Sit Down, Casper

Bill Graham by Tom Pitts

2011-10-10T08:36:00.000-07:00

It was a Bill Graham event. They were all Bill Graham events. In the late Eighties in San Francisco, if you were somewhere that needed tickets, a place so big that you couldn’t go to the door and pay a cover charge, in other words, somewhere that wasn’t cool, then you were at a Bill Graham event. He’d cornered the market on rock and roll in the Bay Area since the Sixties. I’d been to his shows, eaten his famous free apples. Overripe and overrated, the both of them.

I’d never met him. I’d done deliveries to the underpaid employees at Bill Graham Productions on 5th Street. I’d seen the tired arrogance in their eyes. It was nice being that close to the rock legend, glancing quickly at old Fillmore posters and gold records on the walls as those same tired arrogant eyes watched me leave, making sure I’d didn’t linger in their hallowed halls. It was a different world from the promoters of the punk dives and shithole bars I was used to playing. Such a great divide that I never considered the possibility of being part of that world, Bill Graham’s world, the man that made rock and roll happen in the Bay Area for the last twenty years.

In fact, I never would have been at this show, at Shoreline Amphitheater sweating my ass off in the midday sun, had I not had a friend that knew someone in the band. Didn’t everybody have a friend that knew someone in the band? The show was Aerosmith and Guns and Roses. Guns and Roses were the band of the moment, the act that everyone wanted to see, to be a part of, to emulate, to know, and in Bill Graham’s case, have a piece of.

The excitement was in the air, billowing up like the plumes of pot and cigarette smoke that, mixed with the sun-kissed sweat, gave that certain stink that only a rock concert could give. Even though we had seats, everyone was on their feet, clapping and shouting out to and open and empty stage. It was well over an hour before the opening act, Guns and Roses, was slotted to begin and we were already being jostled and shoved by the throngs of rockers behind us.

It had been so long since I’d been to a big rock show, the chants and shouts were foreign to me. The styles were the same, but the people seemed drunker, sloppier, but happier. There was a harmonious mellow buzz building that was starting to make me feel like I was part of something bigger, a historic rock and roll moment.

That’s when I saw him. The Man, Bill Graham. He was only a few feet from me, walking up the isle, smiling and shaking hands like a politician. People were in awe, they treated him like a rock star. Sullen fans who’d been bitching about being gouged on ticket prices moments before were now reaching out, crying, “Bill, Bill!”

I was amazed; he was so close, so approachable, so accessible that I wondered was it was really him.

“Is that who I think it is?” I asked my friend standing beside of me.

“Yeah,” said Greg nonchalantly. He’d grown up in the Bay; he’d seen Bill do his diplomatic schtick many times before.

I was too cool to stick my hand out like a teenage girl who’d first laid eyes on the real Paul McCartney, but I was deeply impressed by Graham’s confidence and swagger. I watched him work his way up the isle before turning to Greg and making some snotty remark about Bill’s financial status.

It couldn’t have been a minute later when we were shoved forward. A violent jolt that broke the harmony. The cigarette hanging from my mouth singed some frizzy blonde hair right in front of me. There was a commotion behind us, shouting, we’d gone from Woodstock to Altamont in the matter of a few seconds. I turned my head, all heads turned; we all wanted to see the side show. I could see a cluster of yellow security jackets moving around like angry bees, pushing people back, barking orders. I could hear yelling, but all I could see was the backs of the people clustered ahead of me.

Then the crowd parted and I saw Bill. His face was red and he was shouting unintelligible profanities. I wondered if someone had hit him. Then I saw the head clamped under his arm. Bill was dragging some unruly full-price ticketholder out in a headlock. He marched down the isle with some denim cloaked longhair locked under his wing like it was no more than a sack of potatoes. With a gang of supposedly trained yellow-jacketed security thugs by his side, the legend, Bill Graham, had taken it upon himself to police his subjects personally. His eyes were wild with rage, but I could tell that he was in his element. This was the real business of rock and roll. He was doing what he did best. It was the: If you want something done right, do it yourself work ethic that had made the man who he was.

I looked back at Greg, stunned. Stunned by the violence, stunned by man. I was star struck.

“Now that,” smiled Greg, “was Bill Graham.”

Tom Pitts 9\28\11

Ioki and the Fat Jap (How I was recruited by the F.B.I.) by Tom Pitts

2011-09-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

Wham. In an instant I was being propelled over the hood of a brand new Toyota; arching in mid-air, and for one brief second, suspended, before smacking down onto the car. I rolled right over the hood like I had practiced it a million times. My heavy Schwinn one-speed bicycle didn’t make it as far. After impact, it too had arched high in the air then, like an uncompleted somersault, crashed down onto the hood of the car.

It happened at the intersection of Market and Kearny, a huge congested big city artery where 3rd Street, Market, Geary, and Kearny Streets all meet. With the momentum pushing me, I thought for sure that I had enough time to make it to the other side. I was wrong.

Immediately traffic around us halted. My acrobatics had stunned onlookers, I could hear several “are you all right?” inquires and an “oh my god” or two as well. I was all right; I was worried about being delayed and not making it to city hall in time for my filing. I began to pull my bike off of the hood of the car with exaggerated care. The driver door swung open. Cars trying to navigate their way around our mishap began to honk.

“You can’t leave. You can’t leave.” The voice coming from the car was high and abrasive. It was a shrill command.

The driver struggled to get out of the car. He finally pushed and squeezed his way onto the street and stood with one hand on his hip and the other held up as if to say halt. I hadn’t moved.

In front of me was a soft, fat Asian man. His lips were large and puffy; his skin was smooth and his forehead high and shiny. His shirt collar was clean and white, so tight it seemed to strangle his air supply. His face turned red as he barked at me angrily.

“Give me your driver’s license. You’re not going anywhere.”

I wasn’t going anywhere. With an exaggerated limp for sympathy, I guided my bike off of Kearny Street to the sidewalk to exchange information. The angry man honked his car over to the curb. It gave him time to deliberate with his passenger, when he climbed back out of his car he promptly declared me guilty.

“You ran the red light,” he said. It was a statement; not just for me, but everyone within earshot of his stage voice.

He didn’t ask if I was all right, he didn’t look at the damage to his car, he only stood with his hands on his hips wondering why everyone wasn’t stopping and joining him in condemnation.

The passenger in the front seat of the car sat silently through the whole incident. He sat waiting for the big man to take care of business, keeping his head down.

“Give me your insurance, give me your license.” The man demanded.

“I’m on a bicycle, I don’t have insurance,” I tried to explain. His fat face turned red again.

“Maybe we should call the police?”

It was a threat, an effective one.

“No. No police.” I was scared of the police; I always had drugs in my pockets. I was in a hurry to get to my filing at city hall; I was scared of loosing my job, and, at the moment, I was scared of this angry Asian man shooting tiny white pellets of spittle at my face. I just wanted my day to go on as it had before this asshole derailed it. With a sigh of resignation, I handed him my California driver’s license.

He snatched the ID from my hand, glaring at me suspiciously while jotting down my address, making sure my face was the same as the picture. I looked at his registration. The car was rented. I didn’t write down a thing.

“This is your fault,” he said, finger wagging. It wasn’t.

The details didn’t matter.

Weeks went by. The accident had been pushed to the back of my mind. I was 18 years old; my life was constantly bubbling and reconstituting itself with new drama. The incident had been just another notch on my belt as a bike messenger, along with flat tires in the rain and road rash.

That day was the furthest thing from my mind as I sat in my tiny bedroom on Pierce Street drinking my 16-ounce Budweisers and watching my 12-inch black and white TV. The doorbell rang. Desperate for company, I was quick to answer it.

“I got it,” I called out to my roommates and pulled open the door. There was the fat Japanese businessman.

“Tom Pitts?” he said. He was looking right at me. He announced it like a formality, as though I was about to served a summons. I didn’t say anything. With a great flourish, he produced a yellow carbon copy of some sort and waved it under my nose.

“Tom Pitts,” he said, “you hit our car. These are the damages. You must pay us this amount.” When he said “us” he stepped aside just a little and I saw a frail young man behind him. The young man looked only at his own feet.

“This is my brother, Ioki. He was in the car. He is also my witness to your crime.” Ioki looked sad and didn’t say anything; he only glanced at me through the greasy bangs that hung over his eyes.

The fat man went on with his speech, but I had tuned him out. I stood there holding the yellow piece of paper in my hand, staring at the figure in the bottom right-hand corner. The total was hundreds of dollars. There was no way I’d ever be able to pay this guy. He was dreaming.

“No,” was all I said. It was all I could say. I was in shock. The fat man looked at me as though he didn’t understand what I had said.

“No way,” I added, just to make myself clear.

“What do you mean? No? You don’t have a choice, Tom Pitts. You have no witnesses, you have no evidence, and you have no money.” He made a big swooping gesture with his hand meant to take in the scope of my miserable and impotent life. “You must pay us, or we’ll sue you. We will take you to court. I have money; you have none. This is America, and in America the rich win.” With this last comment he held his fist high in the air, pointing his finger toward God, as though he’d just received this additional commandment right there on my front stoop.

He had me. He’d touched on one of my worst fears. Fighting a broken system, running in a fixed race, being locked in a losing battle, outgunned, out financed. His theatrics were starting to draw the attention of my roommates. My nosey landlord lived in the flat upstairs. I wanted him to be gone; I needed to buy some time to think about this. Finally I agreed to pay him twenty dollars a week. I handed him a twenty, and, hoping to never see him again, was already formulating excuses for why I wouldn’t be able make the next payment.

He snatched the twenty out of my hand with great satisfaction and, as though he had read my mind, said, “We will be back.”

The fat man and his quiet companion turned to walk away, but before they got to the bottom of the steps, the fat man turned and looked at me triumphantly and said, “Remember Tom, in America, the rich win.”

He said it with such conviction; I believed him, to my core I believed him.

One week went by and they didn’t show. I was ready to call their bluff, I was ready for a screaming match, I was ready for anything but to give them another twenty dollars. Another week went by and another no show. After a few more weeks, I thought, once more, that I’d never see the fat Japanese businessman again.

The winter rains had given way to summer and my life had moved on. When you’re young, your time is so full that the few months since the accident seemed like years. I guessed that “the rich” had decided this battle wasn’t worth winning. Twenty dollars was not worth chasing me down for, no matter how badly they wanted to teach me a lesson.

In June, my doorbell rang. A long impatient and annoying ring. I peeked out the window to see who was on the front stoop. There again was the fat Japanese businessman. After all this time? For twenty bucks? That greedy vindictive son of a bitch. I’d been waiting for this moment, still smarting from my naiveté; I wanted to show him my backbone. With my teeth clamped together and my jaw set firm, I swung open the door.

“I don’t have your money.” I said. That was my greeting, that was all he was going to get, but as soon as I said it, I could see that he was not the same man at all. His eyes were red and puffy and I could see tear tracks streaking his fat cheeks. He was still dressed in a suit, but he looked disheveled and broken.

“I’m not here for your money, Tom Pitts. I’m sorry.” His tone was softer, more effeminate. “It’s my brother, Ioki …” His voice trailed off while he choked back several sobs. “… he’s missing.”

I was confused. I didn’t know what this man wanted. Was it all part of some elaborate ruse? Was he trying to draw me out for some other kind of extortion?

“I don’t want your money,” he repeated and plucked a twenty dollar bill from his breast pocket as an offering. “Look, here is your money back, Okay? I just want to ask you a question. May I come inside?”

“No.” I responded without hesitation. His tears had emboldened me.

“Ioki is my brother, he is lost here in America, I must find him. You must help me find him.” He was pleading with me and commanding me at the same time.

“Why the fuck would I know where your brother is?” I couldn’t even remember Ioki’s face. I could not have picked him out of a line up.

“Because he knows where you are. Did he come by here to pick up our payments?”

I didn’t want to remind him that I was only twenty dollars in. I thought about lying and telling him that I paid his brother the remaining balance, but his concern was not for my debt, it was for Ioki.

“No, I haven’t seen him.”

“Please,” pleaded the fat man as he plucked another twenty from his pocket, “can I come back next week and see if he has come for the money? Just give him this.”

I thought about it, debating whether I wanted to get further involved. The fat man took my hesitation to be haggling and promptly produced another twenty.

I relented, “What do I tell him if I see him?”

The fat man’s eyes lit up. “Don’t tell him anything, just give him the twenty and tell him to come back Friday for the next payment.”

I held the three twenties in my hand and watched the businessman climb back into his double-parked rent-a-car and drive away.

It was three more Fridays before the fat man returned. This time he rang my doorbell and immediately retreated into a black town car. When I reached the sidewalk, I could only see his chubby hand beckoning from the rear window. I climbed into the car beside him and he signaled for the driver to pull off.

“Have you seen him?” he asked. I could tell by his tone, he expected no response. I shook my head, but he wasn’t watching. He continued, “I need you to make a phone call, can you do that for me? I will pay you twenty dollars.”

When I hesitated, he rolled his eyes and said, “Okay, forty. Here’s twenty now and I’ll give you the other twenty after the call.” He believed that all people below a certain income level would do anything for a twenty. He folded the bill around a card. On the card was a name and phone number. The number was local, the name was Japanese. It was not Ioki’s name. “When they pick up, just ask for this man. Listen to what they say, and then hang up.”

Like the saying goes, it was his dime. I called, let it ring endlessly, reported back, and collected the other twenty. That was it. Easy money. The disappointed looking fat man thanked me and directed the driver to return to my home.

It was a pattern he kept for several weeks, the fat man would show up at my house on Friday, we’d take a short drive; I’d make a phone call, hang up, and collect twenty dollars. Soon he expanded my duties. He had me go into a newsstand in Japantown to fetch Japanese newspapers. It hardly seemed worth twenty dollars to have me walk a few short feet into a store to purchase a one dollar paper, but once more, it was his dime.

I got used to the Friday night errands, enjoying the extra pay. Then, they stopped all together; I once again pushed Ioki and the fat Japanese businessman to the back of my mind.

“Mr. Pitts? This is special agent Reilkoff from the F.B.I.” I thought maybe it was a prank, but the voice on the phone had an officious tone; I could hear typing, coughing, and the echo of leather shoes slapping linoleum.

“Have you had any contact with Haru Nakamura?”

I’d never heard the name. “No,” I answered without confidence.

“Are you sure?” It sounded like a test.

“No.”

“No, you have not had contact, or no you’re not sure?” He knew exactly what I meant. “Mr. Pitts, Haru Nakamura is a dangerous criminal and an international fugitive.”

There was a long and pregnant pause. I could still hear the echoes of phones ringing and other office sounds being bounced off the high walls and ceilings of the room he was in.

He began to tell me what the FBI knew. He told me what I already knew; that I had been in an accident with Mr. Nakamura and that a payment schedule was set up. How he knew these things, he didn’t say. The debriefing was one way and he didn’t pause to allow any questions. He told me how this Nakamura had made a career of embezzling partners and defrauding travel businesses. He didn’t say how Nakamura had done this; he only gave me astronomical totals from crimes.

When he concluded he said, “Mr. Pitts, we need your help in catching this criminal.”

“How can I help? He stopped showing up here weeks ago.”

“Oh, he’ll be back. We know he’ll be back.”

“Why would he come back to me?”

“Because,” the agent sounded annoyed that I hadn’t been able to follow the breadcrumbs he’d put down for me, “because of Ioki. He has to find Ioki.”

“His brother?”

I could hear Agent Rielkoff snicker. “Ioki isn’t his brother—he’s his lover.”

Suddenly things made more sense. It seemed the subservient young man had broken his bonds. On the run from Japan, he had grown tired of the tyrannical Nakamura and escaped here in California. Ioki wasn’t missing, he was hiding. Hiding from the fat, sweating, lecherous, desperate Nakamura. Images lighted my imagination; a terrified Ioki submitting to the clumsy fondling of Nakamura. Shutting his mind off, letting his body be used until the day fate would allow him a chance to flee.

Nakamura was in love. He was like a truck stuck in the mud, spinning his wheels in desperation. The man who had made his living by slipping away with people’s money was exposed, unable to flee with a broken heart. His obsessive, controlling love was going to be his downfall.

I was drawn into the intrigue; I was pulled by my inflated civic duty and the duty to do what is right. I put aside my nihilist punk ethos and tried to think of what my Father would do. I told the agent I’d help.

“Good,” he said, welcoming me aboard. He gave me the number of a travel agent who fell victim to Nakamura and told me that the travel agent would be calling to help set up a sting.

“The travel agent is gonna set up the sting?”

“Look, these guys have been hurt by this asshole more than anybody. They have the initiative and the desire. This guy has lost more than three hundred thousand dollars and he’s got a vested interest in bringing this fat prick to justice. Now if you can help us, Tom, there might be a sizable reward in it for you.”

That was it. The scales had been tipped.

“But you want me to contact the travel agent?”

“This guy has our complete backing, just follow his lead. When Nakamura calls, just call that number and tell him what Nakamura has instructed you to do. He’ll let you know what to do next.”

He gave me his number, repeated the number of the travel agent and told me that they would be “in touch.”

I hung up the phone feeling inflated. Had the FBI just asked me for help? They needed me to close a case. After less than a year in this country, the US government had solicited me to help solve a problem. The excitement overrode the facts. I was being sucked further into a mystery, an adventure. I sat staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring. I was ready to kick down doors, exchange envelopes, and play both sides against the middle. All the phone had to do was ring.

It didn’t. It didn’t ring for another two weeks. Finally, on a Wednesday, I got the call. Haru Nakamura’s voice came over the phone with its familiar heavily accented feminine gate and told me that he wanted to meet at the Cathedral Hill Hotel in two days. He’d never asked me to meet him before. He had always picked me up at home. He had never called me in advance before, preferring to show up unannounced in his town car on Friday evenings. His voice sounded different. There was apprehension coiled in it. Did he know that I’d been contacted by the FBI?

“Tom, you will be there?” He wanted it to sound like a command, but it was a question, a plea.

“Yes, I told you, I’ll be there.” I felt like Judas accepting a dinner invitation to the last supper. I wanted to get off the phone. Before he hung up, he asked,

“Tom … have you seen him?”

He knew the answer, but had to ask. I felt sorry for him.

As soon as I hung up the phone I called the number the FBI agent had given me. The voice on the other end sounded like the agent’s. Was it the agent? I felt my heart sink. Had I been duped a second time? Was a con man using me to set up another con man?

“We’ll be there. You just do what you are supposed to do. We’ll take care of the rest.”

“Who? The FBI? Who is gonna be there if things get weird?”

“Nothing is going to get weird. Just show up and we’ll take care of you.”

It occurred to me that I was being reassured by a travel agent, helping him wreck his vengeance. I didn’t know who was who anymore. I didn’t care. I was going through with it just to see what would happen next.

I showed up at the Cathedral Hill Hotel at the appointed time, locked my bicycle to a parking meter outside and walked up to the revolving doors. Entering the huge expansive lobby, I looked for signs of my protectors. I saw none. I took a seat on a large white couch and waited. I watched for Nakamura, I watched for agents. I wasn’t sure anymore if they were FBI agents or travel agents. The minutes crawled by. Should be wearing a wire, I wondered, or perhaps a bulletproof vest. I imagined Nakamura wandering in and being tackled by a team of agents. I saw guns drawn, badges flashed, a glint of steel from the handcuffs before they came clamping down on the fat man’s wrists. I thought about how much the reward might be. I calculated percentages from the astronomical totals from Nakamura’s crimes.

After a half an hour, I imagined what else I’d be doing right now, where I was going to go afterward, what I was going to eat. I yawned. The traffic in the lobby was constant. A steady stream of new faces let me know that none of them were the slightest bit interested in my intrigue. I yawned again. The couch felt comfortable.

After forty-five minutes I decided that Haru Nakamura was a no show. He’d been spooked. Perhaps he had a sixth sense that tipped him off, or maybe he found Ioki and no longer needed me.

I headed to the bank of pay-phones across from the elevators and dialed the travel agents number.

“He’s not here.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” said an angry voice on the other end. I thought it was a little harsh considering I’d done my part, cast my web. Something had tipped him off. The fat man had slipped away again. An image of his greased naked body flashed in my mind.

“What do you want me to do?”

The voice seemed resigned to failure. “Just go home,” he said.

Months later, letters began to arrive at my apartment, forwarded from address after address. Osaka, Tokyo, Daly City, Redwood City. All of them in Japanese. A gentle calligraphy adorned the expensive parchment. The paper was transparent and the fibers frayed from the edges. It felt expensive, important. There was exotic postage, colorful, indecipherable. Some envelopes were small like wedding invitations; some were wide and serious like wills and deeds. A few had different surnames, but they all ended with:

Ioki Yoshida c/o Tom Pitts
137 Pierce
San Francisco California
USA

There it was. Ioki and I were inextricably tied. I knew it; the senders of these letters knew it. The thread of my life had been knotted forever with this wayward son, sad abused soul; running from that greasy monster, that fish lipped Napoleon, the clown sadist. I looked down at the letters in my hand and wondered if they were from his family; desperately trying to recover their lost boy, messages of forgiveness, the all clear to return home.

There was a grocery bag on my floor that was brimming with empty aluminum cans, 16-ounce Budweisers. I gave each envelope one clean rip before sticking it between the cans.

Tom

The Chinese Line

2011-09-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

The line extended to the end of the block and halfway up Jones Street. Orange cones, spaced in intervals, ran parallel to line, delineating where people stand and where the general public walks. It was a regular occurrence to the neighborhood so people knew the drill and very few complained, even though there was good reason to.

Dressed in shades of grey and black - some homeless, most transient – they stood, referred by Social Workers, friends or given a Free Eats Chart with instructions of how to get there. They were mostly black and white: high, crazy and fucked. With a hot meal and a seat guaranteed, the line was relatively drama free.

Large men in yellow jackets with the word SECURITY in block letters across the back policed the line. With a light hand, they roamed the area. Mostly, they stood out front and accepted food donations. Their presence was mandated by nearby businesses and neighbors. It was the least they could do for permanently fucking up a block.

The yellow jackets used to be participants in the line. It’s assumed that at some point they accepted help and switched sides. With their lives back on track, they got their AA in drug counseling at City College and eventually move inside the building, into a small room where they counseled people on drug addiction. This is a generalization.

Across the street is another line. This line is much shorter and everybody is holding some sort of shopping bag. And they’re Chinese. I don’t know much about the line, except they there’s a storefront that appears to be giving out groceries. The people in the line are much older, but have the same expression on their faces. I would bet most aren’t on drugs.

Never will the two lines meet.

I’m about 30 yards east of the Chinese line. I have no affiliation to the Chinese – I don’t prefer it over the black and white line – I just happen to have business on that side.

I’m training a new driver. Wearing Red Wings from the 70s, these boots have a Tom Mcan vibe that says the wearer has reached a level of working class status that requires him to hold a clipboard rather than drive a forklift. That’s what I imagine. I liked to be called a Foreman.

I tell the new driver this: “They don’t like me, that’s good.” I talk in short, abbreviated bursts. “The more they don’t like me, the more they’ll like you. Feel free to talk shit about me; it will bond you with them. Feel free to tell me if they talk shit about me. Stand by the door until someone lets you in. Alert the person that you’re here. He’ll come out with a cart and stand by the vehicle. He’s very particular about the way you give him the food. Work something out with him. I don’t care, whatever works but don’t let him abuse you. If he’s a dick, let me know and I’ll deal with him.”

The driver stands next to the door. They let him in and he comes out a minute later. I’m in the back of the vehicle staging the food.

“How did it go,” I ask.

“Fine, I think I gave it to the right guy.”

The new driver joins me in the back of the vehicle.

A young, dour, Goth woman in black rags appears at the side door and reaches into the vehicle. I immediately spring into action: “Get out, get out, GET THE FUCK OUT.” It was the verbal equivalent of poking her with a stick. She wandered off behind the vehicle.
I told him that people in the neighborhood may try to steal food.

Walking to the curb with a pan full of Tilapia, the Goth woman was standing next to the man next to the cart. I immediately thought: Volunteer! Fuck! I mistook the Goth woman for a homeless person.

I lowered my head and put the pan on the cart. I looked at her and said, “Sorry.” I wanted to explain that I thought she was homeless or a junkie but that would’ve made things worse.

The new driver had already picked up on my mistake. I stayed in the vehicle and let him pack out the rest of the food.

On the road, the new driver said, “That woman was pissed at you.” Having already overcome the embarrassment of making an ass out of myself, I replied, “She’ll get over it. People always assume I’m homeless or a bike messenger.”

A Representative From Costco is Visiting Today

2011-09-06T16:07:00.001-07:00

Within 5 seconds of exiting the car, I felt something hit my left shoulder. Something big and heavy, I thought. I looked up and noticed him standing next to me, looking crazy. He was black, 5’ 10’, black cap, disheveled, high and mentally ill. This is how I described him to the BART police dispatcher. The dispatcher asked me to clarify the style of cap; if he was drunk and how I knew he was mentally ill. In order, I told her it was a baseball hat; he didn’t smell of alcohol and that I work worked with lots of mentally ill people. She didn’t question my credentials.

His eyes had that yellow glow of somebody who had a prolonged relationship with crack. He was sweaty and waiting for me to reply. They’re always waiting for a response. It helps justifying violence. Like an idiot, I gave it to him.

“What the fuck, dude.” This was a very white response.

I continued walking, taking out my keys and putting them in between my clinched right fist. I had done a quick check of his ability to kill me and deduced I could take him. I calmed and continued to the ticket machine, violent visions filling my thoughts. He followed, his yellow eyes egging me on. I pulled out my phone, my iPhone. Not a smart move.

“Dude, get the fuck out of here or I’m calling the police.” Once again, I included dude.

“I don’t care, call Allah. I’ll kill you,” As violent as this sounds, his demeanor remained the same – the yellow eyes looking at me while we moved forward. I should’ve known that the threat of police never worked. Last time I used this tactic, the response was: “I don’t care, I’m not afraid of going back to the penitentiary.” Don’t mess with anyone who calls prison the penitentiary.

As we entered the courtyard of BART, he derailed from my path, heading east to International Blvd. The influx of people defused the situation. I continued on, keeping a close eye on him as I walked with the commuters.

Bypassing the ticket machines, I went straight to the station agent and reported the incident. While explaining what happened to the attendant, I looked toward the turnstiles and the Director of Human Resources at my work was smiling at me, shaking her head. She had witnessed the incident. Her look was one of pity and amusement. I motioned her away. This was a woman who hears all the petty and nasty shit at work, she didn’t need to get involved in my problems.

The attendant handed me a phone and I gave the dispatcher the particulars. An officer appeared and talked to me in hush tones. Before we walked the courtyard, looking for the perp, I established my credentials: “I work in the Tenderloin, so I’m pretty used to this.” He didn’t respond. This was becoming more about me than the incident. He took my name and number and sent me on my way. I was a little embarrassed that I reported such a petty crime, but I justified it by thinking I was doing a public service. Once again, it was about me.

On the train to work, I sank into the dirty, blue bench seat and revisited the incident. Indian software engineers and office workers slept, their heads moving in rhythm of the train. As innocuous as the incident was, it was embarrassing and somewhat tested my manhood. I did right by ignoring the situation, but my heart was telling me to hit him, hit him hard. I believed that hitting him would alleviate the built up anger that followed me the past 2 years. The anger of being in the TL, seeing junkies, johns, prostitutes, druggies, scumbags, scammers, holey rollers, do-gooders, entitled white people and pathetic hotel desk clerks every day; and listening to staff tell me about botched suicide attempts.
But most of all I was sick of seeing poverty, crime and drugs. My optimism was gone, and unhappiness and bad endings was omnipresent. Everybody appeared to be doing poorly; nobody thriving.
By taking my anger out on some miscreant, I believed I would reset. It was a dangerous narrative and I knew it.

As I sat down at my desk, an all-call came across the phone system: “A representative from Costco is here today to talk about membership. He’ll be at the entrance of the lunchroom. Please stop by and say hi.”

Like a slap in the face, the poor salesman from Costco inadvertently added perspective to my morning and the last 2 years. I went upstairs and looked at the salesman. I still wanted to pummel some scumbag, but for now I was glad I wasn’t behind a foldup desk talking about the advantages of a Costco membership.

Cracks in the Sidewalk

2011-07-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, a TL hooker and a john were going at it in the alley, across for our roll up door. Groups of staff watched. As the excitement grew, more came to join in the view. Unaware of the street performance, I approached the crowd, inquiring about what was going on. A familiar face pointed across the street. Instead of walking away, I closed the roll-up door. It was the adult thing to do. Some shuffled off, others dissected the spectacle and one or two said, “Officer Kim,” shaking their heads.

A few minutes later, I opened the roll-up. The hooker and john had finished and were zipping up. Without provocation or even a meeting of the eyes, the hooker made a beeline for the roll-up. It caught me off-guard. Usually they wander off, the john back to his car for more trolling and the hooker using the proceeds to buy drugs.

The hooker laboriously shimmied up on our dock and slowly rose to her feet. Having a 6th sense for alley ghouls, who try to breach the line between alley and business, my verbal assault started way before she reached the dock. “Get out, get out!”

I ran for my stick – a giant, discarded wooden soup stirrer (I’m sure there’s a proper name for this thing) - and poked the air in front of her, yelling, “Get out, get out.” Her eyes attempted to focus and her mouth moved but words were indiscernible. She was totally fucked up and had no idea what she was doing. I felt sadness, but I still wanted her to get the fuck out.

My voice calmed and I pleaded with her sanity. Regardless of her illness and inebriation, “Get the Fuck Out” is one directive every TL alley dweller knows. They’re told this countless times every day and react to it like a stern push. She left.

A few hours later, another crowd formed. I grabbed my wooden stirrer and peaked out the window. 2 marginally homeless guys were fighting, one shirtless. Nothing out of the ordinary. They yelled, came together, jumped back , came together and generally did very little damage. A typical TL fight.

Three young men in flat-brimmed baseball caps, budding homeless, a decade away from fulfilling their destiny, danced around the fighters, filming every move and taunting them: “Get’em, Nigga. Get’em.” All the players in the scene were white or of Middle Eastern descent.

I tighten the grip on the wooded stirrer. This was it, my swan song; the culmination of 15 years of bullshit; the day I would join the ranks of the dregs and be a youtube video of an old man beating 3 young guys. I was ready.

