Penny-wise" is often "Pound-foolish", after all.

"Why are these strings so cheap?", I asked the clerk on duty. "Are they any good?" He assured me that they were fine, and that they actually used them to string the instruments they sold. Now had he been trying to rip me off, logic dictates that he'd have told me they were dross of the first order, and directed me to the more expensive brands. Taking him at his word, I purchased a set of "eights" (did I mention that I haven't played in a while?) and a plectrum or two or three (Dunlop .73s and .90s), and -- my significant other in tow, of course -- returned to the car.

"Why did you get different kinds of picks?", she asked.
I explained to her that different styles required different degrees of "attack", and that I preferred not to "put all my eggs in one basket", musically speaking. Another twenty or so minutes later, we were back at Maison Redneck, wherein I commenced to stringing my black SG, "Stormbringer."

Haw! Gotcha! Y'all didn't really think I'd bestow a fruitsy-tootsy monicker (She's the chick who lives around the corner, and rumor has it she's "easy"...) of that sort upon my gee-tar, did ye'? I mean, really! What kind of fudge-miner goes in for that manner o' shite? Surely not I! At any rate, after half an hour or more of stringing, swearing ("Where'd that friggin' bridge get to? Shit! Where are the wire cutters?") and stretching (new strings go out of tune if one gives 'em a hard look), I was ready to do a bit of timid, hesitant "pickin' an' grinnin'".

I plugged into my Boss Metalzone™ "stomp box", and thence to my ancient Peavey Bandit™ amp. After ten or so minutes of playing (leave it to amplifiers to amplify mistakes as well as music), and another ten or so of the dry heaves at the sound of said playing, I decided that perhaps I'd been a bit over-ambitious. I "unplugged", sat down on the edge of the bed, next to Maggie, and tried to determine which tunes I could still remember (let alone play). I sing as well as old people -- ah, I do overuse that expression, don't I? Well, you get the picture, gentle reader -- but I did manage to croak out a few lyrics, to my own accompaniment.

I made it through Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" without mutilating it too severely (Maggie supplied me with a few lines I'd forgotten), a bit of Blue October's "Hate Me", and Alice Cooper's "Eighteen". It was when I attempted to tackle a slowed-down version of "Hound Dog", and a "moldy oldie" entitled "Last Kiss" that the tears came. Both reminded me so much of Daddy that my voice broke and my eyes stung before I'd gotten halfway through the latter. Back in the 50's, my Da had played piano in one of the "bar bands" of the day (a fact I only discovered back in December), and before Fox97 -- and later, 105.7 -- went tango uniform, we'd both enjoyed a Sunday evening radio program called "The Doo-Wop Cafe". Owing to both recollections, playing those old songs brought back a flood of bittersweet memories, some almost unbearably painful. For the sake of my own sanity, I had to take a break. There was still much business to which to attend, after all, and I couldn't very well afford to fall apart before the funeral.

I cried for a moment or two, then took a few deep breaths and got back to the instrument. After I'd regained a modicum of composure, I went through the full version of Johnny Mandel's "Suicide is Painless", but that served only to remind me of my brother.

Man, this is a fucking no-win undertaking, to be sure, I thought.

When it came to my musical aspirations, my father had never been what one would call "supportive", but as strongly as he disapproved of my efforts, he disapproved of quitting even more strongly. Therefore, rather than tossing the guitar aside, I gritted my teeth, squared my shoulders and kept playing. In a perverse and thoroughly "Beanish" way, it was a tribute to the man whose temperament (and possibly DNA?) had contributed to my own oft-insufferable stubbornness and tenacity.

Maggie gave me a kiss and went for a cup of coffee or some such business, at which point I put the SG aside and picked up my Fender acoustic. My calluses were nearly gone, and my fingers had lost some of their strength, but I made a fair showing, even if I say so myself. By the time she returned, I was sufficiently confident to tackle the traditional "I'm a Good Ol' Rebel", a song she'd not previously heard. (Hardly surprising, that, as she's originally from Michigan, and precious few Southerners know the tune nowadays).

By the time I'd gotten to the last few lines: "And I don't want no pardon/For what I was and am/I won't be reconstructed/And I don't give a damn", I experienced an unfamiliar but welcome sense of calm and confidence. Damn skippy, I wont!, I thought. Damn skippy, I won't! Maggie seemed to enjoy the performance (She's my gal. She pretty much has to!), and my ego thus puffed-up, I put the guitar away for the remainder of the evening, and we both settled in for a bit of writing, revising and editing before dinner. The rest, of course, is no one's business.

