Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Fragment.

(beginning of a story that currently has no middle or end...)

She was sure the bag had moved.

She turned left without signaling at the second stoplight, then left again.

Two more left turns and she was back where she had come from.  Ahead, on the left, she saw the nine bags of refuse.  At this distance, they looked like globs of tar tossed into a rough pyramid.  She slowed a bit as they resolved into mere garbage bags.

She was sure the bag -- the left one on the second tier down -- had moved...

...but as she drove by, nothing. 

Wind, surely.  Or the swirl of air from a passing car.  Perhaps the trash shifting inside.

But...

Left, left, left, left.

Park.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

What Love Is...

Sooooo, last eve I was reading the scant liner notes in a few CDs, and had an idea that I'm going to attempt to make flesh.  Because I need to write stuff, but I still haven't had that "great American novel" idea.

Anyway, my idea is to choose various CDs/albums/whatever, and try to record memories or moments that I associate with them.  So here goes......


I used to revel in trips to used record/CD stores.  Every trip had that "christmas morning" potential where the very next CD in the rack may -- just MAY -- be that obscurity that I had been fiendin' for.

Although, more likely, it was another copy of "Blind Melon".

It was generally a fruitless exercise to go to a used store with a specific disc in mind, unless you were looking for a copy of something that had been very widely consumed, then shat out by the masses that realized it only tasted good for a few seconds. (Ahem, like "Blind Melon".)  I could probably count on one hand the times when I went to a store with specific purpose to buy a certain disc used -- without knowing it was there beforehand or being told by someone it was there -- and actually found it.

In fact, I could count it on one finger.

In this album's case, it would be, appropriately, the middle finger...

...because the ONLY time this EVER happened to me was in the early ... Naughties?  Aughties? ... anyway, some time around Y2K.

And the disc was this one....


(Middle finger included both for counting purposes and proper attitude. Eight dollar price tag still intact.)

Young.

Loud.

And Snotty.

My introduction to the Dead Boys was through Pearl Jam ("Sonic Reducer" was on one of the early fan club 45s) and Guns n' Roses (on that pasta album).  They were "before my time" in musical terms, and I never was exposed to them in the interim.  It wasn't until I was playing musical Indiana Jones that I decided that perhaps I needed this album.  So, on a trip to Manifest in Charlotte, I got it in my head that I was going to look for this nugget of raucous.

And lo n' behold...in the "New Arrivals" section (probably sandwiched between "Blind Melon" and the "Bodyguard" soundtrack)...thar she blows!!

Now I'm not gonna review this album, that's not what this post is about.  It doesn't have any deep, emotional meaning for me beyond being some tasty punk rock.  

Rather, it takes me back to a time when being a music obsessive was different...when you couldn't just click a button and download practically any obscurity in a scant few seconds...when, to paraphrase a Motorhead song, the chase was often better than the catch.  

Geez, I'm turning into a relic of a bygone era.  I hope -- HOPE -- that there are still young (loud and snotty) music obsessives still coming of age and trying to track down their favorites, rather than just taking what is handed to them.  

(Here's my favorite song from this album (which I actually heard Black Joe Lewis play live a few weeks back)