The next day I watched the video on youtube. I decided against beating the homeless in-training. As I watched, I touched the wooden stirrer. It gave me comfort.

One Wall

2011-07-13T11:25:00.000-07:00

Most corners of rooms are right angles.

The window on the west wall looks over the Jackson’s house. Miss Jackson’s son, Rocky, was the first person I met when we moved in 10 years ago. I haven’t seen him since. He drove a 70s Charger. I still reference him, if I need to show community spirit.

A mile past the Jackson’s house is Bishop O’Dowd. The east side of their football stadium is visible from the window. On Sundays in the fall, you can hear rumblings of football games. My son may attend O’Dowd, if I can get over the Catholic thing.

5 miles past O’Dowd is the Oakland airport. Planes are silhouettes when viewed from the window. A lot of drama happens between our window and the Oakland airport. We’re kind of drama free except for the yearly break-in.

Attached to the window is a grey wall. Karl, Alex’s brother, painted it. After 10 years, the upper half of the wall has developed a transparent quality, the white paint from its former self exposed. It’s either the result of bad paint or mold. Like a letter from the IRS, I don’t like looking at it. It represents trouble.

Below the window is a small book case that I got at Thrift Town in Fremont. I’m not a fan of most bookcases, but this one is ok. It’s packed with books, the overflow stacked on top and in front. Most of the books are of the non-fiction, contemporary history or sociology ilk. There’s some literature, but that’s not my thing. They’re there for pretention.

On the hardwood floors next to the window is a side table. I got it at a St. Vincent De Paul in Oakland on San Leandro Boulevard. Like lots of other thrift stores, it’s no longer there. I got it with another side table. Both are marked Made in Denmark. This is a good thing if I ever want to resell it. However, like everything I own, it’s a bit flawed.

On the face of the table is a 90s TV. Something is wrong with it. Any time you cough or move, horizontal lines appear. I’ve checked the cables and connections and they’re secure, so it must be the TV. It’s annoying, but I only watch baseball games on it, when my wife is monopolizing the good TV.

Next the TV is my dresser. I got it at Thrift Town in San Leandro. Like the side table, it’s Danish. But it’s from the 70s so it’s a piece of crap, but it’s big and can hold a lot of socks, underwear, t-shirts and jeans. I tried sprucing it up, filling in dents with putty and staining blemishes, but I failed miserably. When it leaves me, it will go for less than 10 dollars to another sucker who is enamored by the Danish mystique.

On top of the dresser is a pile of clothes that is waiting to be put away. Depending on many variables, they could be there for months. Behind them, leaning against the grey wall, is two pieces of art: the first is a painting on wood of a British bobby. Part of the painting is carved, accenting creases in the ears and facial lines. It’s a nice touch. The artist is names Marco Cibali – something like that. He’s from Toronto and pays the bills with commercial design. Lots of artists are pragmatic like that.

Next to Marco is a photograph by Loretta Lux, a German artist. Loretta was very popular back in 2002, when her first USA show at Yossi Milo in NYC sold out immediately. I was lucky enough get a small print of a not-so popular piece. The piece is of a young girl in vintage turquoise clothing, waving like David Bowie on the cover of Heroes. The subject I wanted went to people with connections.

The Lux was prominently hung in our living room for years. Not sure why it’s now leaning against a wall in the bedroom.

Hanging on the wall next to the Lux photograph is a photograph by Zoe Strauss, a punk ass, poorly dressed (more on this later) lesbian street photographer from Philly. This photo is of an abandoned hotel in post Katrina Louisiana. On the outer balcony of one of the upper floors, someone spray-painted “Mom. We’re OK.” Besides the message, it’s a very architectural photo. I like it a lot.

Zoe was featured in the 2002 Whitney Biennial in NYC. Before the event, she appeared on TV’s What Not to Wear. I guess she needed something to wear and had no idea of going about it. I suspect she’s back to her disheveled ways.

Also on the dresser is a ball the size of a hacky sack, pictures of our deceased animals, ashes of our deceased animals, strewn change and a jewelry box from my father. At the base of the dresser is launder clothes, stacked on a dining room chair. It’s almost like a piece of furniture,

This is just one wall in our room.

No Parking by Tom Pitts

2011-07-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

When Jerry pulled up to the apartment, there was already a car parked in the driveway. It was a new car, or at least a newer model, a re-worked throwback to the muscle cars of the 70’s. He knew it was none of the neighbors; they never parked in his spot. He’d bought a No Parking sign when they moved in, but it was never a problem, so he never hung it up. Jerry sat in his car wondering who could be so obnoxious. He waited for about a minute, when no one appeared, he pulled away to find somewhere else to park his car.

It had been a tough day, his mind was overworked and he’d forgotten to turn on the radio on the way home. He liked to listen to music on the way home. It was his own time, the only time he could really choose what was on the radio without his wife or kids complaining. They hated whatever station he tuned into and complained endlessly until he’d switch it. Now, circling the block for a second time, he felt like he’d cheated himself out of his only serenity. Like missing a meal, he was worried that his day’s rhythm would be thrown; that he was ill-prepared to deal with what the rest of the day was ready to serve. He reached out and turned up the volume just in time to hear a string of ads as he continued circling his block searching for a parking spot.

After finally finding a spot and squeezing in, Jerry climbed out of the car and walked toward the apartment building. As he got closer he saw the unfamiliar car still in the driveway. It looked out of place there. The oil stains on the sidewalk under the car looked like they didn’t belong there. The car was superior to the driveway. In fact, the small dirty six unit apartment building looked like it didn’t belong there either. The car was new. It was masculine, powerful, youthful, everything the commercial promised it would be. It was not a model that Jerry could afford, and if he could afford it, it was not one he would buy.

As he walked toward the door, Jerry couldn’t help but peek into the muscle car. Around the rearview mirror hung a palm tree air freshener, in the back seat there was a 12-pack of American beer and a suitcase. Otherwise, the car was spotless.

Jerry opened the heavy metal gate and began walking up the stairs. He could hear laugher. He still couldn’t tell if it was coming from his apartment. The walk up the stairs winded him, like it did every night.

The laughing voices, he could tell now, were coming from inside his apartment. With the key in his hand, Jerry stood in front of the door listening. The voices sounded comfortable and relaxed. The social sounds of people having a good time. These sounds were foreign to Jerry and hearing them come from inside his home filled him with a confusing dread. Laughter from his wife’s voice filled the air and he slid the key into the lock.

“Hello? Sarah?” he said, feeling a bit like stranger in his own home. The strong smell of cigarette smoke assaulted his nostrils. There was a warm and spicy note on top of the smoke, too. Had someone been baking?

“Hi honey,” his wife called out, “you remember Eric. He came by to see Karen.” Jerry didn’t respond so she added, “Isn’t that great?”

“Yeah …” said Jerry. There was a grin frozen on his face. He wondered if it looked as fake as it felt, if it had melted into a sneer when he reached out to shake Eric’s hand.

“Jerry, what’s up?” said Eric smiling, not getting up from his chair. Eric grabbed Jerry’s hand and squeezed it hard. Jerry winced.

“What … ah … what brings you up here?” Up here, down here, Jerry had no idea where Eric had come from, or for that matter where he had been the last eight years.

“I came by to see the kid. I thought Karen might like to get out to Six Flags or something. You know, a break from her life.” Eric was Karen’s natural father. Jerry came into Sarah and Karen’s life after Eric had abandoned them. Not long afterward either, Eric’s name was still haunting phone messages and the mailbox when Jerry moved into the tiny house in the Lakeview district. The house, long since re-rented, re-sold, and then torn down, had been a starting spot for Jerry and Sarah and an end for Sarah’s old life with Eric. The only history that Jerry knew was what Sarah had told him, an anguishing story of abuse and alcoholism.

“Her life?” Jerry was trying to understand what it was she needed “a break” from.

“Yeah,” Sarah interjected, “I was just telling Eric about Karen’s school and how she’s having a rough time there. We thought that a little break might be just what she needed.” Her words flowed fast and may have been slurred a little. Jerry noticed several beer cans piled atop the kitchen garbage. He also noticed Sarah’s use of the word “we”. A parental decision had been made without him. Another parent had voted in his place, a parent who had seniority in his family hierarchy.

Sarah went on, “Eric could take her, and maybe me too. Eric’s been working near town here and he thought he might be able to see her more often.” Work? In all her stories and complaints about Eric, Sarah had never mentioned him having a job. Quite the opposite. She always said that Eric would rather sit in a prison cell than work for a living. Jerry had never met Eric. He assumed that this was true. Seeing him close up, he began to question the picture Sarah had painted of him.

After all the years of having a tidy picture of Eric, having him pigeon-holed as a dead beat dad, here he was, live and in the flesh, sitting across from Jerry, destroying that picture. Eric was good looking and tanned. He seemed both relaxed and well rested, a look that Jerry could never cultivate. When Eric smiled, he showed off perfect white teeth. There was an undeniable charisma. His presence was the only thing in the room. It diminished Jerry, made him feel like a schoolboy again.

“Jerry, you wanna beer?” Eric said, pulling open the fridge door like it was his own. Jerry wanted to say “no”, he wanted to say “no” to everything that Eric was going to ask. He wanted badly to say “no” the very idea of Eric.

“Uh … sure,” said Jerry. Eric reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a can of American beer for Jerry. Jerry nodded thank you. He hated American beer. As soon as he cracked it, Eric lifted his half full beer and said, “Here’s to Karen.”

Jerry lifted up his beer, even though he thought his step daughter was a strange thing to toast to. Why would they toast to Karen? Jerry looked back down at the garbage and tried to count how many beer cans there were. How long had Eric been here?

“So, Jerry, how’s life down at the plant?”

“Plant? I don’t work at a plant, I work at a place that screens t-shirts.”

“Yeah, well, plant, factory, whatever. Splittin’ hairs when it comes to names, job’s a job, right?”

“Right,” said Jerry. He knew that Eric wasn’t listening to what he was saying. When he spoke, Eric looked Sarah in the eye, not Jerry. An uncomfortable silence filled polluted the air.

“So, Eric, what do you do for a living now days?” asked Jerry.

Eric gave Jerry a patronizing look and used a tone that was reserved for talking to someone who couldn’t grasp the answer.

“I’m doing some work with some fellas just down the peninsula. It’s going quite well.”

Before Jerry could ask him to clarify his answer, the dog began to yelp. There was the loud crash of the gate closing downstairs.

“That must be Karen, she’s gonna be so excited,” said Sarah.

They sat looking at each other, listening to Karen’s footsteps coming up the stairs. Sarah and Eric both had tight expectant grins on their faces. Jerry’s face was slack and pale. The front door creaked open.

“Hello-o?” said Karen. She was fifteen years old and had only recently begun taking the bus home from school. Karen usually beat Jerry home by a couple of hours.

“It’s a little late to be getting home isn’t it?” Jerry asked, but his question was downed out by greetings.

“Karen,” cried Sarah, “look who’s here. Eric. Do you recognize him? Of course you do.”

Eric took over. “Oh my god, what a beauty! My little girl is all grown up. You look beautiful, so mature.”

Jerry felt marginalized, invisible. He stood in the middle of the room wanting to disagree. No, she’s not grown up. No, she’s not mature, she’s only fifteen for Christ’s sakes, and, no, she does not remember this a-hole that was just referred to as her father. I’m her damn father. But he didn’t say anything; he just stood there with the same painful look on his face that he was trying to force into a smile.

“Hang on a sec, I brought you something.” Eric reached into his leather jacket and handed Karen a CD shrink wrapped in cellophane. “It’s the new Mirror Ball Tramps CD.”

“Oh my god,” Karen’s tone instantly changed, “this isn’t even out yet!”

“Their road manager is a good friend of mine, if you want to see ‘em we’re in.” Eric was smiling at her with those white teeth.

“Are you serious? Yes I wanna go. When?” Karen was smiling back at him now too. She had forgotten that one of these men was her father, Jerry wondered which one.

“Whenever, I’ll make some calls.” Eric’s answer was ambiguous, but apparently good enough for Karen, who grinned with excitement and retreated to her room with her new CD.

“That was easy,” said Eric, shooting a wink across the kitchen at Sarah. Was Jerry not supposed to see the wink? Was the wink meant for him to see? He was right beside them both. The beer was making his stomach feel empty.

The conversation returned to where it was before Jerry had come home. There was no talk of beatings or abandonment; there was no talk of missing child support. No complaints of missed birthdays, Christmases, report cards, anything. The only memories they were now sharing were good ones. They talked about friends they shared that Jerry didn’t know. They talked about places that Jerry had never been. They talked excitedly over top one another and Jerry never got a word in. He sat, acting like he was listening, but letting his mind drift as far away as possible.

After two more beers Eric got up to go to the bathroom. It was then Jerry saw how tall he was, much taller than Jerry, he seemed to fill the whole kitchen. It was as though he was too big for their tiny apartment. He was larger than life and couldn’t be contained by the hum-drum constraints of Jerry’s tiny apartment and life.

When they heard bathroom door shut, Jerry saw his chance to voice his opinion, to say, what the fuck is going on here?

“Sarah …” was as far as he got.

“Don’t start now, Jerry. You’ve been complaining for years how Eric was never here to help out, now he’s here and you’re ready to jump down his throat.”

“I’ve been complaining? You’re the one who’s painted this fucker as the devil. And what does ‘help out’ mean, anyway?”

Before she could answer him the bathroom door opened and Eric came out extolling a satisfied “Aahhh.”

Jerry tried to continue with the momentum he’d built up while Eric was in the bathroom.

“Eric, what kind of work did you say you were doing down the peninsula?”

“Work again, Jerr? Come on let’s talk about something a little less boring. I mean, work is work, am I right?”

Sarah shot Jerry a look that admonished him for slowing down the conversation and they moved on from there.

“Do you ever hear from little Ricky?” asked Sarah. Jerry tuned back out. He could hear the muffled sounds of the Mirror Ball Tramps coming from Karen’s room. Normally he would tell her to turn it down, but right now the steady thump helped drown out the sound of the conversation in the kitchen as his wife’s voice peaked and crested with excitement. Between Sarah’s giggles and Karen’s noise, Jerry felt a heavy pull on his chest. He tried to sigh, but the mere effort of drawing a breath was too much labor for him. He was exhausted and could not even bring himself to yawn. He took another sip of his beer, it was flat now. He set it down and didn’t say anything.

“Jerry. Jerry...Jerry.”

At first he didn’t even recognize his wife’s voice.

“Jerry, we’re gonna go for ice cream. Eric’s gonna take us in his new Charger.”

It wasn’t an invitation.

“Are you sure?” said Jerry, looking again at the empties piled high atop the kitchen garbage.

Sarah smirked. “Of course, he’s fine, he can handle it.” She didn’t say “unlike you,” she didn’t have to. She would never let him get behind the wheel even after one beer. Before he could ask Karen if she wanted to go, she was in the living room pulling on her jacket.

“Bye Daddy,” she said from across the room.

“Okay then, Jer,” said Eric as he held open the front door for Sarah.

“Bye, Hon. Love ya,” was all Sarah said. She didn’t wait for a response. Eric pulled the door shut. Jerry could hear them laugh and chuckle down the stairs until he heard the metal gate slam shut.

Jerry stood at the window and watched them get into the sleek new car. A memory floated up. Jerry thought about the time it used to take the three of them to get into that old white station wagon they used to have. Brown with mud and perpetually full of garbage, the car would burp blue smoke until they were safely out on the open road. What piece of shit that was. In a way, he missed the car that took them on so many camping trips and Sunday drives. Sarah always told him it wasn’t the car that made the man. She said the same thing about clothes, and money too. She always knew just what to say.

Jerry watched now as the car he could never afford, and would never buy if he could, pulled out of the driveway with his family. It was dark now and he stood like a sentinel and watched the taillights disappear down the street. All that was in front of his home now was an empty driveway with a large oil stain. His oil stain. He thought about it; he was a terrible procrastinator. He should have put up that No Parking sign weeks ago.

Tom Pitts 5\16\2011

Young Guns

2011-06-08T15:35:00.001-07:00

It was unfortunate that the monthly staff meeting fell 2 days after Toby decided to steal a vehicle and say fuck it to the last two years of employment. It was his choice, I knew that, but it was still depressing. Unfortunately, this mode of so-called resigning was common.

Everybody was aware that he wasn’t at work and that something happened. They asked me but I held the party line: “He called in sick.” It was all I was giving them; it was all I could give them. They knew it was bullshit. Rumors were swelling and everybody had opinions.

In private, with certain staff, I would reveal a little more information: “He’s not coming back. He’s ok, but he’s not coming back.” For somebody with a very big mouth, this was not easy.

At the staff meeting , the inevitable came early. I knew it would. Nobody cared about my reiteration of phone policy, cleaning vehicles after use and the proper way to fill-out an accident report. They wanted to know about Toby.

“Greg, so what happened to Toby?” a driver asked. I looked at him, smirked, raising my eyebrows and said, “I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. All I can tell you that he’s not coming back.” Revealing that he wasn’t coming back – information that was private at this point, was too much information. I stopped and tried to retract what I said: “Well, he might be back, I’m not sure. It’s not up to me.” I like to use “It’s not up to me.” It implies that decisions are made upstairs and were out of my control.

Instead of moving on and talking about a required Sexual Harassment training, I told them this:

“Do you remember Young Guns II? You know, the one with Keifer, Estevez and Lou Diamond Phillips?” I paused. They were still paying attention, holding out hope that this would somehow lead to more information. I continued, “The producers of that movie wanted to use Bon Jovi’s Wanted: Dead or Alive for the closing credits.” With the mention of Bon Jovi, I immediately lost them. They knew me well, having attended these monthly meetings. They knew that I liked to deviate from the business at hand.

Last month, after seeing Crass (band), the king of all dogmatic, anarchist punk bands, I answered all questions at staff meetings with: “Well, what do you think Crass would do?” Most knew the band so it went over well. At least I felt it did.

The time before that the first words out of my mouth were: “I’m not in a good mood. I’ve been listening to Shania Twain all morning.” It was a lie – not the Shania part, but the being in a bad mood part. I was in a fine mood and it was because of Shania. Her feminist anthem That Don’t Impress Me Much sparked rich images of 90’s girl power, which I relished and drank from. But fantasy was not enough. Before the meeting, I snuck into the meeting room and wrote That Don’t Impress Me Much” on a whiteboard. I closed the doors to the whiteboard (oddly, it had doors). At the meeting, I baited staff to question what I was saying. When one of them took the bait, I slowly got up, walked over to the whiteboard and dramatically opened the doors. I pointed to the song title and in my best No Scrubs TLC affect, wagging my finger, said, “That Don’t Impress Me Much.” My look was sassy and I was very proud of myself.

I continued on about Jovi: “They approached Jovi about using Wanted: Dead or Alive and he came up with a better idea. At this time, remember, Jovi was very into the western/cowboy/native thing, wearing Native chest plates and donning cowboy hats.” I said this like Jovi history was common knowledge. Some were paying attention, wondering where this was going, and the others were staring at the table.

“Jovi had a better idea, though. He told them that he’d write a new song that sounded exactly like Wanted: Dead or Alive.” I waited to see if they knew the song I was talking about. The story was coming to an end and I was excited.

“And that song was…Blaze of Glory!” Like most of my stories, it was met with blank stares. They’d forgotten what the story pertained to. I had to remind them.

“And Toby went out in a Blaze of Glory.”

When He First Got Out by Tom Pitts

2011-06-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

When he first got out he enjoyed the mundane. It was the little things, he told himself, that made every day worth living. He would walk slowly down the aisles of the grocery store, taking in the sounds and smells, the peaches in the produce, the bread in the bakery. He would hear the nostalgic music being pumped into the store and whistle out of key as he stared absentmindedly at sale prices on stuff he had no intention of buying.

He would take long walks along the beach. Listening to the surf hitting the beach, he’d wonder about God and the vastness of the universe, ponder the passage of time. He would try not to morn the loss of his own time by making little promises to himself. He promised to live in the moment and read more, eat more, see more, do more; to slow down, but to never stop living.

Reflection was his watchword. He was a quiet man now. When he did speak to people, it was with an apology or an “excuse me.” Mild mannered. Unassuming.

For a while it worked too. He could appreciate a cloudy day as much as a sunny one. He took in the bitter with the sweet. He would drink in all of his emotions, good and bad, like fine wine, savoring each individual flavor. His time without time had truly taught him to live.

Inside, monotony was all he knew. It was like a poison slowly killing him. On the outside, monotony was like a drug, keeping him stable, keeping his head straight. It was the little things, he told himself. That’s what he told himself inside too, that he’d never forget to appreciate the little things.

He worked his job, stocking giant shelves in a giant warehouse that shipped restaurant supplies. He learned a little Spanish from his co-workers, a little bit of Chinese from the customers. He already knew about patience, about drudgery. He practiced those each day like they were ancient arts.

He felt as though he’d found the secret. It was in a simple life, simple acts, simple needs, and simple dreams. Those barefooted Buddhists had nothing on him. Solitude was a reward, not a punishment. Silence was golden. Patience did have its own rewards.

It was almost two years after he got out before things began to unravel. It was on the number 14 bus, on his way home from work. He watched a young man tell an elderly lady to fuck off. The young man didn’t want to give up his seat on the bus. The kid just sat there, selfish, self-absorbed. He stood up and surrendered his own seat. It was further back in the bus. The elderly lady walked back, thanked him, and sat down. That was it. Problem solved.

The next day, he woke up late. He made it down to the restaurant supply store on time, but he was rushed, had no time for coffee. When he got on the bus, it was later than normal, the rush hour. The bus was full; he was forced to stand. The business people that closed in around him stank of colognes, perfumes, and hairspray. The air was claustrophobic and damp.

People on the bus looked at him, looked at him in the way that people looked at him after he got out, when they knew where he had been. They looked at him like he was different, wrong. His face felt hot and feverish; he got off the bus three stops early.

He was relieved to get off the bus into the morning air. Immediately his head began to cool as he strolled quietly toward his work. He reached the front door and slipped in without saying hello to anyone. He walked to the stockroom refrigerator and put away his lunch. Carlos told him Eduardo called in sick so he would have to do most of today’s inventory by himself. Semi-trucks would be in that afternoon to pick up orders that needed to be pulled and inventoried. It would have been a tough two-man job, but with only one, the task seemed insurmountable.

He knew that Eduardo wasn’t sick. He was hung-over. Eduardo drank like a fish. With his eyes bulging from a thyroid condition and his puffy lips hanging off his face, he thought Eduardo looked a bit like a fish too. They both knew today was going to be tough. Four Semi-trucks heading to the northern part of the state were to be packed and loaded before three p.m. Eduardo picked a hell of a time for another mid-week bender.

Dumb fucking Mexican.

Eduardo was from El Salvador. Or maybe it was Nicaragua. Carlos told him to do the best he could. He wondered where the fuck Carlos was from. No one ever asked him where he was from. They all assumed it was right here, that he’d been here all his life. He felt no need to tell them otherwise.

The day was long. The trucks were early, the shipments late. Carlos yelled at him in English, he yelled at him in Spanish. Every time he moved it seemed he crushed his thumb, smacked his knee, bumped his head.

The trucks were finally gone. His day was finally over. He felt older than he ever had his whole life. He nodded a goodnight to Carlos, who stood speaking Spanish to a small cluster of his co-workers. Carlos ignored him and kept on talking. It didn’t bother him. He wasn’t here to make friends.

It was later than usual when he left. The sweatshops had let out and the bus was full of loud-speaking Chinese ladies who were just as anxious to get home as he was. He sat in the back of the bus trying to rest his head against the window. He sat, staring out into the darkness, head bouncing against the glass, not thinking of anything.

To him, the Chinese ladies sounded as though they were fighting. Every few minutes he would open his eyes and check to see that they were still smiling. He was beginning to block out their volume when a young white girl sat down right in front of him. She had a toddler with her, a snot-nosed little boy who immediately pulled himself up on the seat back and began coughing in his face. The mother ignored the child. He wanted to say something. Cover your mouth. Turn around. Take that fucking whore of a mother of yours and get the fuck out of my face. But instead, he just sat silent. When the child upgraded the cough to a sneeze, he got off the bus.

He was six long blocks from home. Home was a residential hotel. Two years busting his ass and he still lived in that shithole. He was better off in the half-way house.

He unlocked the door to his room and sat down on the bed. He felt like a cigarette. It had been years since he smoked. He gave it up when he went away. It was easy to quit inside. A bottle of Kentucky whiskey sat unopened on the dresser, left over from a date that never happened. He wondered if it would make him feel better, or worse. Instead he lay back and closed his eyes. He fell fast asleep with all his clothes on.

He slept without dreaming and woke up feeling like he hadn’t slept at all. He sat up in bed, unfocused and bleary, staring into space. The first thing he thought of was a cigarette. The second thing he thought about what day it was. It was Saturday. This week had gone so sour; he thought he’d never see the weekend. He got up, pissed in the sink and went back to bed. The fucking roses can stop and sniff themselves today.

When he woke up it was almost four o’clock. He decided he was going to open that whiskey. He cracked the seal and spun open the cap. The burn in his chest was warm and familiar. For the first time in a week he felt good. He felt like he deserved a little more than this shithole room and his shithole job. He took another drink. He felt like he deserved some of the most basic comforts. A little bit of what everyone else was already getting. He felt like getting laid.

He could still feel the warmth in his chest when he hit the street. He was hungry, horny, and he had seventy dollars in his pocket. There was a diner just a few blocks away, the old fashioned kind, with mediocre food and high prices. He spent seven dollars on a burger that tasted like shit and another three on a beer that went flat before he finished the burger.

He looked down at the remains of his burger and felt unsatisfied. Maybe he should just go home. Getting laid suddenly seemed like a stupid and expensive idea. He didn’t have the time or the money, or, most of all, the energy to play at mating rituals in a bar somewhere. He was too old and too ugly for the singles’ scene; they could sense that he was not okay. He was creepy and he knew it. Whores were the way to go for him. He pushed his plate away, calculated his tip and threw down some cash.

The wind had picked up, blowing in the San Francisco night, making the air sting his face. He hiked through the Tenderloin, zig-zagging upward though the streets toward the track, the two or three blocks where the whores still had cunts. He passed liquor stores with small crowds of bums outside, each with his hand out asking for change. They asked for cigarettes while one dangled from their mouths. He stepped over unconscious bums on the sidewalk, quietly regretting not choosing that path in life. True freedom. From responsibility, from working, from the man, even from consciousness. What a quiet joy it must be not to have to think these thoughts, to maintain this body, to bother with the effort of life.

“Choo got a big dick?” a transvestite called out to him from a doorway. He stopped to look at her, squinting as though she were a mirage. Fake tits squeezed together in a leather bra, fishnet stockings pulled over her cartoonish wide hips. She wore no pants, but he dared not look at her crotch. He knew she was a man. He knew from where he was, what block he was on. He knew she was a man because, in this town, the whores without dicks never looked that good.

“Nah, I got a regular sized dick. Sorry, sweetheart.”

“Choo wanna date me? Choo ever fuck one of us?” she said and, without missing a beat, showed him two perfect breasts. Surgically altered perfection. He thought about the rest of the walk up Polk Street. He was tired. Those bitches up there were mean. They’d go through your pockets while they sucked your dick. Did he really need a pussy? Wouldn’t a blow job be enough?

She could see him hesitate. It had been a long dry spell tonight. Too much competition. There were more trannies on the street than Johns. She hadn’t turned one trick all night.

He was looking right into her eyes, past false eyelashes, gobs and gobs of mascara, into her eyes, into her soul. Trying to check the gender there. He kept his eyes leveled at hers and decided.

“Let’s go.”

She walked ahead of him. He watched her surgically enhanced fat ass shift from side to side as she led him down Ellis Street and up Larkin to her hotel. It was a shithole just like his. They passed the front desk and the East Indian gentleman with the sneer on his face.

“That’s another six dollars,” the man called out after them. “I’m counting you. I’m counting you.”

Just another statistic. He followed the fat ass up the stairs, his CDC inmate number rolling rhythmically through his head. J-58624. Jay dash five eight six two four. She led him into her room. The walls were covered with sheets like some cheap harem tent. Christmas lights added a soft red orange light. The smell of mildew, lube, and incense choked the air. She went right to the clock radio on the nightstand and turned up the volume on some anonymous disco and the beat throbbed into the air.

She turned to him and said, “What you want me to do, pappy?”

“You got a cigarette?” he asked.

“Choo nervous? It’s okay; I only bite you if you want to be bited.” She smiled revealing one immaculately shined gold tooth.

He sat down on the bed and watched her wiggle across the room, moving her hips to the tinny sound coming from the clock radio. He tried to let himself go. To forget where he was; the sheets pinned to the wall, the implants shaking at him, the thick pancake of make-up, it was the worst façade. He wanted that Kentucky whiskey.

“You like some party favors?” she said, pulling out a tiny square plastic baggie.

“No,” he said, and watched her pour just a little into a glass bowl no bigger than a grape on the end of a glass stem. He’d done meth in the old days, before he went away. A line here and there, punk rock nihilism, when losing a night of sleep felt like getting away with something. Industrial strength stuff that would keep you up way longer than you wanted to be. He’d never seen anyone smoke the stuff. It seemed half the new guys who were getting sent up said it was behind someone smoking meth. He watched her lips wrap around the glass stem. Her lips looked good. He liked her lipstick.

She stood still as she inhaled and then began to dance again as she exhaled and turned toward him.

“You wanna touch them?” she said, squeezing her breasts together. He shook his head, but kept looking at her tits, then at her eyes, and then at her tits. She danced a little closer and bent down and touched his knees. He fell back and let her do her job. She did her job well. He tried to focus on some fantasy that would take him out of that room, that situation, but couldn’t; the sucking was too intense, too focused. His mind wouldn’t let him think, it was all instinctual sexual reflex. He unloaded with ease. Long and satisfying.

Afterward he watched her go back to the pipe. He noticed for the first time the tiny whiskers on her lips, how the pancake-make up really didn’t cover her acne scarred face. He thought of those bitches in the joint. Kool-aid make-up, charcoal eyeliner, knotted shirts and no eyebrows. He felt a little sick.

