Green Hell

"Bass-Ackwards"

I'm not a bassist -- but I've played one on television many times...

Yeah, that's total bullshit. Ya got me. Can't fault a body for tryin', though, can ya?

In truth, I'm not a bassist, nor have I ever portrayed one on screen or stage. Like many guitarists, though, I own a bass, and occasionally mess around with it. The fact that I only know a dozen or so songs does nothing to deter me, as I have no intention of ever playing bass onstage.

Be that as it may, I do like my inept efforts on the instrument to sound slightly more aesthetically pleasing than, say, a multi-vehicle pileup on I-85. As I don't play it very often, I don't change the strings nearly as often as I do those on my guitars. This, of course, eventually leads to the instrument producing some extremely unpleasant noises the few times a year I deign to plug it into my li'l "pig" of an amp.

And I do mean unpleasant.

Why, when last I took to pluckin' away on the sucker, it souded like an elephant farting whilst submerged in two fathoms of antifreeze.

Embarrassed beyond my ability to express myself, I hurled the instrument to the floor, dragged Maggie out of bed, hooked her to a coffee I.V., and forced her -- at blunderbuss-point -- to drive me to the local music store. I then purchased a new set of strings, wrote a bitter, obscenity-laced, anti-government polemic to my congressman, whacked a mime (apologies to Berke Breathed), and went home to set the world to rights.

I also changed the strings on my bass.

As I had no desire to spend an arm and a leg, I bought the cheapest set I could find -- and was very pleased with 'em when I took 'em out for a "test drive."

The strings in question are Hartke HSB540's. They run $17.99 a pack, and, frankly, sound great. My bass isn't what you'd call "top-of-the-line," (it's a mid-'80s Peavey Fury), but the Hartkes made it sound pretty damned good.

The sound -- even without using signal processors of any kind -- is bright, thick, metallic, and reminiscent of Geddy Lee's 1974-79 sound; or Chris Squire's on the first handful of Yes albums.

In short: I'm a happy camper and satisfied customer.

Just thought I'd pass that along.

My Sentiments, Exactly

In case the Gentle Reader is one of the five or so human beings on this planet who ain't seen/heard this one...

A Medicine For Melancholy

Pretty good without the megaphone...

Bein' the upstandin' citizen I am -- a veritable pillar of the fuckin' community, c'est moi -- I find that there is but one right, proper and gentlemanly way of dealing with depression: Getting drunker than the last lords of creation, listening to old tunes and telephoning my best friend in the middle of the night.

Luckily, my best friend lives a time zone or two away. Ergo, when it's zero-dark-thirty in Georgia, it's still a decent hour in Oz -- early enough not to piss the old boy off, at least. It's not that I mind pissing him off, mind you. At times, I do so deliberately and with mischief (It's impossible feel malice towards the guy, after all) aforethought.

No, it's just that I'd rather know where he is before getting on his nerves, as he's quite capable of kicking my ass. My worst nightmare is calling him up and needling him one day, only to feel a tap on my shoulder as I fire taunt after taunt into the receiver's mouthpiece. With the leaden, near-paralytic speed born of a three-alarm nightmare, I'll turn around and he'll be standing there.

"Cellphone, you little asshole," he'll say, as a prelude to punching my lights out. "It confers a certain degree of mobility upon the bearer thereof. Need I say more?"
Shortly thereafter, I'll come to, only to see Bill brandishing a chair in one hand and a bullwhip -- entirely too long to be of any use in the confined quarters of my basement office/study -- in the other, snarling: "Back! Back, I say!" At this point, all hell will break loose, and the entire Homeowners' Association will burst through the door, pissing and moaning about our having violated one article or another of the snarky bit of petty tyranny known as "The Covenant," leaving the three of us no choice but to beat the shit out of them, "goose" their wives, and send the entire, sorry gaggle of silly, pompous bastards to Guantanamo Bay for a good waterboarding.

At any rate, I began missing my Da something fierce last night. For whatever reason, the loss hit me like a ton of bricks. I subsequently fell into an especially nasty frame of mind, one that I suppose is peculiar to sufferers of affective disorders: Emotional depression accompanied by the accelerated thinking that is so agonizingly typical of a hypomanic episode.

During my high school days, the effect of the simultaneous consumption of amphetamines and booze or "downers" was referred to as "going sideways." This, in essence, was what my mind was doing -- minus the drugs.

"Fuck this," I said. "It's Miller time."

A few brewskis later, I was still a tad depressed, but at least in a conversational mood.

