Song 2 (electric boogaloo?)

(and now...I return to the music of my formative years)

Operation Ivy - "Sound System"

"Sound system gonna bring me back up yeah
one thing that I can depend on"

That line burned a small hole in my psyche the first time I heard it. While the song itself isn't linked to any specific event or moment in my life, it does represent the bridging of two musical time zones for me. It also caused me to become a life-long OpIvy fan (despite the naysayers, including my lovely girlfriend).

Late in high school, my life, despite my growing absorption into punk subculture, was ruled by ska. It was the early-mid nineties after all. My very first non-auditorium show was a Mephiskapheles show at the Rathskeller - a Madison free-show bastion - at the tender age of fourteen (yes I know I'm a late bloomer).

By the time I left for my first collegiate endeavor - a less-than successful one - ska was slowly being phased out of my life, in favor of an growing lust for punk. It was during one of those early, fanatical lapses when I was struck with the realization that no particular musical style had to be remanded to the periphery. You'd think this was common sense, but somehow I misplaced that mentality as an upstart teenager. Some people just get sucked into a realm which saps them of their desire to indulge in anything beyond the sonic smeldings which most appeal to them. I became one of those people. In any case, Operation Ivy reminded me of that fundamental understanding: that aphorism which mentions something about variety being highly preferable when seasoning life to taste and enjoy.

The first time I heard "Sound System," I was hanging out in my friend's basement, contemplating shaving my first mohawk; something which didn't actually happen until college. Several years later a similar moment occurred, when lounging around my friend's dorm room, as he fanned his fiery red mohawk, this minor epiphany struck upon me. Unfortunately, any philosophical development was temporarily shelved, as the conundrum of 18-year-old kids acquiring beer drastically outweighed enlightenment.

That night, we listened to that CD nearly constantly as we rode to the punk show, top down in his restored 68 mustang, mohawks flapping in the breeze. Ever since that evening, a warm glow spreads through me every time I hear this song, and Operation Ivy in general.

Happy Hour's Over

Our calm was washed out to sea by the anger surging across her face. His eyes reflected a tired shadow cast from broken windows; jagged remnants of demon teeth in his brain. I'd been drunk since clocks forgot how to tick and was itching severely from Sebhoritic Dermatitis. She clicked her heels three times, mentally, trying to rid herself of the fantasy world we all seemed to dwell in. His rectum clenched, preparing for the inevitable harbingers of metaphorical stormy seas; doomsday-tsunami tombs. I loosed a river of vodka down my throat, burning, yearning for something insufferable and insoluble (perhaps ineffable as well). Her machete gaze readied on the back-swing, poised to unleash heads - spurts of emotive arterial spray. His watch hadn't worked in months, but he glanced at it anyway. I leaned my head into my hands, a ruse to dispel any notions that my ears were, at that moment, stretching ever closer to their auditory inferno. That I was, in effect, pulling up an eavesdropping stool. Her teeth grimaced almost individually as her jaw ground back and forth. Her eyes quivered sullenly, pretending to forget everything they'd been privy to. He slid his self-deprecating shield into place and readied his facetious foil, yet remained there, poised above his defeatist dagger. I sucked fire through paper-rolled tobacco, abetting the smoggy ambiance while fluffing at my short-long (now far less business in the front than party in the rear). I motioned surreptitiously to the embroiled, bartender. He slid anxiously down the bar, as though I had asked him a huge favor. She wavered above that razor's edge of the moment, hovering like a swaying cobra's hood, as he recoiled in de facto horror. And I sat there, erect, at new-Army-recruit attention (a feat mimicked by other bystanders). Her imminent strike held us white-knuckled, clutching our respective pints, shots or carafes for dear life. Then, in an appropriate anti-climax, she sighed - a sound far bleaker than an sub-arctic winter morning, plodding out the door with a squeaky clank.

I dare say we all felt deflated as we returned to our drinks; the remote twang of honky-tonk on the jukebox trickling across the suddenly lunar landscape.

Not-so-triumphant return to Cult.

It has been nearly two years since I deigned to call myself a blogger. I can't believe this site hasn't been utterly shut down. I owe it primarily to Google for itself pushing Plex (user-wise). So, since I'm still here - why not still be here.

So here I am in Austin, Tx (would you believe it!). This from someone who ten years prior promised himself he'd never live in Tejas. Man how the years change a person. Worst of all, I pretty much like it a lot. Of course Austin is a far cry from Texas Proper, i.e. shoot-outs, lynchings, Alamo defending, and gun-rack couture, which is itself a far cry from anything but loophole extremism. And that's just fine by me.

So, here I remit to old habits, to persuading myself that I have the courage to blog again. I rise, not so much like the Phoenix, but more so like the dung beetle from the compost heap, once more into the world wide web of self-promotion and irrelevant data overload. For what is one, if they are not a self-deprecating fool?

Confidant, I suppose.