Hench!

I.
There’s a black dog in my neighborhood that only has one eye. It’s very skinny, and it looks as though its skin was sewn up over where the socket would be, which is a little weird: the result is sort of as if there never had been an eye there to begin with. The dog is very graceful and very quiet and stalks back and forth in front of a house around the corner from my apartment.

I seem to remember reading, as a kid, some folklore relating to one-eyed black dogs, but I don’t remember exactly what it was. Because I’m lazy, I did some googling, and came across this from skell.org:

“The Black Dog haunted many parts of the country: in Lancashire called ‘Trash’ or ‘Skriker’, and on the Isle of Man, where he haunted Peel Castle, known as the Mauthe Doog. In Norfolk he is called Shuck, Old Shuck or the Shuck Dog, and in Suffolk, Shock, his name perhaps coming from Old Engligh scucca, a demon. The Black Dog was in some places thought to be the ghost of the unquiet dead. Black Dogs commonly haunted lanes, footpaths, bridges, crossroads and gateways.”

I’d though that the black dog appeared before travellers on lonely roads, and its coming fortold their death should they venture further. I don’t know if Clinton street qualifies as a lonely road. Not really. Anyway, the dog is there continues to be a little on the creepy side. I’m sure that it is a very nice dog, and not a portent of ruination and death.

II.
Sarah and I were going to the health food store when an old woman with green nailpolish demanded “Do you two like to make soup?” That woman was nuts, man. I immediately knew it was a bad idea to talk to her, especially because she would not have liked my answer: “No.”

I like to heat soup up, though. It’s nice. Most of you are probably unaware of the fact that I eat bowl of soup for lunch when the weather gets cold. In the summer, I eat some salad for lunch. Sometimes I switch it up, because I am a crazy and impulsive guy who lives on the edge.

III.
I started reading Octavio Paz’s the Labyrinth of Solitude, which is so far very good. I wish I’d paid more attention in Spanish class as a kid, because I would like to be able to read books like this in the original rather than in translation. It’s kind of shitty.

I don’t feel weird about reading Russian novelists in translation, because I think that I shouldn’t be expected to learn all this crazy-ass cyrillic shit. Spanish, on the other hand, is a language that I almost learned. I mean, I was close, and then I forgot it all. I forgot the tenses first, and now I don’t know shit except some nouns. It’s depressing. I should go to nightschool or something. I’m unilingual, for shit’s sake. I need to apply myself.

IV.
I listened to a lot of Captain Beefheart this weekend. Man. Orange Claw Hammer is a real good acapella song, which you wouln’t expect out off Captain Beefheart. He also does an incredible version of Moonlight in Vermont, which is kind of the aural equivalent of being stomped to death by a paisley-clad Yeti wearing one of those propellor beanies. I like that a lot of Beefhearts music sounds like some machine that just keeps going out of control and seems as though it might explode. I look at photos of the Magic Band in their weird house, and photos of weird cult groups like the Incredible String Band, and it really makes me wish I was travelling the country in a big, weird, red bus. I’d have a tambourine, and I’d hit it and yell things.

So, Halloween was this last weekend, and it was real interesting as it marked the first time I’d ever been in the Halloween parade.

Now, Halloween has always been a real important holiday for me, probably because of the influence of my father. My old man was always a big horror fan, and was a kid during the golden age of horror (he was born in 1933). He saw all of the golden oldies when they first appeared in the theatre, was around for the advent of 3–D, etc. When I was a kid, he told me about dressing up in these elaborate Halloween costumes he’d put together. His Wolfman costume, for instance, involved mortician’s wax purchased from a mortuary, and yak hair. I don’t know where the fuck he got yak hair from, but I assume someone must have been selling it somewhere.

The old man was a never ending font of scary stories, a lot of which he just made up. He also had a habit of going outside during the full moon and howling. No shit, he really did this. He had a pretty good wolf howl too, and the sound would echo through the valley we lived in. Dogs would be barking, coyotes would be making that weird coyote sound, and the old man would be laughing.

Since I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Halloween unfortunately kind of sucked. First of all, trick or treating was impossible because everything was so far away. I’d get decked out in my costume and my parents would have to drive me around, because everything was so far away. Sometimes you’d bump into other kids who were being driven around as well. My haul at the end of the night was usually pretty lousy. I’d get a lot of apples, candy not really meant for kids (like toffee drops or something), and pennies. Pennies, yet! I mean, even in the eighties a penny didn’t go too fucking far, you know what I mean? You’d be hard pressed to amuse yourself with a fucking penny.

