This is part one a simple, straightforward piece - more a list than anything else. People have asked me for music recommendations several times in the past. I haven't provided an in-depth response because, well, I own a lot of music. I didn't know how to whittle it down to a top ten or twenty list and frankly, music being art and art being subjective, a "ranking" seems ludicrous (you'll rarely find anyone less qualified for his position than an art critic). The best I can offer is a list of compact discs I enjoy and figure you might as well.

These were picked off the top of my head as I scanned through my library. I tried to select obscure or overlooked albums, but a few classics slid into the list here and there. Mostly it's alphabetical by artist, except for a few instances where I didn't feel like following that order.

Abba - Gold: Greatest Hits
I can't explain why, but there's something evil about Abba's music. Evil in a good way, as in it makes me want to get wired, get loaded and get laid. Partly nostalgia, I'll admit. But there's something more to it... The soaring harmonies, they way those insidious, simple, high notes on the piano kick the music along. Or it might be something Swedish, perhaps Scandinavian. My wife's half Norwegian, and I love that squeeze-tube caviar they sell at Ikea.

AC/DC - Powerage
Supposedly, Keith Richards' favorite record by AC/DC, which isn't surprising, since it has a Stones-y feel. This is the band when they were just playing straightforward rock and roll, before the heaviness and polish of Highway to Hell and Back in Black. "Rock n Roll Damnation," "What's Next to the Moon" and "Gimme a Bullet" are some of the band's greatest overlooked gems.

Allman Brothers - Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival / Live at Ludlow Garage 1970
Folk Festival is just like the legendary Live at the Fillmore East record, only with a broader song selection. And disc two of Ludlow's Garage has the greatest, heaviest "Mountain Jam" I've ever heard.

Beatles - Abbey Road
I like Sgt. Pepper's and The White Album just fine, but this is the Beatles record I listen to over and over. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is built around this great, sinister lick and "Something" is one of those tunes you wish went on for another five, eight or fifteen minutes.

Beck - Mutations
Somehow, this elegant little record was buried in Beck's catalog, listed as an EP between Odelay and Midnight Vultures. Probably a marketing thing, as it was moody and bleak and mostly acoustic, with little of the sonic painting he was doing on the albums before and after it. People rave about Sea Change and it's a great record, but I think Mutations is as good, if not better, than anything else Beck's done.

Jeff Beck - Beck Ola
Rod Stewart fronting one of hardest guitar records of it's time. It's a no-brainer.

Black Angels - Passover
A hard rock version of the Velvet Underground with a touch of Jefferson Airplane. See final comment regarding Beck Ola.

Black Crowes - Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
Start to finish, the best Faces record the Faces were never able to create. Only heavier. Much, much heavier. "My Morning Song" and "Remedy" also prove that you can never have too many gospel singers backing up a track.

Black Sabbath - Vol. 4 / Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
As to Vol. IV, just listen to "Supernaut." It's one of the few songs I can directly blame for huge gaping holes in the drywall of one of my apartments... The kind of song that compels certain guests to open field tackle others in the living room. As to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, just listen to the title cut.

Blind Faith - Blind Faith (Deluxe Edition)
What's better than "Can't Find My Way Home?" An electric version of "Can't Find My Way Home," along with forty-five minutes of studio jams involving Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton. It's easy to say Clapton or Winwood make this record, but I think it's Ginger Baker. Strangest drummer I've ever heard. Sounds like each one of his drums is five feet away from the others. Where a lot of drummers use fills that slow the sound down (much the same way passive voice can slow prose), Baker plays economically, but relentlessly, leaving the spaces and these huge, heavy beats to create a sense of constant forward movement in the slowest of tunes. That or I tend to hear this album under influences creating those impressions...

Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills - Super Sessio
Like Blind Faith, this was a short lived project/supergroup. Goes from blues ("Albert's Shuffle," "Stop") to pop ("Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry") to oddly re-arranged covers ("Season of the Witch," "You Don't Love Me"), all done superbly. The highlight, however, is the nine minute instrumental, "His Holy Modal Majesty," with its amazing jazz/psychedelic organ solo.

