Carrie Said

a song from 2005
--------------------

Carrie said,
I'll come at midnight,
re-emerging from the blue.
It doesn't matter-
the kind of clothes you wear-
I'm taking everything from you.

Out of the blue into the pouring sun,
out of the myth into the true,
I'll carry you back--- back to where we'd first begun.
Oh, I'll do anything,
I'll do anything I can for you.

And she said,
These quaint things that you have,
do they make you feel much better?

And she said,
I'll take this hit on the chin
if it makes you feel like you fit in again.

Carrie said,
What does it matter
if I do the things they say I do?
'Cause in the end- the gold or bitter end-
it only matters what I mean to you.

Out of the blue into the pouring sun,
out of the myth into the true,
I'll carry you back--- back to where we'd first begun.
Oh, I'll do anything
I'll do anything I can for you.

And she said,
These quaint things that you have,
do they make you feel much better?

And she said,
I'll take this hit on the chin
if it makes you feel like you are whole again,
like you, you pure again,
like you, you are loved again.

Carrie said,
I'll come at midnight,
re-emerging from the blue.
It doesn't matter now-
the kind of car you drive.
I'm taking everything from you.

Toot! Toot!

Double birthday party last month. Meant to blog about it earlier. Can you tell who this is? (The one on the right)

Last Night on Earth

This past Friday night, with admirably little notice, a bunch of us gathered for games at Casa de Popo y Mila to celebrate the end of the working week by playing some boardgames. The night was cold enough to warrant a fire in the fireplace, and we lit a few candles to add to the general gemuetlicheit.

The evening's main feature was to be "Last Night on Earth"-- a 2007 release from Flying Frog Productions that has been so well received by the gaming public that it is already almost out of stock. I knew Fast Eddy was a zombie-movie officiando, and since I had read several rave reviews of LNoE the choice was obvious.

Big A, Eddy, LaToya, and Paulette showed up at the appointed time (give or take two hours) and we sat down to try out this new comedy-horror starlet for ourselves. Let me say, quite simply, that the game delivered big time. For over five hours, two non-gamers, one semi-serious gamer, and three neophyte gamers were totally captivated. I don't think I've ever heard so much laughing at any gaming session. No hyperbole! And only three of us had anything to drink!

Big A and Fast Eddy volunteered to take the zombie side while the rest of us randomly chose heroes to play: Nurse Becky, Father Josef, and a couple of high school kids. All we had to do was kill 15 zombies within a certain time limit. Team Zombie had to kill any two heroes or keep the heroes from achieving their victory conditions.

Brief synopsis: For the first ten turns (out of 15), the heroes totally sucked. We ran from point A to point B like the Keystone Cops and hardly killed any zombies. The one exception was Nurse Becky (Mila) who had scrounged up a shotgun and had blasted quite a few zombies off to their second demise. The rest of us, however, could only claim one single zombie between us. The situation changed quite suddenly, though, when we finally gathered our wits and began searching the buildings for weapons. Another shotgun and some ammuntion turned up. In the final few turns zombie parts went a flyin', and the hero team racked up 15 kills even before the time had run out. Hooray, Keystone Cops! More competent than a bunch of zombies!

The evening's first game had been a success.

I was just starting to get the next game "Shadow Over Camelot" set up when the group voted to play LNoE again instead. Eddy and 'A' opted for a reprise of their role as the zombies.

New scenario. This time the heroes had to find explosives and destroy three of the four zombie spawning pits that were scattered throughout the town. This scenario was quite fun and filled with dramatic moments--- but I'll spare the Gentle Reader unnecessary detail by skipping to the final turns. The heroes, having destroyed two of the three pits, find themselves holed up in the high school gymnasium. They need to heal up, find and/or redistribute equipment and, most importantly, hatch a plan to reach and obliterate the one remaining zombie spawning pit. outside, a veritable wall of zombies is shambling menacingly in their direction, but alas the heroes have a card they can throw at the latest possible extremity-- when the zombies finally reach the doors of the highschool, the party plans to use a "Squeeze out through the Windows" card to bypass the zombies and make a blitz to the third spawning pit.

Unfortunately, unwise table-talk amongst the hero players lets the zombie players know our plans. They now ring the building instead of concentrating near the doors.

