EXILED ON MAIN STREET #2

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· 1 month ago

Sometimes when someone greets me and I'm not sure what they have said, instead of saying "pardon?", I'll assume they said "how are you doing?" and will reply "doing okay - how are you?"

I was at the Turf Club recently and the keyboard player from one of the bands who had performed earlier walked by. I said "hey - good set!" and he nodded at me and said "doing okay - how are you?"

KIDS DON'T FOLLOW

I recently interviewed for an accounting position. The office was described as being full of "A" personalities. For being full of "A" personalities, they sure took there time in getting back to me. They had said they'd be in touch in a couple of days, and it turned out to be more than two weeks. They eventually called me to see if I had any interest in the position. In the meantime, I had decided to adopt the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it strategy to my lifestyle, so I had to say no thanks. I can't deal with too many "A" personalities, anyway - what's their big hurry? Am I a "B" personality? Passive? That's me. Don't give a shit, slacker, whatever ... ya know all I did here was to obey my Rule #2 of Life.* I was supposed to be at Big Health for six weeks, and now it's been five months. Supposedly I'm talented, but sometimes I don't even try too hard at work. Maybe I'm just too conscientious at this accounting/bookkeeping stuff for my own good.

This all reminds me of the fifth grade. We had this spelling bee and it was to be held in the school gym in front of the whole school. In order to qualify to be one of the ten finalists who would compete, we had to take a preliminary spelling test. I was scared to even talk in class, so no way did I want to get up and talk in front of every student in the building. I tried to tank the test. I spelled a few words intentionally wrong, trying not to screw up too much (otherwise the teacher, who knew I was bright, would be on to me) but tank it enough to not qualify for the finals.

I still made the finals. I was terrified, and got eliminated because I couldn't spell "oasis" (which I spelled "o-v-e-r-r-a-t-e-d") correctly. (Okay, I didn't spell it that way, but that is the word I got wrong.) So I didn't take the above-mentioned job because I'd be good at it, and I don't wanna deal with having to be responsible, and sitting in meetings being responsible. No thanks.

*I came up with my Rules of Life back in February of 1989 while driving a Chevy pickup down I-94. The girl I was traveling with asked me what the meaning of life was, and I said I didn't know, but I that I knew a few simple rules to live by. She, of course, asked what these rules were. I then made these up on the spot, have tried to follow them, and just look at how well-adjusted I am. (cough, cough) The young lady? She found God (He's so competitive!) shortly thereafter and I haven't talked to her in years.

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THE RULES OF LIFE
by Bill Tuomala

1. Don't force things.
2. Avoid responsibility whenever possible.
3. When in doubt, take a nap.
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TAKE MY WORD

I just read Steve Erickson's Amnesiascope, which excited me like no book has since Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. And dem's mighty big words. You've heard of books that are so good that you can't put them down? This book is so good that at times I had to put it down. The writing is so brilliant, incisive, insightful, and humorous that at times I set the book down, took a deep breath, and just thought about what the man had written. What's it about? It's about a decadent Los Angeles in the near future. It's about sex. It's about America. It's about taking a stand, dealing with the world, and how we all try to get along. It's about a bunch of things that make you think. It's a breathtaking tour de force.

How I discovered Erickson provides a (scary?) insight into how my mind works: I was walking through Baxter's Books during my lunch hour and saw a book with a tattered American flag on its cover. I grabbed the book, Erickson's Rubicon Beach, and read the always-hyped blurbs on the back. But wait - Greil Marcus, one of my favorite writers, declared it "the best novel of the year (1986.)" And I'd been thinking of Marcus lately as I had just had a conversation about him with a friend. So I go back to the office, surf the Net (fuck work! there's research to be done!) in search of stuff about Erickson, and decide to read Amnesiascope. I get it from the library and when I finally venture to open it (I had to dare myself because the blurbs on this novel are even grander than those on Rubicon), the first page contains a quote from Mott the Hoople, who I had just got done listening to. So obviously, Erickson was my destiny and is now my new hero.

