Reagan Youth
Went to Hollywood last Sunday to see Reagan Youth and 13 Scars play at Los Globos. Attached my portable oxygen tank to my walker. Laced up the Martens and left the Miracle Ear at home. Always dug Reagan Youth. They were from Queens. Aaayyyy! Fuckin’ Ay. Woodhaven, yo!
However, the main reason was to meet up with Dave Gurz and Michael Essington. They were going to be there signing copies of Under A Broken Street Lamp. Both cool dudes. Real people. Interesting thinkers. I’ve enjoyed their writing. This would be my first chance to get to hang out with either of them. The next day, friends from Santa Fe were going to be in Hollywood. Perfect. I figured I’d rent a roach box to comfort in for the night, and then see Brisa and Dennis the next morning.
Okay. This was going to be fun. I had a lot to look forward to.
You wouldn’t know it by the way I left the house. You’d have thought I was going out to die for the last time. I don’t know if it’s old age or being sober. Probably the synergistic effect of both. I have a hard time getting my lazy ass out the door these days. There’s just so many irritating things that can go wrong “out there.” And nothing that really seems worth it.
Not like here at home.
Sure, if I stayed at home I would probably wind up having to chase out dog-sized racoons from the kitchen, break up a cat-fight between Louie and Boris, poke-out a hissing possum with a mop handle, or swat at bats with a broom.
Actually, I make Lori do that last one. I have to hold a blanket up by the stairway so the bats don’t fly up to the second floor. She’s not tall enough to get a good seal. So that leaves her with broom duty. I’ll hear her swatting and swearing. Knocking shit over. But she always gets them out. She’s pretty good at it. That’s because she’s from hillbilly stock. I’m better behind the blanket. I’m from Queens. Aaay.
My point is that it can be sheer chaos here at the house, but it’s my own…cozy chaos.
Some might say I like to isolate. I call it tactically withdrawing from an oppressive consensus reality. Whatever Post-it note you want to attach. I prefer desolate places. Where I can sit hunched on a jagged rock. Alone in the world. My webbed wings beaten flat by the Broom of Life. Now and then sighing deeply. Beholding the sheer majesty of the Wasteland of Woe. Bitter winds salting the desert with the dried tears of its victims.
Only friendship could coax to come out from the sorrowful sands of Bou-Saada. And go to a punk rock show.
It wasn’t going to be cake walk. Not for me. Somewhere between February 1st 2004 and last night, I misplaced large portions of my edge. I needed to prime myself. But with what? What was left for me? What could I safely use to torque myself into the proper state?
I bought a bag of Brazil nuts. I read they naturally raise testosterone. I think because of the Selenium. I don’t care. I just didn’t want to go to a punk show while suffering from low T-levels. I wanted to get my Agro on. And everyone knows that Agro is just thwarted horniness–from too much testosterone. A rage few men over the age of fifty get to enjoy.
These Brazil nuts better work.
So I can want to rip somebody’s head off.
Because I really want to kiss a girl, instead.
Okay then. That takes care of the head. Now what about the gut?
I stocked up on salami and beans. Old-school fuel. Liquor store war rations. Protein. Fat. Salt. A slow-burning carb. Plus nitrates to add a toxic edge. An army can march on a bellyful of that. No wasting time preparing it. Or waiting for somebody to bring it to you. The preferred grab-n-go of go-getters around the globe, Plug.
Motel room service
Before I left, Lori insisted I take her Mercedes. She was afraid my 2001 Suzuki Esteem wouldn’t make the 47 mile journey. Well, it’s one of the many things that keeps us together as a couple– being afraid of the same things, so I agreed. But reluctantly. I hate to drive her car.
Of course it’s a thousand times better than my rattle trap. That’s the problem. I’m scared I’ll somehow wreck it. I have to be extra careful driving, and Lori already laughs at me. She says I drive as slow as an eighty-year-old woman stoned on medical brownies.
That’s not true. I’m just cautious. I’ve been in so many car wrecks, starting at age five, that the idea of getting into one no longer seems far-fetched. Not like to the ass-holes weaving through lanes with inches to spare. They are immortal gods playing a video game. They don’t care about the sacks of meat hurtling through space in sharp metal boxes around them.
Well this time I wasn’t as concerned about wrapping it around a pole as I was about pulling up at a punk show in a Mercedes.
Besides the ironic social comment it would make, I didn’t want to park it near any roving gangs of anarchists. I could just see one of them keying “Capitalist Pig” into the side of it. I don’t know why I could picture it so clearly. But it made me nervous-er.
One more thing that could go wrong in a scarey world gone mad–having to deal with people like me. Oh God.
At that point I knew I needed to get a grip. Stop the frettin’ and knuckle rubbin’ and man up. Who is this worried little twat? How did he get into me?
Truth is- that quivering worm was always in me. Wiggling just under my sternum. I used to beat it into submission with beer. But eventually, it learned to beat back. Now I have to lay the smack down differently. Have to find a new way to connect with my inner Beasthood. Then strangle The Worm.
I thought about how I could do that. Perhaps drink once more from the fountain of Reagan Youth. Regain the unrealistic ideals of my deformative years. Recapture the rage. Electro-paddle the passion back into arrhythmia.
I hit the signal. Cautiously merged into the Sunday afternoon traffic on the 101. Slowly dragged my Brazil nuts south for the night.
(To be continued)
Degenerated!
Related articles
- Autumn Tour With 13 Scars and Reagan Youth. (sunburnscold.com)
- Going To California. (sunburnscold.com)
TRUDGING THROUGH THE FIRE 