Can't You Hear Me Knockin'

I don't like conflict or confrontation.

I do like sleeping.

Sometimes these opposing sides come into conflict with each other.

I was dreaming hard about 3:30 this morning. I can't be sure, but I'm fairly positive that a wise old ghost was telling me how to find his secret fortune so that I could be set for life. Before the ghost could give me the final location of his riches, we both noticed a bass line snaking through the dream.

"Sorry, I'm outta here," the annoyed ghost said. "But remember, my fortune is hidden directly under a ...."

The bass line that chased my money away was coming from my real-life neighbors across the street. I usually go over there once or twice a month or call the cops in an effort to get them to shut up.

This time I decided to walk over, even though it would mean putting on pants and shoes. This was going to be a simple "Hey, turn off your crappy music" visit and I'd be back in bed within minutes, hopefully tracking down my rich ghost and my phantom fortune.

I'm banging on the door and can see the shocked faces of people inside through the little panes of glass above the door. Then I realize why they look so shocked. Instead of knocking on the door like a normal person, sleep-deprived and newly fortune-less me had been knocking on one of the panes of glass above the door and had put my fist through the thing.

Fist of Fury

So my intended 30 second confrontation escalated into me arguing with a bunch of drunk 20 year olds and now I have to call the landlord to get some glass put in in the morning. I really should have just called the cops.

But even though I have to deal with the landlord and got about two hours sleep which I'm somehow supposed to function on today, I think I imparted a valuable life lesson to the kids.

Old people will smash some stuff up if they don't get their sleep.

September Gurls

Before September, I had never been to a drive-in, even though many of my favorite movies were designed for the place*. I had also never seen Devo, both of which sort of seem wrong. I mean, that stuff is sort of embedded in my DNA, you know?

I've since rectified both of these mistakes, and in the words of Larry David, fall is shaping up to be "pretty good. Pritty, pritty good." I went to both with my girlfriend (yeah, seriously. Says so right on the Facebook and everything.), and I've been feeling a strange ...happiness lately, which is an odd sensation, especially if you compare back to entries from a year ago, when I wasn't sleeping and would regularly torture myself with feelings of failure and disappointment. Even work is shaping up to be OK.

There's a slight coolness in the air. Fall is coming. October's annual binging on old horror movies and Misfits, Roky Erickson, Cramps and Halloween novelty songs is just a week away. And yes, I realize many of you are asking, "How is that different from the rest of the year." Shut up. That's how.


You also might be thinking, "You being happy is all well and good, but I come here for the stories of embarrassment and awkwardness. Are you gonna be like those comedians who start families and then turn all lame and unfunny?"

Well, even though that's the second somewhat crappy question you've asked, not to worry, I've got 40 plus years of that shit stockpiled. That well ain't running dry anytime soon, trust me.

In the meantime, if Devo plays anywhere near you, go see them. Seriously. I paid double what I would have if I had jumped on the tickets earlier, but it was totally worth it. I mean, check out this kid. Look how much fun this little guy's having. That could be you:

* Been trying to figure out how to write up the drive-in story for a while now. Suffice to say it involves embarrassment, lowering property values, and a comparison between the comfort of sleeping in a Honda Civic versus a Nissan Cube.

I'll House You

For a couple weeks in high school, my friend and I had our own house.
We didn't actually pay rent or live there or anything. We would just sort of hang out there every once in a while.

We were walking home one day after cross country practice and a celebratory bonus meal at 7-11 (that was when you'd buy a Big Gulp and stash a microwave burrito in the cup. The plastic wrapper kept it from getting wet) and got caught in one of Florida's summer downpours.

We sat under the carport of a house for sale waiting for the storm to stop. While discussing the dangers of misdiagnosed mental illness expressed in Suicidal Tendencies' "Institutionalized," we noticed the door to the house had Jalousie windows.

If you grew up in Florida, you know what Jalousie windows are, even if you don't know the name. They were those horizontal glass Venetian blind looking windows. Here, like in this picture I stole off the internet while searching for "old Florida horizontal glass venetian blind windows."

While they offered several  benefits to Florida homeowners, including brightness, an ability to catch breezes and a cool mid-century design, they had a few drawbacks, the main one being the fact that a couple of high school delinquents using no tools can take out enough of the glass panes to slip in the house in about 7 minutes.