And, unfortunately, the Sheriff's flare gun fails to blow a hole though the zombie besiegers. It misses altogether. Or maybe it hits an oak tree in the next county over.

And, unfortunately, Jack the Drifter, who has the all-important explosives, rolls a 1for his movement roll, so he cannot do an end run around the zombie siege lines.

And, unfortunately, once an opening is created, Jack once again rolls a 1.

And, unfortunately, as if Fate were rubbing our noses in the stink of our own defeat, Jack's last roll is a 6, which means he is just one space short of reaching the final pit. Just one space short!

No matter. We all had a blast and are eager to play this one again soon.

The Horseleech

The music and original words to this song date back to the autumn of 1986, but the lyrics underwent a major overhaul about five years later. The inspiration for the rewrite was a reading of James Joyce's The Dead-- a short story about a man's withdrawal into his own egotism. The plot of The Dead centers around a Dublin schoolteacher who buys a computer and starts a blog.

Okay, seriously now...

The first verse contains some of the Joyce's own imagery--- the gas lamps, the big party, the sound of the dresses of the dancers sweeping against the door.

The second verse is a remnant from the original version of the song. Much of it is a "Southernized" recitation of a passage from the book of Proverbs, though the ending is decidedly un-Biblical. Thematically, this verse falls out of synch with The Dead (though the theme is resumed in verse three) but I kept it out of laziness, I guess.

The third verse presents a scene of self-absorption to the point of self-destruction. The "you" of the song has spurned the human company of the party and is now partying alone with just "jim beam and the radio" as companions. Just as Gabriel Conroy in Joyce's story experiences some sort of ambiguous revelation, the ego in the song smiles at the realization of a vague prospect for joy that this solipsistic evening might hold- one involving even further isolation, as indicated by the locking of the door.

Joyce is probably rolling over in his grave.

Note: "Horseleech" is an archaic term for doctor.
++++++++++++++++++++++

The Horseleech

the gaslights burn so brightly
in the corners of the room-
all's still in the crowded parlour
and then the band begins to play an old familiar tune
in a most peculiar way-
the people start to move and the room begins to sway-
you step out in the hall
and there you hear the sound of the ladies' dresses brushing up against the door

the horseleech has two daughters
they both cry 'give me more'
three things are never sated
four things can never have enough-
one's the open grave
and one's the barren womb
one's the dried out earth just crying for some rain
and one's the fire that burns- it never stops
and, girl, you know i burn for you and i can never have enough

late night in a lonely bedroom
jim beam and the radio-
water drips through your rented ceiling
drip, drip, drip onto the floor-
they play your favorite tune and you drink a little more
and fumble with your keys as you move to lock the door-
you've only left to smile cause now you know
tonight's the night you're gonna feel just like you've never felt before

Three Funerals and a Wedding

Two days after the band meeting in which we decided to find a new drummer, my brother Rev. Bunny graduated from TCU. I rode down to Ft. Worth with my parents and grandparents but ended up riding back home with my brother's friend Randy. As my journal records: "We had a nice chat. He suggested {Big A} as a drummer. He dated {Big A's} sister." That was May 12, 1984.

Rev. Bunny arrived home the next day, and I remember asking him about Big A. "Yeah, he's a good little drummer. I've heard him playing down in their basement." Now Rev. Bunny had been a high school friend of Big A's sister, so the "little" part was more of a memory than a current description, but still it was a positive endorsement.

Now for the complication. As if things weren't going to be complicated enough because of the Toy. I had also been talking to Matus, a new friend of mine and a longtime friend of Big A's, about trying out for the band.

We arranged to hold auditions at the First Presbyterian Church in the very room, as chance would have it, that had been Big A's Kindergarten room. As I remember it, Big A was going to play first, then I would call Matus, who lived close by, and he would come play. I'm pretty sure they were meant to be on the same day- May 19, 1984.

The first song we tried with A was the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog", and to this day I remember Mookie playing the three-chord guitar intro and A's drums coming in with a shubba-dup shubba-dup bubba-dubba-dubba-dubba on his tri-toms. We only played one other song (lost to history?) when Jimmy Fred invited him to be in the band. I recorded "{Big A} is very, very good" and added with no further comment "{Matus} was going to perform for us, but I guess we've got {Big A}."
Jimmy Fred, seven or eight years our elder, had a lot of influence in the band. He was in a hurry to go somewhere, he liked Big A's drumming, and didn't want to wait around to try out anyone else.