She motioned for him to join her by holding out the glass pipe. He didn’t even think, he stood up, reached out and let her hold the Bic lighter under the glass bowl. He inhaled, held it in, and felt nothing. He exhaled and felt the euphoria rush up to his brain. He was instantly regretful. His mind began to race and he wanted to get out of that hotel room.

“What’s wrong, pappy? You no like the tina?” She smiled at him with those big metal teeth. He could feel his lip quiver. He wondered if she could notice it. He shouldn’t care. He needed to leave. “Do you have a cigarette?” The sound of his voice was far off and tinny, he wondered if he had said it out loud.

“Choo wanna stay? Choo wanna smoke this?” He noticed her thumb run lightly over a bulge in her panties. Her attitude had changed; she was bolder now, teasing him. He felt his teeth clamp together.

“Do you have a fucking cigarette or not?” He knew he said that out loud. The smile disappeared from her face. Slowly she pulled out a pack of Benson and Hedges Menthol. He might as well be sucking dick, he thought.

She glared right at him while he took out one of the long white-tipped cigarettes and, with the lighter she was using for the speed, lit it for him. He watched her. He could feel his heart beating. For one quick second, he saw himself on top of her, knees pinning her arms, holding her eye open with one hand and holding that cigarette against her eyeball with the other. He felt goose bumps all over his body. He could almost hear the sizzle of the cherry pressing up against the white of her eye.

He took a long drag off that cigarette. Menthol. He needed to buy some real smokes.

“Thanks,” he said. “I gotta go. I gotta be at work in the morning.” It wasn’t true. It was still Saturday night; he didn’t have to be in till Monday morning. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever go in again. But if he did go in Monday morning, that fucking Eduardo better not be hung-over.

The sights and sounds of the Tenderloin night assaulted him when he hit the sidewalk. He took a right on Larkin and walked through little Saigon. Homosexuals, hobos, fish markets, massage parlors. He stopped into a small market and bought more cigarettes.

“Matches, please.”

The clerk stared at him like he had no idea what matches were. There was strange music playing in the store. It was like having an insect buzzing inside your ear. He reached across the counter and grabbed two packs himself. The clerk recoiled and wrinkled his noise like he had smelled something bad.

Outside, he stood in a doorway and lit his cigarette. He stood looking out into the street, the night, and tried to separate himself from the person who was just in the room with that whore. He thought again about those freaks in prison, the blue shirts tied in a knot, the high-pitched whine of their voices. He shuttered. A car slowed down in front of him. Then it stopped. The tinted window did not roll down; the car sat in front of him.

“Fuck off,” he said to the window. He was staring right into his own reflection.

The car pulled away. They were cruising. They were cruising him. He had stopped too long in the wrong spot. Fucking freaks. He kept walking. He walked up Polk Street, up and away from the Tenderloin.

He was all the way to California Street when he saw her. She was beautiful. She was alone. He wondered what she was even doing out here. She didn’t belong. He saw her look up and down the street and watched the wind blow black her shoulder length blond hair. He knew she wasn’t lost. Was she working? Who was she looking for? Her pimp?

What was wrong with him? She wasn’t a whore. She was too good looking to be a whore. Too smart. She looked as though she would talk to him directly, speak her mind, be opinionated.

Suddenly she turned and walked up toward Van Ness. He looked across the intersection and saw a police cruiser. Is that why she is on the move? Or was it him, standing across the street, staring?

He started walking right after her. He didn’t even think about it. He wanted to know her. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted her to make him forget this day, his life up until this moment. He wanted her to be the one to invite him back in to world, into society, the one who would say, “He’s all right, he’s with me. He’ll be fine.”

He could hear his own footsteps. The rhythm quickening, coming up on hers, overtaking them.

He didn’t know what he would say. He wasn’t sure what he would do. He just wanted an opening. He reached in his pocket for his Marlboros.

“Excuse me. Do you have a light?”

She stopped, turned and looked directly into his eyes.

At first he thought that she’d recognized him. There was a glimmer of warmth. Perhaps they did know each other. That was why he saw her, connected with her. What did they call it? Serendipity? She was relieved that he’d finally spoke up.

But the warmth in her eyes cooled fast. She was smiling now. Laughing. She knew this approach, knew he has matches in his pocket. Heard this line before, heard them all before.

Is that all you got?

She was no whore. No whore would have laughed at him. She was a stranger, a bitch. He’d never seen her before in his life. There was no way she knew him. Yet she kept smiling right at him. She knew where he’d been and she wasn’t afraid. It made him feel like a child. She could never be with a man like him. Hardly a man at all.

“No,” she said. When he didn’t look away, she offered him a polite smile.

He reached into his pocket and felt his keys. He held them tight in his fist. He could feel a key between each of his fingers, the key to his mailbox, the key to the front gate, and the key to his room. He pulled his fist from his pocket and, with one quick motion, punched her on the side of the head as hard as he could. She went down instantly.

She looked up at him, confused; blood had started to flow from her hairline. He gave her no chance to respond. He got down on top of her, pinning her arms with his knees, and began to hit her, again and again. He hit her in the head, but his fingers began to hurt from the keys hitting the bone. He switched to her neck. There he could feel the keys puncture her skin. Her body was done fighting; she’d already lost consciousness. He could hear shouts and screaming. Now he could hear sirens. He kept punching her, keys fixed in his hand; no one was stopping him. There were no heroes tonight. His hands were hurting. Part of him was outside his body, wanting him to stop, pulling on his shirt, urging him to run.

It was too late. The sirens were now drowning everything out. He could hear the shouts of police commands, the crackle their radios. It was all over now.

Let’s see how that fucking Eduardo likes packing those trucks by himself.

If You Leave Me Now

2011-05-31T11:23:00.000-07:00

Exiting at Eden Canyon Road, the Driver’s Education instructor had her pull over in a dirt patch. She put it in park and got out of the car. The instructor looked at me and said, “You’re up.” I was in the middle of three students in the back of a Ford Granada. The car was outfitted with an additional break on the floorboard of the passenger side, for the sake of safety. The instructor used it liberally. I pushed way my way out and sat in the driver’s seat.

This was the last stop in obtaining our driver’s license. Our course work was over. We had already been scared straight with Red Asphalt; simulators taught us to watch out for old bag ladies who were prone to leaping into traffic and manuals explained the correct speed limit when approaching train tracks that were 40 yards from an elementary school. It was a long process, but it was worth it – the end result was a driver’s license.

It was winter of 1980, a dreary Sunday that leant more to depression than religion, a time when businesses still closed for the Sabbath and streets were relatively empty, due to a slower pace of life.

I turned left and followed the frontage road back into town. Driving under the speed limit, the instructor told me to speed up. At Foothill, a road that claimed at least one student a year, I made a right, passing my high school. Decades later, often on Sundays, I found myself driving this stretch of road, looking up at the familiar burnt East Bay hills and squat oak trees.

Knowing the history of the road, and being an inexperienced driver, I hugged the shoulder, wincing anytime a car would pass. When the sound of the tires went from pavement to gravel, the instructor would gently grab the steering wheel with his left hand and steer the car back on the road. With a ten and two death grip on the steering wheel, this road scared the shit out of me.

We drove around town, up near the church, then back to Foothill on our way to Sunol, the adjacent town where the cowboy kids at our school lived. I always liked Sunol and knew the streets were relatively free of cars. This was good for a new driver. I’d had enough passing cars on a two-lane road.

Clipboard in hand and writing God knows what about my driving, the instructor told me to make a left onto a dead end street. I figured I would be tested on a three-point turn. Instead, he said to pull over. This was not uncommon. There lots of starts and stopping, and changing of the drivers. I figured my driving time was up.

I sat in the driver’s seat waiting for instructions. The instructor glanced longingly out the passenger side window at a country house that was parallel to the car. The A.M. radio played “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago.

If you leave me now, you'll take away the biggest part of me
No baby please don't go
If you leave me now, you'll take away the very heart of me
No baby please don't go

Without taking his eyes of the house, he broke the silence by dramatically turning off the radio and saying: “I hate songs like this.” Not knowing what to say, all of us sat stone faced and silent.

Seeing the looks on our faces, he attempted to explain why were parked, looking at a farm house in Sunol: “My ex-wife lives there.”

Even at 15, I knew this wasn’t right. He was a stalker, a man in a pain over bad love. It was moments like this that I started to put together that my charmed life could easily turn to shit and that it could be me driving by the ex’s house.

He turned around and looked at a girl with glasses in the backseat: “You’re up, Four Eyes.” His attempt at humor diffused the situation. Four Eyes took over and I moved to the back.

Friend of Skinhead or Not

2011-05-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

Izzy and Trevor were an odd pair, a Texan and a Filipino German. Only in a work environment could they exist. What they lacked in common ground, they made up in fast food. Both loved Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Burger King, but KFC was their favorite.

At the corner of Ellis and Polk, KFC shares a space with Taco Bell. Next door is Brenda’s, a fancy Cajun place that TL hipsters and tourists from the Phoenix and other mid-to-low level hotels in the neighborhood frequent.

Izzy and Trevor, by my observations, dined at KFC every day. The 3 piece plated chicken was their favorite; however, if the Pot Pie was fresh, they would get that. Only if it was fresh.

Like a sales associate at Neiman Marcus calling to inform you that they just received new shoes from Marc Jacobs’ resort wear line, Izzy and Trevor built a similar relationship with the employees at KFC. Instead of shoes, they would call them when Pot Pies came out of the oven.

One day around lunch time, after morning duties, I heard Izzy’s phone ring. He answered and quickly left through the back door, yelling at Trevor: “Let’s go, Trevor. Fantasia called and said the Pot Pies just came out of the oven.” And off they went.

Izzy asked Fantasia out. Years of seeing her everyday bolstered his confidence. She agreed and he bought tickets to the Halloween cruise around the bay. Before the date arrived, he learned that Fantasia had a night job: hooker. Of course, he shared this with us. Since it had been a long, long time since he had a date, let alone sex, we counseled him to continue on with the date, as long as he didn’t pay for it at the end of the night.

Izzy didn’t take our advice and went stag to the cruise.

On this day, Trevor went to the KFC alone. While in line, a local crackhead entered from the street and started yelling at Trevor. As much as he wanted to tell her to fuck off, he ignored her, as this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. He was versed in the Tenderloin and knew engaging her would be pointless.

Sitting at a corner booth, a skinhead sporting the uniform - bomber jacket, Fred Perry and 18 eyelet Docs with white laces – stood up and yelled, “Get the fuck out of here, bitch.” The room froze, preparing for drama. The crackhead acquiesced and left quietly through the same doors she entered. The room breathed a sigh of relief and turned to the skinhead, who was still standing. The anger in his face had not subsided.

Trevor made the mistake of looking at him. The skinhead looked back, saluted and yelled, “Sieg Heil.” He calmly sat down and went back to eating with his skin chick girlfriend. With the skinhead out of the way, eyes now turned to Trevor, whose own eyes showed fear, knowing that the customers assumed he was associated with the skinhead.

Whether he knew it or not, the “Sieg Heil” was thrown his way. If it were a bullet, it would’ve hit him in the chest. Like a scene from a Woody Allen, Trevor looked around with a half-smile, silently attempting to convey to the predominately African American customer base that he was not with the skinhead. He appreciated that he got the crackhead to leave, but he didn’t agree with the his politics or supported his tactics. He knew this was futile, though.

Instead of following the crackhead out the door, he stayed in line, feeling the derision and stares encircling him. But he was hungry and this was his place. The Pot Pies were fresh. He’d earned his place in line and wasn’t moving – friend of skinhead or not.

The Evolution of the Douchebag Tattoo

2011-05-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

Chris’ mom claimed that anyone with 3 or more tattoos was a sexual deviant. By definition, Chris and her husband were sexual deviants. According to my observations, anyone with one tattoo is a douchebag. By definition, I’m a douchebag.

While wading in the extensive pool at the Grand Hyatt in Maui last week, I had lots of time to observe women and men in various stages of undress, with various tattoos. It was a moneyed bunch and tended to skew on the “older” side - 35 to 55 - so most tattoos were run of the mill tramp stamps for women and bicep tattoos for the fellas. A few hipster women and men – the new yuppies – were covered, branding them as members of the creative class, the ruling class. In this scenario, the tattoo becomes “work,” a digestible euphemism.

In my UV protection swim shirt, Target floppy hat and white sunglasses, it was clear that the first wave of douchebag tattoos for women – the tramp stamp – had not evolved. Generation of women were still adorning butterflies, angels and various winged entities on their lower back and as long as alcohol is served and tattoo shops stay open on the weekend until 2 am, the tramp stamp will survive.

However, I’m not comfortable commenting on tattoo trends among women because I tend to consider myself a women sympathizer, who knows at least 3 alternative spellings of the word women – womyn, wimmin and wymyn - and probably wrote a paper at the age of 21 that used the word herstory over the traditional history. I’m way more comfortable being a dick to men. You know, men on men. It’s easier and I very knowledgeable of the breed.

As I waded in the pool, I realized that my tattoo – a large carrot on the outer calf of my left leg - was the first douchebag spot of tattoos for men. I looked around and men in the general vicinity of my age, who showed a propensity for tattoos, sported some elongated symbol/object that stretched up their outer calf. It became clear - it was the tramp stamp equivalent of guys. This wasn’t a huge revelation because I was a trendsetter in the arena of douchebaggery. Remember, I was wearing a swim shirt.

Once I eliminated the older set and their calf tattoos, I looked at the younger guys, with their muscles, pretty girlfriends/old ladies and good looks. In envy and jealousy, I was harder on them, meticulously scouring their tanned bodies for a trend. I didn’t have to look long.

Like the late 80s/early 90s tattoo trend of tribal bands, barbwire, dragons, suns and graphic designs, the local and haole men of Hawaii adorned some sort of tribal tattoo pattern that ran from their shoulder to their forearm. Since we were in Hawaii, it was assumed that every one of these patterns had some sort of historical meaning. Meaning or not, they were everywhere, given the fact that these fellas preferred tank tops over elbow length polos.

Treading water in the deep end, I crowned the one arm tribal tattoo as the new douchebag tattoo. I was a bit sad that my carrot on the outer calf was no longer relevant, but I found solace that I was douchebag when douchebag was cool.

Commuter Habits

2011-05-05T15:08:00.000-07:00

The relatives needed the minivan to go to Santa Cruz, so I was stuck with the clown car, the VW Jetta. Bought in 2003, it is the first car that I (we) ever owned.

The pride of ownership never took hold. It always needs a wash, a vacuum and is continually a few thousand miles behind an oil change. What it has going for it is a birthdate in the 2000s (not the late ‘80s or early 90s) and reliability. It’s my wife’s car, not mine. I only drive it when I’m forced to.

Paid off in 2008, it has heavy-ass doors and a trunk that requires all your weight to close. On the freeway, when I drive it, I find myself in the fast lane going as fast as I can, longing for driving gloves with holes in the knuckles. Because of this midlife crisis behavior, I prefer the low-and-slow of the minivan, taking corners in a leisurely manner, and pissing off Sammy Hager types in the slow lane. On this day, I didn’t have a choice. I was in the VW with the Old Lady, commuting to San Francisco.

The commute is mine, a time when I’m by myself, listening to sports talk (during baseball season), thinking about stories to write and drinking Diet Pepsi. I should be on BART, but like others who prefer traffic to a crowded train, sometimes driving vs. the train isn’t a decision, it’s about addiction, habit.

Keeping me in the daily commute is a nasty Diet Habit; for most it’s coffee and cigarettes. Boredom while commuting has led to this assertion. 10 years of incessantly looking into the cars of commuters leads to me to believe that this is true. Anything to break up the monotony.

Because the relatives were using my vehicle and I’m using the wife’s vehicle, she’s with me the whole week, copiloting the commute. I’m not happy about it. She’s pushy with the radio, preferring pop stations and she’s chatty. I remind her that I’m the Captain of the ship - ruler of the radio and purveyor of conversation.

After dropping her off at work, I run a few errands, ridding myself of $600 dollars in cash to shady work vendors who refuse to bill. Shady is always a cash transaction.

Once I finish outside business, I return to work and park in the alley, dropping off some crap before moving the car to a paid lot. One the space is available, next to a junkie on the sidewalk, hiding in a recessed doorway.

While putting a quarter in the meter, I hear what appears to be a question. I turn and look at the young woman in the doorway. She’s sitting down with her left pant leg rolled up to her knee and her shoe off. Her exposed leg is swollen, bruised and littered with open sores. A needle in her right hand hovers over her foot.

“Excuse me,” I reply, looking confused.

She repeats the same indiscernible question, accenting the last word.

“Excuse me,” I say again.

She lifts the needle from her foot and focuses on articulation.

“You don’t have a problem with what I’m doing, do ya?”

I chuckle, not expecting this.

I looked at her in disbelief and reply, “Of course I have a problem with what you’re doing - anybody would, but I’m used to it.”

“Oh, ok,” She replied, going back to sweeping her leg for signs of flowing blood.

As I crossed the street, I decided to give her some advice.

“Hey,” I screamed, looking back. She met my eyes like a scared raccoon, still trying to be polite, selling me on her plight.

“Why don’t you just jam it into your thigh,” my right hand pantomiming jamming a needle into my thigh.

While walking away, she muttered something. I assume she was educating me on the difference between a muscle high and vein high.

White Dope on Punk: Epilogue. Get With The Military Of Ideas

2011-05-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

I’m walking down College Avenue with my sister, her new girlfriend Anita, my wife Alex and our little boy. We had just finished eating at Shen Hua and the ladies wanted to enhance their post dinner stroll with a little coffee.

As we crossed Ashby and headed toward the coffee house, I spy a young woman approaching us with a clipboard and stack of political flyers. We successfully avoid eye-contact, so she turns her attention to a couple walking in the opposite direction—though not before shouting at us, “Get with the Military...the Military of Ideas!” Nice.

I’m intrigued, so while the ladies stood in line for lattes, the boy and I strolled over to her literature-strewn table and check out what she was pushing.

As I walked over I realized that she wasn’t alone, there were three more just like her on adjacent corners of the intersection. All of them were extremely aggressive, following people up and down the street belligerently and verbally accosting them. It was obvious the locals were not happy about their presence, but the Berkeley liberals were too passive-aggressive to confront them. They’d rather call the police on them for a “quality of life” issue than for being assholes.

A banner on their table identified them as the LaRouche Youth Movement, supporters of Lyndon LaRouche, the old conspiracy theorist who was prone to running for President. I knew nothing of his real politics and solely judged him by the actions of his “good street soldiers.” I approached with caution.

“Military of Ideas” was sitting at the table, taking a break from the action. Feeling feisty, I put the stroller in park, pulled down the canopy to block the boy’s view—just in case things got nasty—and smiled, hoping to elicit another catchy slogan. Thinking she had a live one, she blurted out in a pissy voice, “What are you doing to stop the war?” Prepared for a question like this, I responded in an affected voice, “Well, what are you doing to stop the war?” I could have easily said, “I know you are but what am I?” “Voting for LaRouche!” she sassed back. Without missing a beat, I responded, “Voting is stupid.” My old anarchist days were resurfacing and I was ready for a fight. Circle the “A” motherfuckers, I’m back!

This response usually elicits looks of astonishment and bewilderment. “You don’t vote?” she asked, more perplexed than angry. “No, do you?” acting like I was the one that should be astonished that she does vote. Her astonishment bubbled to anger and she unleashed a diatribe of hate. Not wanting to subject the boy to this, I grab the stroller and turned away. But not before getting in one last jab: “Voting is for pussies. Go back to Pleasanton!” I reverted to the taunt of my youth: still a classic!

Returning to the café, I found my sister and wife out front enjoying the late October evening, oblivious to the verbal sass match that had just ensued. We wanted to continue our leisurely stroll, but of course to get back to the car, we had to once again cross Ashby, where two new LaRouche youth waited for us in front of Wells Fargo. Feeling a little paranoid that Military of Ideas had tipped them off that an enemy of the voting revolution was heading their way, I gave Alex the stroller and lagged behind, running through my witty come-backs and clenching my fists, just in case.

As we approached, they launched into their spiel. I tried to ignore them, but they were being too rude and aggressive.

I turned around and demanded, “Are you RCP [Revolutionary Communist Party]? With your catchy slogans and fancy paper, somebody must be funding you.”

A little perplexed by the RCP comment, and definitely appalled that I would question who was paying for their literature, he continued talking about the war, ignoring my question, or possibly not understanding it.
I continued, “What are you peddling and what do you want from me?”

He said he was voting for Lyndon LaRouche and also asked me what I was doing about the war. At that moment I hated these kids, and I wanted a little piece of this guy. But I had learned some restraint over the years, and it wasn’t worth getting angry.

As I reluctantly walked away, he said, “Your silence is culpable for the war!”

I whipped around and quickly walked back, staring directly into his eyes. “What the fuck did you say?”

He instantly shrank back, but threw out a defiant, “Well, what are you doing against the war?”

My restraint went out the window. I said, “How dare you assume? You don’t know me. Fuck you, I’ve worked the last 12 years in non-profit, feeding people with HIV. And you? You’re just a privileged white boy with a trust fund attending Berkeley. Trust me, I know you’re driving back home in your mom’s diesel Mercedes to the Berkeley Hills, after being rude and annoying the fuck out of everybody on this street. Why don’t you peddle this shit at 98th and International, you fuckin’ douche bag?”

I was lost in myself. It was like looking at me 20 years earlier. He was like a mirror image of me back in the day: dogmatic, righteous and running far away from his homogenous upbringing. I pushed every button I could think of; called him every term he thought he was farthest from. It was so easy to attack him because I had been him.

Finally, he broke down and said, “What are you gonna do, hit me?”

Still very worked up, I said, “No, but I’m gonna throw you into traffic, you fucking idiot.”

A woman getting money at an ATM five feet from us chimed in, “Fuck you, get out of here!” referring to the LaRouche kid. She looked at me and said, “Fuck you, too.” I softly laughed. Her candor defused the situation.

I left and returned to my family. My wife looked scared and annoyed. As with all interactions that may or may not lead to violence, I felt like shit afterwards. I didn’t feel vindicated, I felt...stupid.

My sister looked at me, laughing, “Little brother, you looked like you were going to beat the shit out of that kid."

“No, I was just going to throw him into traffic,” I mumbled.

Lisa was about to respond, but I stopped her. I knew she was going to make the correlation between me as a young man and this kid.

“Fuck off, Lisa. I know what you’re thinking,” Lisa and I laughed. Alex and Anita exchanged a glance, understandably questioning their involvement with our family.

White Dope On Punk: Chapter 19. You Guys Think You’re Led Zeppelin

2011-05-03T16:02:00.000-07:00

I awoke to Mel screaming: “Where are we gonna stay? You guys are such fuckin’ losers!” Tom and George were fully passed out on the floor of the van and I was quickly on my way to joining them. With little control of my body and speech, I probably said the most inappropriate thing at the time, given that 1) we had no place to sleep, 2) didn’t know where we were, 3) it was 4am in Chicago, 4) we had a show the next night in Madison, and 5) three-quarters of the band was wasted and relying on Mel to deal with the situation.

“Mel, why are you being so selfish?” I wasn't making any sense. She was taking care of us—driving, looking for a place to stay—and I called her selfish. I just wanted her to stop yelling. This comment only made it worse. Mel took her right hand off the steering wheel and used to it to take a few good whacks at my back. I was lying down next to George and Tom and covered for the blows. “Fuck you, Foot! Fuck you guys, you think you’re Led Zeppelin.” That was the last thing I heard. I eagerly joined Tom and George in their black dreams.

Three hours earlier we were having a good time in a bar that we would never go to in our hometown. Lights from the ceiling spun in circles, unfamiliar music blasted from the speakers and weird looking people danced. We didn’t care. Our new friends, who we met at the show we played, took us there and, despite the loud music and straight crowd, we bellied up to the bar and treated it like our own. Crème de Menthe was on special, so we bought that. Lots of it.

A little before 2 am, desperate to get as many drinks in us as possible, we all ordered shots, thinking this was the end of the night. At 2am we asked a local what time the bars closed in Chicago and he said 4 am. So, we continued drinking, pouring drinks on our heads and making plans with our new friends (“You’ve gotta come visit us in San Francisco.”).

At 4 am the lights flashed twice and like good soldiers we moved to the door. Mel continued talking to our new friends at the bar. We found the van on the street, near the club, and piled into the back. The next thing I remember was Mel yelling at me.

I awoke the next morning next to George. Tom and Mel were gone and the van wasn’t moving. I peeked between the buckets seats and saw the van was parked facing a two-story 60s-style motel. I moved closer to the front, looking out the side windows. It looked like we were out of the city and just off the freeway. Mel must have driven toward Madison, pulling off the freeway at the first motel.

It was hot and I needed water, but I was in no condition to move. Leaving the van or drinking water would warrant vomiting.

I went back to sleep.

We were halfway to Madison by the time George and I stirred. George awoke with his usually growl: “Fuuuuuuck!” We called him the bear because of this and his lumbering ways.

Slowly remembering the night before and how I called Mel selfish, I exhibited caution before raising my head.

Like George, I expressed the same sentiment: “Fuuuuuck!” It was a morning to swear off alcohol for at least a day, or at least consider the idea. My hair was clumped together like dried sap from too many shots of crème de menthe being poured on my head. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

It had been a rough night, one that with time is either looked back upon as a really good time or the start of bad times. It came back in blocks of bright color and in fast motion, the only clear thought being my asshole behavior with Mel at the end of the night.

I feigned illness in an attempt to get pity. I knew what I had said to Mel, but there was a good chance I had said something mean to Tom and/or George, too. Not knowing the proper greeting for this situation, I fell back on a tried and true opening:

“Hey.” I spoke softly, testing the water. It seemed like the best approach.

“Hey Foot,” Mel pleasantly replied, smoking and driving. By the tone of her voice, I knew everything was ok. Tom was in the passenger seat, sucking on licorice root. He had heard that licorice root was good for the throat, so he had a never-ending supply and was always chewing on it like a cigar. It was customary for Tom not to speak after a tough night of drinking and playing. His voice was hoarse and he wanted to save what was left of it. He had a harmonica for situations like these, when a question warranted some kind of response: one toot on the harmonica meant yes and two toots meant no.

“Hey Tom,” I said, desperately wanting to rehash the night before, even though I knew doing so would bring up the end of the night. “How are you doing?” Tom grabbed his harmonica and tooted once. I took it as a positive affirmation that he was doing well. But I knew he was as hung-over as I was and that he was probably extremely worried about his voice for the Madison show.

Halfway up interstate 94, we stopped at Wendy’s for lunch. I was still lying on the dirty floor of the van and, no matter how much I wanted to join them, the thought of food repulsed me. All my energy was focused on not throwing up. Despite the allure of a baked potato with sour cream and chives, I knew just the sight of it would send me running to the bathroom or an empty bag.

“Foot, you coming?” Tom questioned, while Mel and George looked on. I waved them off, knowing that they’d understand my absence.

Hanging from the lock of the side door of the van was a plastic bag that we used for garbage. I moved closer to it, knowing that it was just a matter of seconds before I threw up. As my eyes passed over the lip of the bag, I saw what was in it: discarded cigarettes, mixed with scraps of food in a broth of dregs from an orange soda can. It smelled and looked disgusting. I threw up immediately, gagging, half in the bag and the rest on my arm. I threw open the door and chucked the bag, relieving what was left in my stomach on the blacktop.

I kept the side door open. It was hot, the heat exacerbating my misery. I wasn’t the type to throw up and be immediately normal afterwards. The parking lot glistened from the high temperatures and the freeway hummed in a low key. With my head bent down, I waited for them to return and anticipated throwing up again. It never came.

“I’m never drinking Peppermint Schnapps again. What the fuck is that shit anyway?” I said as Mel, Tom and George approached the van, sated from Wendy’s. They brought me back some fries. I shook my head.

“Come on, Foot, you've got to eat something,” Mel said, playing the role of caretaker to her three man-children.

“No, thanks. I just threw up,” pointing to the bag lying on the ground, the throw-up leaking onto the concrete. They were all empathetic, having been there before.

Ten hours later were on stage in a cafe-like bar in Madison. I was still feeling ill, having eaten very little. Tom’s voice was shot. All the licorice root and not talking in the van couldn’t erase the abuse incurred from the night before. Four songs into the set he turned to us and said he couldn’t sing. It was obvious. He was constantly pulling away from the microphone and his voice was so weak that it was barely audible. The look on his face said it all: fear. Not knowing what to do, I asked for a pitcher of beer and took over the singing duties. My singing career opened with an instrumental: "Sparks" by The Who.

Mel quit the band in Minneapolis, the next stop. Tom’s voice was better, and our health was back in full form, but Mel was in a funk. The tour was badly booked. Instead of booking it herself—which she usually did—she entrusted two unknowns. The result was a spotty tour of lots of driving back and forth and way too much time in between shows to get in trouble. The tour had the feeling that it would be our last. We seemed to enjoy drinking before and after the show much more than the actual playing, which was almost a chore. Because of this and our general rock star behavior, Mel flew home and left the three of us to fend for ourselves.

We cancelled the rest of tour except for an acoustic show at a record store in Minneapolis. Except for Vancouver, where we played at least a dozen times a year—so much so that people thought we were local—Minneapolis was our home away from home. We loved Husker Du, The Replacements and Soul Asylum and wanted our third record to come out on the Minneapolis label Twin Tone. Since we cancelled our show at the 7th Street Entry, the Soul Asylum guys set up an in-store acoustic show at a local record store. We borrowed acoustic guitars, drank cheap vodka and did our best to tighten up our normally sloppy transitions. Acoustic guitars are not as relenting as loud, noisy electric guitars.

We asked the Soul Asylum guys to bring Paul Westerberg, the singer from the Replacements; they showed with Chris Mars, the drummer. That night we went to a party at Grant Hart’s apartment, the drummer from Husker Du. He had a cat that would fall over and play dead when you raised your hand and acted like you were shooting him. With all the drunks at the party, that poor cat played dead all night.

The next morning, Ellen, our friend and one-time booking agent, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Greg, you guys better get up, it’s snowing out.” I rose quickly and looked out the window. The first snow of the season blanketed the ground and was vying for more space to fill. It was time to go, quickly. Being two Californians and one Louisianan, we were afraid of snow. We thanked Ellen and told her to put in a good word for us at Twin Tone, then we hurried out the door, groggy and hung-over, and got in the van and drove south to I-80.

