EXILED ON MAIN STREET #7

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in

Exiled on main street

· 2 hours ago

COULD THIS BE THE LAST ISSUE BEFORE BILL JOINS THE PROMISE KEEPERS??

One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.

- G.K. Chesterson

IN THE ZONE

I like that the new station in town refers to itself as "alternative radio." They don't use the term "rock 'n' roll" at all, which is good as that word reminds me of things like fun, sex, liberation, beer, dancing, promises of a new day, and all kinds of other things that make me dream or wake up in the morning and say "what can I do to be alive today?" "Alternative" is a better, simpler word because it says by listening to this station I'm different and perhaps even cutting edge.

I also like that this station's songs aren't too loud or too fast. If they were, I might sing along or tap my foot or want to dance, and doing any of those things might make me think of rock 'n' roll. In fact, many of this station's songs only remotely resemble rock 'n' roll, which is good. Rock 'n' roll is passé, alternative is so much cooler, and I want to be cool.

I also like that this station doesn't play any hip-hop. Hip-hop has too much of a beat and the vocalists usually have a strong presence and personalities and are quite good with words. Plus, many hip-hop artists describe an America that I don't see every day, and that makes me think too much. If I have to listen to hip-hop, I want it to be filtered to me by one of my alternative artists.

I also like how this station doesn't play any speed metal. Someone once told me that speed metal was alternative back when alternative was something called "college rock," but I said no, speed metal has always just been speed metal. Plus, many speed metal artists describe an America that I don't see every day, and that makes me think too much. Besides, speed metal reminds me of punk, which reminds me of rock 'n' roll, which is passé. Rock 'n' roll reminds me of too many things that interfere with my being alternative.

I also like how this station doesn't play too much PJ Harvey. In fact, the only time I've heard her on this station was late-night on a Saturday. I don't like it when they play her on the radio - she has a serious blues jones, and alternative music is decidedly un-bluesy. She also breathes heavy and has loud guitars and drums in a manner reminiscent of Led Zeppelin, who sang a song titled "Rock and Roll" where they borrowed the drum beat from Little Richard, who helped invent rock and roll, and rock and roll is passé. She comes off like the Voodoo Woman in all those old hoary blues songs and alternative music doesn't remind me of old blues songs, which are all about death and sex and drinking and a bunch of other scary stuff that isn't too cool. Her songs are about dancing, and cutting off her lover's legs, and being twenty inches long, and sleeping with the devil, and moaning, and long snakes, and being on Highway 61, and redemption, and a bunch of other stuff that makes me think too much. Besides, she has made Statements like issuing her demos in album form when she doesn't like the job her producer did on one of her albums. Things like that show that she dares to be great, and listening to her makes me want to dare to be great. But I don't want to dare to be great, I just want to be alternative.

So I'm digging this new alternative radio station in town. When I'm working at my temp job and am wearing my Dockers and blue shirt and thinking about Mad About You, it's good to have the soothing sounds of alternative music in the background.

NOTES FROM THE TEMPORARY WORKPLACE

My day job these days involves working at Big Department Store. Male model? No ... I sit in a cubicle in the finance department and make spreadsheets all day. Random observations:

Big Dept. Store recently canceled plans to build a big ol' store out in the Far Western Suburbs, causing heartache all over town as those folks will still have to drive their sports-utility vehicles to Edina or Minnetonka to fulfill their shopping experiences. Damn, I'm gonna write my congressman! Anyway, some big shot issued a memo answering the FAQ on this controversy. My favorite question and answer was:

Q: How much time and money was spent planning for this store?
A: A significant amount of time and money was spent planning for this store.