Matus was, understandably, upset and remained so for years. And years.

Still Jimmy Fred's decision was a good one-- not only because Matus left that summer and the next few consecutive summers for music camp in Illinois, but also, as many of you know, Big A is STILL playing drums with what is very arguably just an evolved version of that same band almost 24 years later, and he quickly became a very near and dear friend. We are working on our third decade of shared memories, but the friendship is still fresh.

Alas, the story of the day is not over. From my journal:

At home, as our dog Rommel was causing much confusion by killing a squirrel in the back yard, the Toy came by wearing a tophat and asked to borrow my black shoes for the prom tonight.

Upstairs he asked, "So how long have ya'll been planning to kick me out?"

"About two weeks."

"Who is my replacement?"

"Big A."

"I'll have you know that the one who wants to kick me out the most knows fewer lyrics than I do and isn't there 40% of the time."

"Well." silence "How did you find out?"

"Oh, the rumor is running rampant out at EOC." (where both Toy and J.Fred worked)

"I'm sorry you had to find out like this." silence "We'd like to keep you on singing back ups."

"F--k that!"

"Well."

long, long silence

(Toy, talking about the shoes) "I'll get these back to you Monday."

"Sorry."

Then I went outside and saw my grandfather using a baseball bat to adminster the coup de grace to the mangled squirrel. Afterwards, I took a shovel and buried it.

That night was the prom, which started out well but the ending of which might well qualify as the fourth disaster of the day.

The one bright spot-- getting Big A into the band--- outshone all the other events of the day, the title of this entry notwithstanding, for it was chosen more for its seeming wittiness than for its accuracy.

Look At Us Now

Old romances are dust. Not as a fact, because vivid memories will stir at times despite what we intend. Rather, the idea that "old romances are dust" is a mental discipline.

The dual one-two punch of American consumer culture and second-rate religion steers us mightily toward the mindset that morality and ethics are twin downers whose agency is fear and shame. What poison! It is helpful sometimes to remember that the ancient sages advocated moral and ethical behavior because it produces happiness and a sense of well-being here and now, not just because it gives us a Get Out of Hades Free card in some imagined future realm.

So, why all this? Like many people, I have dealt with the end of relationships by expressing myself in poetry or song. Oddly, though, some of these songs were judged decent enough to still be part of the Dentones' set list. Go figure. Luckily, Mila is quite cool about it and has raised nairy a word of objection- otherwise I'd feel really odd about our performing them.

Having said all this, here is an old "break up" song that I am posting because the time seems right for someone I know.


Look at Us Now

look at us now, my irish child,
completely undone like the tower of babel
i thought it would last a thousand years,
i thought it would take me to the gates of heaven

i can feel the tumbling dice,
lord, i can feel the turning of the wheel of fortune

love is a ship on stormy sea
and 'down with all hands' is an old, old story-
who stands with a tether while the wind blows free
will stand by the pails when the deck starts leaning

i can feel the tumbling dice,
lord, i can feel the turning of the wheel of fortune

the travel's done, it's the journey's end,
you're home again, it's like there's been no leaving-
the morning comes and you will rise again-
find your staff and your cockle by the doorjamb leaning

i can feel the tumbling dice,
lord, i can feel the turning of the wheel of fortune

we lay together in invited heat
you slung your soul around me so soft and slowly-
i asked you how you might want it to be,
you said, "thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory"


tonight, oh, tonight,
heaven...heaven's open wide

-c. 1990

The Paisley Ascot

The members of the Paisley Ascot could barely play their instruments. We did manage to book a couple of gigs at the EOC, but the lustre of these first forays into public performance is diminished, perhaps, by the fact that the EOC was a large residential facility for the mentally handicapped down in Lewisville. Somewhere there is a cassette tape of one of these gigs. On it you can hear one of the "clients" start to wail like a banshee halfway through our version of "Purple Haze". The screams gradually become fainter as the client runs from the auditorium.