David Bowie - Hunky Dory / The Man Who Sold the World
These are two of Bowie's "forgotten" records, which is odd considering they're two of his best. Glam rock doesn't get better. Hell, any rock doesn't get much better. If "Queen Bitch" and "Life on Mars" don't grab you, check your pulse.

The Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo
There are a million reasons Gram Parsons' country-honk shouldn't have worked with the Byrds' layered, California harmonies. In this case, however, it did - perfectly. I couldn't recommend a record more enthusiastically.

Johnny Cash - Unearthed
It was an $80 box set when I bought it and it was worth every penny. How some of these out-takes, particularly the "Redemption Song" with Joe Strummer, didn't make it onto albums baffles me.

The Clash - London Calling
Who doesn't know about this record, right? Every rock magazine for the past twenty five years has listed it in the top ten of all time. That's why I'm not going to speak to the album as whole. Dust off the disc and if you haven't in a while, listen to "Kola Kola," "Wrong 'Em Boyo" and "Guns of Brixton" a few times. Are there any better bass lines in rock? I don't think so.

Dr. Dre - 2001
"What's the Difference"... "Forgot About Dre"... "The Watcher." A lot of older rap can be easily forgotten, or only recalled for its beats. Not Dre's stuff, and certainly not this record.

Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The Royal Albert Hall Concert
"Judas," a folkie incensed at Dylan's "electric conversion" famously screams at the beginning of "Like a Rolling Stone." Dylan responds with the meanest seven minutes on vinyl. I think David Fricke said that was the moment rock n' roll began, or something like that. I agree.

Eagles of Death Metal - Peace Love Death Metal
Garage rock you can fuck to - nothing more, nothing less.

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
I recommend listening to the surround version (available in the two disc set). Total ear candy. Yeah, "Do You Realize" is cheesy, but I still like it.

Jerry Garcia - Garcia
Everything on this record is fantastic. From "The Wheel" to "Bird Song," "Sugaree," and "Loser"... Hell, even the Floyd-like "Eep Hour" is amazing. And the nice thing about this record is it never gets old. These songs age like Hank Williams' stuff. They could have been written yesterday, and they'll stand for the same universal observations in 2040 as they did in 1971.

Gomez - Split the Difference
Schizophrenic, with no one song sounding like another, ranging from pop to psychedelic jams to bluegrass. All done well, closing with an excellent comment on what sounds like fundamentalism... "Cuz we're not here to judge you/We want to be your friends now/And we can make you feel like everything that's gone wrong happened for a reason" ("Nothing is Wrong").

Grateful Dead - 1968-1969
Everybody loves the Dead of American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, and those are classic records. But before they shifted to more of a traditional sound, there was a time where the Dead played epic, bizarre live shows using pieces of the acid-soaked song cycles from Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa. Many bootlegs from 1968-1969 will have moments where Garcia played as frenetically and skillfully as Jimmy Page, Two From the Vault, Download Series 6 and Dick's Picks 8 and 16 most notably.

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
If there was an Allman Brother in the Beatles, it was George. All Things Must Pass is a sprawling, indulgent record. Recorded, aptly, using Phil Spector's lush "wall of sound" technique, the album has thirty minutes devoted to nothing but studio jams. Three LPs in total when it was initially released, and not a minute of filler on any of them... This is what the Beatles might have sounded like if Clapton had joined the band and they decided to start jamming.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love
This record will forever live in the shadow of Are You Experienced, which is really a shame. The solo closing out the title track is one of the highest points in music, more a classical composition - something wild and soaring like that crazy introduction in Carmina Burana - than a simple rock anthem.

The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives
The sonic equivalent of sticking your finger in an electric socket... Screaming and howling and merciless - two hours of notes in thirty minutes of music, with more infectious hooks than most current pop musicians' entire catalogs. You get your money's worth, and then some.