The road out of town was littered with cars and trucks slowly sliding off the road. I was driving, Tom in the passenger seat and George perched between us. In silence, we putted down the interstate as slow as we could get away with. Locals sped by and mouthed, “Fuckin' Californians.” Our plates gave us away.

Wide eyed, it was like we were trying to will the van to stay on the road. By the amount of cars on the side of the road, the norm was to slowly spin out and land in a ditch, stuck.

The farther south we traveled the better it got. The snow turned to rain and we ramped it up to 65 mph, free of the looming snowbound ditches. For the trip home, we had packed six cases of Pfeiffer beer, the new Soul Asylum EP and very little warm clothing. We certainly weren't prepared for snow.

As we turned west on I-80, a straight shot to Bay Bridge of San Francisco, we made some rules about drinking. We never talked about what we doing with the six cases of beer in the back, but one might assume we were bringing the unknown Minneapolis beer back home to share with our friends. This wasn’t the case.

The first rule was that we would only drink after we had stopped driving. When it became evident that we didn’t plan to stop at night, we quickly amended the rule. We agreed that that the non-drivers could drink after 5pm. As we passed into Nebraska this was changed to anyone could drink anytime, except the driver. This was quickly broken. The final rule was that the driver could drink but they had to be cool, whatever that meant. The rolling bar was officially open 24 hours. We only stopped to get gas and go to the bathroom (an empty gallon plastic milk container handled #1; #2 needed a real bathroom).

Crossing the Sierras outside of Reno, it started to snow again. At the peak near Truckee, in a heavy snowfall, we quickly amended the final rule: You couldn’t drink and drive, if it was snowing. It was a good rule and we planned on adhering to it. Still, careening down the west side of the Sierras, I opened a beer and passed it to Tom, who was driving. So be it. George was in the front seat, discreetly taking swigs off his beer. I was perched between the two, intently staring out the window, once again hoping that my intense concentration would will us from ending up in a ditch. We had broken every drinking rule. The snow turned to rain and we relaxed, celebrating with more beer and peeing into our well-used gallon milk container.

Descending the span section of the Bay Bridge, we coasted into San Francisco with the morning commute—drunk, dirty and bewildered from the trip.

They dropped me off at my flat on McAllister Street and they returned to where they were staying on Haight Street. At 5 pm Tom called and said to meet them at the Chatterbox. You would think we had seen enough of each other; however, we were determined to waste no time finding a new bass player. And for the past two months, 5 o’clock was the time we usually cracked our first beer at sound check. A little business while filling our bellies with alcohol sounded like a good time.

With friends and roommates in tow, to celebrate our homecoming, we headed out to the Chatterbox. We made a list of potential bass players and characteristics they would need to possess. Way down the list was musicianship. Loud and proud at number one was the ability to handle their alcohol. Freshly off a cross country drinking binge, we were cocky about our ability handle our booze and in our deluded, alcohol soaked brains, we really thought being an alcoholic was a good quality for a bass player.

We found a bass player in a very long haired guy that hung around the Chatterbox. We overlooked his 5-string bass (not good) and his questionable earrings (two studs with his initials in his left ear and a dangly music note in his right). We played one show with him and then begged Mel to come back.

She returned, but it was over: Rough Trade, our record label, dropped us for poor sales and for stealing hundreds of our own records. (Before leaving on tour, we stopped by their retail store to say hello. Tom asked if he could use the bathroom in the back warehouse. While he was back there he grabbed as many cases of our records that he could carry. I distracted the clerk and we left quickly.) Also, someone had stolen the front two bucket seats of our band van. Instead of replacing them, we seriously considered bolting wood dining room chairs in their place. Things weren't going well; and, with idle time on his hands, Tom rekindled his heroin habit and George soon joined him in the throes of addiction. In the basement of the Chatterbox, I quit the band. And that was it.

As I walked out of the Chatterbox, I knew this stage of my life was over. This was my personality. When I left Pleasanton; when I left anarchy and now leaving Short Dogs, I closed the door and left, never to return - leaving friendships and aspirations with those who stayed. It was a breakup, a death, getting fired; it wasn’t a conscious thing, just a dysfunctional way of dealing with loss.

I had only known punk, anarchy, rock, clubs, warehouses, shitty apartments, shitty cars and lots of burritos. For most, it was no life, but for me, and the circle of friends who followed the same path, we created a bubble that insulated us from the real world. It allowed us to pursue our rock/punk/political dreams without scrutiny, reflection and live in state of suspended adolescence. The future was abstract and we lived, like most young people, in the moment, believing we were the only thing in town and we would always be.

At 25 years old I felt the pang of adult life knocking. This played a part in me quitting the band. The dalliances of the past 9 years had robbed me of my self-esteem and bestowed upon me an identity I was uncomfortable with. Every 3 years it uprooted me and left me to start over. However, it had given a head start into a drinking problem, which would grow and mature for many years to come.

As I walked down Valencia Street, I craved stability, a healthy relationship and a steady job, but I wasn’t willing to work for it. Too much of my suburban upbringing, where I watched my dad get up every morning and go to work, pay bills and enjoy the fruits of his labor, kept me from fully embracing this lifestyle. It’s almost impossible to run away from your past and I was learning this, but I wasn’t willing to embrace it either.

In the back of mind, while I dabbled in anarchy, punk and rock, I secretly equated money and a respectable job with success. Messenger jobs, fledgling bands and a foray into driving a cab robbed me of my self-esteem. I came to realize I wasn’t a lifer like some of my friends who had passion for music or politics and saw this as a way of life, something that gave them identity and defined them. I admired them for this. But who was I? Where was my passion?

This is the question I still ask today? Sadly, the cruel joke of life is that there’s no expiration date and gauge on identity and bad decisions. There’s not an age where you magically get it or you just don’t care. I needed to find middle ground, taking the passion of punk, optimism of anarchy and the creativity of music and find somewhere in between that I could call my own. It would take a few extra pounds, a lot less hair, age and many years until I landed in something that resembled this.

Like Cavemen by Tom Pitts

2011-05-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

(Tom Pitts changes direction this month with a little fiction. Great stuff, as always.)

“It’s a high tech world, so we gotta be like cavemen. You understand?” asked Tony. “That means no phones. No cell phones. No pay phones. No phones period—ever. That means those goddamn pay-as-you-go phones too. They got ways to track everything nowadays–—and it’s always changin’. It’s hard to be invisible. You gotta be on top of things. You wanna fly below the radar? You gotta know what the fuck radar is. Am I right?"

“Absolutely, Tony.”

“Are you listening?”

“Yes, Tony, absolutely,” said Tim.

“Are you? ‘Cause it looks to me like you’re watchin’ that bitch’s ass bounce up the street. Should I stop? Do I need to stop so you can go to the fuckin’ bathroom a minute, so you can concentrate?” Tony’s face was starting to turn red. There were tiny beads of sweat on his fat nose.

“No … no, Tony.”

Tony stood there breathing hard. They waited. All Tim could hear was Tony breathing, wheezing. Slowly his breathing returned to normal and the red color faded from his face.

“I mean, we’re not kids here. This ain’t penny ante shit, you know. We handle the hard work and we are fuckin’ good at what we do, you understand?” Tony always felt the need to clarify what he was saying. Only thing was, it what hard to tell just what he was saying. He implied, he gestured, he omitted. Tony was old school and believed that there was always someone listening. In his time he had seen the methods and laws change so much that now his paranoia was starting to seem grounded.

The two of them were walking down Mission Street. They turned onto Russia Street and began trudging up the hill. Tony liked the neighborhood, it was his neighborhood. Tony’s lungs began to whistle and he waved for Tim to stop. Tony reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a half crushed pack of Marlboro reds. They were both silent as Tony stood trying to light his cigarette in the wind.

“You think you know technology?” he continued.

Tim didn’t say anything.

“You don’t know shit. It changes by the goddamned day. By the minute. These assholes are using shit we don’t even know is invented yet. Tapping phones without wiretaps. Who needs a fucking warrant when they’re pulling shit out of the air?”

Tim wondered if this was true. He tried to remember something his lawyer had told him, but couldn’t. He must have taken his eyes off Tony for just a second.

“Hello, you listening to me? Maybe you’re wearing a fuckin’ wire and you just wanna play this back later? Listen to me then?”

“Awe, come on Tony.”

“Stop makin’ me waste my breath, kid. You think I’m nuts? You think I’m paranoid? These cocksuckers read lips. They teach ‘em all how in Quantico. I’m serious.”

Tony spat on the ground to underscore how serious he was.

“Some guys around here like to use technology. Get them before they get you, kinda thing. We ain’t those guys. We are the guys who ain’t fucking worried, because there ain’t shit down anywhere, so there ain’t shit to worry about.”

First day on the new job was always tough. It went on like this for twenty minutes. Tim started to wonder if maybe Tony was crazy. Everybody that Tim dealt with was a little nuts, but maybe Tony was a little extra. The advice went on and on.

“Your money, it goes under the mattress. No banks, no bank accounts, nothing. Safety deposit boxes? Fuck no. Listen to what I’m telling you kid and maybe you’ll last more than a few weeks.”

Tim sat there stone-faced, trying as hard as he could to wear the mask of attention. The aroma of the sausage Tony had eaten for lunch made an appearance, mixing with Tony’s sweaty cologne. Tim was glad that they were out in the open air.

“You got credit cards? Stop using ‘em. Keep one, use it for alibis, shit like that. Personal use will fuck you up. Give ‘em a fuckin’ road map to your life, why don’t cha.”

Tim was getting tired of Tony’s tirade. It was tough focusing on Tony’s face. When Tim looked at him, his head seemed impossibly huge, too big for his body. The head seemed to pulsate. Tony’s voice drifted off, replaced by a loud hum. Tim wondered if he was going to faint.

“If you need to reach me, don’t fuckin’ call—ever. Do it in person. Take a cab. Don’t call for one, then they got a record, just fuckin’ flag one. Okay? … okay?”

The silence snapped Tim out of it long enough to manage a response. Then there was a pause and Tim thought he was done. Then Tony fired up again. “And get out at least two bocks away, not on the fuckin’ corner. You got it? Good. You got a car? Yeah? Get rid of it. Sell it.” Tony paused for a moment, like he’d lost his train of thought. He flicked his cigarette on the sidewalk and continued.

“Remember what I said about credit cards, no nothing. I don’t care if they’re not yours, if you know they’re good, whatever, I don’t care. Do not fuckin’ use ‘em. You gotta be invisible, a caveman. You can’t just be low key; you gotta be the fuckin’ Unabomber.”

“Didn’t they get the Unabomber?” Tim immediately regretted deviating from his agreeable responses.

“Hey, fuck you. There was a rat. His own fuckin’ brother ratted him out, and that was the only way they got him. Someone should have a talk with his brother just on fuckin’ principle.” Tony looked out of breath. He’d forgotten where he was in his training speech. These little fuckers always had something to say, thought they knew better. Tony hated bringing on new guys to this job.

“You lead a different life now. Fuck how you were doing things before. Fuck your life. You thought you knew what you were doing. You didn’t know shit, not for us, not for how we do shit. We do shit different for a reason. We have fucking discipline, understand? We been doing this shit for fucking centuries—centuries. The reason we’re still doing it is ‘cause we’re doing it the same way for centuries. We are fucking cavemen my friend.”

Tim wasn’t chosen because he was smart; he was chosen because he knew how to do the work. The heavy work. Tim could take apart a body. Not everybody had the stomach for that kind of thing. Those who could, didn’t have the discipline. Tim had the ability to compartmentalize. He didn’t have the dreams. He didn’t have any dreams. He didn’t need the blow; some guys needed to numb their brains afterword.

It was the money that Tim loved, but there was only so much you could spend your money on. He didn’t even know why he wanted more. He didn’t care. It just felt like he was beating someone, something. The whores were good. The whiskey was good. The food was good. But it didn’t matter, none of it. He didn’t mind shitty whiskey, and, honestly, he kinda liked ugly whores too. To him, it was the work. The kind of thing he knew that no one else would do. The kind of thing Tony couldn’t do.

“There is absolutely not one single set of balls in this town,” Tony continued, “You cannot count on one fucking douche bag in this entire city. I guarantee you; they are all lay-down-sally motherfuckers. Do not treat friends like friends, even if you’ve seen ‘em hanging down at the club, or if they seem close to me, don’t matter, they ain’t shit.”

Tim knew his life expectancy was limited. That there was no way a lifestyle like his could be maintained. Call it karma, call it the law of averages, call it Murphy’s Law, he knew that sooner or later he wouldn’t be the one calling the shots.

The wind had begun to pick up. They zig-zagged along the residential streets of the Excelsior district, pausing only when Tony was out of breath. They stood together on the sidewalk, far away from the earshot of passers by, the wind cutting right through Tim’s clothes. The wind never stopped in this city, it just got colder, thought Tim. He was a long way from the central valley, where he grew up. Not long enough, thought Tim. He knew that the abuses he’d faced as a child gave him the special skill set he needed in this business, so he didn’t dwell. It was a dark blessing, an evil inheritance.

“First thing you gotta do is see the guy downtown, the guy next to ‘you know who.’ He’ll give you the details. You know who I’m talking ‘bout, the little guy. He’ll let you know about this kid. He’s the first one you’re gonna do, that fucking kid. Don’t even get me started on that piece of shit.”

Tim knew that God worked in mysterious ways. That’s why God had taken his conscience, his fear. Tony was different. Tony knew fear. He feared prison, he feared death, he feared losing his power. Tim had seen guys that sounded a lot tougher than Tony break down and weep, weep like children.

Tim knew it was all relative. He could die in prison; he could die on the street. He could sit in prison; he could sit on the beach. Happy, sad, rich, poor, it made no difference to him, really. The experience of life was just that, only an experience. He moved through it, he was not attached to it. Life held no sentimental value. To him, if you had just fucked a thousand dollar whore on silk sheets or just jerked off in a prison bunk, it made no difference. You just rolled over and went to sleep. You still had to piss, shit, eat, yawn, and wait to die.

“The long and the short of it is this, kid, we gotta be like cavemen. The only time I wanna ever hear your voice or see your face is when you’re standing in front of me, okay?”

“Okay, Tony. No problem.”

“And don’t ever use my name. I’m one motherfucker who is not offended by being called ‘hey you.’” Tony smiled for the first time. Tim figured that meant he was wrapping up.

“After this, you go see that guy we talked about and he’ll let you know how to find that asshole. Just follow the rules and you’ll be swimming in cash before the end of the summer.”

“No problem, I’m on the way.” Tim was relieved the conversation was ending. He was looking forward to getting back to work, to doing what he did best. He turned his back on Tony and walked straight down hill toward Mission Street.

As Tim followed instructions and flagged a taxi, Tony was catching his breath on the doorway of his club. Tony waved to Sammy, his closest confidant. In typical fashion, he said nothing, only pointing toward the street so Sammy would follow him outside to talk. When they were far enough away from the club Tony turned and said,

“Look, after this new kid deals with that asshole downtown, and after we know he’s done a good job, I want you to put two in his fucking head and leave him in the street. He’s got a shitty attitude.” The instructions hung there. Sammy was surprised, but not too surprised. He knew Tony, and how Tony operated. He knew better than to say anything.

“Oh, and I don’t wanna hear anything more about it; you know me, I don’t like to get my hands dirty,” with that, Tony began to laugh. The laugh quickly became a cough, the cough became a choke. It was the first laugh Tony had enjoyed in a week. He could barely suck in a breath.

Tom Pitts 4\4\2011

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 18. You Are the Hot Animal Machine

2011-04-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

Tom was driving, Mel was shotgun and George and I were in the back, but crammed near the front as we pulled into the parking lot of the show. No matter how tired we were from the endless driving on tour, the anticipation of seeing where we were playing always perked us up. Upon seeing the venue, it was met with one of two reactions: “It doesn’t look so bad” or the more common “This is gonna suck.” There wasn’t a lot of middle ground in our snap evaluations.

“Pull over there…by the van with the trailer,” Mel said, pointing to a lone van in the parking lot. The trailer and out of state license plate was a dead giveaway that it was a band van. We were playing with The Rollins Band, All and The Dough Boys, so it had to be one of their vans.

As we pulled up, we could see that someone was in the passenger seat with their feet up on the dashboard. George and I moved closer to the front to get a glimpse. Tom put the car in park and Mel abruptly pressed her head tightly against the bucket seat. “Dude, it’s fuckin Rollins,” she excitedly announced. George and I scrambled to the side back window to get glimpse and Tom peeked out the passenger side window. It was definitely him. He was intently reading a small, hardcover book. I guessed Henry Miller or Gore Vidal.

I had seen Rollins many times in his band Black Flag—cutting his stomach with a torn-in-half coke can during “Life is Pain” and generally acting like a caged animal on stage. Just recently I walked by him on Houston Street in New York City. It was the dead of winter and he was wearing short-shorts, a T-shirt, and wispy Adidas Gazelle sneakers and he moved in a determined, bad-attitude way. He wasn’t someone you wanted to fuck with, so we stayed within the confines of the van.

A father and his young teenaged son approached the van. We saw them crossing the empty parking lot and immediately knew that someone had tipped them off about Rollins. Leading the way with his father trailing behind, the teenager had what looked like a journal in his hand and was making a beeline for the passenger door of the van. When they got near, the teenager fell back and let his dad do the talking. George and I rushed to the front of the van and peeked out the side window, blocking Tom’s view from the driver’s seat. It was obvious that this kid wanted an autograph and God only knew how the brooding Rollins would react to such a request. It definitely wasn’t punk rock to ask for an autograph but he was a kid, so he had that going for him.

Rollins had to notice the looming figure next to him. The window was open and the dad was standing there, dreading having to ask for his autograph. Rollins held tight, even more intent on what he was reading. Finally, the dad must’ve coughed or said “excuse me” because Rollins looked up, reaching for the journal and the pen in the dad’s hand. He signed the journal, gave it back and returned to reading. No chit chat or pleasantries, just a forced smile.

We unloaded the equipment, going out of our way to act like it was no big deal that Rollins was in the adjacent van. All and The Doughboys were already there, and the Rollins Band was on stage setting up. We dumped everything in the front of the stage and waited for them (and Rollins) to sound check. We were first on the bill, and would set up our equipment in front of theirs when they finished.

The venue and the stage were unlike any others we had played. It wasn’t a club, but an old beachfront hotel that was in disrepair from the sand, wind and the elements. It loomed large against the ocean and at one time was probably the place to be, in the hip part of town. Things had obviously changed. It was perfect for us.

The show was in the basement, a low-ceilinged, expansive room with a stage in the corner built of plywood and two-by-fours. The carpet was dark, which didn’t help with the cavernous underground feeling. When the doors opened and the room filled with people this gloom would dissipate.

Rollins joined the band on stage for sound check and they ran through a few songs to get levels. As they struggled to get the right stage volume, workers from the hotel were using a staple gun to attach chicken wire to an internal frame of two-by-fours that enclosed the stage like a cage. It was straight out of a Texas Honky Tonk in The Blues Brothers, except you got the feeling that it wasn’t there to protect the band from the audience but to protect the audience from Rollins. It was a first for us and we were looking forward to taunting the audience to throw things at us!

By the time Rollins and Co. finished their sound check, a good size crowd had gathered out front. We quickly set up and hastily flew through one song, making sure the monitors were loud and that we could hear ourselves. It was a big bill—four bands—and we were scheduled to go on once the doors opened. As the crowd filtered in, we ran backstage and grabbed as many beers as we could carry.

As we played our first song, half the audience approached the stage. The Rollins devotees, in their tribal tattoos and Black Flag T-shirts, hung around the back with their arms crossed, tolerating us.

The chicken wire was disconcerting, creating a barrier between us and the audience, but we trudged along and played our brand of post-punk California rock. A half hour later, we moved our equipment to the side of the stage and went back for more beers. The show was ok, but our dream of beer bottles smashing against the chicken wire didn’t happen. The audience needed some time to get liquored up before the first bottle flew.

Tom and I grabbed more beers—two to a hand—and flitted about the club, talking to girls and generally acting like asses, things we would never do on our home turf. Everything appeared sparkly, amplified and bright from our early drinking. As with all shows, we ended up backstage, occasionally peeking outside to listen to a song that we liked.

Backstage was a like a house party, bands and friends on the guest list huddled together, drinking beer and earnestly talking. We made friends with the guys in Rollins’ band and were razzing them about having to hide their drinks from Rollins, who was straight edge. As we talked, I noticed they incessantly looked over our shoulders, eyeballing the door leading to the stage. Rollins walked in and his band hid their beers, stashing them on a ledge.

Rollins told them to get ready and they moved toward the door, leaving their full beers on the ledge. Once they were gone, we grabbed their beers.

Rollins walked over to the nearest wall, next to the door. He was wearing short black shorts and a tight T-shirt, showing off his iconic tattoos from Black Flag. He crouched down in a fetal position with his back against the wall, squeezing his legs with his arms. His body was taught and his fists were clenched, periodically flexing his whole body and grimacing. It was obvious that he was preparing the show, working himself into a physical frenzy. Conversely, we prepared for the show by drinking beer and laughing.

Everybody in the room did their best to simultaneously watch, while appearing to ignore him. His head was usually buried in his knees so this was pretty easy. If the room could talk, the general consensus would be, “What an idiot.” It was way overboard and reeked of dysfunction and drama.

Rollins went on and, despite our eye-rolling over his dramatic behavior, we crowded the side of the stage (behind the chicken wire) to get a look at the spectacle. He didn’t disappoint.

Like an orangutan, he climbed the chicken wire and perched on a cross board of the internal frame. Looking back to his band and then at the audience, his eyes were wild and he seemed non-human, in the moment. He looked back again at the band and yelled, “Come on, let’s go!” The band launched into the first song. He would repeat this phrase to his band after every song.

Not content with just climbing the chicken wire, Rollins pulled back a triangle of the wire from the frame, sticking his head outside and them pulling it back quickly, usually in rhythm with the song. When he wanted to emphasize a lyric, he would pop his head out and then retract it. It was like the old arcade game where a gopher popped his head out of a hole and you tried to bop it on the head with a mallet.

Tom and I eventually grew tired of the theatrics and went backstage to drink more beer and gather our equipment. The rumblings coming from the wall dividing the stage from backstage stopped and shortly thereafter The Rollins Band walked through the door, sweaty and with their guitars in their hands. The room paused and most people said the obligatory “good show” and "good set,” even though many of them had never left the room. Rollins was nowhere to be seen.

Mel and George joined us backstage and we talked about the show. I grew more and more manic and obsessed with Rollins’ behavior. From the fetal position before the show to popping his head out of the chicken wire, I tried to wrap my drunken mind around this tense little man. The band egged me on. Something had to give.

I caught the eye of one of Rollins’ band members. Stepping away from Tom, George and Mel, I pointed directly at him and yelled, “You are the hot animal machine, not him,” gesturing in the vicinity of the stage where Rollins might be. (Hot Animal Machine is the name of a Rollins Band record). I continued, “You are, not him.” The room again paused, not knowing if Rollins was going to walk in and kick my ass. Feeling pretty good about myself, I yelled, “You, you and you," pointing to the other members, “are the hot fuckin’ animal fuckin' machine, not him! Hot fuckin’ animal machine!” I was on fire. I grabbed my guitar and planned to exit in a blaze of glory. On cue, Rollins walked through the door. As I moved to go past him, I dramatically threw up my hands, as if to say, “See, he ain’t so special.” My guitar cased opened, the guitar spilled onto the floor, and I tripped, landing face down on the case. Everybody laughed; Rollins had no idea what was going on. Tom and Mel quickly helped me up, put my guitar back in the case, while I gave a victory wave to the room. Rollins moved passed me, suspicious of my cockiness.

In the parking lot, Tom said, “Jesus Christ, Foot, you could have got your ass kicked.” Feeling giddy, I sluggishly smiled, my eyes slow to focus and said, “Yeah, but how cool would that have been top get my ass kicked by Rollins.” Tom looked at me like I had a point. In our drunken state it almost made sense.

Sit Down Casper is on vacation. See ya in a week.

2011-04-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

Bye.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 17. All for a Ring with a Marijuana Leaf on it (Full Version)

2011-04-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim
I walked out of the Chatterbox, leaned on a parking meter and looked down at the sidewalk and thought: “Hey, that looks comfy.” I was drunk—really drunk—and making bad decisions. I stumbled back to the wall and laid down, content to stay there for the night. I had never slept on a sidewalk, but it was good rock-guy behavior—behavior that was talked about the next night by friends and acquaintances and could elevate your status in the scene. Being a fuck-up was something to brag about. It wasn’t really a choice for me; I was in no condition to get home. For the minute I was on the ground, I was content.

Sara was my new girlfriend. A bike messenger friend of a friend, she was tall, pale, and boyish, with red hair. She had a quirk where she would blink her eyes at the same time, in a dramatic fashion. It was disconcerting at first, but like a scar or crooked teeth, after a while you didn’t notice it.

Thirty seconds later Sara followed me out the door of the Chatterbox, in way better shape than I was. She found me, her new boyfriend, settling down for a night of rest on Valencia Street. She gently kicked me a few times and helped me to my feet, where we walked eight blocks east to catch the 9 San Bruno bus to her house. At this point in the game, she was happy to take care of me; possibly she even found it endearing.

I awoke and Sara and I were on an empty bus, my head leaning against her shoulder. I looked up and caught the bus driver’s eye in the rearview window. His face was stoic and disapproving. I was just one of many drunks that he had taken home that night. He wouldn’t be the first bus driver who disapproved of my behavior.

A few years later on St. Patty’s Day, I went over to my friends’ house to watch a boxing match on TV. I put $10 dollars in a jar that was placed on top the TV, to help defer the cost of the Pay-Per-View fee, and proceeded to watch the fight. I wasn’t a boxing fan, but it seemed like a fun thing to do at the time, like going to the shooting range— something very un-San Francisco and therefore novel.

At 4 am, drunk and tired, I left and walked to 16th Street to catch the 22 Fillmore bus home. It was pouring rain and the two blocks to the bus stop left me drenched. I waited for about five minutes and then, knowing that the bus ran only once an hour at this time of night, walked toward home, following the path of the bus line.

At 16th and Julian, I paused, leaned against a lamppost and looked across the street at Pancho Villa, my favorite taqueria. On countless occasions, while getting my regular super veggie burrito, I had witnessed burritos being thrown away due to problems with the order. While standing there, this visual popped in my head. I was hungry—drunk hungry. And I wanted a burrito. Despite being long closed, I knew (for some odd reason) that their dumpster was in the alley next to Esta Noche, a Latino drag bar. And, in my mind, I knew the dumpster was full of super burritos wrapped in tinfoil. I just knew it.

The streets were empty except for junkies looking to score at 16th and Mission. Before entering the alley, my streets smarts kicked in. I stopped, peered in the shadows and moved forward. It was still raining and the only light was from the street lamp across 16th.

The dumpster was enclosed by a 10-foot chain-link fence. It was green with a black plastic lid and was not locked. I knew burritos were in there. I grabbed the fence and pulled myself up but my sneakers slipped on the wet chain. I tried again and again, my hunger driving this futile act. I eventually gave up and continued walking the bus line.

At Church and Market I made the decision to stop and wait for the bus, no matter how long it took. The rain had stopped and continuing on meant going through the Fillmore and Western Addition at 4 am on the biggest drinking holiday of the year—not a good idea. I sat on a bench on the edge of the Safeway parking lot and waited.

The bus eventually came and I took a seat behind the back door. Looking out the window, the streets were empty except for fellow drunks going into Safeway for frozen pizza and chips. The bus wasn’t moving. As we sat there, I fiddled with the zipper on my jacket, ran my fingers through my damp hair—anything to occupy time. I was thinking, “Dude, what the fuck? What are you waiting for?” It was a legitimate question. It was now 4:30 am and I seriously doubt somebody was running down the street trying to catch the bus. Finally, I couldn’t take any more. I reached up and rang the bell three quick times and cried, “Come on,” sustaining the word “on” for a few seconds. This type of behavior was unusual for me, as I was usually polite, especially to the workingman. I watched his reaction in the rearview mirror. Slowly, the back of head tilted, looking into the mirror. Our eyes met and he slowly shook his head side-to-side in disgust. We both went back to doing nothing.

Back on the 9 San Bruno going to Sara’s house, she rang the bell, indicating we needed to get off at the next stop. She rented a small house in Visitation Valley, which I thought was weird. I knew no one who lived in Vis Val and no one who lived in a house.

She unlocked the front door and I went straight to her room and fell asleep. It was late and I knew that I couldn’t stay at her house when she went to work. Sara was a bike messenger and had to be at work by 9 am. I went to bed dreading how I would feel in a few short hours.

At some point in the night, I woke to us having sex. She was on top, but it wasn’t Sara, it was my friend Janet, who had at least 100 pounds on skinny Sara. I couldn’t figure out why I was having sex with Janet and how Janet got into Sara’s house. I mumbled, “Janet, what are you doing here?” Almost immediately, Janet jumped off me and revealed herself as Sara—a very pissed Sara. I was either dreaming, in a blackout or just plum crazy. Like in a romantic comedy, she pushed me off the bed onto the floor. I hit the ground hard, adjusted and quickly fell asleep. The floor was carpeted.

The next morning was what you’d expect. I was hung-over, almost to the vomit stage, and there was the little problem of last night’s sex incident. Sara spewed, “Get up, let’s go,” throwing my jacket at me. We silently walked back to the 9 San Bruno bus stop.

The bus was crowded, but we got a seat. At 23rd street, in front of SF General, I said, “I‘m getting off here, I gotta throw up.” With no sympathy for me, she barked back, “We’ve gotta talk.” I quickly exited through the backdoor and vomited in between the vertical metal pickets of the fence, while the morning commuters on the bus watched. It was over with Sara, but all I could think about was my shitty Carlos acoustic guitar that I left at her house. It was good as gone; I knew I would never go back and get it.

That night we had loose plans to see the Sea Hags at the Nightbreak in the Haight. We talked that day and agreed to meet in the panhandle, a sliver of green space that leads into Golden Gate Park, to talk about our relationship issues before the show.