The only good thing to do was to go to the local Division for Youth Services facility, where there was a haunted house. The DYS facility, where my dad ended up working, was one of New York State’s many juvenile detention centers. The haunted house was pretty fucking scary, I will say, and included this fake severed hand with a motor in it that would kind of twitch. I was terrified of that thing.

Anyway, I basically shelved Halloween at a pretty young age, and spent it by myself wandering around outside at night or sitting around watching horror films. My father, of course, wasn’t so content to sit around. I remember one costume he’d invented called the Killer Pile of Leaves. He’d take two tarps and sewn them together to creat a gigantic sort of pocket. He covered the top of this with layer upon layer of leaves. He’d rake the lawn and glue the leaves to the top of the tarp. He’d then wait impatiently for a day or two for more leaves to fall, then glue those down. He painted this weird mouth on the bottom of the tarp. That Halloween, he’d crouch down on the grass of the local Presbyterian church, looking, so help me god, like a pile of leaves. When kids or senior citizens would pass, he’d rear up, displaying this gigantic, awful mouth. He scared the shit out of dozens off kids, and nearly killed poor old Mrs. Gould, who had a weak ticker. I should mention that my father was in his sixties while he was doing this.

Anyway, over the years I sort of grew to miss Halloween. So I was very excited to move to New York City where Halloween was a massive event. It soon became clear that being in the parade was probably a lot more fun than watching the parade. One year, after dressing like a zombie, I was having lunch with Sarah and mentioned that it’s not much fun being a solo zombie. It would be nice to have a whole bunch of zombies that could run around in a gigantic mob.

“Yeah, and you should all do the Thriller dance,” she said.

One of the interesting things about being with Sarah is that she is very good at making things happen, an ability which I think is sort of beginning to rub off on me. I don’t know. For instance, we went to Serbia recently, and here’s how it hapened. We both wanted to go on vacation, and couldn’t decided where we wanted to go. We both sort of wanted to go to Russia, but didn’t feel prepared yet and didn’t really have the cash. We were listening to a CD of Balkan brass band music taken from an annual Serbian music festival. We decided “hey, lets go to that,” and we did. It was amazing. It just all came together, and we went to Serbia. Stuff like that always happens with her. This year it was “hey, let’s assemble an army of zombies.”

Although it should be noted that neither Sarah nor I can really take credit for what happened this Halloween. An army of zombies doing the Thriller dance is an idea that sells itself. Before we knew it we had two dozen recruits. Kim choreographed the dance, Katrina cut the song down to a more manageable length, Seth rented dance space and kindly helped some of us (OK, me) who were dance-impaired to get the moves down, Niegel got us a space to put on our makeup, Sarah Reynolds showed up with a video camera, Tom and Heather showed up as scientists in matching wigs, Garth let us into his apartment to rehearse, and just about everybody put the word out to other zombies and/or learned how to do zombie makeup. Matt, Angela, and Greg came from out of town to be zombies. In fact, Greg endangered his very reputation as the Chrome Consultant at Woodstock Harley Davidson by donning sweatpants and shakin’ it like Janet. It was like watching Voltron come together and . . . do whatever it was that Voltron did. I don’t know what that was because I never knew any kids who had all the Voltron toys. I had like the yellow lion or something, and I knew some kid with the red one, but that’s like only an arm and a leg, you know? Anyway, I digress. After a few weeks of what seemed like manic activity and teamwork that would put an afterschool special to shame, we were standing in a sea of people ready to issue forth into the Halloween parade.

Standing in a big group like that, you really get an idea of how schizophrenic the parade is. We were between some shitty New York radio station float, some stupid cut rate porn site float, some Star Wars nerds fighting with light sabers, bikers in skull masks, and some douchebags playing the bag pipes. Nothing spells Halloween like the fucking bagpipes. In fact, I think an album called “The Chilling Sounds of the All Hallows Eve Pipers” would go over real well. What is it with people who can play the bagpipes? They think they’re real fucking special, don’t they? In my town growing up, the local volunteer fire department had a bagpipe division of these plaid clad geriatrics who flat out butchered Oh Danny Boy at every public event. Every fucking holiday brought the bagpipers. The bagpipes, as I understand, were originally designed to be played while armies marched to war, and their terrifying sound was meant to carry for miles. It wasn’t meant to sound nice up close. I wish these people could find a less, uh, piercing way to remind people that they’re Scottish.