The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers / Let It Bleed
Let it Bleed... How the hell do you describe this record? A little slice of Hell on vinyl? Has there ever been a more apocalyptic sound committed to record than the opening wails and guitar lines of "Gimme Shelter"? Altamont indeed. And if Let it Bleed was the definitive statement on the end of the Sixties, then Sticky Fingers was a proper kick-off for the next ten years... Film-makers haven't used "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" as the go-to score for scenes of debauchery and violence for no good reason. There's something about that riff, the way it goes through you... It's like the sound of the snake in the Garden of Eden, distorted, using a huge fucking amplifier. Makes you want to do something bad. Don't know what. Just bad.

Nos. 2, 3 and maybe 4 to come in the future.

George Carlin died three weeks ago and it's taken me that long to figure out how to write about him. There just weren't words. Initially it was embarrassment - revulsion at just how amateur every joke or opinion I've offered appears after watching his routines. That as Jerry Seinfeld eloquently noted, whatever joke anyone's been telling for the last thirty years, Carlin told it first. And better.

But there was more to it than that. Carlin was "post-commentary." Not in some cheap silly fashion, as artists are "post-modern" or candidates claim to be "post-politics." The universal truth and clarity of Carlin's observations placed them as close to "beyond dissection" as any entertainer's work could ever be. Media's cheap and most of it's full of shit. We can parse and qualify the points of ninety percent of the mouths we hear on television, radio or the internet. Not Carlin. There were no two meanings to anything he said, and whether you liked it or not you knew in the end, He Was Right.

I won't embroider that point here. Better to let Carlin explain himself. Watch these video clips from his last HBO special, It's Bad For Ya.

The bullshit that binds us

God bless America

Your imaginary rights

Start at minute 4:00 of the first clip and move through the following two. If those fifteen or so minutes don't savage all the delusions and absurdities at the heart of our aggregate national idiocy, you're not living in reality.

Continue reading "In•di•vid•u•al•ist (n)"

"What the hell are you doing?" As the car screeched to a halt I held the bottle in the air, turning its nose toward me to hedge against the G-force that would otherwise slam the liquor through its neck, spraying the stuff all over the windshield and dashboard. "Do you know how sticky this shit is?!"

"The stop sign's hidden behind that overgrown tree." Chris turned down the stereo, looked around, then accelerated toward the bridge. "They need to prune that shit... It's an accident waiting to happen."

"I saw it fine."

"Of course you did." He rubbed his eyes and focused on the road. "It's easier from your angle." The explanation was nonsense, but I didn't bother to press. Never question the driver... Just be happy it's not you.

"Why'd you turn down the music?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why'd you turn down the music? That didn't cause you to miss the sign."

"I don't know. It just seemed the proper thing to do." Chris was partly right, and partly wrong. His reaction didn't "seem" anything. He'd turned down the music out of fear... A fight-or-flight response - one of those senseless idiot tics we default to in an awkward or heated exchange, like darting your eyes around the room or saying "Excuse me?" when someone asks a question you don't want to answer. He was buying himself a moment, to gird for police, ponder what he'd say if a patrol car pulled out of an alleyway and clicked on the sirens. "Can't be too careful, considering..."

"I understand... Better safe than sorry." I pulled the lever below my seat and slammed it back. "Here, it's your shot."

"Hey! What the fuck?" Martin barked from the backseat. "You just knocked the fucking bowl all over me."

"We should smoke this anyway." Stu held a joint in the air. "That thing's all clogged."

"Can you wait until we get there?" Chris snapped back.

"Why?" Stu flicked his lighter.

"So we'll be able to speak to these chicks, for a few minutes at least."