Sara was waiting for me when I got there. I was just starting to feel better from the previous night’s indulgence. The repulsive beer thoughts from the morning were gone and I was considering a pint or two of Red Hook at the show.

Instead of sitting on a bench, we chose to stand in the middle of a grassy patch near Oak Street. Like future girlfriends to come, she insinuated that I had a drinking problem and that it wasn’t working out. In an attempt to garner sympathy and pity, most of my responses were consistent with your typical rock-guy, bad self-image problem behavior: “Yeah, I know, I suck. I hate myself.” It never worked and usually made things worse.

While emphatically making a point, I gestured with my right hand, like I was throwing a Frisbee. An ill-fitting ring flew off my hand and landed about 15 yards in the grass behind Sara’s left shoulder. I made a quick note of where the ring landed and committed it to memory.

She didn’t notice the flying jewelry. There was plenty of gaudy jewelry still left on me: shitty DIY nose and ear piercings, shoelaces and other found stuff around my neck and wrists and as many thrift store rings as my fingers could handle. (It wasn't until I watched Tim Robbins’ repulsive ponytailed character in High Fidelity that I was finally convinced to get rid of the garish accessories.)

This wasn’t any ring, though, it was the piece de resistance of rings: large, orange and black, with a mosaic marijuana leaf on the face. It was a constant source of conversation. I didn’t smoke pot—never really did. It was kitsch…it was ironic…it was funny?

After the ring flew off, I couldn’t concentrate—nor did I want to—on our “talk.” I didn’t want to be rude and say, “I need to look for my marijuana leaf ring. Hold that thought.” She already despised me; I didn’t want to make it worse, so I quickly wrapped it up: “You’re right, let’s be friends.”

We walked up to Cole Street together, under the pretense of starting our friendship immediately at the Sea Hags show. At Haight Street I stopped and feigned sadness: “I’m too depressed, I’m gonna go home.” I don’t think she really cared. She went right, toward the club, and I went left, looking over my shoulder back at her. I waited until she crossed the street and then I ran back to get my ring. I didn’t want it to be another casualty of this relationship.

That was the last time I saw Sara and my guitar, but I found the ring.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 16. Short Dogs Suck

2011-04-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim

Joe quit the band in El Paso. After extending the last of his automotive skills by changing the starter in the parking lot of an auto parts store, we jumped in the van and drove to the airport. It was a long, silent ride on a hot, hung-over morning. All mornings on a Short Dogs Grow tour were like this. We said our goodbyes—void of bitterness and blame—and said we’d see him in two months. We were determined to finish the tour, drummer or no drummer.

Only one week into the tour, things had fallen apart quickly. While leaving a Motel 6 in Albuquerque the morning before, two cops cars appeared out of nowhere, blocking our van from leaving. They exited their vehicles, guns drawn and said, “Is Greg Kim in there?” I was in the back of van, lying down, hung-over from the night before. Mel and Tom were in the front seats with their hands up. Both looked scared. I slowly opened the door.

They abruptly pulled me out and said, “Why did you use a stolen credit card?” I frantically shook my head, not saying a word.

Finally I said, “What are you talking about?”

They shot back, “Who is George Kim?”

“That’s my dad,” I said incredulously. They holstered their guns, which helped the situation.

The night before, knowing that we had a guarantee of $150 for our show in Albuquerque, we reserved a room at a Motel 6. My dad had given me his credit card to use in case of emergency, and we used it to reserve the room. Little did I know that the card he gave me was expired. Regardless, we only used the card to reserve room, paying cash when we got to the motel.

They took me downtown and I waited in a holding cell until they could contact my father. The band waited out front, while my family members tried to locate my dad. They found him at a sales conference in Denver. He was paged and things were settled. It was late afternoon and we left for El Paso.

Knowing there was plenty more of this bullshit in the coming seven weeks—trouble seemed to follow us on tour—Joe was probably already thinking about leaving.

It was a short drive to El Paso. We arrived at the club at 10 pm and loaded in our equipment. The opening band was playing to five people—their friends. They finished, loaded their equipment and left, taking their friends with them. The promoter told us that Cheap Trick was playing across town for free and apologized for our show being five bucks. He said there were two paid admissions and, if we didn’t want to play, he would give the two people their money back. This was a first for us. A promoter had never given us an option not to play a show.

Mel was at her wits' end. It had been a long day of jail, the stolen credit card mix-up and lots of waiting. Playing to two people didn’t sound like a lot of fun and she wanted to cancel. Tom and I argued that we had played to fewer people and that two people had paid to see Short Dogs Grow and that we should play. Joe was indifferent. We argued and yelled and then Joe quit. We didn’t play the show.

With nowhere to go or stay, we drove toward downtown El Paso. We stopped off at a pay phone and made two calls: one to our booking agent and one to the promoter in New Orleans, where we were playing in ten days. We told our booking agent to cancel our gigs in San Antonio, Dallas and Houston and we asked the promoter in New Orleans to find us a drummer for the rest of the tour.

Having no place to stay and knowing nobody in town, we decided the smartest thing to do was to park our van at the border and go to Juarez and get drunk. The next morning I woke up in a car in Las Cruces, New Mexico, 40 miles from downtown El Paso. I was missing a shoe and had no idea how I got there. Next to me, in the driver’s seat, was a strange woman. On the drive back to El Paso, she filled in the previous night’s adventures. Her name was Sharon.

We had met Sharon and her friends at a bar in Juarez. We drank and carried on as clueless Americans do in border towns, disregarding the locals. One problem, though, was that we chose a local bar instead of a touristy gringo place like Senor Frogs or Hussongs. This turned out to be a bad move.

In our drunken haze, while belly-up to the bar, we noticed small objects of all kinds flying our way, some hitting us and others ricocheting off tables and chairs, coming to rest on the dirty floor. It was all small stuff likes pesos and pieces of food. We didn’t know where they were coming from, but we suspected it was from many tough looking hombres at tables throughout the bar. I turned to Tom, our singer, and said, “We should get out of here. I’m gonna throw a bottle at those guys when we leave,” gesturing toward three guys with cowboy hats in the corner. The beer was making me braver than I was. Tom gestured like he was stabbing me in my belly. He said, “Have you ever been stabbed in the stomach? No? Well, it hurts.” We left without throwing any bottles.

Tom and Mel assisted me over the border. It was around this time that I lost my shoe.

Somehow I heard of a party in Las Cruces and convinced a local that we had met at the bar to drive me there. That’s all I could remember.

We arrived at Sharon’s air-conditioned studio apartment, a 60s motel-like building with cement hallways and metal banisters, sometime around mid afternoon. Without knowing her living arrangements, I deduced that she lived by herself. There was one bed and no signs that a boyfriend or roommate lurked in a walk-in closet or laundry room in the back. I plopped on her couch and dozed off to the sounds of her checking the answering machine. Beep after beep, the same message rang out: “Where’s our guitar player? Give him back!” It was Tom. I knew he was more pissed about me sleeping in an air-conditioned apartment than anything else. They probably slept in the van or bushes in a park. Since there were no cell phones at the time, his last message told us to meet them at a surf and turf bar at sunset. He specified a time.

I woke up dehydrated and disoriented, and reintroduced myself to Sharon. The sun was setting and night was near. While on tour, we tried to avoid the day as much as possible; drinking every night until daybreak helped us achieve this misguided goal.

On the way to bar, I found out that Sharon was unemployed and played in a local all-girl band. We had nothing in common except our need for companionship: I enjoyed the girl-attention and she liked hanging out with someone from the big city of San Francisco. I’m sure she mistakenly found my dreads, gaudy rings and piercings exotic. El Paso was a very small town.

We arrived at the bar and the band was happy to see me and already had a few beers in them. I had asked Sharon to invite a few of her friends and band mates to the bar. They were there, hanging out with Tom and Mel. Like the night before, we drank and carried on. This went on for three nights.

On the fourth day we got a call from the New Orleans promoter saying they found us a drummer. We decided to leave the next day.

The band picked me up at Sharon’s apartment. There was a hurricane watch and it was raining. I said goodbye to Sharon and thanked her for the place to stay and for entertaining us while we were stranded. She handed me a sealed envelope and asked me not to open it until we were on the road. I was intrigued and a bit nervous. The van's horn cried out. I turned and left, thanking her one more time.

I jumped into the back of our pop-top, baby blue Econoline van. In unison, the band, or what was left of them—Mel and Tom—yelled, “Foooooot.” Foot was my nickname, given to me because, in the right light and naked, I looked like Bigfoot. I hung my head in a rare display of shyness, knowing that the way they said “Foooooot” was in reference to me having hooked up with Sharon. We had a band rule that if you had sex, you had to ride in the back of the van (which lacked a passenger seat) until somebody usurped you. It was 700 miles from El Paso to Houston and another few hundred miles from Houston to New Orleans. I assumed I would in the back the whole way. But Tom was very handsome and charming and there were many rest stops and gas stations along the way…you never knew.

I showed the band the envelope from Sharon. Anticipating a nasty letter, I was reluctant to open it. The band, though, were more than happy to read it. Any form of distraction— negative or positive—was welcome. I handed them the envelope.

Much to my relief, the envelope contained a picture, not poison. My relief quickly turned to dismay. In ballpoint ink was a picture of me (the dreads and jewelry gave it away) with my pants down—privates hanging out. In my left hand was a bloody knife and in my right hand was a heart. I was wearing a T-shirt that said “Short Dogs Suck.” Next to me was a woman lying on the ground, sans heart. I would assume this character was Sharon. It was scary and priceless. We taped the picture on the ceiling of the van, next to the Denny’s menu, and sped away.

On the way out of town, a tornado loomed in the far distance. Many cars had stopped under overpasses; we joined them. When it became apparent that the tornado was moving in the opposite direction of where we were headed, we continued on, driving as fast we could…for the next 700 miles.

The promoter in New Orleans was a friend of a friend that we had become friendly with in the past week, due to our incessant phone calls asking, “Have you found us a drummer yet?” She took in all in stride and assured us that she would find us one.

She failed to mention that the drummer she eventually found would be wearing a denim vest with marching band medals attached to the breast pocket and no shirt underneath, short jeans shorts and beat-up tennis shoes without socks. His name was George Finley. We called him Finfuck.

By the time we got to New Orleans, George had already learned the material from our record and was ready to play. We settled in and practiced for a party in Baton Rouge and our scheduled gig in New Orleans. Both went extremely well. George was a really good drummer, a nice kid and liked to drink. Plus he was willing to uproot his life and go on the road with us for seven weeks.

We left for Mobile, Alabama, early Saturday morning, after our gig at the VFW Hall in New Orleans. George waited curbside in front of his house, wearing the same denim attire that he sported when we met him. We were a little bummed about his fashion choice, but he was a drummer and we assumed his drums would hide his “outfit.” We pulled up to the curb, loaded his drums in the back and headed for Interstate 10. We let George sit in the front since he’d never been out of the state. He was very excited about seeing the Appalachian Mountains. We told him to reserve his excitement for the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas.

Despite the constant hazing he endured from us—writing in a Sharpie pen all over his body while he slept, sewing his leather jacket to the floor with him in it, piling chairs and other shit on top of him while he slept, etc.—George stayed with us and managed to get “hipsterfied” by the time we crossed the Bay Bridge back to San Francisco, changing his denim vest for a leather vest, the short jeans shorts for knee-high jeans shorts, and dirty tennis shoes for black high-tops. He also adopted a bandana head scarf look a la Brett Michaels of Poison.

George took up residence in San Francisco, toured with us a few times before eventually returning home to New Orleans with a bad drug habit. He took with him many horrible tattoos, a receding hairline and wonderful memories of tall mountains.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 15. The Gilman Punk Trial

2011-04-12T15:58:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim
Before he agreed to join our band on tour, Sayer presented us with ten questions. He pulled out a lined piece of paper and read from top to bottom:

1) “Will we sleep in motels?” he asked, more hoping than asking. “No, we’ll either sleep in the van, on the side of the road, a park, at someone’s house, or, if you’re lucky, with somebody from the show,” I said matter-of-factly.

With guarantees ranging from $150 to zero, all the money from playing shows went to gas, food and beer—not necessarily in that order. Sleeping in hotels was a luxury that we didn't enjoy often, although higher paying gigs resulted in the occasional Motel 6 or the rare Super 8.

2) “Will we be able to shower?” he asked longingly. “No, but we will probably swim in the ocean.”

Swimming definitely counted as a shower. Being dirty was part of the look and showers were not encouraged. This question caused some concern.

The best question was saved for last:

10) “Will I be able to get a tan?”

This one was unsettling. We all knew Sayer, but I knew him best and had suggested him to the band, so I had to vouch for his coolness factor. Sayer was definitely cool, could handle his liquor (important) and was a way better musician than us (we were people in bands, not necessarily musicians).

Sayer was a Tom Waits guy. He usually wore a vintage lapel jacket, disheveled button-up shirt, some sort of wrinkled slacks and well worn work boots. He liked whiskey and was prone to carrying a paperback copy of Naked Lunch in his back pocket. It was a good look—just not our look. We wore skinny, torn jeans, flimsy T-shirts, unwashed hair and high-tops—and no one was tan.

Tom, Mel and I looked at each other, not knowing how to answer this question. Finally, Tom said, “Well, there’s a lot of down time, I guess you could lie on top of the van.” It seemed like an appropriate answer; it was definitely hot up there.

Right there, we knew he wouldn’t last in the band, but we desperately needed a drummer to play two shows at Gilman Street on Friday and Saturday—both really good gigs, which we did not want to cancel. We could deal with finding a permanent drummer later, or beg the old drummer to come back.

Gilman Street is a punk/hardcore, non-profit, collective, multi-use club thingy that was built on idealism, dogma and good intentions in 1986. It filled the need for an all-ages venue for touring and local bands. At the time of its inception, I was living in a quickly deteriorating anarchist collective. We knew the people involved with the club and were excited to help out. A bunch of us went to their initial meetings and signed up to help with construction.

On the day that I was scheduled to volunteer, I arrived not knowing what I was going to do. I had helped build-out our warehouse—hammering here, swiping putty there—but all the measuring and angles stuff was left to my working-class roommate Joseph. He had one of those leather belts that held tools, so he was in charge.

Even though I was a sensitive peace punk anarchist vegan, having once started a men’s anarchist group to talk about men’s issues in effort to breakdown patriarchal society, there was still enough man in me to feel a little insecure that I had no construction skills and pretty much no ability to fix anything. My dad was a salesman so our family joke was that we would use the phone (to call someone) to fix everything.

We arrived and there were bunches of older, punk-looking guys with leather belts and a chalky look from hanging drywall. It was a big empty warehouse with double-doors in the front and a concrete floor.

As with all volunteer opportunities, we walked into the fray with look that said, “We’re ready to help. Where are the stamps to lick?” A punk carpenter guy approached us and asked us if we had any skills. By his approach, he was obviously not a volunteer coordinator, who would have made us feel like our contribution to Gilman was equal to overthrowing the state. Joseph ran down his litany of skills and I just said no. Joseph and the guy bonded and I started thinking about feigning illness. Alcohol or a large dose of Paxil would have helped this situation.

With a pasted smile on my face, I tried to interject humor to their conversation. Finally, after throwing out words like “flush” and “plumb,” the punk carpenter mentioned some things that needed to be done. I chose using a jackhammer to destroy the bathroom floor. I was a big guy and figured it would be as easy. The jackhammer was phallic, manly, had an awesome name and was what I needed to show my value. I would make my men’s group proud.

The punk carpenter showed me how the jackhammer worked (squeeze for power, let go to stop), gave me gloves and said, “I assume you don’t have any safety goggles?” Before I could answer, he was walking off toward some construction guys that looked like they were getting paid to do this. They exchanged a few words, turned around and looked at me and then one of them fiddled around in a bag and pulled out some badly scratched safety goggles. He gave them to me and left me to my own devices.

The jackhammer was a lot heavier than expected. I assumed it was light, and cut through the concrete easily. I was wrong. At the first burst of power, the hammer danced crossed floor and crashed, making a spectacular noise. Not waiting around to see the reaction I quickly picked it up and fiddled around with the body, implying that there something wrong with the beast and I was working on fixing it.

One of the professional-looking guys approached me, gently took the jackhammer and gave me some pointers: “Don’t force it; let it guide you; go with the flow. Let it do the work.” He was like the Yoda of construction and lot nicer than the punk carpenter.

Taking his advice, I gently clutched the throttle. As it tapped the ground, I ran with it across the room instead of letting it fall. After a while I got the hang of it. My technique may have been unorthodox and my look awkward (I stuck my ass out and the position of my hands looked like I was getting a manicure), but I started to get it and even enjoyed myself briefly. Jackhammering was quite painful and mind numbing and pretty much the worst physical day of my life, but my stubborn Scottish background persevered and I finished the job, which took hours. I would assume there are some OSHA laws preventing you from using these things for prolonged periods.

That night my body relived every burst of the jackhammer. It felt as if my organs had dislodged from my tendons and muscles and were attempting to leave my body; my hands were balled in fists from desperately gripping the throttle of the jackhammer. I fell asleep and relived that horrible experience in dreams.

After listening to Sayer’s tour questions, we decided to go to the Chatterbox bar in the Mission to talk about him joining the band and his need for tanning. We walked in and were greeted with Johnny Thunders’ autograph in house paint, stretched across a crossbeam. Alfie, the owner of the club, was a big New York Dolls fan. This attracted a lot of Thunders devotees. I think that was the idea.

We were rational people and knew it was completely snobby to judge Sayer on his look, but look was 90 percent of the music and having a Tom Waits/Bukowski looking guy with dirty work boots and a wrinkled wool suit jacket was not gonna work in the long run. Given disheveled versus dirty, we preferred dirty. Like all relationships, we decided to compromise and go into it with a “we’ll see.”

On the day of the show, we picked up Sayer at his dad’s house. While moving his drums in the van, we noticed that on his drum heads the word “Dad” was written in permanent marker. Even for us, this was kind of freaky. The heads were littered with deep indentations from hard hitting. It was assumed that Sayer had issues with his dad.

The show was good and well attended. Sayer knew the songs and played them impeccably—maybe a little too well. As a band, we relied on a little white noise to get us from verse to chorus. We were brought up on a healthy dose of the Replacements’ looseness, so tightness and hearing musical transitions made us uncomfortable. We longed for the sloppiness of our old drummer.

After dropping off Sayer at his flat in the city, we decided to cancel the next evening’s show. No matter how good he was, it just didn’t feel right.

Since we were filling in for a band that had originally left Gilman in a lurch, they were not too happy about us cancelling the day of the show. Tom explained our predicament, but it didn’t hold any weight since we had played there the night before. The club responded with dramatic threats of banishment.

I called Sayer at the same time and, like all breakups, didn’t tell him the whole truth. I said he was too good (first, inflate the ego) and that we were a bunch of scumbags (the equivalent of saying, “I’m not good enough for you.”) He took it well. He probably knew it wasn’t going to work.

That day we decided to drink off our drummer woes at the Oakland Coliseum with Motley Crue, Whitesnake and Poison. We met our friends Lord Jim, Steve Bitch and Insane Jane, a motley crew in their own right, and scalped tickets on 66th Avenue. None of us owned a record of the any of the bands or even particularly liked them; to us it was kitsch—anthropologists studying the hairspray locals. At least that’s what we told ourselves. All of us, except Jane, were making the awkward transition from anarchist punk to civilian life. Some of us found college rock and others got their pop culture fix with hair metal.

Baking in the hot Oakland sun, I laid on my back watching the jumbotron flash: “Take It Off, Take It Off.” Bret Michaels from Poison was leading the chant and the jumbotron followed suit. I surveyed the crowd and, yes, a few girls on the shoulders of tanned boys had taken their shirts off. All was right in the world of arena rock.

Launching into “Talk Dirty to Me,” I jumped to my feet and screamed, “I know this song!” It seemed like an appropriate response for somebody who had only heard the hits from the band. But to the real fans, who surrounded me like a storm, I could visualize the word “Poseur” spilling from their disapproving looks. The effect of pre-show alcohol and marijuana had reared its ugly face and was holding my self-control hostage.

The Crue pranced in from the side of stage, perfectly coiffed, giving the crowd the international metal sign and pointing to the third deck. I had read in Rolling Stone that they did push-ups right before going on stage, to make their biceps a little more attractive and wondered if they were out of breath from just doing a round of reps. They were tanned, their hair flowing and looked like they were about to have the time of their lives.

“Oakland, how you fuckin’ doing?” Vince Neal, lead singer, squealed in that metal voice. It was just the first of many “fuckins” to come. He knew how to work the crowd.

Not to be outdone by Poison and their “Take it off” shtick, Vince, still court-mandated sober for killing Hanoi Rocks’ drummer in an alcohol-related car accident, broke it down in the middle of the set:

“Do you motherfuckers like to party?” The word motherfucker is always a crowd pleaser and gets a positive reaction from even the most lackluster crowd. “I can’t drink, Johnny Law says so, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to party and have a good time [screams from crowd].” The pace of his phrasing sped as he climaxed at “good time.” “Well, my friend Tommy [drummer] likes to drink, oh yeah!” Tommy stood, pointed his drum sticks at the crowd and cupped his left hand behind his ear, while his right hand urged the crowd to make some noise. Giving that open-mouthed look of excitement that only drummers can do, he came out from behind the drums, displaying an outfit consisting entirely of short shorts. He confidently grabbed a bottle of whiskey from Vince’s hand. Vince squealed, “Fuckin' down it, Tommy.” I look at the jumbotron and sure enough, it was flashing “Down It, Tommy.” The crowd chanted “Down it, Tommy,” while he took several large gulps of what was probably tea. He spit the last gulp in the air and returned to his drums.

Vince high kicked over to Nikki (there’s something about tight spandex pants that makes hair metal guys run in an affected manner) and put his arm around him, his clenched fist resting on his torso—a very guy way of showing affection. “Now this motherfucker is crazy.” He handed Nikki the bottle. “Fuckin down it, Nikki!” The crowd went crazy and the jumbotron followed suit.

Vince grabbed the bottle from Nikki and thrust to it to the sky, his extended arm the sole focus of 50k fans. He looked at the half empty bottle and then back at the band: “Fuckin pussies!” Vince gets a laugh from the crowd. Ba-boom!

He walked over to Mick Mars. “Now, you might not know it, but this motherfucker is the craziest of us all.” Mick, looking one-third Elvira, one-third Emily Strange and the rest Uncle Fester with a black wig, grabbed the bottle and took a quick swig, quickly returning the bottle back to Vince. Vince looked a little annoyed and confused, not knowing what to do. While the jumbotron flashed, “Down it, Mick,” Vince ran offstage and gave the bottle to a roadie. Eventually the jumbotron stopped flashing. Mick had blown the end of the Jack Daniels bit. Pure performance art! Back to the rock.

I returned to lying down—drunk, high, dehydrated and sunburned—and watched my friends painfully move closer and closer to each other for a drunken hookup.

The next morning, my roommate Ramin knocks on my door: “Brotha, I went to Gilman Street last night and there was a sign on the door that said Short Dogs cancelled because they went to Motley Crue at the Coliseum.” My heart sank. In the world of Gilman Street, this was unconscionable. I'm pretty sure it was even listed in their rule book: "Thou shall not go to the Crue!” I called the other members of the band and alerted them about the sign on the door. The general consensus was “Fuck ’em!”

Word trickled down that we were banned from Gilman, but we would be given a trial to explain our version of why we cancelled the show. It was very PC and very Gilman.

The band decided that only one of us should attend the trial. Since I was versed in the vernacular of revolution, was still vegan and had straight edge credentials for once having lunch with Ian MacKaye, it was obvious that I should attend.

On the day of the trial, I gave careful consideration to my appearance. I dressed for the part in my cloth shoes and anarchist Haymarket Gathering T-shirt. On the way out, I paused and considered putting two large Xs on the tops of my hands, but I figured it would be obvious that I was pandering to the crowd. I grabbed my Powell Peralta skateboard and caught the bus down San Pablo. A skateboard was a necessary accoutrement for this occasion and a nice seat instead of the cold floor of Gilman.

Much to my dismay, it wasn’t a trial but a general meeting with an agenda. I was last on the agenda. We sat in a large circle—most of us on our skateboards—in front of the stage. There were friendly, familiar faces in the crowd: Fat Mike, my friend Jerry, and lots of the Maximum Rock-n-Roll crowd. Some were avoiding me and others were oblivious as to why I was there.

When my turn came around, I did my best to downplay the Motley Crue part of the story and accentuate the new drummer not working out part. At first, they tried to be civil, but they just couldn’t get over us seeing Motley Crue and Poison instead of playing the show. No matter how many times I said, “We went to the Coliseum after we cancelled. We could’ve very well gone to get burritos and it would’ve been the same thing.” Despite my attempt at logic, I knew it had nothing to do with us cancelling and all about us going to an unapproved rock concert. It wasn’t punk rock. They had me.

They voted to ban the band, which I also took as a personal ban. I grabbed my skateboard, never to return to Gilman Street again.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 14. White Punks on Hope

2011-04-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim

Ali was a British Crass-type punk—definitely not American looking. She based her look off bands like Conflict, the Exploited, GBH, etc. It was a street punk look that’s still in vogue today amongst homeless punk runaways and vegan junkies. When you met her, you wondered why her name wasn’t Spike or Spit or something punk like that. She was just Ali.

Ali’s hair was always dyed in some fuck-with-me color and cut into a Mohawk or spiked six inches in the form of liberty spikes (named after the Statue of Liberty). She wore a leather jacket with hundreds of cone studs attached to both sleeves, giving it a textural, robotic look. When she moved or took off the jacket, the cones rubbed together loudly. Amoeba-shaped leopard print patches were arbitrarily sewn on the jacket, like they had fallen off a tree and permanently landed on her leather. Cracked blue and red paint adorned free space in the front and the back of the jacket. Written on the lower back of her jacket was “White Punks on Hope,” a play on words from an old Tubes song and an announcement that she was a political punk. Her pants were always plaid or black bondage pants; Doc Martens never left her feet.

Like Brian Adams, her adolescent years—I assume—were not good to her. Her cheeks were riddled with deep pockmarks and her skin appeared almost grayish, like she was on medication for a liver problem. It was something you noticed about her right away. To combat this, she wore lots of makeup, including heavy mascara to draw attention to her eyes and away from her ashen cheeks.

What intrigued me most about Ali was her car: a BMW, which she concealed from most people, especially her punk friends. San Francisco is filled with slumming punks and she may have been one of them.

Ali was a frequent visitor to our warehouse and supported our stringent anarchist views. Not many people could deal with us because we had such a strong sense of right and wrong. Many nights, she and her friend Judy (a blond version of her) would visit and stay late, eating fried potatoes and listening to music. This night she was there to see a band. Our neighbors rented another space in the warehouse to put on shows on the weekends. Somehow they managed to get good bands like the Meat Puppets, Soul Asylum and Beefeater to play, along with countless hardcore shows. Since we were anarchist snobs, we didn't always make the scene. We were too busy burning ATMs, spray painting walls and writing “comrades” across the globe to shuffle our cloth china flats downstairs. On this night, though, we had just got back from Santa Cruz. It was 1986, my 22nd birthday, and it was customary to make the sojourn south to Santa Cruz for all of our birthdays. At the time, it was the only place in the Bay Area that sold vegan pizza.

Ali Punk Rock knocked on our door and told us there was a good band playing next door and that we should come down. We obliged and made our way to the downstairs hallway, across the makeshift bridge of two-by-fours and out the knobless door into complete darkness that led to where the band was playing. This is what not paying rent will get you.

As we watched the band, Ali said she had two tickets to see Aerosmith at the Cow Palace and asked if I wanted to go for my birthday. Having been a big Aerosmith fan in my youth, I accepted and off we went across the bridge, careful not to let anyone know where we were going. Aerosmith was definitely not anarchy; however, all of us had bands in our closets that we listened to on the sly. Even bands like Black Flag were considered sexist and not appropriate to our beliefs.

The early 80s were a dark time for Aerosmith. Steve Tyler was in the throes of heroin addiction and Joe Perry and Brad Whitford, founding members, were long gone, pursuing failed musical projects.

As expected, the show was horrible. Half the seats were filled and the people who did attend mirrored the ragged bunch they had paid 30 bucks to see, but I was happy to be away from the warehouse. It was my birthday and seeing Aerosmith conjured memories of Creem magazine and Days on the Green.

During the encore, they played a new song called “Angel.” This was the first of many soft rock, over emotional ballads Aerosmith would churn out in the next two decades; although this one never became that big of a hit. As the piano started, a giant neon “A” (for Aerosmith) lowered from behind the stage. Of course, “A” was my favorite letter; I even referred to myself as an “A,” short for Anarchist.

Perched behind Steven Tyler’s head, the “A” was like a full moon. I raised my hand in the air, touching my thumb to my ring finger, forming a circle. I lowered my hand a few inches in front of my squinting right eye and circled the giant “A” on the stage. Since the circled "A" is the symbol for Anarchy, I believed that every “A” should be circled. All around me, people were holding up Bic lighters. Ali looked at me and wondered what I was doing. I chose to say nothing, keeping my outreached hand extended. It was my own personal not-so joke. I was a very serious young man.

We drove back over the bridge listening to Flux of Pink Indians, transitioning from has-been arena rock back to warehouse punk. Appreciative that Ali took me to the show, I invited her up to our space. Christ on Parade was playing across the hall and we peeked in to watch a few songs. Having seen them hundreds of times, I suggested that we leave and see what my roommates were doing. On the nights of shows, our place served as sort of a backstage or VIP lounge for our friends and the anarchy intelligentsia. Our warehouse had an air of mystery and clout, which people gravitated toward. For a Pleasanton punk, I had hit the big time.

We found Judy, who we left at the gig, and went upstairs. As expected, everybody was in our living room listening to music and eating bland vegan food; some were drinking beer. Some of us were straight edge, which caused a rift in the house.

As the night wore on, everybody left except Ali and Judy. Ali was making noise about being tired and wanted to stay over. Judy was whining about having things to do tomorrow and was lobbying for a ride back to SF. Some friends were up from LA and were sleeping in the living room, so space was tight.