In the previously mentioned spirit of unreconstructed defiance, I played a few minutes a day when time allowed, and have continued to do so. "I see! I see!" said the blind man, as he pissed into the wind, "It's all coming back to me now", as the line runs. And so it is. I've since remembered how to play Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" and "Snowblind", Kiss's "Deuce", and quite a few others.

But alas, my heart is no longer in Heavy Metal, and hasn't been for some time now. Of late, I've been marching to the tune of a different drum -- no pun intended, of course -- and that brings me to the point of this rambling narrative.

Truly, there are few sights more irritating than that of a forty-year-old man wearing a leather jacket and ripped jeans. It's undignified. It's repellent. It's indicative of an almost anal-retentive degree of sub-cultural conservatism. It makes one wonder why those childish douche bags won't just get a life. In short, it just-plain pisses ya off, now don't it?

"Feh!", exclaims the gentle reader in disgust and agreement, wrinkling his nose and dismissively waving his hand, as if to fan some especially foul stench away from his nostrils, "All too true! It's a revoltin' spectacle, to be sure! What's the matter with those silly bastards? Why do they refuse to grow up and 'get with the program'? They're obnoxious! They're juvenile! Damn those atavistic fucktards to the lowest circle of hell! They should all be taken out and shot!"

Yeah! Great, ain't it?

Dontcha just hate us? Heh heh heh...

So here's the deal. Ol' Bean is kinda curious ("Damn right he is!", says the gentle reader, "He's the most curious sight I've ever beheld in all me fookin' life!"), and has therefore decided to extend a feeler into the ether. Last time he did so, he was nearly busted for indecent exposure, mind you -- good thing Bill was near enough to take the heat off him, and that's for certain! The sight of him resorting to fisticuffs with a bag lady over possession of a broken ceiling fan was a memorable one, to be sure, and Bill has a really mean cross/hook/uppercut combo!-- but that's really neither here nor there.

As I've said, I'm curious. I'd like to know if there are any other cases of "Peter Pan Syndrome" here in Metro Atlanta, and if any such specimens of bad taste and arrested development would be interested in forming the ultimate, overgrown garage band with me.

I'm looking for kindred, "over-the-hill" assholes -- uh, I mean "spirits". Yeah! That's it! -- 35-45 years of age, with bad attitudes; instruments; the ability to play them; no shame; and the Let's-crank-it-up-to-'ten'-and-shatter-every-window-on-the-block" spirit of a true "Gar(b)age-Punk" band.

I could use another guitarist, a bassist, and a drummer, for starters. Vocal ability is a definite "plus", as I'm a wretched singer. I don't care how "rusty" any given applicant is, as I need some practice, myself. Time and practice will take care of that.

Influences? I don't give a rat's ass. Anything from cranked-up Neo-Surf, to Motorhead, to "Cowpunk" works for me. Bear in mind, though: I'm a recovering "Loompanics Libertarian" (read: " 'right wing' anarchist") so song titles such as "Tax This!", and "My Baby Ain't Got No Carry Permit" are sure to bring tears to my eyes every time...

Anyone interested? If so, scroll up to the "email me" area of my sidebar and shoot me an email with "Old Fart Reporting for Duty" in the subject line.

Comments

[Alan Hardy]

Brother Bean, 'tis a lovely blog ye have posted today....one I can truly relate to. But I have to say, what's wrong with giving a fine instrument like an SG a name like 'Stormbringer'? Lol, but I digress. Props on the usage of the Metal Zone, as I plugged mine in for the first time in 3 years the other day and cranked out some sloppy licks.

I must say, though, I will be 32 this year, and I totally get that feeling that I have a bit of the Peter Pan Syndrome myself, cause Lord knows I still feel the need to plug in and rock out.....so more power to you my brother!!

[Maggie West]

Your delusions of your demise are totally unwarranted at this point. Keep in mind that you can soundly sleep through the 4th Georgia Calvary marching through your bedroom! Your Ma could have "hog tied" your ass long ago and shipped you off in crate from the Port of Savannah without so much as a peep! As for me, well...

[Jon]

Glad you're back. Can't believe you still have that cheap-ass amp!