Chris had a point. Outside a Phish show perhaps, nobody's ever gotten lucky based on the fact that he was really, really stoned. When you're loaded you're happy - a charming rogue of sorts. Whacked on hallucinogens you're an explorer - strong enough to give up "control," check out your inner wiring. That and you're helpless, playing to the "Florence Nightingale" gene so many women hold. Stoned, on the other hand... Well, stoned is a different story. Blazed out of their gourds, most people are dull - deep in thought below, retarded on the surface. In the typical social setting, "hyper-baked" is rarely engaging or witty, and never charismatic. You're slow and silly and chitchat seems impossible. And though you'd probably like to think otherwise, believe it, brother - there's no such thing as "small-talk," particularly with women. A smart one - the kind you really want to fuck - isn't making idiot chatter. She's testing you, kicking the tires... Seeing how fast you can shift from one subject to another. How well you'd relate to disparate varieties of people. Out-of-our-skulls high, most of us fail that exam.

In many ways, baking before you go out is deciding to not even attempt picking up women. You might make an effort, and you might even think you have a chance. And yes, on any given night, anyone can strike it lucky. But generally, globally, getting high is the last thing on the planet you want to do to land a chick. Think of all the stoner characters in movies or TV... Slater from Dazed N' Confused? Spicoli? Do you recall these characters having girlfriends? Sure they're ridiculous stereotypes, but they weren't crafted out of thin air.

"You are such a fucking cramp." Stu wouldn't let it go.

"Humor me, will you?" Chris was getting whiny. "Just this once... I'd like to try to maybe, just maybe, get laid."

"By getting all fucked up on Jager?"

"You think I'd do it sober?"

"You don't have to hit it, Chris." I tried to "split the baby" to end the dispute.

"If we light that, I'll wind up out of my tree."

That was always the problem with baking. When you're bored, you want to be baked. Until there's something better to do, when you suddenly don't want to be baked anymore. Problem is, by then it's too late. And nobody ever gets "just a little high." It comes on sneaky, slow and lethal. There's nothing to do, nowhere to be. No looming deadlines or people to see. You take a few hits. Then you take a few more. Then you start thinking, I should have a few more, just to make sure I've had enough. Every "few more" leads to another "few more"... Forty minutes later you're watching an infomercial for "The Garden Weasel," wondering if there's ice cream in the freezer and it hits you - Shit, I'm retarded... a goddamn mongoloid. And there's no way out. All you can do is deal with it.

Add a bottle of liquor to the mix and you're cooked. From immigrant miners drowning the misery in Seagram's and Lucky Strikes to hippies cannon-balling joints with rotgut wine to the modern day "Masters of the Universe" chasing Churchills with Johnny Walker Blue, smoke and liquor have been our national speedball since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Cigarettes, cigars, dope - they all taste better with whiskey. And the more you have of one, the more you want of the other. The "joint and shots" mixture is a crippling, incessant cycle. The tar burns the throat. The shot kills the burn. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Three or four in, you start feeling niiice - pleasant, careless and clueless. Seven or eight in you're numb - lucid and coherent, but not really there. Ten or twelve in you're Gone - bigger than your being, immortal and impervious, all knowing and all seeing. That's the peak, of course, the ledge before the drop. Anything more than that that and you're fried, blathering and staggering, in that helpless, wretched state where you find yourself picking up a candle instead of the bottle and filling the shot glass with melted wax. And then, suddenly - SWAK! - Here come the spins... Ohhhh... The whole room is moving... So fast... So dizzy... I feel like I ate bad fish... Somebody, please, stop it. Cry all you like. Bury your head in the couch. The more you close your eyes, the faster the revolutions.

"Shit, Chris." Stu snapped from the back. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"What?"

"Let me know if you're going to take a fucking turn that fast."

"That's not my fault. The road did it."

Continue reading "The Farther We Go The Rounder We Get, Part 2"

Harry: How far have we gone?
Lloyd: According to this map, about an inch and a half.

- Dumb and Dumber (1994)

"Can I ask why?" Jeffrey stopped in his tracks the minute we met eyes. The fish was in my hand, in the air, dangling above my lips. Thankfully I couldn't answer. My mouth was already full, stuffed like a chipmunk's with acorns.