Our version of punk treaded a fine line between punk and hippie. On one hand, we dressed the punk part and listened to punk/anarchist music; on the other hand, we were vegans, stunk like shit and were prone to nakedness. The only thing that kept us on the right side was our severe lack of pacifism and lack of rooftop garden. However, we were a collective and had a hippie ethos of welcoming comrades to our home, so there was no way I could tell Ali there was no vacancy.

What I was most afraid of was where they’d be sleeping. If they were staying, I knew it would be in my bed, so I did my best to convince them of the rats that came out at night and the shoddy state of bedding. Ali was not fazed and suggested, “Why don’t we stay in your room?” Ugh.

Since we didn’t pay rent, we had frequent visitors who slept with us in our beds, and she knew this—I couldn’t say no. The anarchy god would not allow it. I reluctantly agreed and quickly walked to my bedroom to get a bed position next to the exposed wall.

Ali and Judy were not big girls; at least I thought they weren’t. It was hard to tell with their big leather jackets, boots and many layers of clothing. They could have been waifs, but you wouldn’t know it.

By the time they got to my room, I was already in bed. I was wearing turquoise thermals, with a large hole in the back of the lower thigh, and one T-shirt—having taken off two others. With only one shirt on, the smell from the lack of bathing was strong. The covers were pulled up to my chest and I was feigning sleep.

I barely knew Judy so I was hoping that Ali would take the middle position, even though I kind of got the feeling that Ali wanted more than sleep. I wasn’t attracted to either of them and didn’t have any fantasy of having a three way; however, I was a boy and like all boys could be a dick-for-brains at times, so I had no idea of what was going to happen. I was extremely nervous and pulled the covers to my neck to hide sudden bursts of shivers.

As they took off their leather jackets and boots, I jumped out of bed and went to the bathroom. The anxiety of what might happen gave me the runs.

I returned and both were lying down, facing the door. Their boots and shoes were in a nice pile on the floor, side by side, and Judy was doing a poor job feigning sleep. I felt bad for her. She didn’t want to be in this situation, but had no choice. Ali, on the other hand, was wide awake and chatting up a storm.

I climbed on the loft bed and jumped over Ali and reclaim my position by the wall. Ali, knowing my intentions, leaned back, touching the wall. I had no place to go except the middle. I pulled the covers back and reluctantly took the middle position. It was like a punk rock sandwich and I was the vegan meat. I reached up and flipped off the shop light that was clutching an exposed two-by-six. Darkness.

Ali and I lied facing the wall and Judy faced the door. There were no windows in the room and the darkness was complete. I’m sure they could feel my heart beating. Finally it happened. Ali rustled a bit and I felt her hand on my hip. This could be harmless as we all were vying for space in the crowded twin bed or my hip could be a launching pad for deeper exploration. I decided to wait it out while the nervous shivers returned.

Like a long-legged spider, her hand moseyed down my hip, giving lots of warning of where she was headed. I braced for the touch and my penis preemptively responded, knowing what was about to happen. I’m sure Judy could tell that Ali was making her move and she was petrified that she could either get involved in this or have to lay there while Ali and I quietly humped beside her.

She fondled my penis, which was erect—not helping the situation, while the rest of my body stood motionless. It was very non-sexual and felt weird. I stood motionless, hoping she would stop. After what seemed like ten minutes, she stopped and turned over in a huff, facing the wall. Judy let out a sigh of relief; Ali responded with another hmphh!

The next morning, Ali’s knee was touching my back, the weight of her body moving across me. She made no effort to quietly get out of bed. I laid still and clandestinely watched them put on their clothes, pulling my pillow close to my face. And I spread out, taking advantage of a bigger bed.

They laced their 18-eyelet boots, adjusted their leather jackets and reconnected the bondage straps to their pants. It was very militaristic and fascinating, like watching a cop put on his uniform.

Eventually Ali gave up the San Francisco Punk Rock dream and moved back to Florida with her parents. By the time she moved, we hadn’t seen each other in a while. I only learned of this information through mutual friends.

A few years later, when touring through Miami with the band, I called her and asked if we could crash at her place. She said no problem, not divulging that she still lived with her parents.

The night of the show, she met us at the club. It was good to see her. Because of the hot Florida weather, she was forced to tone down her look a bit. She was wearing black jeans, a single black T-shirt, and creepers. Her hair, no longer spiked, was shoulder length and unruly.

After the show we followed her home. She still had her BMW. Luckily, her parents were out of town. There were many times on the road when people invited us back to their house to sleep. More often than not, you would drive a long, long way out of town, arriving at a suburban house. Once you got there it was pretty easy to deduce that this dirt punk that was offering you sleeping arrangements didn’t live by himself. They would explain that their parents probably wouldn’t mind if we spent the night. Mornings were always awkward and short. Because of this, we started asking invitees if they lived with their parents. If they did, it was always better to sleep in the van. A main part of after-show activities was finding somewhere to sleep.

Ali’s parents’ house was everything you would think a Florida ranch home would look like: colorful, expensive carpet, Hollywood regency décor and a perfect temperature of 72, to combat the humidity. We were in heaven. Luxury like this was rare and, by the size of the house, we could each look forward to our own bed.

We came in and sat around the kitchen table, talking about San Francisco and the good ol’ days. As we talked I kept thinking about the sleeping arrangements and it kind of worried me. I was tired and needed sleep and wasn’t looking forward to another “reach around.” We had traveled from Gainesville that day and were expected in Pensacola by 6 pm for sound check the next day, so we needed to get up early.

The conversation eventually petered out and Ali led us led us down a long hallway, where every door was closed. In the clean, sterile house, we looked extremely filthy, which made us self-conscious. Ali had to be thinking the same thing and worrying that we were somehow going to irreparably dirty the house. As each door passed and she didn’t stop, it was becoming evident that she was leading us to a rec room or the garage. Finally she opened the last door on the left, revealing the master bedroom with a king sized bed. A thin, cotton comforter covered the mattress. If we all slept sideways, it was big enough to accommodate all four of us. Ali held the door as we filed past her, the light from the hallway flooding into the dark room. We stood in the middle of the room and waited for instructions.

“You can sleep on the floor, ok?” That was it. No “Greg, you come with me,” or “Feel free to sleep on the bed.” Nothing. She left the door ajar and went to her bedroom.

That night we all took up positions around the bed. If we couldn’t sleep on the bed, at least we were going to be near it and touch it.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 13. Spot Skips School, Seeks Stardom

2011-04-08T16:20:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim
Ali Punk Rock – that’s what we called her - was waiting for me. I jumped off Muni and we walked toward the Quad at San Francisco State. It was early and the campus was bustling with students arriving for class. The pervasive fog formed a low ceiling, casting a white blanket into the far corners of the rectangular buildings. We were both students and had planned an action to coincide with other protests throughout the city. Ali looked exactly like the last hundred times I saw her: punk as fuck. We called people like this PFL—Punk for Life! They found a look and were sticking with it until death.

Inside the Student Union, we found a table against the wall, in a corner. A smattering of students speckled the abundant tables, books open, feverishly cramming before their 9 am classes. The lights were dimmed to give it a nightclub feel, a respite from the normal academic environment. It was a good place to discuss clandestine information.

Ali placed her backpack on the round table. Inside there was a plastic bag from the Canned Food Warehouse, a discount grocer where all canned products appeared to have fallen off a truck. Inside the bag were two badly dented cans of creamed corn. She opened the bag just enough where I could see them. A while back we decided that creamed corn was most consistent with vomit and that’s what we were looking for. She closed the backpack and dropped it at her feet.

I grabbed my satchel, a heavy black denim bag, and placed it where Ali’s bag had been. With the opening toward Ali, I revealed two cans of spray paint: black and red. The colors of revolution!

This was my last day at State. My bad student tendencies hadn’t changed and I was way too interested in extracurricular activities like music, specifically my band Short Dogs Grow, to study. The band was doing well; we had just put out a record and we were going on tour. Why stay in school? The two classes that I was still attending were falling apart and it was only a matter of time before I said “fuck it” or got kicked out of the class. I had a history of challenging teachers or shouting down other students, when I felt I just couldn’t take it anymore and I could feel that urge knocking at the door again.

A week prior in my Ethics class, I answered the door:

The teacher was asking us our thoughts on certain actions and if we thought they were a crime or not.

“OK, murder? Do you think it’s a crime?” he said, grabbing a piece of chalk. On a portable blackboard, in tiny letters, he wrote the word murder in all lowercase letters. Being that this was the first question in a series of many, all of us thought it was a trick question. We looked around, afraid to answer. It was obvious that it is a crime but in the back of our heads we figured the response to our answer could be: “Well, you know, in certain cultures murder is considered virtuous and a rite of passage.” The teacher was wearing a wool jacket with elbow patches that gave him kind of an Ivy League look, a look that said, “Don’t fuck with me, Kids, I went to Princeton and got a minor in Ethnic Studies.” A brave soul finally said, “Yeah, it’s a crime.” He put a small check mark next to murder.

From there it went on to Rape. Check. Kidnapping. Check. Bank Robbery. Check. Check. Check.

When we got down to “Litter, Jaywalking and Adultery” I raised my hand. Up to now, the class seemed like common sense, right or wrong answers to simple questions. Any idiot would know the difference. I had had enough and a semester's worth of boredom and frustration was about to be addressed.

“Yeah.” I always like to start out with “yeah.” It buys me some time, if I want to change my mind. “You know, isn’t this all common sense? Doesn’t everybody know that murder —killing another person—is wrong? And for that matter, kidnapping and every other crime?" I paused, silence. The teacher stood there, staring at me. Most of the class bowed their heads, not wanting to get involved; the other students were wide-eyed with anticipation. Filling the air, I continued and made it worse: “Furthermore, hasn’t this whole class just been common sense? Come on!” I stopped. Silence again. I was careful not to take my eyes off of him, while he stared me down. If I did, he would have me. His look was a mixture of shock and hatred.

Finally, he moved, grabbing his bag and said, “If you’re so smart, why don’t you teach the class?” It was a classic line—a cliché at best. On his way out the door, he paused and looked at me, waiting for a response. I shook my head and mouthed, “Come on, man. Give me a break.”

After five minutes, it was obvious that he wasn’t coming back. I grabbed my bag and went straight to the registrar's office and demanded to be withdrawn from the class, even when it was way past the withdraw deadline. I claimed that teacher could not fairly grade me after our incident. They agreed. I saw the teacher a few months later at the grocery store. Suffice to say, it was awkward.

My other fledgling class was some Chilean-1973-Noriega-Falklands-Bautista-Cuba-Che-Allende-Noriega hybrid class. It was very San Francisco State. It was taught by a visiting professor that wrote a book on the subject, which, of course, we were using as the text. The book was dry, intellectual and, I thought, unreadable. I’m sure many students ate it up.

The teacher was bearded, and I assumed bearded greats like Fidel Castro and Karl Marks were his inspiration. He had that exotic, revolutionary vibe; he wore tight button-up shirts and was prone to not using all of the buttons. And he was always a little sweaty. If ever got close to him, it was sure thing that he was smelly.

The students were a mishmash of opinionated, dogmatic lefty types, so his open shirt and liberal use of sexist language didn’t bode well with the feminists, or the feminist sympathizers like me and the other “empathetic” men in the class. Because of this, he was shouted down many times and there multiple dramatic exits from students, yelling, “Sexist pig!” The drama was about the only thing I liked about the class. Since there were many people like me who were prone to attacking the teacher, I let them do the dirty work. Coinciding with my Ethics outburst, I decided to stop attending this class too.

My last obligation to SF State was not a class, but a group that I was part of. At the beginning of the semester I posted flyers around campus advertising for students who were interested in Animal Rights. I posted a date, time and place to meet to discuss forming a student group around this issue. The flyer had a small caricature of a punk (the Circle Jerks punk) spray painting ALF (Animal Liberation Front) on a brick all. Back then, it was always a brick wall.

One person attended the initial meeting—her name was Jean. We sat around and waited for others to show, but nobody did. We talked and decided to form an animal rights group on campus, even if it was just her and I. I had already given some thought on a name and suggested SCAR—Students Concerned for Animal Rights. It was aggressive and, I thought, it represented direct action. And, it was called SCAR.

Jean and I were very different. She dressed in nice clothes, had long, straight blond hair and was very innocuous looking. She was one of the first “straight” people I met, who wasn’t punk but had somewhat radical views, specifically when it came to animal rights. She wouldn’t liberate animals, but she would provide the tools and write the press release. I was a brick thrower and she was a letter writer, but we found common ground.

To become a recognized group on campus you had to get a teacher to sponsor you and have a president and vice president. I found a sympathetic Health teacher, but the president issue was a big deal. Jean didn’t want to do it and I couldn’t do it because of my anti-authoritarian, anarchist beliefs. Eventually, we settled on both of us being vice president and made up a fictitious name for president.

Now that we had a fancy name, which was bound to attract new members, we scheduled another meeting. We posted flyers and encouraged “all to attend.” The night of the meeting I picked up Jean at her Clement Street apartment. She opened the passenger side door and stopped.

With a look of disgust, she said, “What’s this,” gesturing toward the lush sheep skin seat cover. I had seen the pictures of sheep, spread-eagled on a torture-type device, when being shaved for wool; however, when I received the seat cover for Christmas I hadn’t put the two together. It was soft, cuddly and would cover my gross passenger seat.

She refused to get in the car until I took it off. I quickly unclasped the back and threw it into the back seat. The ride down Sunset Avenue to State was long and quiet. I tried damage control, explaining that it was a gift and that I’d never purchase something that came from an animal, but it was futile. Right there our friendship was over.

At the meeting, there were a few new faces, which helped defuse the sheep incident. However, we soon realized they took the “all to attend” part literally and they were there to debate us. Plus, they were rather angry.

We held our own—arguing computer modeling, moral obligation and that most tests were trivial. They ripped into us. There were more of them and countered that the benefits of animal testing outweighed the moral issues. Looking us up and down for any signs of animal products that we wearing, they called us hypocrites. One of them said his mother had cancer and that if experimenting on animals would help his mother, he was for it. How do you argue with that? Fuckin’ great. We lost.

That was the last SCAR meeting. The sheep incident and debate defeat were hurdles too big to overcome. Jean and I went our separate ways. As far as I know, SCAR may still be on the books at SF State.

All these factors led up to this moment of me and Ali Punk Rock sitting at a table with two cans of creamed corn and two cans of spray paint in the Student Union.

We left and walked north to the Psychology building. There were unconfirmed rumors that they were experimenting on animals on the fifth floor. We took these rumors as truth.

Entering the double doors, I pushed the elevator button. On the fifth floor, Ali stayed with the elevator, holding it until I was done. Walking down the hallway, I glanced through the glass window doors, looking for students and teachers. The floor appeared to be empty. I took out the spray paint and wrote “Meat is Murder” and “ALF” on the walls, while slowing walking back to Ali. Alternating between black and red, I ran a continuous line of paint, slogans and just pure wanton graffiti. I reached Ali and the open elevator door and we were off.

Once out of the building, I ditched the spray paint in a trash can. We walked briskly to our next stop—the building that housed the office of the ROTC. I went into the bathroom to wash the remnants of paint off my hands. Pulling out a small container of turpentine, I scrubbed the red and black paint from my fingertips. I walked back outside and disposed of the turpentine container in the trash. We were careful to discard everything that linked us to the spray-painted Psychology building. Back inside the ROTC building, Ali was waiting. We huddled together and reiterated our plan. I pulled the two cans of creamed corn out of Ali’s backpack and held them as she used a can-opener to peel back the lids.

We burst into the ROTC office, a square room with two large wooden desks, one occupied by a man in uniform—a Marine I think. He rose as we pantomimed throwing up, gagging, holding the cans close to our mouths as we sprayed creamed corn over the walls and floor. When the cans were emptied, we fell to the ground in a dramatic die-in. We lay on the ground and watched large splats of creamed corn drip down the walls.

The Marine calmly got up and walked to the front of his desk, where we were laid out on the ground, eyes closed, bags at our side. We were giggling from nerves. He walked back to his desk, sat down and called security. Something told me that incidents like this were a regular occurrence at the ROTC.

Security came, stopped at the door and hovered. They asked us a few questions but we didn’t respond. Knowing that we’d eventually leave, they left. Cops have learned the hard way that sometimes it’s better to just sit back and watch or have no presence at all instead of engaging. Dragging us out kicking and screaming wouldn’t have been good for anybody.

Right behind them was a student photographer for the school newspaper. She tried to talk to us too but we gave her the same silent treatment. After taking a few pictures, she left.

It had been a long day for me. I had gotten up early and was very tired, so I took this opportunity to take a nap. It appeared that Ali was napping too. After two hours, I looked at Ali and nodded. We both got up and bolted out the door. And that was it. Nobody was in the hallway or waiting for us out front. We went out the back door and disappeared in the darkness. That was my last day at SF State.

The next week Ali called and said that we were on the cover of the Golden Gator, SF State’s weekly newspaper. She brought over a few copies. On the front page was a big picture of Ali and me lying in front of a big wooden desk in the ROTC office. Behind the desk, a Marine was writing dutifully in a ledger. The juxtaposition of us and him was great. We were very proud.

Coincidentally, I also appeared in another article of that Golden Gator. A few weeks prior our friend Mitzi had interviewed my band. She had got wind that two of us SF State students were quitting school to go on tour. There was a big picture of the band and a half-page article, and the headline read “Spot Skips School, Seeks Stardom.” It was a fitting end to my college career and my transition from anarchy to rock.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 12. Fridge Left, Bathroom Right

2011-04-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim
(I read this last weekend at Lip Service West)

Towards the end of my anarchy/vegan/warehouse days, when people had fallen into drug use, drinking and, God forbid, college rock, I invited my high school friend Eileen to live with us. Joseph, or King Anarchy as we called him because he was the most responsible of the group and the most dogmatic, had moved out in a huff due to our lack of commitment to the cause and a problem with a phone bill. Somehow it’s always an unpaid bill that breaks up friendships. We had only four months left on our lease before we were legally evicted, so it didn’t really matter that Eileen 1) had a penchant for dried flowers and Stevie Nicks; and 2) was only a vegetarian. We compromised our pristine values and invited her into Joseph’s old, windowless room.

One week after she moved in, I left to go on tour. My roommates, Amir and Frank, knew Eileen and were happy to have a female presence in the house. Despite our feminist stance (“I know how you feel”), we were all closer to being adolescent dicks-for-brains than men in our 30s, so a pretty, blond hair California girl was a welcome presence. Even if she did eat dairy.

Before I left, I warned them to pay all the bills and to answer the record label mail. We hadn’t paid rent in 30 months, but we still managed to keep the lights and phone on by paying the bills. With Joseph’s departure, I became the defacto leader, or the most responsible one of the bunch.

When the tour ended, I came home—dirty, tired and hungry. They were happy see to me and within a day or so things were back to normal: late night fried potatoes, breaking windows and spray painting. We were back in the anarchy groove.

Late one Friday night, while Amir and I were responding to the backlog of label mail at the dining room table, we heard the front door open. It was around 3am—not an unusual time for us to be up working—and we assumed it was Eileen. Unlike us, Eileen went out with friends, got drunk and stayed out late.

The trap door to the kitchen creaked open and slammed shut. We heard the natural rustling of cupboard doors opening and closing, looking for a late night snack. We figured she was making a sandwich or heating up some bland veggie pasta.

She hadn’t come in and said hello, which was odd. Eileen was very outgoing and friendly. Amir and I went back to answering the label mail from like-minded peace punks across the world, ending most correspondence with the inspiring “Keep Fighting,” the sophisticated “In Revolution” or the embarrassing “Uhuru!”

Then I heard something that sounded like water, falling water. I jumped up, startling Amir, and found Eileen with her pants down, ass in the refrigerator with the crisper drawer pulled out, peeing. Standing in the doorway, more concerned than appalled, I said, “Are you alright, Eileen?” The blank look on her face scared me. “Eileen, are you alright!” I said with more force.

Like suddenly being woken up in the middle of the night by a fire alarm, she jumped up, looked around and wondered why her bare ass was halfway in the refrigerator. She quickly pulled up her wet pants and ran past me, down the stairs and out the door.

Amir joined me in the kitchen. “Brotha? Is she OK?” Amir was one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet, although this didn’t stop him from breaking windows, spray painting and burning things. He just did it in a nice way and was always laughing. He came to America from Iran in 1979, had problems with plurals (“Brothers, I got new pair of shoe!”) and hated police, specifically BART police, the transit police who patrolled the rail system in the Bay Area. His family was very conservative, living in a high-rise condo in the next town. They disapproved of his behavior and his friends. Then again, pretty much all of our families frowned on our choices.

“Brother, did she pee in the fridge?” Amir asked incredulously.

“Sure looks like it,” I said. I was still a bit stunned and not sure what happened. I was almost sure that she had drunk too much, drove home and blacked out somewhere in between. The anarchist side of me, the sensitive side, in tune with women’s issues, thought that maybe she might have been assaulted and this was a result of the assault. Of course, I was completely wrong, but it made me feel important to show empathy for the oppressed, even if it was my white roommate from Pleasanton.

Amir and I did our best to clean it up. Lacking any real cleaning supplies, we used an old T-shirt as a rag. Luckily the majority of her urine formed a rather large puddle in the bottom of the crisper. There was an old head of lettuce bathing in the diluted, pale yellow urine—a tell-tale color of a night’s drinking. The rest of the pee splashed on the front of crisper, forming a trail to where the trap door and concrete floor met, falling about six feet to the bottom of the stairs and then to the hallway. She had a lot of pee in her.

We dumped the pee in the crisper in the toilet and wiped up the floors, fridge and stairs with the T-shirt, rinsing it with water in the sink every so often. It wasn’t spotless, but neither were we so it didn’t really matter.

The next day I called Eileen’s mom’s house. I figured she was hiding out there until the pee incident blew over. But she knew that I lived for moments like this and it would never be over; although, she knew that I really didn’t care either. It would just be another story that I would bring up years from now.

The phone rang multiple times and eventually went to voicemail. I left a message: “Eileen, this Greg. It’s no big deal, we all pee in the fridge every once in a while. Come on back, nobody cares.”

Eileen returned late Sunday evening with a grocery bag full of food and made a point of divulging that she watched "The Simpsons" with her mother. TV was unacceptable in our household, it was considered brainwashing and she knew it, so it was odd that she mentioned it. She almost appeared defiant, like she was testing us.

She shrugged and apologized for peeing in the fridge: “Watcha gonna do?” There really was no right answer to explain peeing in a fridge. It was new, untested ground.

That night Eileen cooked Mexican food for us: corn tortillas, lardless beans, veggie rice, avocadoes and sour cream. Both Frank and Amir looked at me when Eileen got up from the table and mouthed sour cream. None of us touched it, even though the thought of having a large dollop was enticing. Sour cream of course contained dairy and dairy came from cows and that was a big no-no. Our warehouse was completely void of animal products of any kind. She was testing us.

Since she had just peed in the fridge, we gave her a break by not saying anything. We cleaned up and she nonchalantly put the leftovers in the fridge. She never asked if the fridge was clean.

A thick wall of 18 inches divided the kitchen and bathroom. I had posted a sign on the wall that said “Fridge Left, Bathroom Right.” Closing the fridge, she noticed it. She looked at me, shaking her head and said, “Fuck off.” We all laughed.

Later that week, Frank and Amir approached me and said they were really upset about the sour cream in the fridge. They mentioned nothing of peeing in the fridge. We came to an agreement that I would ask Eileen to leave for bringing dairy into the house.

The next day I pulled Eileen aside and told her we were upset about the dairy and that she needed to find a new place by the end of the month. She took it well and moved out without making a fuss. Eileen and I remain good friends and she doesn't hold a grudge for her eviction, but I still make a point of reminding her which one is the bathroom and which one is the fridge whenever I get a chance.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 11. Avenging the Haymarket Martyrs

2011-04-06T16:16:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim
2500 miles away in Philadelphia, Jimmy Page was butchering "Whole Lotta Love." His “G” string was flat, which made every stroke of the guitar uncomfortable to watch and hear. He wore an oversized button-up shirt, flowing white high-waisted pants and a white scarf that got in his way—he looked a little like a skinny Gonzo from the Muppets. Zeppelin was finishing up their set at Live Aid. The event would eventually raise 84 million dollars for starvation in Africa.

On the West Coast at the Club Foot, my band was playing a benefit for the first Haymarket Anarchist Gathering in Chicago. It was a coincidence that both gigs fell on the same day, but we took full advantage of letting people know that Live Aid—or as we called it, Band Aid—was all about the entertainers’ careers and nothing about helping people. People seemed to buy it.

I was wearing a black peacoat, cloth china flats, which had holes where my big toes met the fabric, and the standard black pants. I utilized a pink tube top to pull back my dreads into a nice ponytail. This was as fancy as I got, and friends commented that I looked nice. The darkness and the nice cut of the jacket had something to do with the compliments. In the right light, I almost looked ethnic because of the tube top. The pink tube top was my flair and looked down upon by some friends. The anarchist scene had a uniform and pink tube tops were not standard issue.

As was customary with Anarchist Peace Punk events, we set up an information table to peddle our ideas: animal rights, women's rights, anarchism, music, etc. The other bands—Trial, Atrocity, PLH and Sleeping Dogs—all had tables, too. Most of our products were free. If they did cost money, the price was printed on the record or pamphlet, so the consumer couldn’t get ripped off by the retailer. This was a customary practice of all Peace Punk bands: Pay No More Than $2.00! To help defer printing costs of the free material, we hung a small sign from our table that said “Donations Excepted.”

One of the guys from Trial, who hailed from Berkeley and probably had some academic pedigree in his family, told us it was “Donations Accepted” not “Donations Excepted.” For some people, this may have been benchmark moment, sending them running back to school; however, I don’t believe any of us really got what he was talking about, so there was more confusion on our faces instead of enlightenment. We changed the sign to “Donations Acceppted.” The Trial guy didn’t have the heart to correct our spelling. It was the thought that counted. This was indicative of our brand of anarchism. If you pressed us on our knowledge of Anarchism, eventually it would end with: “I didn’t learn how to throw a brick from some dumb Anarchist book.” We were doers, not readers. To us, it was about the freedom to fuck things up and a little about theory!

When it was our turn to play, we set up our banners on the wall behind the stage: “The Urge to Destroy Is a Creative Urge" (Bakunin) and “Destroy Power, Not People" (Crass). We talked revolution and the Haymarket martyrs and how their deaths would be avenged (even though they had been dead for 100 years). Our music was loud and discordant, but despite this, most people sat down and listened intently to the lyrics, as was customary with these events. It was mostly a very peaceful scene of young people, not many over 25 years old.

As we launched into ”Take Action,” our anti-music anthem preaching direct action over letter writing, one the banners (The Urge to Destroy…) behind me dislodged and partially covered me and my drums. I continued playing, despite the hindrance, until the song was over. Anybody with a sense of humor would have to think that the banner was trying to stop us from playing. But we played through it, expressionless. We really were a god-awful band. In some ways that was the point. Or at least that's what we told each other.

That night, I met a woman named Rachel. She was young, a senior at Berkeley High. We talked, got along and I asked her if she wanted to come over to our warehouse and have dinner with us. “Us” was me and my roommates. Our warehouse had some cachet in the peace punk scene, so I assume the warehouse was as much of a draw for her as any attraction to me.

Having Rachel over for dinner was a big deal. Joseph was the only one that had girlfriends and guys outnumbered girls in the punk scene 10 to 1. In the peace punk scene, where not adhering to veganism and anarchism were deal breakers, the ratio went up to 20 to 1, so when somebody new appeared who met our standards, we took notice and started acting our age again. Girls trump Anarchism, in the end.

On the day of the date, Ramin, Jeff and I made a big pot of spaghetti and red sauce. This was my idea. When I met Rachel, I didn’t look myself. I was put together, my dreads pulled into a cohesive stalk. This image was far from who I was and I wanted her to see the real me when she came over. Like the spaghetti, my clothes were calculated. I wore cut-off pajama bottoms, a few ripped shirts and kept my dreads down. My dreads were not fashion dreads. They clumped together forming branch-like patterns and cow patty clods. They weren’t pretty. (A few years later, I was prompted to cut my dreads when the owner of a Laundromat mistook me as homeless and offered me clothes left by customers—that and all the Berkeley Rastas saying “Hey Mon!” when addressing me.)

Instead of buying Rachel flowers, I went to the Co-Op and bought her a nice bunch of carrots, the kind with a bouquet of greenery. I thought this was creative and went well with our vegan vibe.

Rachel looked the part: black jacket, black jeans and cloth shoes. I wonder if she gave some thought to what she was wearing. She was younger in the daylight and, like all the Berkeley Peace Punks, had an air of sophistication. Most of them had parents who were academics or at least hippie parents that took them to the Museum of Modern Art instead of the Water Slides on the weekends.

Whereas many of these kids bordered on arrogant, Rachel was friendly, smart and not pretentious at all. I gave her the carrots and she blushed, not knowing how to respond (as if anybody would). I filled up an old spaghetti sauce jar with water and placed the carrots in it like flowers.

The spaghetti was bland and the talk was of revolution through violence, which we thought was imminent. Even though she may have agreed with us, our statements were made to differentiate ourselves from her and to alienate. We knew we were in a bubble and relished our standing. And through extremist talk about revolution, we constantly reaffirmed who we were. Without it, we were poor and lost.

She told us that she was going to Sarah Lawrence in the fall. All of us responded, “What or who is that?” College was something we dabbled in, but never took seriously. We would start a class and then drop out.

When conversation turned to college and the future, we deferred to her and grew silent, our differences becoming apparent, waking our deep-seated insecurities. Even though we were strong in our beliefs, deep down we knew that what we were doing wouldn’t last. Our future was either jail, change or, worse, being a 40-year-old anarchist. When people talked about a future that involved change and a life outside of the present, it made us rethink our future and what we were doing. Because of this, outsiders were kept at bay. This was an unconscious thing.

Rachel went to Sarah Lawrence and we continued eating bland spaghetti.

The benefit raised $300 dollars for the Haymarket Gathering, which Steve and I would personally bring to the event. It wasn’t Live Aid cash, but for anarchists, it wasn’t bad.