My favorite gal on my floor is classily attractive and impossibly thin. The other day she told me she was having a bad hair day and asked what she should do. Sirens went off in my head - this is one of those situations in which the fairer sex poses a question in which there is no right answer. My back was figuratively up against the wall. Don't know how I did it, but I responded with the only smooth moment I'll have this year. I said "I think your hair looks just fine." Saying "it looks great" would have been too obvious and "just fine" was acknowledged as being smooth on her part. Woo hoo! I think it should be noted that her name is Shawna and that she has a twin sister named Shelly.
Instead of being called a "temp," I'm referred to as a "temporary associate." Wow.
Bud Selig gives temporary associates everywhere a bad name.
Big Dept. Store has a two-page memo detailing the Dos and Don'ts of Business Casual Day.
I finally got my Big Temp Agency coffee mug. A staffing manager from the agency stopped by the other day. She tried to give it to the guy I report to, but it's against company policy for him to accept gifts. So she left it with me. I feel so appreciated.
An attractive blonde woman (attractive in that smart-business way) provokes the occasional fantasy, and then her blonde cheerleader daughter stopped by one day for a visit. Ouch.
One guy has a print in his cubicle that has a nature scene along with the word "perseverance." Then underneath it says, "in the battle between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins not because of strength but because of persistence." I love giving up, so I can't quite appreciate this nifty Successories quote. And every time I think about it, I end up having to take a trip to the bathroom to make my bladder gladder.
Remember the 1981 Cincinnati Reds? I have the highest winning percentage overall in the weekly office football pool, but have yet to win a single week's competition, so I have no money to show for my acumen. The sweet thing is that I have yet to watch more than five minutes of any NFL game this year, although the two best naps I've had lately have been during NFL games. There was the Purple vs. Buffalo game which I ignored while in one of those reclining lawn chairs on my parents' patio - my dad had the TV outside and the neighbors over. I had my shades on and was full from leftover turkey sandwiches, potato salad, and a couple three four beers and blissfully slept through all the chatter. Then there was the Green Bay vs. Detroit game where I crashed on the floor for an hour or so. I was tired from being up at seven a.m. to watch the Ryder Cup (an aside: although I'd love to see Colin Montgomerie hop into a Mercedes driven by a Prozac-addled drunk, I'd rather he continue golfing as you know he will someday get his karmic comeuppance ...) and needed the rest.

BLACK HAWK NEVER HAD A SAY

That our October holiday shouldn't be called Columbus Day isn't so much a PC thing, as it is that we, as Americans, shouldn't want to have a national holiday named after such a goofball.

Check this out:

Columbus thought he had found a quicker way to get to Asia and convinced some king and queen (boy that must have been a real meeting of the intellects) to fund his first voyage. Problem was, he had calculated the earth to be 25% smaller than it actually is. He also thought the earth was made up of mostly land. (Note: it was common knowledge - except probably with the pope - in Columbus' time that the earth was round. The myth that everyone back then thought the earth was flat was invented by Washington Irving.)
He never did reach the mainland, he just bumped into some islands and thought he had hit Asia. It reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld where George declares De Soto his favorite explorer because he discovered the Mississippi and Jerry says "like they wouldn't have found it anyway." That there were people (who he named "Indians" because he thought he was in the Indies) already living on these islands is proof that he didn't "discover" anything. Later, Columbus proceeded to slaughter the inhabitants of Haiti, one of the islands he bumped into. What a dick!
He wasn't even the first European to bump into North America. That was Norwegian Biarni Heriulfson. But as we all know, America had been discovered thousands of years before by some folks who just walked on over.

So we have holidays named after great men like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln (I'm talking old school holidays here - none of this President's Day stuff), and Martin Luther King Jr., all of who spent their entire lives knowing what continent they were on. I'm bummed about all the hours in school I wasted learning about this Columbus clown. In sixth grade we actually staged some big play about him. (And remember in class how some kid would always ask the teacher "didn't the Indians discover America?" and the teach would always come up with some white-man Eurocentric propaganda to throw us all off the scent?) Anyway, get Columbus off of my calendar and get me somebody not so overrated - our history has got to be chock full (Chief Joseph? Crazy Horse?) of real heroes.

TALKIN' JAYHAWKS

'Twas hopin that this would be the Bill Tuomala Shows You How section, wherein I tell you how to get to a respectable distance from the stage and live to tell about it. Because I'm tellin you, when I got to the Ave for the Jayhawks show on that Friday night, it was like I was Wayne Gretzky or something. They always describe The Great One as being able to see the ice from above, and I was definitely above the bar that night in my vision. I was seeing things before they happened. Nary the odd shoulder or elbow bumped me as I cruised the balcony and main floor seeing what was up and who was who.