You can always ask why, but that doesn't mean I have an answer. We stood there for a moment, not saying a word, each of us taking in the scene. There was Jeffrey, a partner from my group, standing, staring, open cell phone in his hand. And there was me, behind the deli, next to a dumpster, peeling slabs of lox from a wax-paper package and shoveling them in my mouth. It wasn't an ugly moment. He hadn't caught me getting high with the bicycle couriers who openly smoked dope behind the buildings or stepping out of a massage parlor. This was just strange. It's not everyday a person turns the corner on his way back from a client luncheon and runs into one of his employees in a suit, cufflinks and tie, gorging himself in a filthy alleyway like some vulture gnawing carrion. To all the common passers by, I might as well have been eating rancid meat from the trash, an overdressed wino, white collar crack-head or escapee from a local psyche ward... One of those wretches who stumbled around the blocks bleating about conspiracies and begging for change. But Jeffrey knew better. He knew I was sane - too sane, really, and this was something else... something odd, seditious and bizarre.

He was right. Sort of...

I hadn't walked out for lox. I'd walked out to leave. It was a Monday and I'd snapped. You know those Mondays. Everyone knows them. Those mornings where a ten minute flurry of phone calls, faxes and emails turns a perfectly calm week to a shit rain of idiot paperwork... Those moments where you can actually feel your face turning purple as some Napoleon threatens you over the phone... I'd gone in hoping for Nothing - a boring, dead week, the best thing you can hope for in a law firm. By eleven I'd been peppered with five calls, four letters and a half a dozen emails. All annoyances - the usual pile of grating, niggling demands. "When can you get me this?" "When can you get me that?" "When can I expect this other thing?" From the incoherent threat letters of grammatically retarded plaintiffs' lawyers to the tyranny of emails from management about the ten days of time sheets I still owed, every communication held that same selfish refrain... "Gimme, gimme, gimme... I want to take something from you to make my situation better. I'm going to sap your energy, drag your mind to a task the benefits me, my wallet, my bottom line. I want things, and I'm going to burn you and everything else around me like fuel to get them. I have car payments to make, tuitions, golf course minimums... My wife just ordered granite for all the bathrooms."

I'd walked out the door to catch a cab, go home, put on a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops, jump in my car and drive. No destination in mind; just step on the gas and run. Bolt from the box, from that crushing claustrophobia... Take off on the highway, through the cornfields and mountains and the desert. Never stop moving. Float around the country like a salty drifter in one of those old beer commercials - the grizzled sort stalking into dusty bars with "Big Log" or "Midnight Rider" playing in the background. Get space, air, breathe. Live like a fucking American, like goddamned human.

I stepped out the front door and looked up the street for a cab. The firm was on a slow corner, so I decided to walk a few blocks, closer to City Hall. Then I saw the sign in window of the deli. "Nova Lox, $22.00 pound." Hmmm. Few foods on Earth beat quality kosher lox. Salt and raw, smoked salmon... Poor man's sushi. I could easily eat a half pound alone - no bagels or onions or tomatoes, and none of that disgusting cream cheese heathens smear on the stuff. It was almost lunch, and there was no resisting hunger... or my chronic ADD. The decision came like instinct. A moment later I found myself in the deli, in line, waiting to order. Fuck it. My "escape" could wait a moment. I'd grab a quarter pound, appetizer size - something to eat on the run...

And really, let's face it - Where was I going? I wasn't going to get in the car and drive off for the Left Coast. I'd do what I did every time I lost my mind at the office - get a cab home and sit in the living room, taking my pulse, catching my breath and reasoning with myself. You have to go back. Everyone hates it. That's why they call it work. The problem isn't the job - it's you. The rest of the world suffers through this shit and you're going to have to as well.

Serenity now... Serenity now...