Many months later, Steve and I packed up my 1981 Plymouth Champ and the $300 donation and headed across the country on I-80 to Chicago. Having very little money, we either slept in the car or on the side of the road. On the first day we made it into Wyoming. We had traveled hundreds of miles and needed to sleep. There were no rest stops, so we pulled over, reclined the bucket seats and slid into our sleeping bags. Not being able to fully stretch out, I grabbed my sleeping bag and headed for the ditch on the side of the road, used to catch run-off when it rained. It was cold and windy, but at least I’d be able to stretch out. The zipper on my sleeping bag was broken, so I woke up Steve and asked him to duct tape me into my bag. He gladly obliged, tightly wrapping me like a burrito. The next morning I laid duct taped in my bag until Steve got up. He had done too good of a job and I couldn’t get out. I tried yelling but the roar of the freeway was too loud. I had to wait for him to wake up and release me.

We stopped off and met some other anarchists in Des Moines, Iowa and caravanned the rest of the way. Locals put us up in the second floor of an abandoned apartment. We dumped our stuff and headed for the opening party. When we returned, all of our belongings were gone except our sleeping bags.

At the opening party, a local acquaintance pointed to a guy that would accept our donation. He was wearing a Fidel Castro/Che Guevara-type hat and carefully chosen working class clothes. We approached him and attempted to give him the money. He was talking to another look-a-like and was emphatically making a point: “It’s 3 am, you’re at stop light and nobody’s around. And you wait until the light turns green?” By his look of distain, it was obviously clear that anarchists—in his view of anarchy—ran the light. Who knew such topics as running lights at 3 am would be discussed? We edged a little closer until he looked at us. Enthusiastically I said, “Hey, we had a benefit and raised $300 dollars.” It was short and sweet. He took the envelope, barely acknowledging our presence.

Steve and I were not happy about this and it fueled our dislike of these snobby book anarchists. It was the mid-80s and these older anarchist types had no knowledge of punk rock and especially us peace punk anarchist types. I’m sure they looked down on us. They were used to union organizing and talking shit about communists…the good ol’ days.

The next day Steve and I were arrested for rioting and assault. During a protest downtown, we got bored with the chanting and pleas from the liberal anarchist for Jobs and Justice, so we decided to have a little fun and do what we were good at—breaking things. As we ran through the streets, not knowing where we were going, we knocked over garbage cans, magazine racks and picked up whatever we could find and threw it at storefront windows. Having no real plan, we ran into a mall and caused mayhem. Security chased us as we ran past startled shoppers, looking for an exit. Exiting the mall, the streets were filled with sirens and cops and protesters running. We ran one way, stopped, and bolted onto a side street, depending on where the cops were. While turning a corner, we blindly ran straight into a pack of cops. A paddy wagon was waiting for us curbside. Within a minute we were cuffed and in the back of the wagon with other unfamiliar protesters. While shutting the door, the cop said, “I haven’t had this much fun since the ’68 convention.”

In jail, they took our shoelaces (so we wouldn’t hang ourselves) and I had to take out all my piercings and relinquish my gaudy jewelry, so they couldn't be used as weapons against the police. It was May 1st and it was still very cold. They served us bologna sandwiches, which we refused of course. We enjoyed acting the part of political prisoners.

There were six of us in the cell. Besides me and Steve, the other four were radical faeries, a gay counterculture group. Naturally inquisitive, I asked them rather naïve questions. My suburban upbringing was showing. The obvious was first: “What’s a radical fairy?’ Instead of lambasting me for my ignorance, they were patient and answered my questions without derision. I wouldn’t have been so generous.

Eventually the topic turned to Gay. As much as Steve and I were open-minded and supported gay issues, we were both suburban boys and had little to no experience with gay people growing up. Our small scene of Anarchist Peace Punks was essentially straight anarchist peace punks. These gay, anarchist radical faeries were a whole different gay than we were used to, nothing like the ubiquitous Castro leather clones and queens.

In a monumental moment of pandering, I stated, “You know, sometimes I have gay dreams.” Unbelievably, they did not laugh or say the obvious, “Well, maybe you’re gay.” Instead, one of them admitted to having straight dreams and said it was ok to have both. Jail was turning out to be a growing experience. Still, at night when the faeries huddled together to stay warm, Steve and I took opposing sides of the cell for a restless, cold night.

The next day we were bailed out by the armchair anarchists. We learned that there were heated debates about what to do with us. The older, peaceful types wanted to have nothing to do with us while the younger people applauded our actions. Ironically, one of the biggest arguments was on semantics. There was a big fight over the term "paddy wagon." The early PC types were offended at the use of the word and the others were just plain dumbfounded that somebody would be offended by this. They settled on calling it the "police truck." So, correction, we were arrested, cuffed and thrown in the police truck.

Steve and I jumped bail late that night and went home, running every red light on our way to I-80.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 10. Dumb Do-Gooders

2011-04-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim

“What’s with all the graffiti in the hallway?” Luke asked, gesturing toward the front door that led out into the common hallway. It was early afternoon and none of us had been outside, so we were confused by the question.

Thinking he was referring to the existing graffiti that littered the walls, Joseph asked, “When was the last time you were over here? Graffiti’s everywhere.”

Luke shot back, “Yeah, I know, but somebody spray-painted “Rip Sneaks Meat” all over the place. It’s everywhere!”

We all hurried to the front door like children rushing to the playground at lunch. Luke was right; we had never seen this graffiti. It was new and covered the walls, top to bottom.

Rip was our upstairs neighbor and obviously somebody must have caught him eating meat or suspected that he was sneaking it. Besides our space, there were four other spaces that shared our warehouse and all of them were vegan like us. Rip was no different. We believed meat was murder and were ready to back up these words with action!

After checking out the new graffiti, we went back inside to talk anarchist business with Luke. Having worked at a printing company for years, he always helped us with our flyers and booklets for shows and our record label. We needed flyers for an action we were planning. Luke listened intently as we described our plan.

A few weeks before a friend told us that a local petting zoo in the park were keeping bunnies in cramped quarters, many bunnies to a cage. Joseph checked it out and it was true. We told him we were going to liberate the bunnies and needed him to mail a letter to the media explaining our actions and asked him to make a handful of flyers that we would leave at the petting zoo. Being a good soldier, Luke agreed. Before he left, we warned him about leaving fingerprints on the letter and flyers.

After Luke left, Joseph, Steve and I met to discuss the details. We decided on a date and loosely planned the details. We had done so many actions—though not to this degree—so we were a little cocky and flip. After hashing out many boring details, we came up with a plan: “Fuck it, we’ll just go up there and get the bunnies.” We never thought about what we would do with the bunnies, how we would get there and how we would break into the cages.

That week Joseph went to the Berkeley library. They had public typewriters, which could be used to type our letter of intent. It seemed like a good idea. We didn’t want to use our typewriter because if we got caught or were under suspicion, they could link us to the crime through a bad or missing key on the typewriter. I had just seen Jagged Edge, where Jeff Daniels was linked to the crime by his typewriter. Even with this handy information, I’m surprised we came up with it, as we weren’t the brightest guys.

The letter attempted to explain our position and justify our actions. Instead of staying on topic, focusing on animal rights issues, we included everything under the political sun, somehow tying in corporations and women’s issues (equating woman to animals through terminology) into this petting zoo. Of course, the grammar was poor and spelling atrocious. It was becoming our trademark.

After finishing the letter, careful not to expose its contents to wandering eyes, Joseph walked over to Luke’s work and gave him the letter and picked up the flyers he made. Both were careful to handle everything by the edge. Joseph asked him to wait until the day after the action to mail the letter, just in case we were caught. If we did get caught, he should destroy the letter. Tara, Joseph’s girlfriend, would act as the go-between, disseminating information about the action.

The next full moon, Joseph, Steve and I grabbed three pillowcases and the flyers, putting the latter in my frayed black satchel, and walked out the door, prepared to liberate some bunnies. We were dressed all in black. Steve was wearing a black beanie.

A few hours earlier, Frank, our other roommate, and I took the license plate off an abandoned car in our parking lot and put it on my Plymouth Champ and removed the lights illuminating the license. The new plate had no registration stickers, drawing more attention to our vehicle than the original plates. But we didn’t care. Putting on new plates added to the excitement of the action.

We parked the car in a residential area and walked into the park. The moon fully illuminated the concrete path. The air was brisk and fresh, slightly burning our lungs when going uphill. Joseph led the way, occasionally stopping to make an arbitrary decision of which way to go. We passed by a parking lot, over a small bridge and into a manicured clearing. “There it is,” Joseph announced, pointing to a cluster of barnlike buildings, slightly up the hill.

Having gotten his bearings straight, he was a man on mission, marching up the hill, knowing exactly where to go.

The bunnies were in three wooden elevated cages. A Master lock and thick chicken wire kept them from getting out. Joseph tugged on one of the locks to see if it was left open.

“Steve, do you have the crowbar?” Joseph asked. The barn obscured the moon, casting a dark shadow over the cages. We could not see or hear the bunnies, but we knew they were in there.

“I don’t have it, we must’ve left it in the care” Steve replied, a shadow of his face shaking side to side. Joseph didn’t ask me, he knew I didn’t have the crowbar.

All three of us silently turned around, walked back across the bridge, through the parking lot and up the tree lined street that led to the car. It was about a mile trek, the last half being up a steep grade.

Out of breath, sweating and cold, I opened the hatchback and rummaged around for the crowbar under the spare tire. Steve grabbed it and off we went down the hill.

As with all bigger actions, I was getting cold feet and hoping that I could somehow get out of it without losing face. It was peer pressure, just in a different light.

“This is stupid, let’s get out of here,” I complained. “Man, I don’t want to walk all the way down there and back again. We don’t even know if they’re bunnies in the cages.” Complaining was a good diversion. I wasn’t admitting that I didn’t want to do it nor was I saying I wasn’t committed, I was just complaining. And hoping they felt the same way.

Joseph tersely responded, “We’re here; let’s do it.” We followed our footsteps back to the bunny cages.

Steve pried the crowbar between the lock and the jam of the cage and gave it a good yank. The wood gave out a loud creak, the crowbar roughly breaking through the weathered wood. Steve tried again, prying the crowbar a little above the last tug, giving it four quick blows.

“Fuck, the crowbar bent.” He extended his hand toward our faces and showed us the crowbar, now in an L-shaped formation. He dropped it and used his hands to open the door of the disabled cage. The door swung open. I was waiting behind him with a pillow case. He moved out of the way and I attacked the cage, pillow first, sweeping the inside for soft fur. I cornered one and awkwardly pulled the pillow case over his head, while using my left hand to push him father down the pillow case. Once in, I quickly pulled up on the case and he tumbled to the bottom of the pillow case, looking like a hobo bag. I jumped back and Joseph gave it a try. As I moved back, two bunnies jumped out of the cage and disappeared into the darkness. They were just darting shadows but by their movements it was obvious they were bunnies.

“Fuck, what was that?” Steve cried while spray-painting “ALF” on the adjoining barn. He saw small shadows moving quickly past him.

“Two of the bunnies got out.” I responded. Joseph was trying to corral the fourth and final bunny.

With no crowbar to break into the remaining two pens and two bunnies loose in the woods, we took the two bunnies in the pillowcases and called it a night. I took out the flyers in my bag and threw them high into the air, littering the grounds of the petting zoo as we quickly left.

When we reached the parking lot, we stopped under a faint parking lamp and looked at the bunnies. They were petrified, making some sort of bunny scream and thrashing about. I had volunteered at the San Francisco Zoo and was a bit afraid of bunnies. They always charged me when I fed them and went out of their way to bite me anytime I tried to pet them. This time was no different. I knew that any act of kindness, a gentle pet, would result in a nasty bite. Fuck these ungrateful bunnies, I thought. This is what we get for liberating you?

We trudged on, dreading the long ascent back to the car.

Maybe it was climbing the hill for a second time, or maybe the damn heavy-ass bunny I was carrying—squirming and squealing—was getting on my nerves, but I had to say something.

“Jesus, what are we going to do with these bunnies?” I was out of breath, cold sweating and the allure of liberating animals was long gone. In our initial meetings to discuss the action, we forgot to talk about what we were going to do with the bunnies. You would have figured that this would have been one of the larger topics of conversation. That, and bringing a real crowbar to break into the cages.

Steve stopped, looking up at the sky, breathing heavily. Joseph walked a few more paces, stopped and put his hands on his knees. He gently placed the pillow case on the road, keeping a tight grip on the opening. The bunny adjusted, happy to be on familiar ground. We grew quiet as all of our energy was focused on getting up the hill and back to the car.

“Maybe we should let them go? What the fuck are we gonna do with them?” I blurted. In any other circumstance, we would have all at least feigned disgust at letting them go and objected; however, it was late, we were tired and, most of all, the bunnies were heavy and we didn’t want to carry them the rest of the way up the hill.

I walked over to where the woods met the road and laid down the pillowcase, the opening extending toward the woods. The bunny didn’t move so I grabbed the pillowcase from the opposite of the opening and gently pulled up. The bunny spilled out and ran off. Joseph did the same with his bunny.

We walked up the hill in silence, the sounds of our labored breath penetrating the cold night. When we reached the car, Steve said, “Better free than in a cage.” We accepted this, but when retelling the story, none of us mentioned what we did with the bunnies.

Every day after the action, we scoured the local newspaper for a mention of the liberation. Three days later, a small blurb appeared on page 6 entitled: “Dumb Do-Gooders Free Rabbits.” The article said that money had been allocated to build new cages, but because of the vandalism, the project was on hold. It also said that two bunnies were found huddled near their destroyed cage. There was no mention of the other two bunnies.

Nice Basket by Tom Pitts

2011-04-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

(Another great story by Tom Pitts on the first Monday of the month)

Being a bike messenger in San Francisco during the Nineteen Eighties was magical time. The city streets were teeming with its own scruffy underclass, an otherwise unemployable bunch of artists, musicians, and drug addicts who all thought their bicycle jobs were temporary stepping stones to greater things. The city was still undiscovered to me, filled with the noise and the stink of excitement. Everyday my small world, my tiny grid of one way streets in the financial district, would expand block by block.

Alone on my bicycle, every delivery brought a new sense of discovery. The physicality of the job challenged my stamina. The unending slow and steady pump of the pedals drained my body of calories. As often as possible, I found myself off the bicycle, gobbling candy, smoking, and letting my sweat be cooled by the breeze. I’d mastered the monotony of riding elevators up and down the skyscrapers of the financial district and treasured getting out into the neighborhoods, away from the suits and the perfume.

There, I could try to glean some of the history that made San Francisco such a magical place; names of streets that sounded oddly familiar, like déjà vu, nightclubs and bars I had only read about in books. It was a magical place. The Haight Ashbury was still reeling from the fallout of the sixties. Hordes of punk rock runaways had migrated to the city. There had been The Peoples Church, Harvey Milk, Charles Manson. Reganomics were raining down. There was aids, crack. The streets were full of freaks. Freaks could still afford to live there.

Up on Sutter Street, between Larkin and Polk, I found myself searching for an address to a tiny advertising firm. I stood straddling my Schwinn one-speed, off the sidewalk and between two parked cars, gazing up at a large residential building.

“Hi.” I heard a friendly voice say. I was focused on the building, comparing the address to the numbers scrawled on the paper clutched in my hand.

“Hi,” the voice repeated. “How’re you doing today?”

A young man stepped off the sidewalk, holding his hand up for me to wait. I hadn’t realized the greeting was meant for me.

“Hell of a day. Beautiful, isn’t it?” He stood in front of me with a tight little grin stuck on his face. I didn’t know what the man wanted. I hoped he had recognized my uniform, shorts and a black t-shirt with Quicksilver screened on the back, and come out of his office to receive his package.

“Is this for you?” I asked.

He glanced at the manila envelope without looking and gently shook his head. He looked a little apologetic for not being the one the package was addressed to. I put my foot onto the peddle and began to push off when he said,

“I want to ask you about your tattoo …”

We both looked down at my calf at the same time. I was fiercely proud of my new tattoo. I given it to myself, spending painful hours poking myself with a pin wrapped in thread and dipped in Indian ink. I had eventually marked out the outline of a bird, a primitive cave drawing of a bird, but clearly a bird. It was placed squarely in the middle of my calf for maximum exposure during work hours. Like any young man with a new tattoo, I thought it made me look tough and grown up, confident of my place in the world. I was flattered that someone else had noticed.

“That’s nice, I like it,” he nodded with a fraternal sense of approval. He continued, “Listen, the reason I stopped you is, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”

Here it comes, I thought. I’d already been accosted by Scientologists during my first week in the city. Their agent zealots had staked out the civic center looking for potential converts. They spotted me staring up at building I was about to enter for my first ever job interview. My hesitation was interpreted as naïveté. I was quickly propositioned like a runaway fresh off the greyhound bus. Now, I was determined to keep my guard up.

“Have you ever done any modeling?”

I may have blushed a little before shaking my head.

“Really?” He sounded astonished. “Would you be willing to consider some modeling, maybe?”
I shrugged.

“Look, the reason I ask is because I work for a large shoe company, one of the biggest.” When he said this he raised his eyebrows up like it should carry some extra weight.

“We’re doing a new advertising campaign. I think you have a great look. It’s exactly the kind of thing we’re looking for.”

He sensed my hesitation.

“Look, this is professional stuff, for shoes only. We’d focus mostly the calf and foot. You’ll be paid well, maybe sign on for more work.” He said it casually, but the implication was there. I could be discovered. This could be the happy accident that sent me on my way. Suddenly my common sense kicked in, my cautious skepticism,

“You guys don’t want me, I’m marked up, I’ve got this tattoo right in the middle of leg.” I felt like tainted milk, damaged goods.

“That’s exactly why we would use someone like you. It’s new, edgy, different from the campaigns they’ve been using. You’ve seen that crap. They wanna go in a whole new direction. You’re perfect.”

A large truck flew by behind me and the compliment was lost to the noise. The stranger went on.

“You’ve got the right proportions between your knee and ankle,” he said, pointing to my legs. “You’re tanned from working out here in the sun; you’ve got just the right amount of muscle from riding this bike. The pay is good and it won’t take too long. We could make an appointment or we could do it right now. Whaddya say? You interested?”

I gave him a small smile. I thought about the delivery I was still supposed to make, the address I still needed to find. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out to be a bike messenger. Maybe the world had better things in store for me.

He stood there waiting for me to make up my mind. It was as though I was the only one in San Francisco who had calves with feet attached to them. He wanted me to know I was his best option, his top priority.

“Yeah, I’ll think about it.”

Immediately he produced a business card between his two fingers and said, “Oh, one last thing. How’s your basket?”

I didn’t understand the question. I thought he was only interested in my calves and feet, not my bicycle. I looked at the package strapped into the wire basket that was bolted to the handlebars of my bike. I looked back at him, confused.

“Your basket,” he repeated, “do you have a nice basket?”

My basket was the same as every other bike messenger in town, dented and beat up from too many days on the job. I pointed to it and shrugged.

“No, not your basket, your basket,” he said. He cupped his balls to let me know that he didn’t mean the basket on my bike at all. I had never heard this term before. I felt all at once stupid, naïve, and cheated. I was on my way to fame and fortune and now I was back on my way to just another delivery. I knew at once that my basket was not part of the geography of my lower leg, that there was no shoe ad, that I was not perfect.

I looked at my stranger’s feet and thought that a man working for a shoe company would probably be wearing nicer shoes. I stepped on my pedal and rolled up Sutter Street, letting the business card flutter to the ground.

Tom Pitts 3/21/11

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 9.The Colonel is Fucking with the Chickens

2011-04-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim

One of the last Doggie Diners in the Bay Area sat at the intersection of Adeline, Macarthur and San Pablo. The iconic wiener dog sign stood high above the eatery, looking over the border of West Oakland and Emeryville. Shortly after we moved in the neighborhood, it was leveled and replaced by a check cashing business.

We welcomed the check cashing business by spray painting “GET OUT OF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD” on their new stucco wall. We tried breaking their front window but it held strong, the bricks bouncing back and almost hitting us. We found this type of window familiar, like the one we were not able to break the McDonald’s at 52nd and Telegraph…though we tried. Our paranoid side thought they reinforced the windows, knowing that we might try to break them.

After spray painting the check cashing business, we went back to our warehouse and got my car. The night was early and there were still many windows to break and walls to spray-paint. We had no plan; however, we had a few clumps of concrete that we got from our warehouse parking lot, two cans of spray paint, crazy glue, ski goggles, a crowbar and a small can of butane—a well-stocked vandalism kit.

Driving north on San Pablo we slowed down to admire our past work on a wholesale butcher warehouse. The walls were speckled with various colors of paint bombs from the months prior, giving it a Jackson Pollock/Damien Hirst feel. We used mason jars and house paint for paint bombs. Both were in limited qualities, so we rarely carried them anymore.

It was 3 am and the streets were empty. We were listening to a Chumbawumba cassette. The only people out were drug users looking to score, prostitutes and us. Near the end of the Berkeley border, we eyed a Kentucky Fried Chicken. For some reason, Steve and I were particularly against KFC. They were no worse than Burger King or McDonald's, but we just liked saying “The Colonel is fucking with the chickens.”

We parked the car a block away and slinked in the shadows back to the KFC. I ran to the front door and squeezed crazy glue into lock, looking eye-to-eye with a graphic of Colonel Sanders on the glass door. Steve yelled, “Watch out!” I looked back and he had a large rock that he pulled from the landscaped walkway. I ran back to the sidewalk. Laboring with the large rock, he awkwardly moved toward the front plate glass window and heaved the rock. A low boom rang out, alerting the neighborhood that we were now fucking with the Colonel. It felt like a bomb went off. As the alarm rang out and glass settled on both sides of the window, we turned and retraced our footsteps back to the car.

I kept the headlights off until we reach San Pablo. We were both scared and excited, chattering a mile a minute:

"Jesus Fucking Christ Steve, did you hear that?” I said, half laughing and still out of breath from the sprint to the car.

“I know, I had no idea. Those things usually never break.” Steve admitted, his voice getting higher with the excitement of retelling the act.

I met Steve in an arranged friendship. We had both responded to an ad looking to start an anarchist punk collective in an East Bay warehouse. Before we moved into together, Steve came over to my apartment in the Haight. At the time, he was living in a shitty squat in Noe Valley and was happy at the idea of having permanent housing.

Steve was from North Hampton, Massachusetts, and never let you forget it. He was about 5’ 10”, had naturally spiky brown hair, wore oversized wire-rimmed glasses and had intermittent tattoos over his arms. On our first meeting, he proudly showed me two of them: the ubiquitous Black Flag bars and the “squat” symbol, a lightning bolt through a circle. He would later add the intertwined peace and anarchy symbol on his inner wrist, another staple tattoo of anarchist punks. He divulged that his mother felt that anybody who had over three tattoos was a sexual deviant. If this was true, Steve was a deviant and so was his father.

After breaking KFC’s window, we decided to call it a night and go home. On the way, Steve yelled, “Stop. Pull over! I’m gonna flatten its tire.” A large truck with a logo that said “Quality Meat” was parked on San Pablo, on a block without a lot of commercial businesses. Steve jumped out of the car and ran over to the front tire nearest the sidewalk. For minutes, a loud hissing permeated the air. It abruptly stopped, replaced by sounds of a short struggle. The large cab of the truck obscured my vantage of Steve, but I could see his feet. He had moved from a crouching position next to the tire to standing next to the hood. His feet moved back to the middle of the sidewalk then ran to the hood, jumped, then jumped a few times more, lunging forward.

Steve came back to the car laughing, shaking his head and with a windshield wiper in his hand.

“What the hell were you doing?” I asked. “From here, it looked like you were fighting the front of the truck.”

“Yeah, I was pissed off because flattening the tire was taking too long, so I decided to rip off the windshield wiper,” he said, a bit perplexed why taking a penny and jamming it into the valve of the tire wouldn’t flatten the tire in less time.

As we took off, Steve rolled down the window and threw the windshield wiper at the truck.

At the corner of University and San Pablo in Berkeley we saw two cops, guns drawn, slinking around the corner of a bank. The light was red and we watched as they cautiously moved forward. The light turned green and I made an immediate right, getting off San Pablo to take a less traveled street. Somebody must’ve broken into the bank.

Riding down Hollis, Steve once again yelled for me to stop. I pulled over and he ran across the street with the ski goggles and the crow bar. Pulling the hood over his head and putting on the ski goggles, Steve approached the ATM. He looked around, reached into his pocket and squirted a large dose of butane on the ATM. He put the butane in his hoodie pocket and reached in his pocket for matches. Moving one step back, he lit a match and threw it at the ATM. A faint bluish yellow light reflected on to Steve’s dark clothing. The expected large burst of flames didn’t happen. He took the crowbar and alternated between bashing it like a baseball and wrenching the crevices. After a few swings, he gave up and walked quickly back to the car. The fire had gone out and the alarm was silent.

We were tired and it was time for some sleep.

The next morning we watched the check cashing business clean the graffiti off the walls. That night Steve and I returned and spray-painted “…And Stay Out!”

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 8. Your Mama, CHP

2011-03-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim

New Method Laundry warehouse sat on a corner parcel at 36th and Adeline in Emeryville. County maps had the property half in Oakland and the other half in Emeryville. I never saw the maps—it was more of a verbal history passed on through former tenants. Jug Liquors #3 was across the street; they sold crack pipes from underneath the counter. #1 and #2 were a block away in different directions. To the south, I-580 ran parallel with the second story windows for the length of the building.

A block away on 35th, hookers lined the street that led to the freeway on-ramp. If you didn’t lock your car doors and the traffic light was red, they would jump in your front seat and ask you for a date. If it was locked, and you were unlucky, they would lift their dresses to reveal a panty-less vagina or penis. And if you were really unlucky, they would rub their genitals against the passenger side window. I was unlucky once, which was enough to make me investigate alternative routes.

The neighborhood was a mixture of various industrial warehouses, rundown residential houses and abandoned buildings in various stages of disarray. All windows and doors were covered in bars, and fences were fortified with signs warning of big dogs. It was what you would call a bad area, ravaged by the crack epidemic of the 80s. When guests from out of town visited, they were told to always go left, if they went outside at all. To the right were the panty-less hookers and the worst of West Oakland; to the left was slightly better.

New Method was shared by two groups and one individual: Peace Punks (us), a spa company, and Dave the Foundry Guy. The spa company occupied the west side of the building and we were in the front. On the roof was a propped up, life-size Jacuzzi with two mannequins waving to the freeway traffic. We would regularly reposition the mannequins to simulate sex, doggy style, and alter their hands so they appeared to flip off the cars on the freeway.

We slowly moved into our space in November of 1985. I moved in first, sleeping in a sleeping bag on a large stack of plywood, which would eventually be the floor to the 4 bedrooms we were building. It would be the only modification to the space.

My roommates, Joseph and Nancy, lived upstairs in another space; Frank and Steve were not moving in until the bedrooms were finished. None of us knew each other except Joseph and Nancy, who were boyfriend and girlfriend. We all came together from mutual friends and an ad placed in a local punk fanzine.

The first week of November before construction, I woke up on my bed of plywood, surrounded by two inches of water. It had rained heavily the night before. Hundreds of leaks from the roof dripped onto the second floor and found its way to the concrete foundation where my bed rested.

I tiptoed through the water and out the front door, to alert Joseph of the flood. In the hallway was a deeper lake that came into through the parking lot, running down the hallway a little past our door, stopping at the foot of the stairs that led to the other spaces. Most of the water in our space came from the hallway.

We called the landlord and his lackey appeared the next day with tubs of tar to patch the second floor roof. We asked him about the flooding in the hallway and he said there wasn’t much he could do, as our space was lower than the hallway and the hallway was lower than the parking lot. The lease was for three years and we had just signed, giving over first and last month’s rent. That was all the money the landlord ever received from us. We took pictures the water, gave them to some hippie lawyer with a ponytail and stopped paying rent. He said we should put our rent money in an escrow account. What he didn’t know was that we never planned on paying rent past our initial down payment, regardless of flooding. Also we had no idea what an escrow account was.

Due to the flooding, a plan was devised to raise the first floor off the concrete by a few inches. Working with a budget of zero, and with materials mostly stolen from construction sites, we decided to use pallets to raise the floor, and leave the hallways as exposed concrete.

Finding quality pallets proved a tough job. You never realize the difference in quality in pallets until you start looking. We found the motherlode of good pallets across the street, under the freeway, in a fenced-in area used to park large construction equipment. We scaled the fenced at night and tossed over 32 of the heaviest pallets in the yard. It was hard work and took hours. Because of limitations imposed by the pallets, each of our rooms was exactly eight pallets large.

Joseph had worked construction, so he led the project. During one weekend, Steve, Joseph, Nancy, Frank and I framed the rooms, hung sheetrock and installed doors with no locks or handles. It was easier than I thought. Not knowing what to do about the flooding in the hallway, we employed skateboards to ferry us through the water and stacked two-by-fours end-to-end like a tightrope to get us to the stairs or out the front door. Luckily, the three years that we lived in New Method, it was relatively dry.

By mid-January we had moved in and began living as an Anarchist Vegan Collective. Since we didn’t pay rent, we had lots of time to pursue multiple anarchist activities:

1) Music. The band was called A State of Mind—with all the As circled for anarchy. I played drums and acoustic guitar. We labeled ourselves as anti-music, as we were about the message, the music being the medium to get our ideas across.

2) Mail Order Business. We distributed pamphlets and books on feminism, veganism, animal rights and generally anything we deemed anarchistic. Woman was spelled womyn and corporation was spelled corp(se)oration.

3) Record Label. Mind Matter Records put out records from bands that had anarchist lyrics; music was irrelevant.

4) Destruction. This is where we shined. Late at night we would spray-paint businesses that dealt in animal flesh, throw bricks through windows of fast food restaurants, glue the locks of banks and generally wreak havoc on anything that pissed us off. We were one step away from bombing and arson.

Around the time we moved in, we started seeing posters and flyers for an action in April called “No Business As Usual.” It was a national event sponsored by the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). The flyer listed scheduled events: protest at Bechtel, Die-In at 5pm downtown, etc. Even though we despised the RCP and the money behind their full-colored flyers and posters, we decided to take part in the event; however, instead of being part of the die-ins and protests, which we found too pedestrian for our anarchist ways, we decided to plan our own unique actions to coincide with the event. This would involve some planning.