It was strange once we were in the empty house. We were quiet and probably a little scared. Still, we figured if we got caught, we'd just say the door was open so we came in out of the rain.

We noticed the previous owners had left some stuff behind in their move. Nothing too interesting, some glasses and silverware, some food and supplies and a Penthouse magazine I let my friend keep, a move I instantly regretted.

We remained fairly respectful and quiet in the house that first day, and left soon after splitting our feast. Of course we were going to go back.

We couldn't wait to get out of practice the next day to break back into our new clubhouse. Again, we just sort of hung around inside, ate some shoplifted 7-11 treats and poked around to see what the owners had left behind that we missed the first day. It was a weird feeling; we knew we shouldn't be in there, and we still remained fairly quiet in the house. That would change soon.

We had been visiting our house fairly frequently when in a rare case of quitting a bad idea while we were ahead, we decided we should probably stop hanging out there. So we decided to go back one last time, but this time instead of exploring, we would dedicate our last day in the house to science and the arts.

Specifically, I had a science project that had vexed me for years while looking at my parent's sliding glass doors. If a scientist were to throw a glass at such a door, would the glass shatter on impact or would the momentum be enough to leave a cartoon-like hole in the door? While I had made many advanced mathematical equations, I still needed real-world testing, testing  my science hating parents would probably try to actively discourage.

So we tried it out. As a teenager, it is insanely liberating to break something. It is even more liberating to do so inside a house you aren't supposed to be in. The sound of the breaking glass was magnified through the empty house, and while we were dedicated scientists, we weren't robots - it was exhiliratingly funny.

The arts portion of the trip involved us squirting some left behind Elmer's glue on the floor and coating the design with a box of cereal we found in one of the cabinets. I can't recall exactly what we made, but I can almost guarantee there was at least one anarchy sign.

We threw all the abandonded food (including a bag of flour) we could find through the house, a glorious food fight against ... the house? Squares? Homeowners? The Man? Probably all of the above. We had brought along a can of spray paint and decorated the rest of the house with punk rock slogans and band logos, along with what I considered the crowning touch -  "LEAVE THIS EVIL HOUSE" in all caps above the mantle, as if a ghost got a hold of some haunted spray paint, leaving a terrifying warning to the human residents.

We left the house, carefully taking our spray paint can so it couldn't be dusted for prints, and walked away, never to return. And I can only speak for myself, but I remember feeling a bit depressed. Not only because we were walking away from so much  potential science and art, but because we had found a place where we were guaranteed not be hassled or oppressed, a place where we were free to create however much mess and trouble we wanted without facing any consequences of our actions.

Its sort of a sick joke that as a teenager you have all this extra energy built up and only a handful of acceptable ways to let it out. Once I become President, I will take all the nation's foreclosed homes and open them up to teenagers to vandalize and destroy. This would not only help the kids blow off steam, it would help the economy by employing workers and cleaners round the clock.

And in our case we actually did  help the economy, sort of. Years later we were telling the story of our house on the track team when an older runner got sort of quiet.

"My sister tried to buy that house," he said.

Oh shit. Was this guy gonna kick our ass for messing up his sister's house?

"Yeah, because it was so trashed, her and her husband got it for like, next to nothing."

So remember kids, vandalism is a win-win. Not only is it fun and stress-relieving, you also have a great chance of helping out some struggling homeowners.

Stories I Like, Yet Am Not Entirely Convinced They Are True, Part One

Years ago one of my ex-wife's friends told us a story about how her and her brother would cause all sorts of trouble for their parents growing up. Not even photographs were safe from hijinx.

"Our parents wanted a family photo. Before they took the pictures, we went to the kitchen and each got a plum. When they got the pictures developed, we were both holding a plum at waist level and laughing."

The parents made the mistake of mentioning something about the sneaky fruit in the photos, which inspired the kids to take as many plum pictures as possible. So there'd be pictures of Christmas morning with the kids slyly holding plums, or photos of the family at the Grand Canyon or whatever holding the fruit and ruining the pictures.

