My phone was dead. I was in the center of an 11-hour shift and I had left my charger at home. I felt like I was on a cold island. There’s pleasantness in the distance and detachment, but I always feel like I’m missing something. I was wondering what filters people were using on their photographs of sandwiches. And just what kind of sandwiches were they. You know, important stress inducing pressing shit. In those moments I try not to ponder the starving Indian child in search of a few grains of rice, I prefer let my mind wander over what how earlybird looks on a bottomless bowl of Ramen beneath the bright san diego sun, it’s just easier that way. The shift was moving Sunday slow and phoneless, I found myself reading the liner notes to jimmy buffet cds, the ingredients to a bag of chips and any other short burst of distraction that would captivate me for seconds at a time. At some point I heard a commotion out front. There was a woman who came barreling down the street like a bowling ball decorated with lipstick and Tourettes, she was snarling and cursing and took out a few locked bikes with her. Strike! This was cruel torture because it lasted. When someone lets out a brilliant firework of insanity, I generally think that I’m just catching the finale and there’s no sense in attempting to document it. But she was just breaking the ice with her madness. I had ample time to grab my phone and capture all of it, maybe even get David Attenborough or Sigourney Weaver to narrate it at some later date. But alas, there I was, impotent phone in hand, missing her crowning moment when she lay in the middle of a busy sidewalk in a puddle of her own urine, hurling her shoes into the street like they were Frisbees and she was attending a 1994 H.O.R.D.E. festival. I got home later that night and plugged in, charged up. I expected a flood of pings to welcome me back, inundating me with messages missed. It pinged once. It was a voicemail from my mother to inform me that I was still a nerd loser and nothing had changed since 1994. Though now, with a charged phone, I’ll document bigger losers than me, it’s all relative.
Ass-Hole-Lean
Well, this would be the first time I’ve posted a Scott Weiland video ever in my life. There was a brief window in 1994 where I could have theoretically done such a thing, but it was an age of no “walls” and considerably less screens, a postless era. I have a group thread on facebook with Jason Littlefield and Erik Canzona entitled “Dick Dog.” I can only assume that somewhere in years past, someone sent a photograph of a dog that looked like a dick (hopefully not a dick that looked like a dog) and the thread was born.
Every so often my phone pings and I get an alert saying “dick dog has received a message” and I perk up with excitement like a……..well…….. like a dick........ or a dog near my fried chicken, either way, the dick dog thread is aptly named. It’s usually a video of a heroic failure, an adorable animal or a life changing musical event. I root for the failures.
Today it was Jason Littlefield delivering this amazing video of Scott Weiland in what’s basically a Stone Temple Pilots cover band. In the video, he utterly butchers the signature hit Vasoline, a song he should be very familiar with. The video sounds like the security footage from one of those rehearsal warehouses where bands with corporate day jobs let loose and fire something from Huey Lewis and the News Sports album through a shitty p.a. His demeanor looks like he’s been eating from the buffet of heroin brownies for 24 straight hours, but who knows what demons are dangling the puppet strings over his corpselike body. "Scott Weiland’s rep has spoken to TMZ about the performance, blaming it on lack of sleep, a couple of drinks and an faulty earpiece. The rep says that Weiland has been overnighted new earbuds in time for his show in Baton Rouge, La., tonight." -loudwire.com Maybe he’s drinkin heroin smoothies. The thread went on for a while after we had all seen the videos. If earbuds make that degree of difference, I’m gonna get some so I can finally do my solo Jeff Buckley tribute night at Copley. Erik had the most tremendous quote of the thread, “Somewhere Layne Staley is stoked he od'd before having to play a Guitar Center without earbuds.” But there we were, an hour’s worth of Scott Weiland themed emails, asking ourselves who really won this round. For a moment Scott Weiland was the most relevant he’s been to me since I heard that one song off the Crow soundtrack. I might even listen to a song on spotify, let my fraction of a cent go to his earbud fund, keep the dream of the 90s from being deferred. Though it will definitely be on private if I listen.
