You're Going To Have To...Get Used To It

Last night, in another caffeine and whiskey mental muddle, I was going to write this. I was going to write this weeks ago, actually. Then I went home to visit the family, and the Berkshires with Mom and Dad, well, it's not a very rock-and-roll region, is it? Then back to L.A., but also back to the stress of being broke and unemployed and having to pay rent and car care, etc. Join that with jet lag, or allergies, or some kinda cold. And then last night, instead of writing, it was another look at Lebowski. If I were Axl Rose, I'd never get around to finishing another Guns-n-Roses album. Oh, wait.

I don't want to be Axl Rose. I don't want to live like a rock star. I want to live like a musician, albeit one with no musical ability. I just want to get into the grooves and get laid. It's that easy, that simple.

There's a difference between a rock star and a musician on 'is way up, and it's millions of dollars (That easy, that simple). A rock star needs to provide for the lifestyle, needs to feed the beast. So there's pressure. The sophomore-and-on records gotta sell. And that's the difference between Clapton in the 60s and Clapton being produced by Babyface ("If I Could Change the World" from the soundtrack to Phenomenon, which I use as an example because "Tears In Heaven" is too easily the Claptrap to hate). It's "Sweet Emotions" Aerosmith versus "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing."

I want authenticity (thankfully, Clapton and Aerosmith returned to it with rootsier recordings). Authenticity doesn't require stress and careful calculation. It's the difference between rock and pop. Pop is product versus art.

I like the Stones more than the Beatles because the Stones weren't poseurs. The Beatles put on suits and ironed their shirts and wrote hooks, and the Stones wouldn't get haircuts and wrote riffs. The Stones couldn't get played on the BBC because Mick sounded too black, and rock-and-roll is black music. The Beatles were mostly optimistic and lovey and monogamous. And the Stones painted it black and got no satisfaction.

On the soul scene, I'll take Atlantic over Motown. The Motown musicians had migrated from the South looking for work in Detroit's auto factories; they were once removed from the roots. And Motown made product; they even called themselves "Hitsville." They were so choreographed and clean, and lush. Stax was earthy and jagged. Hear "Tramp": "Otis, you a country...You straight from the Georgia woods." Motown were romantics, and Atlantic, well, peep "Tramp" again: "Ooh! I'm a lover! Huh!" Atlantic had biological imperative on its side.

So, I have the sniffles and no money, but I know one doggone thing. I'm a lover. And I'm living authentically. So why should I be stressed? I'm not living like a rock star, but I'm living a rock-and-roll life. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. The same sentiment is echoed in Dylan: "When you ain't got nothin', you got nothing to lose."

I'm a complete unknown.

I recently watched Hendrix at Monterey. He did "Like A Rolling Stone," and at one point muttered ubercoolly, "Yes, I know I skipped a verse. So what?"

When I was getting on the plane to come back to LaLa Land, my father gave me a hug and quietly gave me some advice. "Sometimes you gotta say, 'Fuck it.'"

Coincidentally, I watched The Big Lebowski last night. The Dude would give me the same advice.

Some people may take this recent dive I took into rock-and-roll as a sort of midlife crisis. I think it's actually more of a way out of a lifelong crisis. There's three tenets of the rock-and-roll trinity...Fuck it. Fuck you. Fuck me, baby. I'm learning to say them all more.

The Name Game

First of all, the previous post was written in the wee small hours of the morning, but cut, pasted, and posted at 11:30 AM. As rock-and-roll as I am, I was not drunk before noon. Not this time.

Anyways, here's some other rock-and-roll titles I considered for my rock-and-roll blog:

Ramble On.
Rave On.
88 Lines.
Rock and Roll Ain't Web Pollution.
Keep On Blogging In the Free World.
Blogging With Myself.
Def Webber.
The Moonblog Show (in reference/reverence to Allan Freed).
Blog This Way.
Move Over, Little Blog (in reference/reverence to Lonesome George and Hank Williams).
Blog On Blog (for Dylan).
Blog Rockin' Beats.
The Blog That Fell to Earth.
Put Another Dime in the Jukeblog, Baby.
Mama Told Me Not to Blog.
Hey! You! Get Offa My Blog!
I'll Never Be Your Beast of Blogging.
I Don't Always Get What I Blog.

Some of these may turn up as future headlines. But they're up for grabs.

Note the last three, and the one I used, are nods to the Stones, one of my favorite groups. I considered using as my name "The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man," an allusion to one of their B-sides, but I didn't want to be that music snobbish.

Another of my favorite bands is The Who, and potential IDs included Boris the Blogger or Blogger O' Riley.

Others included:
The 7th Son.
Johnny Blog Goode.
Voodoo Blogger (Slight Return).
Flyposter, for the rock-and-roll art form and multiple interpretations.
Thunderblog Newman.