Unfortunately, my mother, my common law wife (Yeah, I know Georgia is no longer a common law state, but we've been living as man and wife for months now -- with or without Gub'mint sanction -- and my Bible doesn't say anything about marriage licenses. Moreover, she's far more than a mere "girlfriend," so I'll cast caution to the wind, say, "Damn the torpedoes!" and call her my wife) and my dog were all asleep, so pestering any of them would have been rather inconsiderate of me. My cat was awake, but she's a lousy conversationlist (entirely too fond of Emily Dickinson, like all too many females), her breath smells like Friskies® "Chitterlings and Fish Heads in Tripe Gravy Feast," and she has a nasty tendency to hiss and swat at me when I smell of beer, so I opted not to share my woes with her.

That left only "Darth Sluggo" and the Haitian dude who works the graveyard shift at the gas station, smokes joints behind the car wash, and takes naps in the stockroom when he thinks no one is watching him. (That's a hint, espece de salopard. Insomniacs need cigarettes, too; so quit fucking off whilst on the clock...) Realizing that the fate of humanity depended upon my decision, I weighed the possibilities in my keen, analytical Virgo mind -- and pondered the relative merits of drippingly sarcastic self-mockery, in the process. The weather was colder than a well-digger's ass, I was far too loaded to drive, and Sluggo speaks better English than "Baron Samedi," so I chose to call the former. (Oh! And the things I called him!...)

"Besides," I said to the battle axe hanging on the wall, "I'm already quite capable of cussing a blue streak in French, but I'm kinda weak when it comes to obscenities in Taal. Now where's my goddamn tricorn hat?"

"Ik moet met de mierenneuker spreken!" I roared, cracking open yet another beer and cranking up the volume of the music.

As the Man-Dells' tune "Bonnie" came over the speakers, I opened another beer -- entirely forgetting the one I'd just popped -- lifted the receiver from its cradle, and commenced to punching buttons. To my acute consternation, no one answered. Cursing and swearing under my breath, I then rummaged through my box of odds and ends, looking for an M-80 to flush down the toilet -- anything to alleviate the boredom and depression -- when my own phone rang.

Yep. It was you-know-who.

"Sluggo!" howls I, in delight, waking up half the fucking neighborhood in the process, " 'The time has come,' the madman said, 'to speak of many things! Of shrews and gyps and carpet tacks, of savages and stings!'"
"Been drinking moonshine again, have you, Beano?"
"Yes, no, and maybe! But that's completely irrelevant! What is _______'s favorite color? We simply must make her a necklace before I conquer inner space, outer space, and parts of Central America. I'm staunchly Protestant, you know."
"You're not making a necklace of my significant other, Beano."
"Pity, that," says I, "I'd envisioned her as a very unusual and larger-than-average pendant. It's a hip-hop thing, you see. Ever notice those ridiculous assholes walking around with 1:1 scale replicas of Big fuckin' Ben hanging from their necks? That's what I was shooting for. I'd hoped only to execute my vision more tastefully, and to celebrate the human form."
"I'll execute you tastelessly and do a bit of celebrating of my own if you even so much as think about it."

From that point onward, the conversation only degenerated. Revealing too much of it, though, would be both an act of bad faith and in very poor taste; so I won't. Suffice to say that we spoke of Eliot, Joyce and Lovecraft; Normandy, Brittany and Anjou; pedigrees, politics, finances, micro-farming, macroeconomics and music.

And that's why I've led the Gentle Reader down this path of meandering, convoluted verbiage.

Even as we discussed Joe Meek, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and various and sundry musical "booms" and fads, I forgot to tell him about this: http://pandora.com

Don't y'all just hate me sometimes?

Nasty, Mean-Spirited Song Dedication

Heh heh heh... Imagine my grubby li'l fingers a-jabbin' away at the buttons on the telephone. Imagine the rivulets of sweat pouring down my wickedly grinning face. Imagine the body parts in the refriger-- uh, let's just forget about that part, shall we? Imagine me breathing heavily into the receiver as I place my song request.

"Uh, Mr. DJ? Howdy! This is Dave in Roswell -- no, not that Roswell, you freeze-dried dingleberry. The only flying saucers we see in these parts are the result of lettuce-pickers -- Long live James Knox Polk and Winfield Scott! -- ditching stolen hubcaps, just before the local doughnut-munchers draw down on 'em. Love your show, though -- and not just when those Emergency Broadcasting System tests interrupt it. No, seriously. There's nothing that pumps my 'nads more than a thirty-something has-been who tries to curry the favor of the brain-dead li'l gobshites who listen to his program by talking and behaving as if he were one of them.