I recently picked up Invisible Republic by Greil Marcus from the library. Imagine my surprise to see that on the back, Nick Hornby praises it. Inside Marcus quotes Amnesiascope, and it's one of the same passages that I photocopied and put it my writing sketchbook for inspiration.

YOU CAN'T STOP HIM ...

After spending almost four days over Memorial Day Weekend at my parent's cabin in central Minnesota, where the radio comes in from mostly Fargo, I have this to say: when it comes to commercial radio, the Twin Cities is just a warm weather Fargo.

... YOU CAN ONLY HOPE TO CONTAIN HIM

You know how everyone must face The Thing They Fear the Most? And after this showdown, they either emerge victorious and enjoy life and all of its rich surprises to the fullest; or they fail, and scurry away into hiding, eventually just becoming a bitter, shadowy, shell of their former selves? Well, I think the Verve Pipe is my Moment of Truth. Can I face down the sappy and just-plain-bad aura of this band?

Now, I've only heard three songs by these guys on the radio. The first song I heard by them back in '96 was "Photograph." If you're going to name a song with the same title as Def Leppard's masterpiece, you better have a dandy of a tune coming our way. They didn't. Then they had this song called "Cup of Tea," where in the chorus the lead singer would yell "this is not my CUP OF TEA!!" Yeah, well drink coffee or beer like a real American, ya dork! I saw them open for my main men Semisonic last year and they were boooring. I think eventually I drank my beer and stared at the cigarette machine and pretended it was holding a guitar. It was an improvement.

Lately they've had this song called "The Freshmen" which has some of the most godawful lyrics I've heard in a while. Now, normally I let lyrics go because so many great songs have nonsense lyrics, but when they lyrics are thrust out to be an integral part of the song and then said lyrics go "now I'm guilt stricken, sobbing with my head on the floor, stop a baby's breath and a shoe full of rice," I can't hold back.

"The Freshmen" will become (or has become?) the equivalent of that Bon Jovi "at prom that night you and me we had a fight" song from a decade ago. I just know in dorm halls across the country there's all these pitiful eighteen year olds cryin' at 2 a.m. after their beer bashes, listenin' to the Verve Pipe! Ah fuck.

But Verve Pipe, Live, all those Pearl Jam Lites, man, they're too damn earnest , soul-searching, ... and ultimately just boring. Give me some variety, please. And I know there's bands out there who have a sense of humor, and who can swing, and have personality. But on the radio all I hear is these Sensitive Young Men. I get sick of everyone telling me that all these young bands do is whine - a perception brought about by the fact it seems like because for every fun band like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones there's ten Lives lurking around the corner. So I blame radio, and on Memorial Day weekend, I was haunted by the Verve Pipe and "The Freshmen."

Goddamn Verve Pipe. All tender and everything, but lacking any personality whatsoever. You know, David Lee Roth is looking for a job. And who's got more personality than Diamond Dave? If I were king, I'd send Dave to Michigan and make the Verve Pipe hook up with him. I can see it already: Dave starts off by pouring a bunch of Jack Daniels down the throats of each and every Verve Pipers throat. Loosen up, join the party, NOW! Then the lead singer and the keyboardist croak and the two guitarists want to fight Dave. Well, we know Dave will kick their asses - literally - cuz we've all seen those old Van Halen vids where Dave's doin' those high kicks and those of us who bothered to research know that Dave knows his martial arts. So Dave puts the guitarists straight into the hospital, declares himself in charge of the band, and hires Joe Satriani as his right-hand man/foil/guitarist/etc. Why Joe Satriani? Well, because Eddie Van Halen is too busy making "barbecue music for yuppies" (Dave's words) and Smokin' Joe is by far the best of the lot of all of the post-Ed guitarists. Yeah, Joe knows a thing or two about melody and rhythm and plus he's always smiling. He's the guy. Vai, Malmsteen, all those puds are too serious, their solos are pure wank off, and besides - this new Verve Pipe is not about guitar solos, it's about swinging! Swinging as in the "roll" part of rock 'n' roll which also means Dave puts Steven Adler behind the drums, but it's a secret as to not alert everyone that almost all of the original Verve Pipe has been replaced - except for the bass player, who no one listens to anyway.

