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10/22/2002
EAR PLUGS
Saturday we hit East Atlanta to propagandize our Halloween party,
hitting several area bars before landing at Echo Lounge.
I think it was Tim Lee on stage, or maybe Clobber, when we arrived
around 10. Whoever it was didn't interest us enough and we ended up
in the side room handing out invites to old friends and new.
The Hots came on next. I'd seen the lead singer in another lineup at
the Y2K-eve party at the Clermont Lounge. He's got a great voice, but
The Hots' material was a bit too soulful and poppy for my tastes.
When they venture into rockier waters it's good, but I didn't like
the moody stuff that was the majority of their set.
Magnapop followed, the lead singer saying "Tonight there are no
surprises," before kicking off a set of their straight up punky rock
(can we use the term "fourth wave punk" yet?) Good stuff that got the
crowd bopping along.
Unfortunately for The Silent Kids, most of the crowd split after
Magnapop's set. Magnapop would've made a better closer, but a small
crowd stuck around for the layered pop rocks that Silent Kids crank
out. They've recently picked up former Dragline bassist Henry, who
said the group was "labor intensive." It's a bit more complex than
your average three piece garage rock, but I enjoy it. If you want to
try it for yourself, they play this Friday the 25th at the EARL with
Athen's Of Montreal, Marshmellow Coast, and James William Hindle.
They'll only be a 4 piece for that show, so it may not have quite as
much of a layered sound, which may not be a bad thing.
BLASPHEMY
Friday night and SW is out of town, and when the cat's away the rats
party hardy. Problem is my allergies have evolved into a sinus
infection and I've got too much to do, so my maze running is somewhat
slowed.
First stop, Apres Diem in search of familiar faces on which to push
party propaganda. But gone are the days of its predecessor, Cafe
Diem, where I could show up any time any day and find a familiar, or
at least friendly, face. Now I don't even recognize the hairstyles in
Apres Diem and the faces aren't friendly to someone who doesn't come
in dressed to the nines in the latest fashion.
Upstairs at Dupree's it's dead empty, same at The Highlander. It's
only a matter of time before I give up entirely on my old Midtown
stomping grounds.
Ah well, roll on to Diem's bastard step-child, Carol St. Café, for
desert and ogling. Newbie degenerate LS wrote up a perfect report
about our recent visit there in this week's Loaf (the Best Of issue.)
Recently she asked me "So, are you a big olgler?"
"Oh yes."
"Why? You've got the ultimate girlfriend."
"True. But it's all about the hunt."
Just because I landed the tastiest fish (for me) don't mean I want to
give up sailing. And one of the side effects of chronic shyness is a
tolerance and eventual fetish for voyeurism. One of my favorite
waitresses from the Café Diem days brings me desert while I eavesdrop
on the pretty faces chatting at the neighboring table, difficult to
hear over the thumping bass techo noise that passes for music these
days. Music? This used to be the bass line background of actual songs
in my younger days.
And what's with these stupid jeans with faded asses?
Kids these days.
Get out of my damn yard. I pay good money to have that grass cut.
Fuck, I'm getting old. Four days until I'm 35.
Goddamn.
I don't feel it until I go out alone to places I once prowled where
the new species have moved in and I don't recognize the prey any
more. I still get the occasional friendly glance from a pretty face,
but I don't know the new passwords to get past the latest security
measures.
I never expected my life to be this way. I didn't have any
expectations, frankly, it's taken 34 years 361 days to get to the
point where I start thinking beyond the weekend! The teenager dying
inside me doesn't recognize the new species that has taken over the
territory that is my aging body, Middle Age Man.
"Quit staring at my gut, I'm working on it!"
Thanks, Mike Myers, you bastard.
Mmmm, chocolate mousse cake and cosmopolitains...
Yeah, I'm working on it, alright.
Happy birthday to me. Welcome to Frederick version 3.5.
But it's not all bad. Though my adventuring is no longer 6 nights a
week, the adventures are longer, farther, and stranger than the dying
teenager inside me could ever afford. Though they're strictly
regulated by how much PTO I get annually (that's Paid Time Off for
you non-corporate-drones out there.)
Somewhere along the line Americans got it backwards. Somehow I'm a
leftover, designed on a European model where every day I want to
knock off at lunch for a few hours, get a big meal, a quick screw
and/or a nap, then a leisurely walk back to work. Then it's off to
the café to debate the days' news, discuss great works of art, or
obsess over fashion. Six weeks of vacation guaranteed per year to be
spent lounging seaside in some cheap neighboring country, eating,
drinking, chasing local women, shopping. Back to work tan, relaxed,
and ready to get home to enjoy more life.
But no, in America we frown on enjoying our lives on a daily basis.
40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year in misery, just so we can get two
weeks off. But even those two weeks aren't spent in leisure, we flock
to manufactured "fun" like Vegas and Disney where we return more
spent (and having spent more) than when we left. At home we've got
DVD home theaters to keep us from going out into the night, cowering
on the couch from the lunatics out there in the society we've created.
But it's not just the psychotics we label "serial killer" that make
this society so nightmarish, it's the psychotics we label "commander
in chief" that have me worried.
Who thought this society up? Somehow I doubt the agrarian aristocrats
that were our founding fathers had any idea it would evolve into
this, but I suppose it's inevitable we'd end up with a fractured mess
when we were born of the outcasts and individualists of every other
nation on the earth. Throw in some technology that makes us so mobile
we don't even see our surroundings in the blur and capitalism that
thrusts it at us constantly, claiming it is the true path to
happiness, and this is what you get - the land of misfit toys, a
chaotic storm from which families take refuge in their homes and
theme parks. "Community" is not a word that's used without "gated" in
front of it, and retains about as much of it's original meaning as
"loft apartment."
Eh, enough verbal rambling. And enough physical rambling, the trail
is cold and I'm headed home where I wish my ultimate girlfriend were
waiting on me so she could sooth my nerves and my sinuses with her
touch and copious amounts of pharmaceuticals. But no, she's out of
town.
Guess I'm self-medicating tonight!
Take me to Degenerate Press' home page!
There's no place like home... no place like home...
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