As much as this story cracks me up, especially thinking of these parents getting a pack of pictures back and flipping through each one, saying, "Dammit, why can't we just have ONE normal picture of you two,"  I do have several areas of concern. First of all, if they were that upset, why would they continue to buy plums? And did the kids just carry plums with them everywhere they went? Wouldn't the parents notice the kids holding plums while taking the pictures? And yes, the storyteller stressed that only plums would work. Not apples, oranges or pears. They had to be plums. Which only makes sense. Plums are much funnier than apples.

Weighing the evidence, I have decreed this story to be Mostly True. I'm thinking there were times other fruit was substituted, or perhaps even photographs when no fruit at all was displayed. This should not stop you from trying this trick on your own, especially with Instagram giving your plum photos a vintage sheen.

Next Episode: My Great-Uncle's War Stories.

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dumb

I had quite a few unofficial jobs before actually getting real employment bagging groceries. I'd do yardwork, clean gutters, paint, whatever the old folks in my neighborhood needed and were willing to pay for.

Lots of people hate that stuff, but I found it relaxing. I could be out there alone with nobody bothering me and I didn't have to talk to anyone, two things I've looked for in jobs and relationships ever since. Plus, I'd have to do the same stuff at home anyway, but I was getting actual money for my work, as opposed to the free room and board and love or whatever my parents paid me with. I also noticed that working for other people had an actual stopping time, which I found a welcome change from my parent's managerial style.

At some point my neighbors across the street recruited me for a babysitting gig which I snatched right up. I wouldn't be sweating in the sun, I'd get to watch cable and eat junk food for a few hours, and as a bonus I knew that these neighbors had a stack of vintage Playboys in the garage.

I show up, having memorized the night's pay channel's lineup, paying special attention to the words "strong sexual content," "nudity," "violence" or the wild card, "adult situations."

I should mention that the kid I was going to babysit was sort of weird. He grew up to be a weird teenager. He's probably a weird man right now.

At some point we're playing a Sesame Street board game. I let the kid win.

"Yay! I win!"

"Yep, you won."

"Now we have to play until you win."

This round I make short work of the kid, since he's like 4 and I was in a gifted class. I'm actually fairly distracted, thinking of that pizza in the kitchen I heated up that the kid only ate like three bites of which is calling my name. Those Playboys in the garage are also calling to me. Vintage or not, they still had naked ladies in them, and I figured I could check those out as an appetizer before exploring the night's cable offerings.

As I navigate Oscar into Gumdrop Mountain, the kid realizes I won and starts bawling. Like, turning red and getting that hyperventilating thing when kids are really going off.

"Hey, look," I say. "I was supposed to lose a turn! Looks like you won after all!"

"Jesus," I'm thinking. "Did his parents never allow him to lose? This kid's gonna be all sorts of screwed up. I don't remember pissing my pants when my dad won at Monopoly."

"Uh uh uh uh O O O OK. N..N..Now we have to play until you win."

I beat the kid again and he starts crying. I discover another loophole in the rules which meant he actually won, then we have to play until I win. This goes on for a while, all while I'm thinking about cold pizza, Playboys and all the nudity on cable TV that is going on without me.

After about 14 hours of this, the kid finally gets sleepy and is ready for bed. Awesome! As I'm stuffing cold pizza in my mouth, he comes into the kitchen and picks out a mop from the closet.

"My mom said I could sleep with this."

I didn't really think that was true, but screw it, the kid wants to sleep with a mop, who was I to judge? I'd wait til he fell asleep and return it to the closet with nobody being the wiser. The important thing is that the kid is finally heading for bed, meaning I could check out some Playboys and prime '80s pay cable in the hour or so I had before the parents came back.

I'm sitting on the couch eating warmed up pizza watching a particularly exciting Cinemax offering (I had given up on going out to the Playboy garage) when the kid wanders in dragging his mop.

"I can't sleep. Are my parents home yet?"

"No, they're not back yet. Hey, let's go back to bed, huh? Wouldn't that be fun?"

This goes on for the rest of the night, throwing me off my Cinemax viewing, and impeding my mop return.

The parents finally show up, and although they thought the mop thing was pretty funny, I was never called to babysit again, which was fine by me. Mowing was much less stressful.