Regardless of how many albums the Verve Pipe have put out, the first Roth/Satriani effort gets called Verve Pipe II, because that title alone means business. This album features a hit single called "Swing the Night Away" and a punked-out (punk as in garage, not mohawks) anthem called "Alive or Dead." Yeah!

Then comes Children and Women First, in which Joe makes all kinds of weird noises on his guitar, and Dave sings about drinkin' and arguin' with his parents and girlfriend. It also contains the opening-song ripped-jeans anthem, "And the Crib Will Rock", which becomes a fave down at the Jiffy Lube and makes all the precious freshmen across the nation wish they also worked at the Jiffy Lube.

Next up is Affair Warning, arguably the best and certainly the most misunderstood of the Verve Pipe albums. In one package is power-riffing power pop, reggae dabbling, and dark stories like "Mean Avenue", which opens the album and paints a picture of America in Decline. The mood doesn't lift for too much of the rest of the album, and by the end, Dave is scooting out the window to hide from his woman's husband.

Well, Verve Pipe have faced their fears, and then what? What do you do after you've made the nineties metal answer to Exile on Main Street? Verve Pipe bounces back with Driver Down, a short album of fuckoffs and covers. The kids buy it, but most of us feel cheated after a couple of spins.

Then, after what seems an eternity (as they usually put out albums once a year - none of this Big Rock Star as The Thinker pose and putting out an album every three years), they unleash Brave New World, which finds Dave actually singing some, Joe dabbling in synthesizers, and all the songs being mostly great. The videos, too.

The critics have all along complained that they had heard all of this stuff before, but then the original Verve Pipe released "The Freshmen" twice over the span of four years and nobody complained then.

You know the rest: Dave splits to go replace Bono in U2, and Joe retires to spend his time giving guitar lessons. The remaining members of the Verve Pipe hire Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora to replace them and the rest of their albums suck.

TEMPS DON'T TAKE DRUG TESTS

I don't typically sing out loud in public places, but the other day I did. It was first thing in the morning, and I was in the elevator lobby at work, waiting for the up elevator. I found myself singing Wilco's "Red-Eyed and Blue" and was at the part about "some drugs we can't afford" and then of course the elevator opened and a coworker walked out to hear my vocalizing.

BACK OF A CAR

prose poetry by Paula Belmont

open road
and sitting in the back of a car,
music blasting,
green trees,
greener fields,
blue skies,
car moving forward.
cowbell lights coming at us
from the other side of life,
the map says you are here
and the radio towers are ignored.
cars for sale.
you should buy one,
put the writer in the back seat
with the discount furniture,
the tired eyes,
the baggage of a past not faced,
a future not acknowledged,
and a present full of smiles,
little victories,
and cold shoulders.

GRUDGE

I was set to write this following piece as a revenge fantasy. Every once in a while on a metro cable station, I see this girl who I went to junior high with. She's currently hosting this infomercial that stars 1) her legs, and 2) the local "culture," which to her and her producers means places like the Maul of Amerika and other suburban moonscape wastes of space. She verbally tormented me through a good part of seventh grade. We had homeroom together, and as I sat there reading a book, she would say shitty things about me really loud. I didn't do anything to provoke this treatment and I don't remember what exactly she said, but she made it a point to do it every day. But who wants to hear about my sad sack existence as an adolescent? Not you, and I certainly don't want to write about it - the past is gone and I've moved on. This gal grew up to be rather attractive, but peaked look-wise around the same time she turned bar age. So now I see her on TV and I drink beer while I laugh at her arms that are getting plump and her hair that is stuck in the late eighties. But ya know, like I said, I've moved on - so I won't write anything mean about her.