Anyway, here’s how the parade worked: us guys dressed like zombies would be herded by others dressed like scientists. Periodically, the zombies would get out of control, and the scientists would play Thriller. We would rock the Thriller dance to the delight of the crowd. By “delight” I mean “batshit crazy screams of acceptance and wonder.” Seriously, the crowd screamed really fucking loud. Granted, everyone involved in his production was incredibly good at doing the Thriller dance. We looked great, and made the bagpipers marching near us look like shit. What would YOU rather see, a bunch of frumpy kilt-wearing schmucks or a bunch of good-looking zombies busting a move?

By the end of the parade, it was clear that we were the coolest thing in it. In fact, there’s a Reuters photo of Garth and Anne and the backs of our heads as we wait for the parade to start. It a really good Halloween, and I can only imagine how we’re going to top it next year.

Today I was sorting through the Goodwill, as I often do, looking for a good suit. I didn’t really find anything, and I’m kind of broke, and it was pissing down rain: so I left. Luckily, I had my trusty discman with me, so I was able to listen to music.

Now, I wasn’t listening to New Orleans music, but all New Orleans music moves along at a stroll because there are so many parades there. There is a uniform, midtempo kind of beat that happens with all of tunes that come out of their. From Rebirth Brass band all the way back to Jelly Roll Morton. As I was walking around in the rain, thinking about food, I began making this list in my head of good music to listen to while your walking.

First of all, Tower Of Power is fucking great music to listen to while you’re walking. Especially their self-titled album (I think it’s their third), which has the great song “What Is Hip.” Now, Tower of Power kind of has shitty lyrics, but who gives a fuck. They’re great. You basically feel good whenever they’re playing, and doubly so when you’re walking around.

Johnny Thunders is another good one. I don’t know if he’ll work if you’re not in New York, but if you’re in New York it kind of seems like the sort of thing that ought to be playing all the time. It’s just a grimy, inebriated strut, all the time; kind of like a greaseball Shirelles cover band, really.

There’s a lot of shit that’s really bad to listen to, which is sad but there you go. For instance, my favorite band is the Fall. However, The Fall makes miserable walking around listening. Too much midrange, to much shrill shouty shit. You can’t really get into it, and eventually it will make you go back home, which is where you ought to be listening to the Fall in the first place.

Also good is dub reggae, Laura Nyro, Nico, Merzbow, Earth Wind & Fire, and Sam and Dave.

Jesus, this is a boring post. I just can’t be fucking bothered, there’s too much to do. I’m tired, and I’ve been having a really hard time sleeping without getting up a bunch of times. I must have woken up about five times last night, and I ended up just endlessly tossing and turning. I can’t be expected to come up with a good blog entry! Besides, half of my blog entries seem to be about recommending music to people, and I’m not really sure what my motives are for this. I guess I don’t really care, either.

So fuck the music recommendations. I can also report that I killed a cockroach today, ate spinach soup and a salad, drank two bottles of Rhinegold beer, ran into this guy I used to work with in a bookstore (he’d grown a beard), talked to my friend Joe on the phone, and went grocery shopping, although not in that order.

My groceries:

1 sixpack Rhinegold beer
1 package of tortillas
1 tomato
2 cans black beans
2 cans of lentil soup
1 can of vegetable barley soup
2 cans of vegetarian chili

I know that I bought a lot of cannned food, but sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m also trying to save money, considering that 1.) I need a new laptop worse than fucking bad, and 2.) I’m hoping to move sometime this year. Also, I just need the fucking cash, man! Eating out is expensive, especially since I insist on getting salads and shit like that these days. See, before I met Sarah, I’d eat like half a pint of brown rice and a hardboiled egg. Another favorite of mine was the raw tofu sandwich. You’d take two slices of rye bread, a slab of fucking raw tofu, half a raw onion, and French’s mustard. Make a sandwich or two out of that, that’s your lunch.

Sarah managed to introduce me to food, and now I always eat tasty food which is a little pricey. It’s much better food though, and I’m much happier than I used to be. Christ, was I a miserable bastard.