But of course, at some point my good run this evening had to end. And as this was a sold-out show and as the Jayhawks are a band with an appeal beyond the Scene, you knew that some of Them would have to show up. Who I'm talking about is the Men With No Necks and The Too-Tall Men. The guys who show up at a gig because they Want To Rawk. They've heard the band on Your Home for Classic Rawk (tucked away between Supertramp and Crosby, Stills, and Nash) and they're here because A) It's Time to Rawk and, B) They don't know when they're favorite Rawkin Alternative Band - The Matchbox Pipe - are comin to town next.

Am I stereotypin? Sorry, but it happens to be a dead-on generalization and these dolts who are the No-Neck Men can be picked out because they walk into a bar with a real beer selection and invariably order A) Miller Lite, B) Bud Light, or C) Miller Genuine Draft. Then they stand in their position - legs slightly spread, baseball hats cocked just right - and they drink their shit beer in desperate gulps and talk about whatever they talk about. (And I'm guessin it's about how much they hope the band rawks or about how much Miller or Anheuser-Busch products they're gonna drink during the Purple game on Sunday.) There's another thing: if the band is a quieter one, they talk loud enough so that you can't hear the band quite right; and if the band is a loud one, they bend whatever they have for necks towards each other to yell in each other's ears and hence block your view.

The Too-Tall Men aren't quite as bad. They're a little quieter because they live above the rest of us. Because their life-long efforts to stoop their bodies or crane their necks to talk to us mere mortals have worn them out, they spend a lot of time thinking while they're Up There. Hence, they aren't too bad of guys and are just annoying when they stand in front of you and you can't see. You still got to bitch about them though, when you're stuck down here in 5-8 land. Like the guy yelled at the Social Distortion show last year: "is it just me or did a whole basketball team show up?"

You may remember back in issue #4 I detailed a dream I had had about joining the Jayhawks. You'll all be glad to know that I wasn't invited onstage with them on this evening and hence didn't expose the world to my rudimentary guitar playing and flat singing voice. Besides, aside from my lack of talent, I'm not attractive enough to be in these revamped Jayhawks. They've always had that bass player with the Rock Star Looks and now they've got one of those Run Westy Run brothers on guitar (and let's face it - all girls and most guys have crushes on the Run Westy Run brothers) and have you seen their violin player? Yowsa ... my notes say something like "she could play with my bow anytime," but anyway she is smokingly sexy. Omigod.

Oh yeah, was it just me or did their "heavy" version of "Waiting for the Sun" employ the best use of a "Back in Black" riff since Run-DMC's "Raising Hell"?

Diminished expectations? I've been using the phrase "dare to be great" lately. At First Avenue, I decided I needed to dare to be great and did so by ordering a 25-ounce Foster's.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR (SO FAR)

The new Whiskeytown release, which is the album I was hoping Son Volt was going to put out this year, is spending a lot of time in my disc player. Here's my further thoughts on Whiskeytown's Strangers Almanac album:

This album reminds me of a beautiful loser I once knew. We were on a road trip filled with long talks about philosophy, religion and life. Driving down a two-lane highway at dusk and fighting to keep that one good station we found on the dial locked in, we decided to stop a couple of hours from our destination for a bump in this tavern on the edge of a small town.

We sat in a corner booth staring into our drinks as the jukebox played one memory after another. During one song, the beautiful loser said the song playing reminded him of those songs he would hear when he was a kid and would ride to the hardware store with his dad on Saturday afternoons. I said it reminded me of a girl I fell for years ago. She had been the one person you get involved with that when it ends, you either move on and build something new and better; or you give up and scurry for the corners and the shadows. Ain't love strange, I said.

I told someone I loved her once, the beautiful loser said, she said 'stop saying that.'

WRITING VS. WRITHING

If some prescription-happy doctor (and aren't they all) were to see my writing mind, he would put me on depression medication quicker than you could say "manic depression is a frustrated mess." For instance, when I'm writing and like what I'm writing, I'm King of the World and swagger my way through the day, smiling the whole time, life couldn't be better, etc.

