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.
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.
posted by Brian Byline at 11:27 AM
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