OK, so here's the deal: I want you to play a dedication for me. Oh! Sure and I must not have heard that correctly! What do you mean you don't do requests? What the hell kind of Mickey Mouse operation is this, anyway? Now I'm certain that you're a consummate professional, and one who holds radio's most hallowed and cherished institutions near and dear to his heart, right? And that is your rebuilt silver Camaro, about a block away from the studio, ain't it? The one you park there every night, when you drive in from Doraville when begin your shift? Guess they don't pay you all that much, now do they? But I digress...

Now you, Bubba-Jack, are gonna play this here dedication, right? Cool. I knew you'd see it my way. Never fuck with a Hillbilly Celt with more than his share of Norman blood, you cretin. Y'hear? Grr! I'm so bad; I eat fatback and piss nitroglycerine!"

That one oughtta set "Echelon" and "Carnivore" off, bigtime! I'm sure Dick Cheney will call out the "Shadow Praetorians" and spend the night in a bunker somewhere in fuckin' Bhutan! Actually, I probably shouldn't crack on the cowardly old bastard too hard. He might call me out on the tiles, after all! And I hear he's a regular Annie Oakley -- with a scattergun, at two or three yards! LOL! Chill, "D.C"! I jus' be fuckin' witcha, home-slice. You still be mah "dawg."

At any rate, I really would like to dedicate a song to a certain person.

The tune: "The Way You Carry On," by the Jeevas.

The person: Ain't life full of mystery?

Erased Heritage?

Uh, is it just me, or did anyone else notice that "Dynamite Trail" is ripped off from "Moses Ri-Too-Ri-Li-ay," even as Georgia Tech's fight song is ripped off from "The Gallant Forty Twa'"?

Need I Spell It Out?

It's occurred to me that perhaps dashing the walnut-sized brains from the skulls of fucktards with a good, old-fashioned Louisville Slugger might not be such a bad idea. That, however, is neither here nor there.

Until I lay aside enough shekels to purchase a LS (made in China, as likely as not), that is.

Anyhoo... Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that "Sweet Betsy From Pike" is sung to the same tune as "The Old Orange Flute?"

Just curious.

Now This Really Pisses Me Off to No End

Recently, I found myself in a (rare) nostalgic frame of mind. This being the case, I decided to replace yet another item from my huge collection of vinyl with a CD. The album in question was Judas Priest's Rocka Rolla -- a great favorite of mine during my wayward youth.

Not suspecting that anything was amiss, I grabbed a copy (digitally remastered, natch) at Media Play, and headed home. Upon slapping it into the player and cranking it up, I noticed that the entire fucking first stanza of the title track was missing. The entire first stanza!

Has anyone else noticed this?

Border Ballads

Yep. Better head for the hills, gentle reader. Ol’ Bean is in one of those moods again. This means, of course, that this post is sure to prove offensive, intensely personal, and quite possibly boring. You’ve been warned.

It would be less than honest of me not to admit that I’m wildly and passionately attracted to (and have been for as long as I can remember) those hideous old “Border ballads” and similar offerings on a level so deep that it might -- who knows? -- actually be genetic.

The Border ballad, for the benefit of the uninitiated, is a musical/poetic form that originated along the turbulent Scottish-English border. Like the American West and other areas in which the medium was popular, this was an economically and culturally backward area, of which internecine warfare and strife were defining characteristics for no fewer than nine centuries.

Given its blood-soaked origins, it should come as no surprise that the overall content of the genre reflects the environment in which it grew. Nearly every specimen thereof is a paean to raiding, robbery, murder and revenge. The form is an eternal stage upon which a cast of outlaws, malcontents, moonshiners and jilted and jealous paramours plays out the basest and yet most poignant and understandable of human emotions and the results thereof with each and every performance of these tragic, sanguinary, yet beautiful pieces.

And they are beautiful, to me, at least. May they be performed time and time again, for as long as heaven and earth endure.

Considering my own mixed heritage and the influences of colonization, cultural conservatism and cultural cross-pollination, it should come as little surprise to the gentle reader that these songs, along with their Irish and American cousins and progeny, would strike a responsive chord -- no pun intended, of course -- within me.

This they’ve done, and for nearly three decades. The songs and the themes that define them are as central to my own emotional and psychological makeup as they were to those of their composers.

They speak to me, and always have. Not only the older ones, either. Many of their modern descendants harbor the same spirit, even if their outward forms have undergone a change or two over the ages. Gary Moore’s “Over the Hills and Far Away”, for example, evokes the same emotional sense (to me, at any rate) as Marty Robbins’s “El Paso” or the much, much older (and traditional) “McPherson’s Rant”.