So He's All Like, Practice, And I'm All Like, Whatever

We had a big jazz festival thing here last weekend. While not as exciting as Nerdfest, it had its moments. Plus, it was just nice to have food for sale out on the streets and to see people walking around Jacksonville’s usually deserted downtown.Seriously, walk around downtown on a weekend and you'll think you're the last person on Earth.

Even though I had to work, I managed to catch about 30 minutes of McCoy Tyner’s set. Tyner was about the only person I really didn’t want to miss, and from what I saw (only about 3 songs), he’s still in fine form.

Tyner played piano with John Coltrane from 1960 til 1965, meaning he played from "My Favorite Things" all the way up through “A Love Supreme,” leaving when Coltrane got too out there. According to the press release sent out by the festival, Tyner started his stint with Coltrane when he was 17 years old. 17. *Could you imagine that?

When I was 17 my only talent was the ability to fix the TV to get in the Playboy channel after my parents had gone to sleep and the ability to be a self-absorbed, creepy asshole.

That started me thinking about how I would have behaved, had I been in a world famous band that strove to challenge musical boundaries back when I was 17 (presuming I had somehow been granted musical ability by a radioactive spider bite or something).

I would imagine lots of blown off practices. Also, if you were to listen to the in studio excerpts from the box set, they'd sound like this:


"God, get off my back, I'll practice when I can, OK, Mr. Music Nazi!":

"I know we've got a show next weekend, but I already promised my friends we'd drive up to Tampa."

"I hate it here, and I hate your stupid band."

"Pfft. Yeah, that's real cool."

Luckily, not all people were as terrible as I was in my youth, and music was allowed to progress and flourish, all by keeping me far, far away from it.






*A quick jaunt over to Wikipedia and some basic arithmetic reveals that Tyner was actually in his early 20s when he joined Coltrane’s band, but the major point, that I was a terrible teenager still remains a matter of public record.

World Music

It was weird hearing so much American music in London. We heard the Cars, that New York song with Jimmy Z and ...I dunno, one of those Kardashian girls?, and a bunch of other U.S. stuff while we were over there. And it's not like we were hanging out at Cowboy Bob's Big American Down Home Feedbag Diner or anything. We did hear Morrissey and "My Generation" in a pub, but I sort of expected that stuff to be piped through the streets over there.

I guess every country views every other country's music and culture as exotic - like the British guy I saw on the tube wearing an Atlanta Braves cap, or when some friends of mine were over there a decade ago at some big music festival. After watching, I dunno, Blur or Radiohead or whoever was big at the time, they got up to leave. The Brits they were sitting next to said something like, "You're not gonna stay for Sheryl Crow?" They were also drinking Miller Lite instead of tasty British people beer.

This isn't a bad thing at all (except for the Miller Lite). If we could only listen to our own country or race's music it would be a terrible world, and I'm pretty sure there would have been a couple more world wars, just out of boredom.

We went to a club on our last Saturday night in London. It was fairly small and there weren't that many people there at first. There were some girls having a birthday party. A couple people still wearing shirts from the budget cuts protest. An old skinhead and his young friend or kid. Some people who looked like they just got out of school or work. Other than the old skinhead guy, they all looked about mid-20s, maybe early 30s. One guy was wearing a Ghostbusters T-shirt.

But the DJ at this place was something else. He was playing actual vinyl, 7" records, and they were all obscure American soul and funk from the '60s and '70s with the occasional latin jam and a couple old ska tunes. It was awesome. How obscure were they? I only knew one song ("Readings in Astrology," by Curtis Mayfield which wasn't even an album cut), and I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about such things.

And these people knew all these songs, or most of them, anyway, and were dancing and singing along and generally having a great time. And why wouldn't they? The DJ was playing the jams. Is there a place somewhere in America where people dance to obscure English music from 40 years ago? I'd like to think there is. Hell, I know there is.

So what did I learn from this? Nothing I didn't already know. That there's still tons of unexplored music and media and art out there in the world just waiting to be unearthed and bring people together in shared experiences of awesomeness. There is never a stopping point. There will always be more amazing finds just around the corner.

That, and that first Curtis Mayfield album has an awesome cover. Just look at it: