On Wasting Time
I've never understood the class reunion phenomenon. To me, it's mind-boggling. Why in God's name would I shell out a couple hundred bucks to rub shoulders with people I couldn't stand then, and whom I probably wouldn't like any better now?
I've never attended a reunion, and I never intend to. I hated high school with a white-hot passion, and that was on good days. Graduating was like getting out of the stir, and I never saw the sense in looking back or digging up unpleasant memories.
The night I graduated, I said "Thank Christ I'll never have to see that pisshole again!", and then sneaked down the basement and split a sixpack of tallboys with my little brother.
The only things I missed about school were getting my knob polished regularly (my girlfriend could suck a grapefruit through a garden hose), and the ready availability of C. sativa. In the former case, I was SOL for quite some time. Never mind how long -- it's rather embarrassing. (Oh, and why is it that one only discovers that so-and-so had a crush on him/her when it's too late to do anything about it? "Dude! You mean I coulda banged her? Why didn't somebody tell me?"). In the latter case, my brother kept me supplied with doobage during my freshman year of college. Being 18, I'd buy skin mags, which he, in turn, would sell to underclassmen for a modest profit. He also plied me with regular tickets on the Hooterville Express. Capitalism at its finest.
My twenty-five-year reunion took place last year, and when my wife asked if I was interested in going, I answered "Not just no, but hell no!"
For starters, I (to the best of my knowledge) am the only member of the RHS class of '85 to have married a Mexican (although she's usually mistaken for an American Indian). Mixed marriages aren't terribly common around here, and I don't like being gawked at. Secondly, I'm probably the only guy in my graduating class who, at the age of 44, still wears his hair halfway down to his ass. Have I mentioned that I don't like being gawked at?
Last, but not least, I was working for a paper at the time. If anyone had found out, I'd have been expected to play shutterbug and piss away a page or two on smarmy photos and cutesy captions; and I was damned if I'd waste good column space on that kind of bullshit when there was real news to cover. I don't do "human interest." I'm a muckraker, and that's that.
My thirty-year reunion is in 2015 -- but at the rate we're going, the country will have collapsed by then. One less thing to worry about…
Stomp Boxes
One of my favorite toys is a mid-'80s Boss Ph-1R phaser. Now I'm not a big effects freak. My setup consists of the aforementioned phaser, an early '90s DOD FX65 Stereo Chorus, a mid-90's Boss Metalzone distortion/overdrive, and a Boss DD5 Digital Delay. (I used a Crybaby wah for a few years, but when it went Tango Uniform, I never bothered replacing it.) This pedal, though, is sweet. It's a little noisy by modern standards, but like many older effects boxes, it has a certain je ne sais quoi, a truly "classic" sound, especially when I run the Strat through it. I was fucking around a few days ago, just "noodling" old Deep Purple and Rainbow tunes. "Mistreated" has always been a favorite of mine, so I gave it a try, and after a bit of knob-twiddling, came up with a tolerable approximation of Blackmore's sound. I understand that he used a flanger in the original version, but the phaser worked surprisingly well once I'd fiddled with the depth and rate. The funny thing is; although it's one of my favorite signal processors, it was also one of the cheapest. I picked it up in a pawnshop for ten or fifteen bucks.
This isn't meant to be a commercial, but the Boss Metalzone is one of the best distortion pedals I've ever used. It's amazingly versatile, so much so; it can make even a "pig" practice amp sound like a stack. I used an Ibanez Tube Screamer from 1983 until 1995, and whereas I loved it, it just didn't have enough "oomph!" to drive smaller amps. This having been the case, I used it to augment my amp's "dirty" channel. (I still have a ridiculously overpowered, 160-watt Peavey Roadmaster, but while it's great for home renovation -- just turn it up to 10, slam out a few chords, and watch the sheetrock separate from the studs…. it's not what you'd call a practice amp.) The only problem was the amount of dancing I had to do. If I wanted good distortion, I had to use the "dirty" channel and the Tube Screamer. In order to switch to clean, I had to hit the amp's footswitch and the distortion unit simultaneously. Not only was this a royal pain in the ass; balancing on my heels in order to execute the feat made me look like an epileptic going into a grand mal seizure.
A few years ago, just out of sheer curiosity, I decided to run my bass through it. The axe is nothing fancy (an '85 Peavey Fury with one pickup, one volume pot and one tone pot), but the Metalzone made it sound like an armor division on the move; imagine a cross between any given Motorhead offering and Black Flag's "TV Party."
I'm also quite keen on the DOD Stereo Chorus. In the old days, I arranged my pedals thusly: Wah, distortion, phaser, stereo chorus; and played through two amps -- a 65-watt Peavey Bandit and a 40-watt Peavey bass amp. The aforementioned setup afforded me quite a tonal range, and I could very nearly approximate the sound of the live version of Rush's "A Passage to Bangkok." Played through the clean channel, with the "speed" control properly adjusted and just a touch of reverb, it duplicates the sound of Simon and Garfunkel's "America" almost perfectly.
The DD5 is another of my favorites. I purchased it right around the time I stopped smoking weed and indulging in other illicit pharmaceuticals -- which was probably for the better. The DD5 features eleven different modes and five separate effects. Exploring its capabilities literally took me days, and it's certainly not the kind of device you'd want falling into the hands of a guy who's out in the aethyr on peyote or 'shrooms. The mind boggles at the potential for abuse…
Hell, I'm a good, old-fashioned Hillbilly/Irish boozer, and even I was sorely tempted to go into Pink Floyd/Hawkwind mode…
The "reverse" feature alone is worth the price of the unit -- and can actually lead to theta/delta brainwave activity, UFO sightings, and spontaneous ancestral-memory trips.
A few months ago, my cousin, Eric, and I were jamming in my garage, and driving my neighbors up the wall. I was playing my SG, while he'd brought over a blue, vaguely-"Stratish"-looking axe, which, if I'm not mistaken, was an Ibanez. (To give you an idea of how stodgily conservative I am; I'll mention that to my mind, guitars fall into three categories: 1.) Fender; 2.) Gibson; 3.) Dubious, newfangled, heathen, commie shit.)
He'd also brought an intriguing piece of equipment with him -- a multi-effect processor. Now I'll admit to being suspicious of MEPs. Some of 'em are utter shite, while others are clearly the work of the Devil.
Back in the '80s, my friend, Dan, had a very nice, rack-mounted processor which did damn-near everything but launch a first-strike against the Soviets. He also had a top-shelf axe (either a Zion or Paul Reed Smith) and -- if memory serves me correctly -- a 50-watt Marshall amp. I was on the outs with my Da at the time (neither of us took my brother's death very well), and had pretty much moved in with Dan. (The arrangement lasted for the summer, by the end of which we were ready to kill each other. A word to the wise: two intense personalities + one small apartment = recipe for disaster.) Being young, rebellious, and intemperate at the time; we often sat up long into the night, playing guitar, plotting world conquest, and quaffing gallons of Old English 800, Canadian Mist, and rotgut bourbon. As I've said, I'm suspicious of MEPs, but Dan's was intriguing, to say the least. During one of our late-night sessions of carousing/jamming we discovered a combination of settings that exactly duplicated Joe Walsh's sound on "The Confessor." Needless to say, I was favorably impressed, and regarded the device with a sort grudging approval.
My cousin's rig is slightly different, in that it's a stomp-box on steroids rather than a rack-mounted unit. Delay, distortion, chorus, flanging/phasing, etc. all in one package -- and a package with which I'm comfortable, at that. This is to say that it's a modernized version of the old-timey pedal board.
I might actually buy one…
Sex and the Single Redneck
Pretense isn’t my forte. Neither is false modesty. I'm just psychopathic enough not to give a shit what anyone (including me) thinks of me; and I know myself far too well to bother with keeping up appearances. In my case, doing so is a fool's errand. I'm a thoroughgoing "squirrel," and I make no bones about it. I am, however, enough of a hypocrite to excuse my own eccentricities and excesses while roundly condemning others for theirs.
The manic-depression doesn’t help, mind you. When I'm depressed, sex seems like a waste of time. Why bother with procreation when the end is obviously nigh, after all? When I'm hypomanic or experiencing a mixed episode, though, even the crack o' dawn ain't safe. It's called "hyper-sexuality," and, as the AFN public service announcements of yore assured us of VD: "It can happen to you, baby."
Believe me -- the monk/libertine, Jekyll/Hyde schism is anything but fun. Moreover, there's no way to establish support groups for people like me. Any such undertaking is inherently counterproductive. Why, I still remember my first "Pervos Anonymous" meeting.
"Howdy! My name's Dave, and I'm a horndog!" says I.
"Hi, Dave!" roars the crowd of ostensibly "recovering" nymphomaniacs.
Footage of the ensuing orgy is still available on XHamster, if I'm not mistaken. The DeKalb County Police were so busy processing us; street crime rose to a ten-year high within a single week -- and for the first time in my life, I was actually glad that my daddy was a public defender.
Having said that, I'll now confess to what, among perverts, is a perversion.
I don’t go in for "talking dirty." Although I'm not averse to appreciation or encouragement (unless it's loud enough to disturb the neighbors), I'd rather not converse whilst TCOB. It's distracting, and there's no sense in spewing reams of hackneyed, Vivid Video dialogue when a simple whimper suffices. Squandered energy, folks. Besides, the more voluminous the squalls; the more likely she's faking. If she's covered with a sheen of sweat, and wrapping her legs around your midsection tightly enough to cause permanent, irreparable spinal and renal damage; you're on the right track. Treat yourself to a cigar before you go in for dialysis and your next appointment with your chiropractor. Otherwise, accept no substitutes.
I mention this only because I was having the time of my life with an unforgivably attractive woman back in ninety-something -- when everything went to hell in a handbasket. This gal was just beautiful, period. Although we had little or nothing in common (she was Roman Catholic, I was a syncretistic train wreck; she was Cymric/Slavic, I was an Irish/Scottish/Norman thug; she was a stoner, I was a boozehound; she was liberal/moderate, I was hardcore libertarian, ad infinitum, ad nauseam), I was wildly attracted to her. She had lovely, finely chiseled, aquiline features; perfect teeth, a thick mane of umber hair; and sparkling, deep-brown eyes. We had one of our earliest dates under a full moon, and she was so enchanting; she took the very breath from my lungs. For a moment, I thought I'd scored one of the sidhe -- a fairy-tale princess.
Fast-forward. We're hammering away in every conceivable position, when, at last, I -- well, you know. No need to wax overly graphic.
For my part, I was happy as a pig in shit.
"Woo-hoo!" says I, yawning even as I did so. "I'm gonna have me a smoke an' catch me some rack time. Do I have to go to work tomorrow? Ah, wull. Feck it. I'm sure they'll call if I'm late."
Enter buzkill/turn-off.
"Damn! You come a lot!" exclaims my paramour. "I'm going to get a towel. Your kids are running down my leg."
As you may have gathered, I'm hardly a Puritan, and was nothing of sort back then. Her remark, however, was so shocking, vulgar, and revolting; I was on the verge of cardiac arrest.
"Fuck me dead!" says I. "Did I just hear what I think I heard?"
As it happened, I had. I spent the next month listening to Hank Williams and Roy Acuff -- and reconciling myself with the fact that I was completely out of touch with the modern world.
G'night.
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