I’ve mentioned themes already, but my appreciation for this kind of music transcends the thematic -- songs/poems of this sort are, after all thematically diverse -- and stems more from the sense to which I referred in the last paragraph. I understand them on a visceral level, and have since first I became acquainted with and addicted to them. I had my first "hit" of this particular controlled substance at the age of twelve. I was in the seventh grade, and attending North Roswell Elementary School in Roswell, Georgia. Like many other children who had more IQ points than "marbles", I was enrolled in the TAG (Talented and Gifted) program at the time. TAG, if the gentle reader will pardon the digression, is a program designed to instill a sense of inherent superiority within highly intelligent -- but just as highly unstable -- little shits like Yours Truly; social retards with un-brushed teeth, whose horn-rimmed glasses are held together at the bridge by a mummy-wrapping of masking tape; and (every so often) a few genuine "alphas" (i.e., those who "have it all": looks, brains, and athleticism).

The program appeared to serve the purpose of keeping our allegedly "superior" intellects from going to waste. Appearances, however, can be deceiving. In reality, it was merely a typical, post-Wilson, globalist indoctrination program: a cheap attempt to groom the larval members of the philosopher-king caste for its role in the Brave New World.

As the gentle reader may gather, I had little use for the program during my wayward youth, and I have even less use for it in my wayward adulthood. The only good things I can say about that egregious waste of taxpayers’ money are that I was “turned on” to Vincent van Gogh’s paintings; that I scammed the TAG teacher into letting us play D&D a time or two; and that I heard my first Border ballad in one of these silly classes.

Arguably, letting a Scots-Irish kid (rumored, when last I heard, to inhabit the upper South in considerable numbers) hear a Border ballad is tantamount to turning him loose upon the world with a brace of pistols, a swift horse, and a gallon of moonshine. Convincing us to behave civilly is quite a chore as it is, and when we hear or read some centuries-old paean to the joys of antisocial behavior, our little hearts pound and our little brains fill with images of “pounding” some hated foe’s sister...

This is probably why modern “educators” feed the younger members of our mutant species a steady diet of uninspiring shite from even less developed parts of the globe, and actively dissuade them from exploring their own heritage. Border ballads hit many of us a few inches higher than we’d like to hit people for whom we don‘t particularly care: directly in the gut. Or perhaps in the genes. I'm still uncertain.

Lately, I've been given to wonder if ancestral memory is more than mere abstract speculation. Given my instantaneous and powerful reaction to the first Border ballad ever I heard, I wonder if said response wasn't as much a biological legacy as the reddish cast of my hair, my fair complexion, or the grey/green undertones of my irises. I don't suppose the poor gent who read "Barbara Allan" to my class on that long-ago afternoon had any idea what a Pandora's box he'd open in so doing, but by the time he'd read the last verse, the lid had been unlocked. I still remember, with great clarity, the discussion period that followed.

"Can anyone guess how John died?" the teacher asked.
I answered without a moment's hesitation: "She poisoned him."

My response took him by surprise. When he asked how I knew, all I could do was shrug and say that I didn't know how I knew, I simply knew. It was a better answer than: "Because that's what I would have done!" I suppose.

The saying “You can dress ‘em up, but you can’t take ‘em anywhere” probably applies to us as much or more than to any other people on earth. We’re quarrelsome, vengeful, hot-tempered, and probably possessed of a genetic predisposition towards borderline manic-depression, dipsomania, homicidal mania, and -- Hell! Who knows? -- satyriasis, as well. Neither are we overly fond of authority. For all our faults, though, there is within every one of us a kernel of what E. Talbot Donaldson called "the attractive [beauty, of course, being in the eye of the beholder] figure of the freedom-loving man."

In short, we’re a shitload of fun at parties, and good in bed, but one would probably be better off having one's daughter marry a Methodist or Lutheran (Those of us who aren’t “Ethanolians” are generally Presbyterian or Baptist) than one of us.

Some specimens of the Scots Diaspora are prudent, frugal, pennywise and quite respectable in a thoroughly middle-class way: “As loth to leave as his cottage dear,/ And march to a foreign strand;/ Or musing who would guide his steer/ To till the fallow land”, as Sir Walter Scott (whose efforts, along with those of the later F.J Child preserved the Border ballad in written form) wrote of their progenitors. As for ours?