Rock and Roll, Part One

I am "elegantly wasted" right now, my mind a whirling dervish under the influence of a couple of non-habitual cups a' joe accompanied by some rock reading: Nick Kent, Lester Bangs, more of a Stones biography by a guy who drives me nuts by constant misspelling of a musician's name (It's "Keyes", dammit, Davis, not "Keys"). Several shots of Early Times (because I can't afford Jack). General insomnia due to recent graveyard work at my dues-paying gig. The caffeine of Coca Cola, chased with a couple Early Times and Cokes. Yet another viewing of The Who's mind-blowing performance on "Rock and Roll Circus." It's all a mindfuck. No...Deeper than that. A soulfuck. Some Jew shrink named Goldbaum or Rothstein can mindfuck; it takes the big mandingo manhood of a rhythm-and-blues beat to soulfuck.

I was already a writer; today came the epiphany that I needed to be a rock-and-roll writer. A writer, not a critic nor a journalist. Criticism and journalism be damned, because it's this ism, that ism; ism, ism, ism. I want to be one of the guys you know it pulses through, not some Entertainment Weekly reporter. I am a musician with no instrument. So I'm not really a musician, just some cat who digs the sounds, but there is some Jungian jungle connection beating in me. If my heart doesn't rethump itself to the wild, primitive drums of "Sympathy for the Devil," my soul, my ass, and my pelvis sure do.

Alas, I lack the training and hence the talent to be a musician, but I bet I could shake some mean miracas if given the chance.

I wish I could play, and I'm jealous of the ones who can, for a number of reasons. I want to live their bohemian life, even if vicariously. I want to touch the hems of these avatars. I want groupies.

The real rockers are exhibitionists of confidence, even cockiness, and a lyrical vulnerability and a mode to express it. The only thing I have confidence in is that I am vulnerable.

I wanna write it to express it, but the venues are dead now..."Creem" is but a dream; "Rolling Stone" is just bullshit. Jessica Simpson on the cover of a rock-and-roll magazine?! It negates everything Doctor Hook sang about.

So, good thing for blogs.

At age 32, I have finally unfettered my rock-and-roll romanticism, Byronic and ironic. I used to keep my hair short, "high-and-tight" as they call it in the military, which I was in (Army Reservist, enlisted during the 1st Gulf War). I dated a banker, who dumped me, for 4 1/2 years, and then a girl who wore a phone headset at work and was pursuing an MBA for 2 1/2 years. I want a girl who wears plaid punk pants and a studded belt, who wants to french when she hears CCR's "The Night Time is the Right Time." Or Brother Ray's or Joss Stone's. Who would send us both back to sixteen with a hannie in a parked car to Seger's "Night Moves" on the FM stereo.

It's not a midlife crisis. It's not nostalgia. It's appreciation for rock-and-roll and a desire for young poon, which go together like shama-lama-lama-a-ding-a-ding-ding-da-dong.

It's not a midlife crisis because the music was there first, has been for years. I bought DJ equipment on borrowed money from my folks at age 15, and would spend my meager bagboy paychecks on 12" singles and 45s. Ten years later, my gratification for toils as student/assbuster (5 jobs at one point) was purchasing CDs.

Music has affected me deeply. During one rocky relationship (with the banker), I sought solace by turning off every light in the then-our apartment, lighting a candle, and listening to the country-rock ballads of the Eagles. "Peaceful Easy Feeling" granted me just that. Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" always erases any bureaucratic BS in my life like the tide ebbing over a Jamaican shore. There have been times when The Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" has made me cry, nay, sob, even while sober, in the light of midday, in traffic. Soul Brother Number One's "Get Up Offa That Thang" always finds me getting up offa mah thang. Great songs are relationships without being dumped. They're SSRIs without the impotence. They tap me into the ether of emotions, and there is a connection that's felt with the songster and with everybody else that has felt that song, and with my own self, that possesses the power of looking into a girl's eyes while making love, but at the end instead of reaching for a towel, you can restart the track, or roll over and hit the next one. At a concert, when the audience flicks their Bics to "Purple Rain," it is to light their post-coital cigarettes. It's all Sting-like sex without the Eastern philosophy. But, man, is it deep.

If I had to choose between a booty call or an Otis Redding song, it'd be Otis, and I would get Satisfaction. Well, wait, how big are 'er tits?

I'm taking the piss, because, number one, I'm a breast man, and number two, it's a defense mechanism. What has finally compelled me to get up offa that thang and write is that it's become obsessive love. I've Netflixed the Stones' movies, read more than one bio, lived on a diet of their discs. ("Mmmm... Sticky Fingers"). I don't think it's gay to be turned on when Mick Jagger wiggles his bum. I'm ready to camp out in Jumpin' Jack's shrubbery. I am stalkin' them; I have become The Midnight Rambler.

And as deep and fucking crazy as it is, I want deeper, and I can't be passive about it. I'm compelled to do more than just push "play."

I've finally recognized that it's my life force. I put headphones on, and my heartbeat picks up the rythmic time of "Back in Black," or "In the Midnight Hour," or "Hush," or "Rockafella Skank." Right about now, I'm a funk soul rock rhythm-and-blues and blues brother. Through my body, the rock-and-roll pumps like Little Richard's "Ready Teddy" piano. My heart beats rhythm; my spleen's a tambourine. It's got me like cancer, man. Brain, heart, testicles; all the vitals, ya know? It is some yin-and-yang thang. A life force, and all I can do is lean over the page and let it pour out, man. Just let it bleed.