I'd tell myself the same thing every time, something I knew all too well, from so many doomed "escapes" - all those frenzied midnight runs and frantic, pointless road trips that had gone horribly, hideously wrong. All the times I'd thought the answer was in distance, speed and movement - a simple matter of placement, stumbling on a magic "elsewhere." And all the times I'd learned... Running just to run is running in circles. Or running in place, maybe, depending on how look at it. Either way, you wind up at the same finish line.

* * *

The first "escape" fiasco I remember was in college, sophomore year. A bunch of us were sitting in a room in the fraternity house, bored and restless, facing another dead Thursday night. Same beer, dope and people - another keg party in the basement, repeating the tired drunken ritual we followed every night. Looking back now, that seems like Nirvana, a moment most of us would give a finger to have again. But then, there, as crazy as it sounds, the scene could get routine, like you were living in an endless loop of reruns. There was the same music - that constant hum of "Jessica" or "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" pouring out of the basement stereo.¹ The same beer - $30 kegs of Milwaukee's Best, frequently warm or skunked. And all the same women - the ones you'd already tried and failed to hook up with, hooked up with and didn't want to hook up with again or knew would never, ever, under any circumstances hook up with you. We needed something different, a totally new scene. That or a distraction, something to occupy the mind - a quest, challenge or competition of some kind.

Continue reading "The Farther We Go, the Rounder We Get, Part I"

Gunners
Everybody who's been to law school knows these people...

Kevin was what law students call a "gunner," meaning he ran his mouth off like a machine gun through every class. Law schools still attempt to emulate the Socratic Method used in The Paper Chase. The professor stands before the class, selecting students at random to provide "outlines" of lengthy, incredibly dull cases the student was supposed to read the night before. The student, in turn, is supposed to recite the legal issues in the case while the professor peppers him with questions designed to trip him up.

That's how it's supposed to work, in theory. In reality, most students bring laptops with outlines on them, or casebook Cliff's Notes published by a company called Emmanuel's. If they're unfortunate enough to be called on by the professor - ripped from out of a daydream or a hangover - they pitch back a clumsy recitation of the crib notes on the case. It's not much different than standing in open court, making a real argument, where most lawyers don't half the answers to the questions the judge is asking. But if the process is supposed to train a student to "prepare, prepare, prepare," well, it's pretty much a farce. The average semi-intelligent student sleeps through class, crams at the end of the semester and only really shows up for exams.

In the vacuum of class participation are the gunners, a subset of student who came to the law looking for purpose. The gunner reads the actual cases. He reads a treatise on the cases. He reads biographies of the judges who wrote the opinions and analyzes every issue, from every angle. Armed with endless niggling observations and more interpretations of any given case than have been cast on Shakespeare, he raises his hand in response to every question the professor asks, debating his every point, finishing his sentences and volleying back his every closing comment with "Yes, professor, but what if...?"

This was Kevin. He couldn't help his obnoxiousness. It was unconscious. He'd thrown himself into the gunner's world - a black hole of endless dicta-parsing and mind-numbing midnight arguments with his fellow Trekkies about obscure Supreme Court dissents and the legislative intent behind constitutional amendments. He must have thought knowing everything, throwing every fiber of his being into the concept of law studentry and soaking up every irrelevant detail of every case we studied would render him the world's greatest legal mind. Maybe he assumed the brain was as simple as a bicep - more curls, more strength. My guess is he just wanted to have something to be, other than what he was.

The Perils of Waking and Baking
No, it's not a good idea.

Of all the "office highs," "waking and baking" is the worst. My buddies Les and Martin had been ardent fans of the therapy, and when either of them saw me out, guzzling bourbons and bitching about how much I hated being in the office, it was always the same proselytizing... "You're way too stressed. You need to bake before you go in. It makes the mundane shit interesting. The work becomes a game." To me it seemed a horrible idea and terrible waste of dope. I couldn't blast Traffic or Zeppelin in my office or swap favorite scenes from Trainspotting with my secretary. And what if a partner roped me into some awful meeting? "Hey, __________, can you sit in on a strategy meeting in the Rocco's Industrial Meats case? You know... The one where the guy claims he lost an ear due to an improperly designed conveyor belt. We need a new set of eyes on it." The cost/benefit ratio was terrible. Yes, the "wake and bake" did work, and yes, it could make the morning amusing. But when it failed, it made an already annoying situation fifty times worse.