In another incident, one of the clients began glowering at Mookie and moving ever so slowly toward him, like she was about to pounce. His courage seriously withering under that awful gaze, Mookie took refuge behind his large Yamaha guitar amp until the danger had passed.

By the Spring of 1984, hours of practice were paying off and we were actually becoming proficient at our instruments. Well, this is mostly true.

I choose my words very carefully here, for hurtful mistakes were made all those years ago and I wish to avoid adding insult to injury. The Toy was, and is, a naturally gifted musician. He currently lives in California and plays in the Atomic Love Bombs. But, as he freely states now, back in highschool he simply didn't practice like he should have. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the rest of the band was progressing and he was not.

This was openly discussed, and it seems like there was something like the equivalent of a growth plan or something, but by early May nothing had changed. Girlfriend problems were not helping, especially since the girlfriend in question started coming to the practices. After a string of particulary awful rehearsals, the other three members of the band decided that a change was necessary. This was on May 10, 1984.

Lovesongs Through the Radio

When you were a kid, did you ever go see a movie that you enjoyed so much that it stuck with you for days? All your daydreams and make-believe centered around it. You almost ached to be in that movie.

If you are like me, this hasn't happened to you in years. Or if it has, it has been very infrequent. The film "Once" came awfully close last year.

Well, this weekend there was a show that hit that ancient, long-untouched bullseye. Not a movie, but music-- the long-awaited Reivers reunion at the Parish on 6th Street. These past two days I have been awash in the memories and emotions of that experience. Unshakeable, it fills my every idle moment.

The evening started in Roux, the restaurant on the ground floor of the Parish building, at a pre-show dinner put on by Rob Caldwell, the host of http://www.thereivers.net/ . Raf had gotten us in on this, and we were very surprised to find that, apart from Raf and us, everyone else was from out of town-- and mostly from out of state. It was very odd to be in the position of having people asking about the details of what life in Austin was like in the 80s and early 90s. We met lots of really nice folks and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

In short, the Reivers show was awesome, and I will leave off trying to describe it in much detail other than to say that it was immensely fulfilling on so many levels. The defining moment for me was when the band played "Dragonflies"-- a song that Mila and I consider "our" song for no other reason than that we loved it and listened to it during our courtship. So there we were, good friends all around us, many familiar faces in the audience from so long ago, that incredible band back together in a move that no one expected, and playing our song. We put our arms around each other and swayed gently.

Some cultures have envisioned Heaven as a wedding feast--- your best friends and dearest family members gathered around one table, beyond the scope of time, the act of completion, celebration, contentedness. I understand perfectly why that image was chosen. And as we swayed together in time to the music I thought of how much I love Mila, how much my friends mean to me, how lucky I was to be there that night, how lucky I am to be in this time and in this place, and I thought of something Fast Eddy once said: "The Universe sings lovesongs to me through the radio." I was surprised to feel a welling of tears, and then when two escaped I was surprised to find that I didn't mind.

Fast Eddy is right. The Universe does sing lovesongs to us through the radio.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Roots Rock

In the Fall of 1982 my oldest brother Deeb bought an electric guitar and a small amp. When he told me how much he had paid for the set I couldn't believe it. I had always figured that such things, being the accoutrement of demi-gods such as Hendrix and Clapton, were prohibitively expensive. Not so.

An invisible barrier had been breeched.

I was 16 and played tuba in the marching band, and my best friend Mookie played trumpet. We had both been into rock music for years, so it was natural that in our shared pipe dream of musical stardom he would play guitar and I would play bass.

That Christmas break I got ahold of a cheap Kay bass (that had black nylon strings!) and used Deeb's old 1977 Pioneer stereo to amplify it. Mookie got a guitar. The Toy, a good friend and drummer in the marching band, was a natural choice for drums, even though he didn't own any. A buddy from California rounded out the combo. We called him "BM" because those were his initials and they described his personality and we were rude and thoughtless teenagers.

At the time we were all totally into the 60's, and we were very thrilled when we had our first, uh, rehearsal at BM's house in Southridge. The house dated from that hallowed decade, which intrigued us to no end, and had a small detached building out under the trees in the backyard that had once served both as a storage shed and, as evidenced by the many psychedelic paintings and chalk drawings on the walls, as a sort of hang out for teenagers who had long-since grown up and moved away.