Foreground Rob
A couple of weeks ago I was a part of a film and music event. I wound up watching 60+ local music videos in an attempt to pick out the best ones to show to the public. A lot of them were really great, but we're not here to celebrate the achievements of others, at least not today. We're here to discuss the misfits who didn't make the cut. Those who made the time pass like molasses trough an hour glass wearing a tight belt. First of all, I've been living my life wrong this whole time. I listen to David Bowie, Tom Waits and the Beatles all day and then try to make my own music afterwards. Naturally, thus far I have viewed myself as a complete and utter failure. There's nothing like getting the master of your record, feeling that mayfly brief moment of achievement and then comparing it to the Radiohead album you drew inspiration from. This moment is joined with an irreconcilable sadness that sounds like the Price is Right losing trombone.
Well, listening to some locals failing tragically made me feel like Led Fucking Zeppelin, although the balloon of my ego was helium filled and floating high. The bad videos were heroically bad and heroes they were, saving me from the depression haunts beneath the shadow that Bob Dylan casts. Listen to Background Rob in the foreground and you'll know what sonic pride feels like. If you're as impatient as I am, skip to the 25 second mark when the magic happens.
As a career cynic, some of these videos nearly gave me an orgasm. But as a not complete idiot, I have to remember to be careful. It's safest to talk shit about young feather weight kids who look Orville Redenbacher's jaunt through puberty. I generally avoid making fun of dudes who look like their trucks have ballsacs. The following guys look like they might murder me to death or take me to a Slipknot concert (probably the same result), but I'm just going to pray they never become privy to this blog, or if they do, they remember that all press is good press and this blog was ghostwritten by Matthew.
And though their video is about the ills of domestic domestic violence, the music is so terrible it actually made me question my views on the subject. Anyway. It's good to feel good bout yourself. And tonight when I go to sleep, I'll even be able to negotiate the times when I had a mustache and was in a rap rock jamband.
The Midnight Pine Buried Lyrics
Here are the words to one of my favorite Midnight Pine songs. It was written at Mama's Bakery in North Park. Shelbi had a melody, I had some words and we both had some chicken shawarma. This is one of my favorite spots in town, though fellow redwood Matthew Molarius is not a fan. You be the judge, let us know.
Buried
Beneath
The swell Jacaranda trees
The violent violet majesty
You are
The least
Last river standing in between
My freedom from this gentle dream
I’ve seen
Carried
The weight
Of words that never hesitate
Of worlds that should have tested faith
But still
You push
Against the tidal wave of youth
That washes til it’s drowning you
In truth
Midsummer night
Fell in love wrong
Days fall to nothing
Thirsty for poison
Thirsty for song
Searching for something
What’s love
But words
Just letters fed to haunted hearts
That stalk the salvage yard for parts
For you
For me
For guided light and openings
For tides to bring back broken things
To sing
To us
To rust
To push and pull and separate
To wield love in the face of hate
We try
At times
To stitch tears in our alibis
To braid the rivers, lakes and lies / to find
Midsummer night
Fell in love wrong
Days fall to nothing
Thirsty for poison
Thirsty for song
Searching for something
I fell
As hard
As boulevards are broken by
The candle quake of footprint light
You might Reveal
The teal blue tears and fears you still
Keep close to chest to breast til death
The lives you hide til nothings left
But love
So open up your wings to me
The branches boughs and everything
And I’ll sip slow and serpentine
TiI you surrender soft serene
There’s braille we feel but fail to read
The scales that name our wants and needs
And when there’s struggle all around
I’ll pry the thorns adorn your crown
Til every cunning cloud looks down
So envious of what we’ve found
The beech bark white wash reverie
The fevered ghosts surviving me
We blow old smoke through punctured lungs
Clouding up the crescent sun
My breakdown alley miles away
My midnight moon and new escape
The ballad of a severed spring
My love, my loss, my everything
My love, my loss, my everything
My love, my loss, my everything
Where's Bill Bellamy When You Don't Need Him
SPRING BREAK 2015!!! A drunken voice screams as if through the Horn of Gondor. It took me a minute to put 2 and 2 together, to realize why i couldn't park anywhere near our store located one block from the pacific, why there was an increased volume of young enthusiastic beach clad drunks swaying like frail trees in a hurricane while asking "have you ever heard of Zeppelin?" I remember when I was 19 and the prospect of going to a warm climate with an azure ocean and trying to bang a stranger while ferociously blind on hard alcohol, as Sublime's What I Got played in the background and Bill Bellamy cheered you on, sounded like a good time. Today, this literally sounds like hell. Like if I got drunk and drove a school bus full of adorable children and kittens off a cliff while listening to Deicide, I'd wake up in Cancun with a bottle of tequila in my mouth, Skrillex in my ears and youth all around me for eternity.
