One-Year Denver Retrospecticus Pt. I
As of Sunday, July 29, I will have lived in Denver for one year. Wait, that can't be, because it was a Sunday when I got here, and they don't repeat like that. Maybe it was the 30th.
This is me at age ten or so. Dig the NFL belt!
The tragicomic tale goes a little like this: I was 28 years old and had lived in Missoula, Montana my entire life, save for a couple years in other sundry Montana cities as a little kid. It had taken me 7.5 years to graduate from college. I was living with my parents and working at an Italian restaurant for $5.75/hr. Towards the end of that period I would have a quasi-real job, but let's not sully the moment here. My tax records show that for the tax year 1999, I made $8,348. Living the dream, you might say.
Of course, it wasn't nearly as pathetic as I've made it sound above. I was playing a staggering amount of rock'n'roll, which explains the length of my college career, and for that I have zero regrets. And nobody graduates from UMont in four years anyway.
I've met maybe two people who've accomplished that feat. There's really no reason to rush it. It's cheap, a great place to live, and nobody wants to hire a 22-year-old for any sort of actual professional job anyway. I sure as hell wouldn't, unless your name is Zach Dundas.
From age 21-28 I played drums and/or guitar in probably ten different bands varying from country to Fu Manchu covers to bizarre odes to ham and chorizo to surf and garage rock. Of course, I gained the most -ahem- notoriety in Humpy, which we did for six years (not counting reunion tours) and played probably 700 or more shows, probably 98% of which were at Jay's Upstairs in Missoula. And there were a core group of about ten high school kids that thought we were the greatest thing since two-ply toilet paper. The whole thing was truly a unique and amazing experience that I doubt many people ever get. Nowadays, still only a year removed from the experience, I get a little choked up when I listen to old tapes of us practicing or playing a show.
Here's some Humpy photos:
I'd worked in pert' near every restaurant in downtown Missoula; even walked out of a few of 'em mid-shift. You can only do that so many times in a city of 60,000. And working in a restaurant is about the most glamorous thing you can do in Missoula when you're of that age. I remember working like 40 or more hours a week, and my paychecks were like $230. How the hell did I ever survive that?
Also, I had been living with my parents for about 1.5 years so as to save up for a future (as yet unspecified) move. The thing was, I enjoyed living there so much that it started to freak me out. I mean, who wants to be some burned-out punk rock loser living in his parents' basement? But it was so great! My parents are real down-to-earth people, they're hardly ever home anyhow, my dad has a full gym in the sub-basement, it was free, and most of all, it was quiet. I can't sleep worth a shit when there's even the slightest stirring of roommates. So those nights of uninterrupted sleep were like gold to me.
The long and short of it is that, by the age of 28, I was severely burned out on that town. Missoula is an absolutely wonderful place to live, and I feel truly privileged to have grown up there, but I knew beyond any preponderance of a doubt that a change of venue was my first priority. For one thing, nobody except doctors, attorneys, and the odd business owner makes any money in Missoula. Lots of rich East Coast hippies, though. So, if you like living a minimalist lifestyle in a totally bitchin' city, Missoula is the place for you. Me, I'm not too keen on the idea of living hand-to-mouth. I have a lot of interests and I like to buy a lot of shit, be it records, computers, electronics, books, magazines, beef jerky, beer, whatever. Plus I like to eat at restaurants for every meal. Suffice it to say that being broke and eating ramen is not even a slightly romantic notion to me.
In addition to that, there's some bizarre component to my complex and enigmatic personality that causes me a great deal of anxiety when I run into people I know everyplace I go. Most people, when they hear of this, probably think it's the most ridiculous crap they've ever heard. What kind of misanthrope wouldn't like living in a friendly town where you see acquaintances on the street, or going to Dairy Queen and running into a couple friends?
But I just can't help it. Yale time is Yale time, and to have to spring into social mode without notice is annoying to me. Doing planned stuff is fine and great, and it's certainly not that I don't enjoy others' company, it's just when it's sprung on me. By way of analogy, isn't it true that a goodly amount of people don't like to have people just show up at their house unexpectedly? Well, my case is just a little bit more exaggerated form of that. I swear I'm not crazy.
The point of all this: when you live in a town of 60,000 all your life, you accrue a lot of these acquaintances, and some of them date back to your high school days. So I would go to Target, for example, see someone I knew from five years back or something, and be stuck making small talk with some person I knew only tangentially in the past.
Uh, let's move on before I make myself seem like a total lunatic. I'm normal, just a bit touchy.
So I'd been talking about moving since I was about 22. First it was the Bay Area, then Seattle, then Madison, Wisconsin. But I never did it. Probably a good thing, because that would have only prolonged the already embarrassingly long college career. So once I finally graduated (B.A. Geography, Cartography emphasis; Yow!), I started sending out resumes like a maniac. I damn near landed a job in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii of all places. None of the faraway jobs were panning out however, and I didn't have any money to move anyway (still working at the Italian place for $5.75/hr).