But when I'm in a slump (they always occur after an issue of Exiled gets put in the mail), I'm convinced I'll never write anything worthwhile again. I write almost every day regardless of whether I feel it is good or bad writing, and my conversations with myself when I'm down are full of melodrama. Usually, I sum up my so-called career: "well, that's it - I'm spent. I had a good run: forty-nine issues of The Wyman Weekly and six issues of Exiled ... got a couple of stories and an essay published on the coasts ... met some other writers and other assorted cool people. Guess I better wear a shirt and tie and run with the creeps now..."

But by now, this up-and-down cycle is predictable. So when I'm slumping, I look in the mirror and yell "YOU SUCK!!!" and then usually start chuckling.

WHY I HATE 'THE BIG CHILL'

I remember the first time I watched The Big Chill was during Wednesday night movies they'd have in the lounge in good ol' Walsh Hall at UND. I think one of the opening scenes has Glenn Close's character crying in the shower. My ex-roomie Todd Burianek then cracked "no hot water." I lost it and laughed out loud, and in retrospect that is my favorite recollection of the movie. I liked the movie the first time I saw it, but it didn't hold up after the second viewing. As movies go, it's a Cute Boomer Movie, just like how Forrest Gump was a Cute Boomer Movie. And you can take what you want from that statement.

Anyway, the reason The Big Chill is a landmark of aggravation in my life is that it is where I trace the beginnings of my resentment of sixties nostalgia. There's that one scene where Jeff Goldblum's character says that there has been lots of good music that has come out in the past ten or fifteen years. One of the other characters says "name it." And there's no response! I'm not going to bother making a list here, as I know you all have heard tons of great music that has come out post-sixties.

And post-Big Chill we had way too many people soaking up its soundtrack and all of its spinoffs and then waxing nostalgic about "how they don't write 'em like that anymore.'' It was one of those persons who told me how much she liked Motown music. Then she would play some Sam and Dave and I would point out they were on the Stax label and recorded in Memphis. "You know what I mean," was the response I got. Also, I had people telling me about "how cool" it would have been to be a young person in the sixties. I would mention that being draft age when a war is going on isn't a cool thing at all, but my comments usually fell on deaf ears.

Fortunately, the tide turned. Movies like River's Edge came out, where a Big Chill-like ex-hippie looked ridiculous as a teacher preaching about the sixties and yelling "we stopped a war, man!" (Note: some boomers tend to credit themselves for stopping a war that the North Vietnamese ended. They also credit themselves for inventing rock 'n' roll as their classic rock stations' playlists start around 1964.) River's Edge also had a soundtrack by Slayer, which probably wouldn't happen nowadays in the age of Soundtrack as Big Moneymaker, but then as I write that I sound like some kinda eighties piner, don't I? Which I'm not.

Another cool backlash movie was Pump Up the Volume, in which Hard Harry (played by Christian Slater in his last cool role) urges kids to take back the airwaves and he also says "my parents are always talking about... the sixties and how cool it was. Well look where the sixties got them, huh?", then proceeds to badly sing "c'mon people now smile on your brother everybody get together try to love one another right now" which was the chorus of that Youngbloods song "Get Together" that Nirvana proceeded to use for the same effect in "Territorial Pissings."

So what's my point? Dunno, I just wanted to write about how I want to watch the Michigan State / Michigan football game on October 25 and cheer for Michigan State. You see, in The Big Chill the yuppies all are Michigan alumni and they spend part of the movie watching a MSU / UM game and cheering for the Wolverines. Problem is, rumor has is that Michigan is where the bourgeois send their kids to school and State is for the proles. So either this scene has some sort of implied meaning, or the Big Chill gang were sellouts from the gitgo. My vote goes for the latter. Go Spartans!

INFO

Everything written by me, except where noted. Richard Shenkman's book Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History was of invaluable help for "Black Hawk Never Had a Say."

In an attempt to break even, print readers are paying $1.00 for each issue ($4.00 for five issues.) This is going out free to you email and fax readers as there are no postage or photocopying costs. However, cash donations are glady accepted.