“Not so the Borderer: bred to war,
He knew the battle’s din afar,
And joy’d to hear it swell.
His peaceful day was slothful ease;
Nor harp, nor pipe, his ear could please
Like loud the slogan yell.
On active steed, with lance and blade,
The light-arm’d pricker plied his trade, --
Let nobles fight for their fame;
Let vassals follow where they lead,
Burghers to guard their townships bleed,
But war’s the Borderer’s game.
Their gain, their glory, their delight,
To sleep the day, maraud the night,
O’er mountain, moss and moor;
Joyful to fight they took their way,
Scarce caring who might win the day,
Their booty was secure.”

-- Marmion: Canto V, stanza IV

Scott’s poetry is often accused of being florid, overly romantic, and even juvenile, but his words describe us perfectly, whether the border we inhabit is that between England and Scotland, Ulster and the rest of Ireland, “Crown Lands” and “Indian Territory”, or the Union and Confederate States.

Certainly, the times have changed, as have geographic locations.

We haven’t, though.

Leave it to a globalist, internationalist, “progressive” employee of the public school system not to “grok” this, and to help me realize it. Unlike many White Americans, I’ve never been ashamed of my North British roots. This gent, while probably hoping -- in some Machiavellian, “new age” way -- for the opposite result, actually gave me a shove along a path of self-discovery. Ultimately, said path would lead to my acceptance of my hillbilly heritage, and my pride therein.

As the preservation of my culture and heritage is of great importance to me, I've decided to post as many of these gems of folk literature as I can find. Since "Barbara Allan" was the ballad that first "lit the beacon fire", it seems only fair that it should be the first to appear on this blog.

It was in and about the Martinmas time,
When the green leaves were a-fallin'
That Sir John Graeme of the West Country
Fell in love with Barbara Allan.

He sent his man down through the town
To the place where she was dwellin':
"O haste and come to my master dear,
Gin ye be Barbara Allan."

O slowly, slowly rase she up,
To the place where he was lyin',
And when she drew the curtain by,
"Young man, I think you're dyin'."

"O it's I'm sick and very sick,
And 'tis a' for Barbara Allan."
"O the better for me ye sal never be,
Though your heart's blood were a-spillin'."

"O dinna ye mind, young man," said she,
"When ye the cups were fillin',
That ye made the healths gae round and round,
And slighted Barbara Allan?"

He turned his face unto the wall,
And death with him was dealin':
"Adieu, adieu, my dear friends all,
And be kind to Barbara Allan."

And slowly, slowly, rase she up,
And slowly, slowly left him;
And sighing said she could not stay,
Since death of life had reft him.

She had not gane a mile but twa,
When she heard the dead-bell knellin',
And every jow that the dead-bell ga'ed
It cried, "Woe to Barbara Allan!"

"O mother, mother, make my bed,
O make it soft and narrow:
Since my love died for me today,
I'll die for him tomorrow."

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.

Cold Hard Bitch(es)

In the course of collecting and transcribing the lyrics to these old songs, it's occured to me that Ireland and Scotland must be full to brimming with mean women! I mean really! We have that McPherson guy (McPherson's Rant), who was "condemned tae dee" by "a woman's treacherous hand." We have that poor schmuck in The Lily of the West, whose gal "thought to swear [his] life away." We have long-suffering Willy Brennan (Brennan's on the Moor) who "by a false hearted woman...was cruelly betrayed." Then there's that fellow in Whiskey in the Jar, who was set up by his "Jenny".

At times, it makes me glad my ancestors emigrated! American women are bad enough. Who needs this kind of crap?

If there's a bright side to any of this, though, it's that occasionally the men get a shot in, as well. Here's one example of such, and I think it's only fair to note that we probably all feel this way at times. Well, don't we? C'mon guys, back me up here! Uh, OK. How 'bout: Most of us feel this way at times? Uh, many of us? Some of us? How 'bout: A dangerously warped and profoundly abnormal minority of us? Does that work for ya?

Willow Garden (Rose Connelly)

Down in the willow garden
My love and I did meet
And there we went a-courting
My love, she fell asleep

I took a bottle of Bugler's Wine
My love she did not know
I killed that girl, my own true love
Down by the banks below

And I drew my saber through her
Which was the bloodiest knife
I threw her in the river
Which was a dreadful sight

My father always told me
That money would set me free
If ever I did murder that girl
Whose name's Rose Connelly

He's sitting now at his own cottage door
A-wiping a tear-dimmed eye,
A-looking at this own true son
Upon the gallows high

My race is run beneath the sun
And hell now waits for me
For I did murder that pretty little miss
Whose name's Rose Connelly