So I decided to concentrate on something in town, just long enough so I could save up some scratch and get out. I got hired by this healthcare place where I designed their newsletter, among other more secretarially-oriented tasks. It was a decent job for being fresh out of college. I had my own office (a bright and sunny one at that), got paid nine bucks an hour (which is top dollar in Missoula), got to dress up, had some business cards to hand out, and the middle-aged ladies there seemed to think I was a pretty funny and happenin' dude.
--Is this even remotely interesting to anybody? I better start doing interviews or something; these self-obsessed rambling sessions are wearing thin, and we can't stand to lose anymore market share! Well, let's take a quick break and then jump back into the fray...--
Now then! Right around the time I got that job, I found a bunch of universities that had graduate degrees in GIS (cartography's hipper cousin), where you could take classes without all the rigamarole of enrolling in an actual master's or doctoral program. At the University of Denver (quizzically referred to locally as "DU"), you could take classes toward a graduate "certificate," and then apply all that crap toward a master's degree, if you so desired.
To my great surprise, DU accepted me into their hallowed halls of edumacationary excellence (undergraduate GPA: 2.8). So I decided I would move to Denver. I had never been there (except once to the airport), but it was not too far away, so I reasoned it wouldn't be too great a culture shock for me, plus I had an uncle who lives here, so I could stay with them at first.
So from January to July 2000, I worked at the healthcare place every day, and at the Italian place four nights a week. I socked $750 into a no-risk money market account, hoping to turn that into a grand within six months. Humpy played our farewell in Jimmy Pinjuv's basement around July 14th. I played my final show in Missoula with the Fu Manchu cover band a week after that. I sold my car and my drums, and paid off all the stupid debts I'd accrued in town. I got a one-way plane ticket, and by July 28, I had $2800 saved up.
God damn it was a weird scene in Missoula the week I left! The Hell's Angels had chosen to have their annual powwow there, and everybody was all terrified of what was gonna happen (what did happen was much more retarded than what anyone could have possibly predicted). That was all you heard about that week as they descended on Missoula by the thousands. The forest fires are a problem every summer in Montana, but that year, they were totally out of control, so that the whole area was in a state of alert. So it was a tense week to be sure.
Ten or 15 of my close friends took me out for beers. I thought it was gonna be all teary and emotional, but thankfully it wasn't too bad as far as that goes. Around 2:30am I was asked to give a speech, which I barely remember doing.
Part II of this exasperating saga will appear next week...
Treasures From the Photo Trove
Who are these turds?
In of the more hilarious developments of the past six months, my pal Chris La Tray found this at FilePile.org.
He had sent me some photos of his old band Reign and I put 'em up here. Some months later, he found a recombinant form again on FilePile. And it is genius. Funnier still, people post little comments about the photo "re-mixes," and in one of the comments, someone asked, "Who are the turds in the original photo?" I nearly soiled myself laughing at that one.
White Stripes & Slim Cessna
Hoo doggie! I dig those White Stripes somethin' fierce. Powerful fierce! The hype surrounding them nowadays is a bit much, however. You can always discern the level of hype being generated by a particular band by the degree of hushed silence that falls over the crowd as they set up their gear. As Jack and Meg White were setting up, it was so hushed in there you could almost hear a fly fart. Or maybe they were just checking out Jack's bulge or Meg's tits, who knows.
In any case, I'm gonna go ahead and state that all the hype is warranted. Jack plays some amazing Lou Reed/'69-era Stones shit on that Crapco guitar of his. And when he broke out the acoustic and started playing slide on it, my knees buckled. Of course, I was at the bar getting a beer at the time, so that was a mite unpleasant.
I feel as though the drummer Meg should port over to a stand-up drum configuration. The Mo Tucker vibe is already there, but stand-up drums would heighten the effect, and to their advantage.
Here's the only two photos that turned out worth a shit:
Before the show I started referring to them as the Wide Strips, you know, like the Band-Aids. Of course that quickly morphed into The Colonel's Crispy Strips.
Here's Scout expectorating his drink after learning that his wife is pregnant:
The following night we went to see Slim Cessna. I pretty much had my mind blown the first time I saw him, but this go 'round left me pretty flaccid. For one thing, it was so packed in the theater that you could barely move. I got mild claustrophobic tendencies, so this kind of deal really bums me out. I tried so hard to find a place to stand where people weren't touching me, but to no avail. And when I finally did find a spot that I thought I could deal with, this hippie chick came over and stood right in front of me and started doing this stupid twirling dance, and her arms kept hitting me. Christ, get a hold of yourself, sister!
Slim was not in top form this night, for whatever reason, but I'll forgive him. He seems like such a nice fellow.
Exotic Fruit/Vegetable Identification Section- Now featuring grotesque insects!
My buddy Happenin' Hank Donovan enlisted the brainpower of his co-workers over at Corporate Technology Group to help identify this mystery vegie: it's kohlrabi. Yep, kohlrabi, used in many of your favorite salads and casseroles for years.