Despite all this healthy-ass food, I have been sick for about two fucking weeks because I

Look, this isn’t important. How are you people? Maintaining radio silence? Do any of you like Earth Wind & Fire? The Feelies? How is the rain treating you? In fact, I’ll bet you almost anything that each and every last one of you is at work right now, and bored out of your mind. I’m borred out of my mind as well. In fact, I’m not even really writing this, I’m really listening to WFMU. I should really go and that. 91.1 FM, East Orange New Jersey.

Just got done with jury duty, thank god. It was real brief. I went in one day and got selected, and then I went in a second day and was told that the case was dismissed.

I’m not sure what I expected the Brooklyn Supreme Court to look like behind the scenes, but I didn’t expect it to look like a Greyhound bus station. Which is how it looked. You know, crummy graffiti done in a real hurry, such as “Ging + Lil Hab” or “Eat Dick” scrawled all over the bathroom, lousy little chairs that have had about a million asses sitting on them, bored people waiting for time to pass, announcements over loudspeakers, and a couple of muted televisions with close captioning. I sat around and read the Glass Menagerie, which I didn’t like as much as I thought I would.

This is going to sound stupid, but I always feel like I’m in the future when sitting in a public building like that. Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m a sloppy guy, but I always figure that the future is basically going to look like a locker room. Everyone will be really poor, all the clothing will be really shittily made, the air will be stale, there will be grime all over the place, and it will smell like disinfectant. Even in the courthouse, someone had take a shit on the toilet seat. I went into one of the stalls, and there was litereally someone’s shit on the seat, like they’d done it on purpose! Fucking disgusting, and I’ll bet it was that weird old Italian guy with the moustache and shifty eyes who did it, too. That the sort of thing that will be a common occurance in the future.

Television news reminds me of the future. If you watch MSNBC without any sound, you get a real sense of how shitty and banal television really is. It’s just two talking heads, and the text across the screen reads like this:

TODAY, KARL ROVE WENT IN TO DC COUNTY COURT FOR QUESTIONING. ROVE WOKE AT 6, AS IS CUSTOMARY FOR HIM, AND ARRIVED AT THE COURT AT NINE.

THE CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL IS LOOKING TO CONTAIN THE AVIAN FLU. IN CHINA, THEY ARE SCREENING POULTRY IN AN ATTEMPT TO STOP AN OUTBREAK OF THE DISEASE.

UP NEXT: HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW JAMES BOND? WE’LL HAVE AN INTERVIEW WITH THE BLONDE BOND AFTER THIS. CINDY, DO YOU KNOW WHO HE IS?

HE’S A SCOTTISH ACTOR, I BELIEVE. AND FOR ALL OF YOU WHO ARE WONDERING WHAT REESE WITHERSPOON IS UP TO, STAY TUNED.

There’s a little crawl of news that’s even MORE banal than that going across the bottom of the screen. You know, everything is clearly going to be at the lowest common denominator in the future. And public architecture is going to be incredibly bad.

Some public buildings are really nice, like Grand Central and the main Brooklyn post office downtown. In fact, I saw Marky Ramone there, and it really flipped me out. He and his wife were FedExing something, and at first I saw him from behind. I didn’t know if was him, of course, it was just a skinny guy with that old guy slouch dressed like one of the Ramones. I turned to Sarah and said “It’s funny, in the city you really see all these old dudes who never grew up, like these fucking late seventies artifacts—” and then the guy turned around and it was Marky Ramone! I nearly lost my shit.

Later, Sarah asked me why I didn’t say anything to him. What do you say? “Hey Marky, you drum really fucking fast?” That’s all he did! The guy played one fucking drum beat for a couple of decades. But what a great beat. I also saw him parking his car in the neighborhood where I work, and sitting outside at this cafe in my neighborhood.

Anyway, no Marky Ramone at the courthouse. Have you ever been so fucking bored that you can’t read? I eventually got to that point. I began thinking about soul music, and trying to decide in my head whether it was the best kind of popular music ever or not. I think I ended up deciding that it was, although I’m not sure that I really mean that. Is it? It probably is

Now I’m just sitting around and putting the finishing touches on this story I wrote. It’s probably the best thing I wrote for some time. I’m glad it’s done.