Continue reading "Gunners and the Perils of Waking and Baking (Nuggets, Vol. VIII)"

Getting hit by a car the morning of that first interview was probably a sign from above. An omen -- God or nature or whatever cosmic force runs the program giving me a hint, and me too stupid to take it.

It was the summer after graduation. I was living at home, studying for bar exams. People say that's a stressful gig, but it seemed more holiday than anything else.¹ Wake up at 10:00, fix breakfast, go to the gym for an hour, come home, turn on music and study on the deck. When I'd memorized enough material I'd go out with friends or rent a movie. Two nights a week I'd go to a bar review course. It was a great summer... Sunshine, free food and a stack of Allmans and Dead discs playing in the background.² The only annoyance was being penniless. Freeloading whiskeys from friends was terribly embarrassing.

I remember the sun waking me up on the morning of the interview, on a couch in the family room downstairs. Shit. I'd wanted to be up at 8:00, but my watch said 8:45. I had less than an hour to race into Philadelphia, park and run into a law firm in the center of town. I showered, shaved, ran out the door and jumped in the truck. Son of a bitch, I slammed my hand on the dashboard. The gas tank was empty. I'd reminded myself half a dozen times the night before - Make sure the truck has gas... Fill the gas tank... You didn't fill the gas tank yet! The self-nagging was wasted. As soon as I started watching television I forgot about the interview. It's always been like that. Try as I might to stay on focus, the minute anything sidetracked me - a newspaper open on the kitchen counter or a phone call from a friend - I forgot everything I was doing. It was annoying to have to run like a madman to make the interview on time, but I couldn't say it was surprising. I did everything at the last second, and though I never admitted it out loud, that was clearly how I liked things - running, confused, planning as I went. There's a freedom in menacing deadlines. Instinct takes over and all you can do is react... You hope.

Continue reading "Jumping a Moving Car, Badly (Nuggets, Vol. VII)"

"You should have bought more kegs." Charles laughed.

"Leo only gave us money for one."

"Idiot." Indeed he was. And standing there on Leo's patio, watching a mosh pit of people push and shove for those last cups of suds, hearing the sound of glass breaking inside as drunks dropped tumblers and bottles of wine on the tile I couldn't help thinking he deserved everything he was getting. From the horrible bad trip he was suffering to his parents throwing him out of the house when they came home and saw the damage, Leo'd earned it all. He'd made an ass of himself, buckling under peer pressure, thinking he could buy status with beer. Everything about the spectacle was embarrassing... That he wanted to be liked so badly and actually thought it would work -- that the people drinking on his patio weren't just using him for his huge empty house.

I remember being confused when Nolan had told me earlier in the week that Leo wanted to throw a keg party, wondering why. "He lives on one of those estates in the country, right? Why not just get a few cases of beer and some bottles of vodka? We could hang out in his pad with some chicks."

"I don't know. He said he wants to throw a keg party."

It didn't make any sense to me. Leo didn't have enough friends for a keg party, and if he thought it would gain him some he couldn't have been more deluded. Our high school was a vicious social hierarchy. It was private and small and the forces that kept the pecking order controlled it with a vengeance. There were the twenty or so hyper-cool kids at the top, the usual prom court and varsity lettermen types. Below them you had The Middle - "acceptable" people in varying grades of popularity. Some of them were social climbers, fawning over the coolest people in the place like a fan club or a pack of Hollywood assistants, trying to punch through to the higher echelon. Some were like me - passive surfers, latching onto the parts of the scene that interested them from time to time, letting go when it wasn't fun anymore.