I vividly remember us all plugging in and noodling around individually and getting up the nerve to try something and, as noted, The Toy had no drums so he made do with what was available: a pot, a Sprite bottle, and his motorcycle helmet. The only legit part of his set up were his drumsticks! Still, he was musician enough to make that odd assortment of things work for him, and it was a real thrill to play with percussion. Mookie and I had fiddled around- just bass and guitar--- but the addition of the makeshift drumset added a whole new dimension. It started to sound "real".

Over the next several months the configuration of the band was this:
(Mookie = guitar) + (Po = bass) + (Toy = drums) + y
where y = any one of over a dozen people including, oddly enough, Pod!

At one point we played at a pretty big party in our neighborhood, at the home of a schoolmate who was sort of in the band. He had a Jim Morrison fixation and we would jolly him by letting him moan away incoherently as we struggled through "The End". He is now a plastic surgeon living in Dallas.

The house where the party was held was infamous for having to be kept up like a museum-- don't sit on the sofas lest you mess up the pillows, don't walk on the carpets lest they become worn, and don't even look at the paintings too hard. They might fade. The under 20 crowd understood perfectly well that they were fundamentally unwelcome in that home and were under constant suspicion of being potential sources of disarray. Just imagine our horror, that parentless evening, when we discovered that the bass drum pedal had left a big greasy stain right smack dab in the middle of an expensive Scandinavian carpet. To make matters worse, when our teenage host was kneeling down to assess the damage to Exhibit A, another friend grabbed a tall columnar candle that had been burning for hours and had accumulated a goodly quanitity of molten wax and poured it down the host's back.

We were rude and thoughtless teenagers.

At some point we finally found a permanent 'y' in the person of Jimmy Fred, who was much older than the rest of us (25 or 26, which now seems so very young) and had stage presence and a more-than-passable singing voice.

With a real singer, a growing songlist, and, by this time, real amps and drums, we counted this as our first real band. We called ourselved The Paisley Ascot.

The Genius that is Satsy

Last month the Dentones made a "forget music for once, let's do the friend thing" outing at the soon-to-meet-the-fate-of-all-cool-things-in-Austin pub the Gingerman. A camera phone documented the event, and within a day Satsy had surprised and delighted us all by producing a mock album cover.

Satsy knocked that out in 4 or 5 minutes. Here, by contrast, is my own feeble effort.

Now, which one would you buy? Honestly.

I'll just shut up and play bass.

Chemical Dave

Chemical Dave

Chemical Dave can't abstain, he craves chimerical scenes--
"Moksha, let me off this crazy machine!"

When you were down did you wait for me to take you away?
Deus ex machina cabriolet

It burns and freezes all at the same time.
Its sting will never go away.
We say we'll meet again in some springtime.
I don't know. I don't even remember your name.

Cigarette burns, coffee stains and paint splatter array--
this constellation points to some other day.

Linger alone-- midnight-- woozy-- cringe-- alarm at the dawn,
the world is paper thin ever since you've been gone.

It burns and freezes all at the same time.
Its sting will never go away.
We say we'll meet again in some springtime.
I don't know. I don't even remember your name.

Chemical Dave...Chemical Dave... Chemical Dave.........

There Was a Time

If anyone has any information about this photo (When was it taken? Who are the people in it? What song was the guy in the middle dancing to when he injured his knee?) any information would be greatly appreciated. I mean, the world deserves to know.

(click image to enlarge)

Mystery Photo

Bohemia and Moravia

Friends, turn on your speakers and enjoy a short tour of the lovely gem that is the Czech Republic. I had the good fortune to travel there again last summer with my sweet Mila and her daddy the good Doktor Pheasant-- the greatest father-in-law one could ever wish for. This vacation marked the second with the three of us buzzing about a small European country in a small European car for days on end. What a testament that a cross word was never uttered between us. Very cool.
It is a beautiful country and we could learn a lot from the Czechs about land usage and the concept of public space which, by the way, does not exist in order to provide a medium for commercial advertisement.
And did I mention that the pivo there is excellent and outrageously cheap?