Louis Wain was a gentleman who liked to paint portraits of cats. Then he went crazy.

The poor guy just liked cats. His cats went from began looking very mistrustful, then evil, then really psycedelic and evil.

Eventually, Louis Wain was confined to a sanitarium, where he would paint cats looking wistfully at the outside world.

Anyway, Louis Wain is dead now. Poor guy.

I went down to North Adams, MA, the other weekend to go to Missi St. Pierre’s graduation party. It was a lot of fun. The car contained me, Tom, Heather, and Missi’s friend Joann, who was pretty cool.

Now, the party was a lovely affair. We bought Missi Thanksgiving tchotchkas from the grocery store. I got her some Indian corn, Tom got her a stalk of wheat, Heather got a gourd, and Joann . . . I forget what Joann got. Squash? I don’t know. We presented these to Missi at the party, which was held in what seemed to be a VFW hall. The party was mostly centered around Missi’s family, but that was cool. We were glad to see her and got to hang out together later. In the meantime, we enjoyed the cheap drinks and stuff.

[personal note: this party was much different than MY graduation party, which was a lovely dinner thrown by my parents. An older brother of mine came over with his wife, and it was real low key. The best exchange is as follows:

My Brother: So, you're graduating, huh? How about that, little buddy? Good deal!
Rick: Yeah.
My Brother: So where did you go to school?
Rick: . . . this place called Bennington in Vermont.
My Brother: Oh yeah?
Rick: Yeah
My Brother: What did you study up there?
Rick: Uh, writing, literature. That kind of stuff.
My Brother: Yeah?
Rick: Yeah!
My Brother: So you're into that kind of thing?
Rick: Yeah, yeah.
My Brother: Good deal.

Then we ate pumpkin pie. It was pretty funny. God bless 'em.]

Anyway, Missi had to do a lot of schmoozing with her family, who were all pretty clean cut, working class folks who were all really nice. Her Dad thanked us for coming, and made us feel welcome.

During the celebration, the four of us got progressively drunker, and noticed that there was another party going on outside.

See, the basement of this hall was a bar, and another branch of the St. Pierre family were having a party in a tent. I don’t know their relation to Missi, but it seemed pretty distant. It must ahve been. These people were like the Bizarro St. Pierres. They weren’t clean cut at all, but rather a bunch of scraggly looking ne’er-do-wells who were staggering around and yelling shit at each other.

SAMPLE INTERACTION: One of the guys had an undershot chin and was wearing a wifebeater. He staggered out of the bar and . . . you know how some people get so fucking drunk that it’s a mystery what the fuck they’re saying to you? I just sounds like “Muaarrr muaaar muaaa” and shit? Anyway, this guy had gotten to that stage. We attracted his attention, and he decided to talk to me and Heather. Here’s what I could make out from our conversation:

Guy: Wwww? Y’all bein buncha HAMMERHEADS?
Me: What?
Guy: Life’s too [indescipherable]. Fuckin’ ddddd.
Me: What?
Guy: GOT A FUCKIN’ DOG! Name’s Lazz.
Me: Laser?
Guy: Lazarus, you fuckin’ deaf? Feeble? Feeb?

The guy leads us around the corner of the bar, where he has a black labrador chained to a pipe. He throws a deflated soccerball at the dog, which the dog can’t catch because it’s too fucking big.

Guy: Catch it, dummy! cccCatch! Fucker.

At this point, the guy advances on the dog. He grabs it and starts throwing it up against the building, kind of like he’s playing with it, but also kind of like he’s actually angry. The dog rears back on its hind legs, and hits the guy with it’s paws. No shit! It looked really funny, like it kind of just slapped at the guy, who fell over. He was crawling around on the ground, yelling.

Guy: Fuckin’ faggot dog! You fuckin . . . arrghhm, fuckin’ faggot Lazarus! Oh, shit!

And the dog would knock him over again. They guy was limbs akimbo in the dirt, unsure of which way was up, and this little dog was prancing all over him. Tom suggested we take our drinks and crash the Bizarro St. Pierre party. We showed up, and this woman who looked like she had rickets yelled at us.

Woman: If you ain’t invited then get the hell out!

We took a hint. We were pissed, but I figure that she would probably die of rickets soon enough. Back to the normal St. Pierre part (already in progress), where we ate salad and cookies. We hung out with Missi, got breakfast the next morning, and then went our seperate ways.