Managing your slot in the social structure full time seemed an awful lot of work, major effort for a thin, fleeting payoff. It would have been nice to be quarterback, nail all the cheerleaders and have your ass kissed around the school, but as the old Zimmerman song goes, "that was [not] my fate." I wasn't at the top of the pyramid, and that was alright. The way I saw it, as long as I got laid, loaded and got into a decent college where I could get laid and loaded some more, I was doing fine. Really, what else matters between sixteen and eighteen?¹

But that's easy for me to say. I wasn't like Leo. He was at the bottom, a classic American dork - short and skinny and acned, crippled with a litany of nervous social tics. He even spoke with this strange affectation, like he was gnawing on pistachio shells or just left a dental appointment with a tongue full of Novocain. In the easiest, kindest terms, Leo wasn't ripe. He looked like he was still in junior high, waiting for that final push out of puberty... A lousy place in high school, where the women and the alpha males all look twenty-four at seventeen.

Leo'd never be a player in that world, and it looked weak to try - a craven, desperate move... nakedly ambitious. The people he wanted to impress would only respect him less; resent him for thinking he could buy their affections. Leo was stuck in his caste and that wasn't changing no matter how many parties he threw.

Leo didn't see that, of course. All he knew was he wanted a keg, a party, and I had a connection. "Sure. We can get that done." I promised him a keg of Busch, the usual swill. "We'll get it to your place on Friday night, around eight." Who was I to fuck with his dream?

The plan fell through on Friday afternoon, as they always did. Nolan and I drove to the home of our "connection," an alcoholic named Kenny who bought us all of our alcohol. Nobody was home. Just a sign on the door - "Gone up North." The son of a bitch was on a fishing trip. Over the course of the week Leo'd told everyone he saw that he was having a party. The word spread like flu. By Friday afternoon, friends from other high schools were calling me about the thing. I estimated there were at least a hundred people on the way, and now we had no beer.

"Can I borrow your guy?" I called my friend, Melissa and started begging. "The keg for Leo's fell through." I knew she had a wino in one of the housing projects who bought her booze.

"You have to pick me up. He freaks out if he sees strange people." An hour later Nolan, Melissa and I were trolling through the projects, looking for "Carl E.," a middle-aged cirrhotic who fancied himself a player.

"If he talks about being a pimp, humor him." Melissa warned. "He gets mad real easy."

"What's the 'E' stand for?"

"Who cares?"

An hour later I was getting out of my car in a parking lot next to a beer distributor, handing the wheel to a low rent Dolomite reeking of Wild Irish Rose. "Okay. It's all there." He laughed and counted our money. "Now give me your number."

"Excuse me?"

"Give me your telephone number." He barked as he adjusted the rear view mirror in my car. "I have to give them a number when I buy kegs. And make sure it's real. They won't sell to me no more if I give them fakes. I need to buy my own beer in this place, for all my parties, you understand?" Melissa was right - Carl E. got agitated in a hurry. I froze in panic and gave him my home number.

"Michelob..." Carl scribbled the number on an old receipt. "Now that's good fucking beer."

"We just want Busch."

"I know that. I'm talking about my beer. I don't drink fucking Busch. I drink Michelob."

"Sorry. My bad."

Thankfully, blessedly, ten minutes later and one keg heavier we were dropping Carl E. off in the projects, mission accomplished. "This is fine right here." He started opening the door before the car stopped moving. "I got to see a woman in that building over there."

"Thanks, Carl."

"Don't lose that keg." He snapped as he got out. "That's worth good money."

"We won't." Whatever... Just get the fuck out of my car.

An hour later we were in horse country, tapping the keg at Leo's house. An hour after that the place was filled with carloads of high school kids, half of them already loaded on booze they'd stolen from their parents' liquor cabinets. People were all over the house and property, running through the garage and the stable and disappearing into empty rooms to fuck. Some were chugging beers and vomiting, others passing out on couches in the library and lawn furniture on the patios. The place was littered with every rotten stereotype of the hopeless high school drunk - Exhibit "A" in support of the twenty-one year old drinking age.

Continue reading "The Line - Part 4"