One loud posse thundered into the store. Their leader was one of those people you hate automatically, he never had a chance, neon orange shoes, ponytail, loud mouth and the confident opinion of himself. He had been poisoned with the belief that he was more of a comedian than a migraine. After making all kinds of high volume demands for reggae 45s he asked me if i wanted to go to a party after work. Generally when someone hands me a show flyer or a verbal invite, I always lie and say "cool man, I'll check that out" fully knowing that I'll be slowly trudging through season 3 of House of Cards in my jammies at 10pm, asking myself if I even still enjoy it. Thank god there's no Pinocchio situation, cause I'd have shot a brown dagger through the eyes of nearly every promoter (insert dick joke here) like some urban Cyrano de Bergerac. But for whatever reason when this guy asked if I wanted to party I said "NO!", emphatically, like so many spring break women will have to this evening. He tried to sweeten the deal by telling me what djs would be there as if their names would hold some allure or relevance for me, but it only brought out a "no means no, here's your change." 7 minutes after he made his purchase, a homeless kid came in and said "I found these records in the street, can I sell them to you?" Perhaps he was leaving a trail of vinyl so he could find his way back to the record store, perhaps he was so shitfaced he couldn't hold on to his Lionel Richie 45s and left them in front of Hodad's when onion rings peaked his interest. Sure homeless kid, here's a buck, get wild, it's SPRING BREEEAAAAK!!!!!
*when I was 19 I split a 30 pack of miller high life and a bottle of vodka with my roommate, after drinking it all we started walking to a party and I was throwing popcorn on the ground every five steps, when asked what I was doing, I responded "so I can find my way home like that fairy tail........Mitch and His Cookies!" My roommate, possessing slightly more clarity than I, realized I was so hammered I thought Hansel and Gretel was called Mitch and His Cookies and sent me back home for I was too far gone to continue, I followed the popcorn.
BLACK MIRROR
Apparently I’m a horrible asshole. I know this isn’t news to anyone who knows me, nor is it news to myself, but every once in a while something can remind you that if there was such thing as a hell (there’s not by the way, just KKKingman Arizona) I’ve purchased an advance greyhound ticket there, Journey scoring the southbound voyage. The other day I was zoning out, staring into my laptop screen, the bleak blue and white experience vacuum of facebook sucking the hours of my day like time was a keg of domestic beer and facebook was an overweight fraternity pledge (that was the least tragic metaphor I could come up with). I was watching various cat videos, trying to learn why I saw white and gold and if the black and blue folks were all liars who deserved an altogether different black and blue. A video popped up in my feed. It looked like it was going to be hilarious footage of some young child falling into a lake. I thought to myself “this child’s failure immortalized in a 30 second video should eclipse the failure that is my day, thank you very much internet”. I kept watching this video, waiting in anticipation, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, nothing. Was it something subtle, did a bird shit on the child’s head and I missed it? Or maybe someone said something hilariously racist or inappropriate; after all, I was trying to deafen myself with Zeppelin. I started it again, this time with sound, only to find out I was watching a Make A Wish kid fishing with his NFL Hero and guess what, he caught a fish. And the worst part is I wasn’t sure if I was more upset with my dyslexic priorities or the fact that I wasted 90+ seconds when the Monterey Bay Aquarium has a live streaming otter cam. Hopefully the otters didn't do anything exciting.