It was a thoroughly pleasant evening of the kind that I so seldom have anymore. It was quiet and everyone was in a really good mood. That seems to be harder and harder to find, you know. I wish she’d graduate from something else.

One of the most miserable winters I ever spent was in Portland, OR. Now, a lot of people like this city, but I had a terrible time there and every aspect of the place began pissing me off. For instance, I would become completely incensed that the the bus system, which I thought sucked, had animals and stuff designating the different lines rather than colors, letters, or numbers. I found it humiliating.

“How do I get to the movie theatre?”
“Oh, take the bear bus to the rain bus. They catch the salmon bus crosstown. Don’t take the trout bus, that’ll let you off near Eugene.”
“How do I tell the salmon bus from the trout bus?”
“Just look at the dorsal fins, stupid.”

You see what I’m saying. Anyway, I spent a lot of time working on my thesis, drinking, and wishing I was somewhere else.

I lived in South East Portland, and one day I decided to go see this movie at a movie theatre (the Baghdad? I forget.) which also served beer. The movies were generally terrible, but what the fuck. Anyway, I got there and realized I only had money for one or the other, so I decided to get a beer in the adjoining bar and stare out the window and feel sorry for myself. I was low on cash at the time, and going out, even if for only one beer, was a pretty big deal, even if I was using the time to catch up on my self pity.

So, there was a big plateglass window that stretched the length of the building and faced the street, and a counter was set alongside it. It was the same set up that Starbucks utilizes, really. I was sitting at a stool, sipping my Mickey’s Irish Cream Ale, and watching the people go by. Then, all of a sudden, a car pulls over and a guy starts taking photographs.

He was parked across teh street, so it was impossible to tell who he was taking photos of, although it could have been anyone in the bar. I no one seemed to notice what was going on except me.

“Hey, check it out.” I said to a guy sitting two stools down, but he ignored me. The photographer stopped taking pictures and sped away.

I’ve wondered for a long time what this was all about. I’m assuming that the photographer was a private detective. If so, who was he photographing? There were probably a dozen people in the bar, so I suppose it could have been any of them. It’s strange that he would know exactly what bar his subject could be found at. I also assume that it was important that the subject didn’t know he was under surveillance. Was it a divorce case? A kidnapping? Maybe the photographer wasn’t a detective, but actually a blackmailer, or something even more sordid.

I guess that was probably the most exciting thing that happened to me in Portland.

I more or less like the future.

For instance, probably my favorite artistic movement (I guess that’s what you’d call it) were the Futurists. Based in Italy and led by F.T. Marinetti, the Futurists were a bunch of demi-fascist schmucks who, by ignoring all reason and plunging headfirst into a very vague idea (”the future”) created some pretty amazing stuff. I’ve been trying to find an English edition of Marinetti’s Futurist writings—which are incredible—but no luck. Here is an exerpt from the Futurist Manifesto:

We stand upon the extreme promontory of the centuries!…Why should we look behing us, when we have to break in the mysterious portals of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. Already we live in the absolute, since we have already created speed, eternal and ever-present.

I love that kind of thing, especially since it was penned nearly a century ago. In fact, I love it so much that I will present anyone who can find me an english copy of Marinetti’s writings with a Secret Hench Bonus Prize.

The future though . . . it never really gets boring. My mother claims to have a small amount of psychic ability, transferred to her through a female relative who was born with a caul, or a membrane covering a baby’s face. In Italian-American families, this means that the child has the second sight, and the caul is kept in a jar of formaldahyde. Although my mother kind of keeps this to herself, she did make one very strange prediction recently which came true in exactly the way she said it would.

Then you have writers like J.G. Ballard, who write almost extensively about how the future will be, above all else, boring; a place where people will be more attatched to automobile instrument panels and high rise buildings than each other. This sort of thing is echoed in movies like Alien, where the future is presented as a ship that looks like a Greyhound bus station locker room full of blue collar space workers who hate space travel.

Then there’s that Leonard Cohen album The Future which, frankly, sucks.

But I’ve been thinking more and more about the future. In fact, there will be more about the tomorrow, in the future, because now I have to go see a movie.