And what exactly are the politics of long-term grudges brought about as the result of being picked on while a youngster? Later in seventh grade, some eighth grade guy picked on me verbally in the hallways almost every day. I don't remember what he said, either, but I was scared of him. He was shorter than me, but was a tough guy and if I even looked at him in a remotely disrespectful way, he would threaten me with physical pain. This guy scared the shit of me. God, how I hated him. He eventually gave up on picking on me. What happens to these bullies? Do they just go out and find new targets?

Once I was at a party in college and a guy came up to me. Did you go to Schroeder Junior High, he asked. Yes, I replied. I took a look at him. It was the guy who had tormented me back in seventh grade. You! I yelled. He took a step back, sized me up and down, and said: looks like you turned out all right. What could I possibly say to that? We shook hands and shot the shit over a beer.

DOWN WITH THE KING

My favorite commercial on TV these days is for the World Wrestling Federation's "King of the Ring" extravaganza. I don't plan on watching this event, trust me, but this commercial rules! It starts with this king, who's wearing a blue cape and shiny crown, eating this big ol' turkey drumstick. These two hungry kids are holding plates, watching the king chow down, and begging "please, king, we're hungry." "Get lost, brats," he says while handing the drumstick to his dog. He then proceeds to choke on his feast. He awakes in a cloudy, brightly lit place, surrounded by babes wearing white. Standing in a wrestling ring, he realizes where he is at and raises his arms in triumph. "Ah, heaven - the great ring in the sky." He folds his arms across his chest and smugly declares, "I truly am ... The King." Suddenly, he gets hit on the head with a guitar. It was swung by Elvis, who says, "not so fast, Lawler!" (I think Lawler is the name of this guy, he must be a wrestler.) Then the camera pans to a long table of kings sitting there, I was able to pick out King Tut and Don King amongst them. One by one, all of them state that this arrogant guy is "not a king." He gets put back in the ring, where everyone proceeds to beat the crap out of him. "Where am I?" he cries, and then Elvis does a wicked karate kick on him to knock him out. We then see the devil sitting on his throne, grinning. "The WWF King of the Ring: coming soon," Elvis says over the details showing the date and time of the show, "thankyouverymuch."

Naysayers will criticize this commercial's cheap-o production values and that it pretty much rips off that milk commercial with the yuppie who thinks he is in heaven and starts eating a bunch of big chocolate chip cookies. But this "King of the Ring" ad, along with that milk ad, make statements of biblical proportions. Specifically, they ring of Matthew 19:24 "...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

And what is the King of Rock 'n' Roll doing in hell? Doing a stint as an avenging angel, of course. Thankyouverymuch.

AND IT WAS 3.2

So I'm in the SuperAmerica on 35th and Nicollet one afternoon and there's a guy with shades on and a yuppie-style hat being rung up by the cashier. He's buying two 40's of High Life and the cashier (who was being trained in) isn't ringing his purchase up RIGHT AWAY, so he starts bitching about the service. What a dick. I have seen his type before. He was the one in gym class who would be competitive in everything and would yell too much during volleyball and distract your eyeing the dollies in their blue-and-white uniforms. He's the one at work who acknowledges you by saying "hey guy" because he doesn't care to learn your name. The cashier says relax, he says no I won't relax, this isn't efficient. She says you'll get to your beer soon enough. He says soon? that's why I make twenty dollars an hour and you make seven. She says settle down you'll get to your beer soon and then the other people behind the counter start talking about him like he's not there, like: hey, he makes twenty dollars an hour, he's sooo much better than us, etc. The dick gets in a slow burn, telling them they'll never see twenty dollars an hour in their lifetimes. As he's leaving (I woulda said it sooner but I was chickenshit), aloud I posed the most pressing question in this sordid affair: twenty dollars an hour and he drinks Miller?

Everything written by me, except where noted.

The influence/inspiration running amok in "... You Can Only Hope to Contain Him" should be readily apparent to anyone who has passed Lester Bangs 201.

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