Just about an hour ago, I was walking back to my truck having just eaten at Tokyo Blow -ahem- I mean Tokyo Joe's. I glanced into the bed of the truck and saw this disgusting specimen: 
Go ahead, look at the enlarged version! What the living fuck is that thing? I went and got a long twig and kinda moved it into the open, but I still couldn't identify it. Can anyone else?
For your reference, I'd say it was about an inch in length. But you already knew that because you're familiar with the dimensions of the grooves of a standard truck bed liner, right? All I know is that if I find out it's called a "pickle bug," I'm gonna be really hurt. Please tell me it's not called a pickle bug.
Interesting Fact of the Week:
JimGoad.com
Anyone who ever read the zine Answer Me will probably never forget doing so. It was probably the most hateful, vitriolic, and yet beautifully executed bunch of writing I've ever come across. The masterminds behind it was this guy Jim Goad and his wife at the time, Debbie. I think they only ever put out four or five issues, including the infamous 'Rape Issue' which pretty much got the Goads banished from LA.
I've never seen the Rape Issue, but I do have a compendium of the first few issues, and the shit is positively brilliant. You needn't agree with any of Jim's bitter and spiteful (and sometimes racist) essays, but it definitely gets your brain pumping, and it's always fascinating reading sheerly for its depth and level of intensity.
I think Jim ended up leaving Debbie and moving to Portland. Somewhere in the past five years, Jim wrote a book called "The Redneck Manifesto," which is essentially an apologia of American white trash culture. It's a mind-blower for sure, but I couldn't read it before bed because it always got me so worked up. "The Redneck Manifesto" is a must-read for any thinking person.
After this book, I'm not entirely sure what happened, but somehow Jim ended up in prison in Oregon. Something about him getting mixed up with a psycho hooker and him assaulting her. He kept writing in prison, and his new website jimgoad.com has them on display. His articles about life in prison are the best, but some of them make you think that being in prison only made him more hateful, if that were possible. I can't tell from any of the articles whether he is in fact released yet or what.
Late-breaking Update: Chris "CHaRISma" La Tray just wrote in to tell me that Jolly Jim Goad is indeed out of the klink and is on tour with some traveling spoken word/multimedia tour called the Angry White Male Tour. Sounds like a good place to pick up chicks!
There's a nice meaty article in Salon about this whole deal, located at here.
Album of the Week:
Oxes: Arab on Radar 10" on Wantage RecordsUSA
I'm going to Montana for a weddin' in a couple weeks. So this Josh D. Vanek guy writes me, already cross with me for castigating the Montana license plates in print, and tells me that if I don't have this Oxes record as Album of the Week, he will not speak to me or even look at me for the entire time I'm there. What is this, Sweet Valley High or something?
Still, who needs a tumble down the social register of that magnitude? With my entry-level social skills, I need to cling to each and every friend in the world like grim death itself.
Moreover, having people whisper the phrase "Josh and Yale are in a fight. Pass it on" at somebody's wedding would detract from the event at hand.
Ordinarily I would fight him, you understand. If there weren't that wedding, I'd tell that cherubic little fucker to meet me at Jacob's Island at high noon. Don't bring any knives; we're gonna do this clean, I'd tell him. Come noon, I'd set down my Yoo-Hoo, assume the Karate Kid position, and surprise him with my flagship strike: the Undeclared Nugget Shot. It'd be over that quickly. Then with him still writhing in pain on the ground, I'd step over his supine form, walk over to his woman, plant a kiss on her cheek, and whisper, "It's gonna be alright from now on, baby. Y'all with a big shot now." And we'd get into my Geo Tracker and drive away, Foreigner's "Cold As Ice" blaring from my stereo.
The actual review portion is as follows: Side A of this record will leave blisters in your synapses. Torturous prog rock instrumentals played by neighborhood toughs who are well read on the subject of Archduke Ferdinand and other Balkan historical footnotes. Additional research indicates that these Baltimoreans play with wireless setups so that they can walk around the crowd and harass onlookers whilst dispensing their angular and eucacophonous* rock-related product.
Having heard this and one of their full-lengths, I can affirm that AT NO TIME does the drummer utilize a standard rock pattern. I ain't saying whether this is good or bad, just that you should be aware of this before you set out to evaluate the product. He does, however, use a cowbell and a woodblock, to great effect, I would add.
The Oxes also have a shrewd technique for weeding the heshers out of their listenership: see, you can easily tell upon listening that the Oxes are more than capable of delivering the most pounding and aggressive riffles. But! Instead of repeating the riffle ad nauseam, they usually only keep on it for a bar or two. This tends to upset the listener's equilibrium a bit, but greatly adds to the overall fulfillment. It also prevents feebler listeners from getting into an unpalatable headbanging habit. In other words, it takes a bit of work to dig on the Oxes, but the rewards... well, they're bountiful.
By contrast, Side B made me feel frightened and alone.
*"Eucacophonous" is a word I coined which means "harsh-sounding, but in a good way." Listen to this Oxes record and you can see the need for such a word.
HIDE