Good evening to all of you out in TV land. Regular viewers of our show are may be unfamiliar with the tragic circumstances surrounding the interruption of our normal broadcast schedule. The RKS-Hench Broadcasting Alliance offers the following possibilities to the weeks of dead air:

1. “Nervous Exhaustion & Malaise”
2. Sunspots and their negative effect on human brain chemistry
3. Pac Man Fever

We appreciate your perserverence through these dark days when laughter left the land. This post goes right out to you, all three of you Hench Blog regulars, killing time at work by spending it here.

Fig. 1: In the first part of our program, we would like to offer you the blog posting that got abandoned a few weeks ago. It was in reply to one of our most valued viewers (and a nice guy), Mike Metevier. Mr. Metevier commented on a nasty little bit I’d stuck up about Neil Young, and I suddenly felt bad for my endless, crummy complaning. So in this abandone post, I tried to make up for my general moron-ness, but then ended up slipping into again! Let’s take a look:

>>> “Well, well, well. I have been in a bad mood ever since returning from my Serbian adventure last week, and this has resulted in (amongst other things) a rather Andy Rooney-esque posting on my humble little blog. Andy Rooney, for those of you who aren’t hip, was a fat, geriatric creep who used to do these segments on 60 Minutes where he would complain about stuff.

“The first time I ever saw Andy Rooney, he was complaining about Rain-X, which is that stuff you wax your windshield with. If you’re going really fast in your car, the rain kind of streaks off really fast, thereby improving your visibility. Well the segment has Rooney driving around really slowly, saying “I just don’t understand Rain-X! The rain is still there! Rar, rarrr, rar! Rar! Raggh rar ar arrrrar!”

“Since then I’ve seen him complain about razor scooters, his own eyebrows, soybeans, and vans. That’s right, vans. The segment had him trying to parallel park a van, exasperated, saying “Rarr! Rar rarararrrr!”

“For some fucked up reason, I sort of like Andy Rooney and actually own a book of his complaints. The book also has a couple of upbeat, pithy pieces on the such topics as “cities,” “food,” and “difference.”

“‘I like cities. In fact, rarr rar ar. Cities!’ goes one piece I’m very fond of. I’m paraphrasing, of course.

“At any rate, I myself have been known to kvetch, although I usually try to kvetch with my eye on comic effect. Unfortunately, when I’m really fucking miserable, my kvetching gets kind of nasty, and I have to put a stop to that. For instance, I’ve lately been targeting singer-songwriters in this blog, and while I know that there are literally tens of you out there reading this, I would like to apologize for endless saying “Bob Dylan rarr ar ar rrar!” Very boring, I know.

“Today I direct my wavering vitriol elsewhere, to today’s modern rockin’ groups such as Hot Hot Heat, the Ponys, the Stills, the Dears, the Wrens, etc. The issue I’d like to discuss is: Why is this stuff so fucking sterile?” <<<

See what I’m saying? It’s ridiculous, the kind shit-eyes mood I can get into. Hence my long absence.

Fig. 2: You know, I recently went to all points in Eastern Europe, and now it kind of feels like that happened a thousand years ago instead of last month. I’ve been that busy, and I’m not a guy known to let myself get too busy. Didn’t even have time to ride my bike. You know, when life starts getting like that, you’d better hope that you’re doing something that you love, because if you’re not it’s kind of like you’re dying or something. I barely remember the month of August, and now it’s all gone. So beware! You could have one of those “I woke up today and I was 50″ moments unless you’re doing what you like to do. And, uh, I clearly need to be drinking more Cote du Rhone (sp?) on the old rooftop with a book, riding the roller coaster, finishing writing the stories, and laughing at shit.

For instance, think of all the time you spend in the day just kind of lying around, feeling bad about stuff, or staring at the wall. [I'm sure that I'm not the only person that does this.] If, for instance, you used that opportunity to memorize a really funny joke, you’d be much more amusing the next time we hung out.

Fig. 3: Linda McCartney Meals: these things are surprisingly good. Now, I never understood the deal with Linda McCartney, and always sort of thought she looked like a horse, albeit a very British horse. Then again, I never really liked Paul McCartney’s solo stuff, not even that “Jet” song (although the Controllers did a good version). Linda McCartney is kind of a cultural artifact these days, lost to time except for her amazing fucking frozen meals that you can acquire at nearly any health food store.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that in the wild kingdom of celebrity foods that come to mind, Linda McCartney’s meals rule with a ruthless, iron fist. But then again, what other celebrity foods are there?

Coppolla wine: From the vinyards of Francis Ford Coppolla. Although I like the vino, I never bought it because for one, it’s too fucking expensive, and two, the guy hasn’t made a good film since the Godfather II, and even that was, frankly, questionable.

Newman’s Own: Newman’s Own lemonade, salsa, etc. Vaguely good food, although I’m suspicious of where it rates on the RKS Health Index.

Snoop Dogg Flavored Rolling Papers: OK, these aren’t really food, but I saw them in a bodega. Has anyone used these things? They might be called something else.

Garth Silberstein’s Beer Milk: Although he struggles in nation-wide obscurity, Garth Silberstein is kind of a celebrity amongst the Bennington community (2001ish) and probably has more friends and acquaintences than anyone I know. One summer Garth invented beer milk, which was a 16 ounce glass with one part beer and one part milk. I never dug it, but some people swear by it. For some reason, this also reminds me of the discovery me and my friends made when we were little that, if you added Nestle’s Quick to a glass of orange soda, it would taste like a Tootsie Roll. Then you would throw up. Beer milk might make you throw up if you drink a lot of it, but I think in small amounts the milk will lower the pH of your stomach, calming it. I’ll tell ya—it needs all the calming it can get with that unholy mixture of hops and lactose you’re putting in your stomach.

Fig. 4: Conclusion: This concludes our broadcast hour, because it’s time for me to leave the office and go ride my bike and look at things that are interesting.

>>>Now, I consider myself to be a man of delicate tastes and sensibilities. But why is it that I just can’t stand certain musicians generally considered to be works of genius? For instance:

Bob Dylan: Never liked the guy. Never thought he was interesting, hated his songs, found his voice annoying. Don’t like most Dylan covers. I listen to Hendrix do All Along the Watchtower, I think to myself that he should have covered the Sonic’s Strychnine instead—after all, he was a Seattle boy. What the hell is the mystique from this guy? Songs like The Times They Are a Changing (Changin’?) and Joey Joey make me want to barf, and I like a lot of 60’s music. What’s wrong with me? Is it because my parents weren’t hippies? That can’t be it. I’ve tried to like Bob Dylan, lord knows I’ve tried. I’ve actually gotten angry at myself that I don’t like his stuff. I’ve even pretended to like his stuff when my friends get all drunkenly serious and play some Dylan song for me. Sheesh!

Gang of Four: I have that Entertainment! album and I think it sort of sucks. I feel like I should be taking the short bus to the special school in the morning because I don’t like this band! Help! If I can’t bring myself to like a band of post-punk Communists playing neutered funk, maybe I need a tetnus booster or something.

Cream: First of all, Eric Clapton should jerk off alone, like the rest of us. Second of all, ever see the movie “Bring it on”? It was originally called “The Eric Clapton story. The other two guys in Cream can go to hell, too. I liked the Yardbirds a lot, though.

Neil Young: Sounds like a child trapped in at the bottom of a well.

>>>On the other hand, I do like several REALLY questionable musical acts. I make fun of them here, but I can assure you, gentle reader, that I listen to them without a trace of irony.

Public Image Limited: I don’t just like the second album, the one that all you hipsters own, I have EVERYTHING THEY EVER PUT OUT. On vinyl! Even that awful, late-eighties AOR shit that sounded like the Soup Dragons fronted by a castrated vicar. I’ve paid out my fucking ear for these terrible albums, too, that’s the worst part.

DGeneration: Thirty something old men playing glammed-out Hanoi Rocks-ish sounding NYC streetpunk in the mid-nineties. Their second album, No Lunch, is a fucking cornball classic. I’ve listened to it at least once a month for . . . I guess almost a decade now. The singer has the fucking funniest rhymes. For instance, he creates the word “ginamony” to rhyme with “phony.” Hot shit.

Sisters of Mercy: Someday I’ll dress all in black leather and drive a pink hearse through LA at night, and when I do I’ll be glad I have two CDs of cheesy goth metal from these guys. I mean, they had a vision. Their vision was to make music that would be at home in an 80s horror movie about an android cop who goes to battle against of coven of scantily clad witches. And they committed that vision to CD, and it’s great. Bring on the smoke machines and mirrored aviator shades.