Over the next few months we came up with the following plan. Since the day was about stopping business, specifically corporations in downtown San Francisco, we decided to block the Bay Bridge during the morning commute. Instead of advertising for a group protest at the foot of the bridge, and then walking up the on-ramp to the bridge, which had already been done, we wanted to abandon a car during the height of the rush hour and throw as many tires on the bridge that two cars could hold. One car would be left on the bridge and the other would be used as the getaway. That getaway car would be ditched somewhere near a planned protest in progress, where we could blend into the crowd. None of us took into account that the car would probably be abandoned around 7:30 am. There was a pretty good chance that no well-attended protest would be that early. Protesters are notorious late sleepers, as were we. Getting up early would prove to be the hardest part of the action.

Once we abandoned the second car, we would split up. We thought it was a great plan and creative.

First we had to find two cars that were not registered to anybody we knew, or, preferably, stolen. None of us were thieves or possessed the skills to steal cars, so that was out. We settled on fixing two of the abandoned cars in our parking lot. There were plenty of working class punks hanging around the warehouse, who had enough skills to get a car to run for at least a half hour. We would enlist them under the guise that the car would be sold to help the anarchist cause. Whether you believed in our politics or not, if you were punk, you somehow found a way to empathize with our politics. It was part of the contract.

With that settled we moved onto acquiring used tires to throw on the bridge. There were plenty of tire shops, who were more than willing to let a few “art students” take some tires home for an art project.

With the tire and cars secured, we waited until the day before the action. That night, we painted the tires with slogans: Fight War, Not Wars; Destroy Power, Not People, and my contribution: Your Mama, CHP! (even in my most dogmatic hour, I still had a sense of humor) and loaded them into the cars. Tara, Joseph’s new girlfriend would drive alone in one car and the rest of us (me, Joseph, Steve and Frank) would follow close behind in the other car, Joseph driving.

The night before the action, we stayed up late, as usual, cooked fried potatoes (without boiling them first) and listened to music. Around 5 am, we went to bed, only to get up an hour and half later.

Joseph, the responsible one, woke early and got us up. All of us slept till noon every day, so it wasn’t a pretty morning. We put on the clothes that we wore the day before and the week before that—ripped black pants or jeans, multiple ripped black or white shirts, usually dirty, cloth shoes of some kind and some sort of black jacket, standard issue for peace punks. Tara wore the same or multiple loose dark colored house dresses. Women Peace Punks either looked like the guys or like peasants. Layering was big. The first time I saw Tara in a single T-shirt, I was amazed that she had breasts. I was so used to seeing her in so many clothes that I had no idea what her body looked like.

We wandered out into the morning half asleep. The cars were still caked with a decade’s worth of dirt, so we borrowed Dave’s hose and washed the windows, scraping the dirt off with newspaper.

While the cars warmed up, we loaded the last of the tires into the trunks. I saw my tire and smiled. It was a cold morning and we stood around the back of the car in silence, our hands in our pockets.

Tara got in her car and the rest of us piled into the other. It was a little after 7 am.

As we approached the toll plaza of the bridge, the traffic was lighter than expected. None of us had ever commuted, so we just assumed that it was bumper-to-bumper-every morning.

The plan was to dump one car and tires on the SF side of the bridge, at the highest point of the span.

Once through the toll plaza, we stayed in the middle lane, going 55mph, the flow of the traffic. As we got nearer to the top of the span, adrenalin replaced our sleepiness. As with most actions, doubt started to creep in.

“The traffic is going way too fast.” I said, hoping that we would just keep driving. I was too nervous to get out of the car and knew that if we got caught, we’d be in deep shit.

As planned, Tara slowed down as she approached the apex. We were both in the middle lane and slowly came to a stop, like a train pulling into a station. Cars on both sides sped past us with angry faces, confused as to what we were doing. Carefully opening the driver’s side door, Joseph shimmied his way to the trunk and opened it. We followed suit. Traffic was backing up behind us and the rubberneckers had slowed commuters to a standstill. As fast as we could, we threw the tires all over the bridge, blocking all five lanes. When the tires were gone, we moved on to the trunk of the car Tara was driving. She had already opened the trunk and was waiting in the driver’s seat with the engine on. She was the getaway car. After emptying her trunk of tires, Joseph threw the keys to our car over the guard rail and into the Bay. I looked at Joseph and he had a huge smile on his face. We ran to Tara’s car. As we sped away, we all looked out the back window at our handiwork. The tires had successfully worked as a wall, stopping the traffic dead.

A man in a Honda got out of his car and picked up the closest tire. He walked to the edge of the bridge and tossed it over the side. I remember thinking, “Stevet, I hope there’s not a boat passing under the bridge.” The floodgates opened, and others joined the guy, moving the tires to the narrow sidewalk. By then, we had already exited on Harrison and were speeding toward Market Street.
Just past Mission Street, Tara pulled into a metered yellow zone. We abruptly exited the car, leaving the doors unlocked. Walking briskly toward BART on Market Street, Tara tossed the keys into the first garbage can. We slipped into BART unnoticed and vanished, taking the first outbound train.

On the train, we stood amidst the commuters and silently reflected on the morning’s events. We were tired, very tired. Getting up this early proved to be the hardest part of the action and I was questioning if it was worth it. What had we really achieved? Pissing people off?

As the train jerked forward, I thought about the man who threw the tire off the bridge and fretted that it may have hit somebody.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 7. Pussy Galore

2011-03-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim

My first apartment in San Francisco was a three-room flat in the Haight Ashbury district. I lived in the only bedroom—a small, dark 15-by-12-foot room with the only closet and one window looking into the wall of the adjacent building. Henry and Jessica, my roommates, lived in the den and living room, which was divided by a sliding door. This was a normal layout for most SF apartments. The kitchen was a small sliver off the living room that dumped into the hallway leading to the front door.

Henry and Jessica were my sister’s friends, a little older and wiser to the City’s ways. They took me in and were patient with my transition from big suburban ranch house to small city apartment. When I didn’t do the dishes—a symptom of living on your own for the first time—they would gently remind me that my mom didn’t live with us. They also taught me how to bake a potato, so I wouldn’t starve.

Even though Jessica and Henry were first-generation SF punks, when punk was a little artier, gayer and people still pogoed, they tolerated my enthusiasm for hardcore punk. While they drank beer in the back of the club while seeing the Circle Jerks or Flipper, I would be in the front thrashing and stage diving. Every few songs I’d take a break, to catch my breath and see what they were doing. I would be bloody and beat to hell. They’d laugh. I got lucky with them.

Henry was a dispatcher at a bike messenger company and sold pot on the side. He had gone to school in the central valley of California and lived in the dorms. When his first dorm roommate moved out, he littered the floor of the room with garbage until it was about 18 inches thick. Everybody that the school sent to live with him refused, so eventually they gave up and he was able to live by himself until he graduated. I never asked if he cleaned the room, once the threat of a roommate was over. I would assume not. Henry was a shit stirrer before I knew him, but I only knew him as the smart, soft-spoken guy down the hall.

Jessica worked with Henry as an order taker at the same messenger company. She had flaming, red, curly hair, bunched up on the top of her head, falling in her eyes like a long pompadour. Despite it being a nuisance, it was part of her like her eyes and nose and her vanity prevented her from cutting it. For some odd reason, we called it her “poo-tang" (not poontang). Jessica had no problems with the name and adopted it.

Jessica was fond of saying, “Gregory, my poo-tang is bugging me,” blowing the hair from her face. I knew that she meant her hair was bugging her, not her crotch. This inside joke would backfire on her.

Jessica met a suave black man named Marvin at San Francisco State University. He convinced her to go on date with her with the line: “Come on, Jessica. A little wine, a little women, it’ll be nice.” She fell for it and Marvin came to our apartment the following weekend with a single red rose and leather loafers, reeking of cologne.

While Jessica fiddled about her room looking for a black cardigan to go with her black outfit, she nervously brushed away her “poo-tang” from her face. Marvin patiently waited. As she fluttered about the room, she absentmindedly said to Marvin, “Man, my poo-tang is bothering me,” pushing her hair off her forehead. Jessica saw Marvin’s reaction to the comment, and feebly tried to explain that poo-tang was the tuft of hair dangling in her face and poon-tang was between her legs. She tried but irony is impossible to explain. They still went out and I think Jessica gave Marvin a little wine, a little women and I’m sure it was nice because every once in a while I saw Marvin being led past my room late at night.

Since both my roommates worked at the same messenger company, it only made sense that I worked there, too, as a bike messenger. Henry got me the job and we would ride our bikes to and from work like a little family. At first I didn’t have a bike, so the company lent me a heavy one-speed with a basket in front, which was status quo for messengers back then.

Through being a bike messenger and Henry’s dealing, I met a fellow messenger and pot smoker named Tom. He would come over to the house to buy pot and would usually stay and hang out. Eventually he and I were going out all the time.

One Tuesday, Tom, Jessica and Henry and I went to see Tales of Terror and White Flag at the Mab. We crowded into my small car, picked up my sister in the Mission, got burritos and headed to the show. On the way, we pulled over and got a 12-pack for the road. It was customary to either drink beer in the car before the show or take it up to the club and find an alley to drink it. This time we chose the car.

Lisa had been drinking before we picked her up, so she was quite drunk by the time we got into the show. Lisa wasn't a mellow drunk—she was feisty, loudmouthed and opinionated. I wasn’t looking forward to babysitting her and keeping her from fighting, which was usually with guys. In situations like these, the only thing she had going for her was sexism: most guys wouldn’t hit girls.

Lisa, Jessica and Henry went to the bar and Tom and I went to the front of the stage. There weren’t many people there and we were able to get close enough to avoid the few punks thrashing about in the pit. Tales of Terror were playing, led by their singer Rat’s Ass, who was a notorious SF punk. He was notorious for two reasons: one, because of his name, and two, because it was reputed, by his own admission, that he had a tattoo of Elvis on his dick. This begged many questions: Was the tattoo on the head of his dick? On the shaft of his dick? Was he erect when the tattoo was inked? I was oddly curious.

After a song, Rat’s Ass unzipped his pants and announced: “I’ve got a tattoo of Elvis on my dick.” I pushed toward the front—finally, the question was going to be answered. He stopped halfway, then zipped it back up. Tease. Switching gears, he taunted the crowd: “Someone hurt me. Come on you fucking pussies, someone hurt me.” A guy in front of us grabbed the microphone stand and slammed it into Rat’s Ass’ face, the microphone careening into his front teeth. Stunned, Rat’s Ass stepped back, leaning over with his hands pressed against his mouth. He regained his composure, approached the microphone and said, “That did it, that fuckin' hurt!” His eyes were glassy, watering.

Tom and I retreated to the back and found my sister, who was having problems with a longhaired guy. “What the fuck is that?” my sister yelled at us, looking over our shoulders. The guy had tan, muscular arms and longish blond hair, and was wearing a sleeveless shirt that said Pussy Galore in large colorful letters. "What the fuck does Pussy Galore mean? I’m gonna rip that fuckin’ shirt right off him.” Luckily, the band was playing, drowning out her screams. The object of my sister’s hatred had no idea that a crazy woman was about to attack.

“Lisa, calm the fuck down, Pussy Galore is a band. It’s just a fucking band.” I pleaded. There was no stopping her, I had seen this behavior before and it was pointless trying to rationalize with her. Plus, she was wasted, having spent most of her time at the bar. Between the alcohol and years of Women’s Studies classes and yearly subscriptions to On Our Backs, I knew there was nothing I could do to stop her from attacking this guy. “Jesus Christ, Lisa, calm down!” I pleaded with her.

Tom and I watched as she walked toward the guy, his back turned. She immediately grabbed the top of his shirt and yanked downward as hard as she could, ripping it from the collar to the pit and then some. He turned around and yelled, “What the fuck?” He was pissed and rather confused. He could’ve kicked all three of our asses.

Tom and I grabbed Lisa and pulled her out of the club, leaving Jessica and Henry at the bar, who were oblivious to what was going on. She went reluctantly, screaming, “Fuck you, dude. Fuck you, you dick.” He returned the insults with, “Fuck you, bitch. What the fuck?” not sure why this crazy woman was trying to rip his shirt off him. But he stayed put, not following us. Just in case, we dragged Lisa halfway down Broadway, past Montgomery and down the hill until we couldn’t see the club.

When the coast was clear, we let go of her. She shook her arms, looked at us with a smile, thinking she had done something good, and said, “Fuck that guy, what the fuck did he think he was doing?” Before she could finish, I pushed back, “Fuck you, Lisa. That guy was gonna kill you. And probably me.” Tom chimed in, “And me too.”

Just then, a large truck drove by. A cowboy looking dude in the driver’s seat yelled, “Devo, B-52s!” It was something that straight people yelled at us all the time.

Lisa flipped him off and yelled, “Fuck your mother.” The wheels on his trucks screeched, throwing it into a skid. We grabbed Lisa and ran down the hill, making a left on Sansome and darting into the two-tiered free garage where we always parked.

“Lisa, you’re a fucking idiot. I’m sick of you doing this.” She was drunk and moving from feisty to apologetic and pathetic.

“I’m sorry, little brother.” At the end of the night, my name usually changed from Greg to Little Brother. “Fuck, I know, I know, but that guy was a fuckin' idiot.” She wasn’t giving up but she was fading quickly, slumping in the back seat. I failed to respond. “Come on, Little Brother. Don’t be mad at me.” We rode home in silence—me stewing in the front seat and Lisa slumped down in the backseat.

Driving down Market, past Van Ness, Lisa’s head popped up: “Pull over, I gotta throw up. Pull over.” I jerked the car to the right and turned off the lights, keeping the engine running. It was midweek and late, so there wasn’t much traffic. Lisa lurched out the back door and walked in front of the car, bending over where we couldn’t see her.

Tom and I sat motionless in the front seat, waiting for Lisa to reappear. Even though I was drunk too—drunk enough to get a DUI—and drawing attention to the situation could lead to all of us going to jail and the car getting impounded, I decided to pull back on the high beams while simultaneously laying hard on the horn. Lisa was really bugging me and I felt the need to get back at her.

There weren’t many people on the street, but the ones who were near us noticed the drunken woman crouched down, throwing up in front of a car. Tom and I laughed hysterically. After a few seconds, we figured she would appear, stumble back in the car and tell us to fuck off. No, this wasn’t my sister’s style. A lone finger—the middle one—slowly rose beyond the hood like the sun in the east. I stopped honking. Her middle finger stood stone like, pointing toward the sky. It was followed with a mumbled, barely discernible yell:

“Fuuuuuuck Oooooofff!” That's my sister. Defiant to the end.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 6. Go Back to Russia

2011-03-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim
The transition from big-fish-in-a-small-pond of Pleasanton, California, to little-fish-in-a-big-pond of San Francisco was not easy. As a big fish in Pleasanton, I was a spectacle turning heads on Main Street. I felt special and enjoyed the attention, even though most of it was abusive. In San Francisco in 1983, it seemed like everybody under 25 was punk, and I was one of thousands of grubby miscreants going to shows and starting bands.

It had been building for quite some time. I knew I had to leave and so did my parents. Everything sucked to me—the town, the people, the schools, my friends—but I didn’t want to do anything about. I needed a push, which came in the form of the Pleasanton Police.

Around 11pm on a Saturday night I decided to walk down the block to my friend Bob’s party. Bob was one of my oldest friends, but since my conversion from burn-out to punk our friendship had soured. It wasn’t a conscious thing; but when my favorite band was Minor Threat and his was The Doors, there wasn’t much we could do to salvage our relationship. He didn’t understand my change and I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t want to change.

I walked the short block just to make an appearance and say hi, hoping that his younger brother Craig was not around. Ever since my punk rock coming out, Brian was always aggressive towards me. Even though he was a skinny kid, he was mean and had disapproving eyes, and was fond of calling me faggot. I had witnessed many Bob and Craig all-out brother fights, where Craig would get pummeled, but he never quit. I figured if he came at me he would act the same way.

By the time I got there the cops were breaking up the party. There was one police car out front and one pulling up. The front door of the house was open, the bright hallway light spilling onto their front lawn. Streams of people exited the house in an orderly manner, walking to their cars. Unlike Hollywood depictions of high school parties, no one was running or jumping over fences.

I pushed past the people leaving and looked for Bob. I knew the house well and searched for him, but I couldn’t find him. After checking the back yard, I left, stepping into the flow of humanity that was exiting.

The front yard was filled with small groups of people discussing where the next party was, while the police threatened them with incarceration. They moved on, replaced by new groups leaving the party.

Leaning against the side of their car in front of the house, two policemen watched me as I walked down the steps and into the yard. I kept my head down, paranoid, but something told me they were watching me.

“Hey, Comrade,” one of them said as I approached.

Not sure how to respond to such a stupid statement, I grunted, “Huh, what?” looking perplexed.

In an angrier tone, he finished his thought. “It's because of people like you…parties get busted. Go back to Russia.” His words followed me as I walked by. I turned and indignantly replied, “Dude, I just got here.” I would later learn that cops didn’t like to be called dude, or homes.

As I quickly walked out of the Bob’s cul-de-sac, I heard the cop indignantly say, “Dude?” Looking over my shoulder, I knew this verbal exchange between the Pleasanton Police and I was not over. As expected, they got in their car and slowly followed me. It was like an excruciatingly slow chase. They never moved in front of me, careful to loom in the background like a storm cloud.

I thought of running, but I had nowhere to go except to my house, which needless to say would be bad. So I slowed my pace, looking back at them, shaking my head. I knew this would piss them off.

Walking across the lawn of my house, I picked up my pace, making a run for my door. They hit the gas and screeched to a halt in front of my house. I quickly opened the door and slammed it shut, running to the den to peek out the window.

They were halfway up the lawn and moving toward the door. The doorbell rang. My parents were out for the evening, but my sister Lisa was home. I ran out of the den and to the bathroom, where Lisa had just taken a shower.

“Get the door. What’s going on?” she questioned. She could tell by the look of fear and excitement on my face that whoever was at the door was there because of something I did. I quickly explained what was going on. “Bob was having a party. When I got there, it was getting busted. I went in to say hi, but he wasn’t around, so I left. As I was leaving, these two fucking cops told me to ‘go back to Russia.’ And they followed me home.” I knew this information would piss off Lisa.

Not one to think things through, Lisa moved to the door, wearing a lush, white robe and towel around the top of her head, hiding her hennaed hair. With her chin high, she seemed to savor the anticipation of confrontation.

“Yeah, what?” she said, opening the door a crack, exposing her turbaned head. The entry way was dark—she didn’t turn on the light—and I assume they thought they had disturbed my mother while taking a shower.

“Well, uh.” They stuttered, not expecting this. They were expecting someone a little more mom-like, not my angry sister.

“Leave him alone, he didn't do anything. You’re harassing him because of how he looks.” That was it. She shut the door and walked back to the bathroom as if nothing happened.

I ran back to the den and watched them get back in their car. Lisa ruled! But I had had enough. I had outgrown my hometown of Pleasanton. Three weeks later, I moved to San Francisco.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 5. True Punker

2011-03-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim

We were from different sides of the tracks and would have never met if it wasn’t for work. If there’s one good thing about work, it's that it forces people from different cultures and classes to mingle, which is rare, no matter what Berkeley liberals tell you. Face it—all of our friends are little clones of ourselves and we rarely venture out of our comfort zone. And if we do, it’s usually forced and contrived.

For the most part, Greg and I were identical: we went to grade school together, lived in the same town and shared the same white, suburban culture. We went to different high schools and when we came back together during the summer after graduation we had changed.

He was essentially a burnout—stringy brown hair, dirty flared jeans, Vietnam army jacket and various concert T-shirts. I was a suburban punk: quarter-inch bleached blond hair, Vans and pegged, ripped jeans. While the difference in our appearances was a big point of contention between us (neither of us wanted to be seen with the other), our musical differences were greater. At this age, identity is everything; you define yourself by what you listen to and what you look like. Greg was rock and I was punk. Oil and water.

For example, four years earlier, at the age of 14, my friends and I almost came to blows with a few friends-of-a-friend (FOF) over the band Foreigner. We were at my friend Chico’s house listening to the Rolling Stones on my boom box. While we weren’t looking, the FOFs changed the tape to Foreigner. They just assumed everybody liked Foreigner and it would be ok.

Before the first verse of "Hot Blooded" had been sung, the tape was flying through the air, landing on Chico's bed. The FOFs were stunned at our intense reaction to the band. They didn’t understand why we were so angry and ready to fight over such an innocuous incident. I told them that the boom box was ruined and that we’d have to throw it out. They quickly left, grabbing the tape off the bed, bewildered and shaking their heads. Once gone, we didn’t laugh or call them pussies like most 14-year-olds. No, we seriously lamented their actions and discussed actually throwing away the boom box. At 14, music was identity, even if it was the Stones we were defending.

Because of our differences, Greg and I were forced to make a strong effort to find common threads between us. Sports and weather were usually safe, but neither of us cared about sports, and discussing California weather, where almost every day is clear and warm, would only take us so far. So, we settled on the great common denominators of 1982: Pot and Aerosmith. Even though Aerosmith was a rock band, they were my favorite from childhood and I still clandestinely listened to their old records. I wasn’t much of a pot smoker—that was Greg’s thing—but I would compromise in the name of harmony and smoke with him. I learned that pot went well Aerosmith.

For a big stoner, Greg was kind of nelly and goofy. There were no pretentions or teenage posturing to him, unlike me, who was proving his identity around every corner.

He didn’t call me by my name; rather, he enjoyed calling me “True Punker,” emphasizing “Punk,” with a higher than usual note. It was so weird and he enjoyed it so much that I just went with it. In reality, punks hated the word “punker.” When saying it, you kind of outted yourself as a poseur. Staying cool and punk was not easy—you had to know the rules. But behind the costumes and punk vernacular, Greg and I were essentially the same person.

Greg and I worked as janitors. My mom got me the job through a guy that cleaned her office building. He owned the company and looked like Tommy Lee Jones in The Executioner’s Song. Greg was already working there and took me on as his partner. Before work, we’d meet at a pinball hall near the Alameda County Fairgrounds. Whoever got there first would play Aerosmith's "Kings and Queens" and "Draw the Line" (their punkest song). We’d play one game of KISS or Evel Knievel pinball and then caravan to our first stop: a Catholic church near the Livermore/Pleasanton border.

Having no janitorial experience and no passion for the job, we did the bare minimum and sometimes nothing at all. If the place looked clean, we’d empty the garbage cans and pick paper flecks off the carpet. That was it. This behavior led to our demise.

One Sunday in October while cleaning the church, Greg and I decided to smoke pot on the pulpit. He grabbed his bag and retrieved his bong. Smoking pot at work had become one our rituals, although we usually did it in his car.

Like most bad ideas, it seemed like a good idea at the time. He “fired up a bowl” and we both took multiple hits, very proud of ourselves. Smoking pot in a church was like the drug equivalent of having sex in public. Afterwards, we went about cleaning the main church. The place was dirty so we actually had to work.

As the industrial vacuum cleaner roared like a chainsaw, and the sun filtered through the stained glass windows, washing the pews in a kaleidoscope of colors, I felt a wave of paranoia and fear rush over me. What if there was a God? Maybe I was just plain scared of having offended God, but something told me that Greg was feeling the same way. There was a presence—internal or external—that was none too pleased. We kept looking over at each other, wanting to stay close, but not wanting to admit we were scared.

Finally, I said something: “Dude, let’s get our here. This place is freaking me out.”

We quickly gathered our cleaning supplies and vacuum cleaner and headed toward our cars. Once outside, we divulged our fears and vowed never to smoke pot in the church again. We were both stoned and paranoid, but we quickly got over it once we were in our cars. We were teenagers and really only cared about ourselves.

The next day I got a call from Tommy Lee Jones, my boss. He said I was fired—not for smoking pot in the church, but for not cleaning a dentist office that was our next client after the church. Supposedly, the dentist hid in the office and caught us doing only the bare minimum—emptying the garbage cans. We spent most of the time in the office trying to turn on the laughing gas. We were caught.

The next day, I drove to Tommy Lee’s house to give back the cleaning supplies. He met me in the front yard, took the supplies and then threw me against my car. He had on jeans and a tight white T-shirt that accentuated his muscular frame. I found him very intimidating and didn’t resist.

Pressed against the car, unable to escape his grip, he said I was a little asshole and that my actions cost him the dentist account. Behind him, his teenage son made faces and flipped me off. He finally let go and I sped away, as his son ran alongside the car, banging on the passenger side window, continually flipping me off and calling me a pussy.

Seven years later I was taking a piss at a Guns 'N Roses/Aerosmith concert at the Shoreline Amphitheatre. In the next urinal was Greg, looking exactly as I left him in ’82. He looked over at me and said, “True Punker.”

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 4. Deal Breaker

2011-03-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim

I met Janet at a Halloween party. She was dressed as a witch and I was dressed as Johnny Bravo, Greg Brady’s alter ego on the Brady Bunch. With a shaggy wig, a jean leisure suit and white patent leather shoes, I felt the part and played the obnoxious role of cool guy. I was young, give me a break.

When I took off my wig, revealing pink hair and some poorly pierced ears, and she took off her pointy hat and make-up, revealing a pale face and a new wave haircut, we still decided to give it a try. New wave girls were curious about punk guys, using them as leverage against strict parents, and punk guys were notorious for not dating their own kind, preferring cute new wave girls. So, on paper, this was a potential match. I would never take her to a punk show, and she would never take me to a party; our friends would never meet, but this was ok. It was a selfish relationship at its finest.

One weekend she invited me to the blessing of her senior class by a priest at St. Augustine’s, a local Catholic church. She knew me well enough to know that this was something I wouldn’t want to attend. All her friends would be there and inevitably someone would put it together that the weird-looking guy in the back was there for Janet. I sure as hell didn’t want our “coming out” party to be at church.

I protested, saying I had previous plans, and considered breaking up with her, but she was persistent, claiming she never asked me to do anything, which was true. Then she revealed the real reason: she was playing a song on guitar at the ceremony. She had me. Breaking up with her to get out of going would be cruel and, as non-committal and casual as we were, she wanted to share her guitar playing with me. And I was a little intrigued.

I asked her what song she was playing and she said it was a song about “passing time.” What the fuck does that mean? To postpone the inevitable teasing, she wisely withheld the name of the song. She knew me well.

I arrived late, waiting in my car until the throngs of people milling about went inside. I sat near the back and put my feet on the footrest, which was supposed to be for kneeling when you pray. An old Catholic admonished me for this. Janet sat in the front with her friends and the rest of the class.

The service began and I slumped down in the pew, looking around for a clock. Not even a minute into the service and I was already bored and full of regret for agreeing to attend. It reminded me of my family’s ill-fated attempt at religion.

We were Presbyterian for a short time when I was in 5th grade. It lasted a couple months, long enough for my sister to wear a white dress with other girls her age and stand in front of the church for communion (or whatever the Presbyterian equivalent of communion is). Whereas Lisa was a willing participant in this religious thing, I was prone to disappearing 15 minutes before it was time to go to church. I would hide in the woods, peering out through thick foliage, watching my dad traipse through our neighbors’ yards, in his slacks and patterned shirts, yelling my name in a loud whisper. Gregory? Goddammit, Gregory. This became a regular occurrence on Sundays. Depending on how pissed he was, I would either come out and go to church or stay hidden in the woods.

Our last Sunday as Presbyterians started out normally: I hid in the woods, my dad got pissed, I came out and we went to church. Because I was utterly bored in church, borrowing my dad’s watch to see how long I could hold my breath, my parents put me in Sunday school.

I don’t remember much about Sunday school except how it ended. The Sunday school teacher, an unassuming man in his early 30s, assigned us characters from a biblical play, which we were to read aloud. This was supposed to be a reward for being good students. My part was small, only one word: “Yes.”
As we practiced the play, I meticulously followed the dialogue. I didn’t want to screw up. When it came time to say “yes,” I blew my line. I was embarrassed and everybody laughed because they knew I only had to remember one word. I projected my embarrassment, calling the teacher Mr. Fag. Because of this, my parents had to have a sit-down with the teacher and somebody from the church. This was all too much for my parents. They gave up and we stopped going to church.

Thirty years later I found myself back at church, searching for a clock and waiting for my not-so girlfriend to sing a song about time passing.
The priest led the congregation through the service. We sang songs (most everybody knew the lyrics) and replied with “Amen” when the priest said something good. When it came time for communion, I got nervous. People either kneeled on the footrest or approached the front. I didn’t know what to do. Luckily, a nice woman at the end of the pew noticed my anxiety and said, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to take communion if you don’t want to.” I was relieved and thankful for her kindness. Her Presbyterian-dar must have been on high alert.

The priest blessed the class and announced that a student would sing a song. There was an awkward silence while Janet set up, the microphone crackling over the cheap P.A., as she pulled it closer to her guitar. Her singing partner sat quietly next to her. After a brief pause, she started the song. I never had seen her play guitar so I was immediately impressed by her finger picking. I recognized the song, but I couldn’t place it:

Life, so they say
Is but a game and they'd let it slip away
Love, like the autumn sun
Should be dyin' but it's only just begun

It wasn’t until she sang the chorus that the song came back to me. It was “We May Never Pass This Way Again,” by Loggins and Messina, a song I had heard countless times on AM radio.

I watched in disbelief as people cried and related to the song, feeling that this special moment in their lives was coming to an end and that hope and optimism awaited them. I silently mocked them.

Janet closed her eyes as she played and leaned back when reaching for high notes. She earnestly sang each line, grimacing like Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn—white bluesmen—when emphasizing certain words. It didn’t sit well with me. I looked around for support, craning my neck to see other denizens, but all I saw were rapt individuals. It wasn’t a good sight and I knew the visual wouldn’t leave me.

Janet received a raucous applause, a few people standing. She was last on the agenda. People filed out after the song, commenting on Janet’s voice and how appropriate the song was for the occasion.

I waited at the far end of the parking lot, reading a paperback that I kept in my back pocket for these occasions. Parents and students talked out front. This was her territory and I knew my boundaries.

Janet eventually came over and we greeted each other awkwardly. I told her that I was impressed with her guitar playing and sarcastically said that the song was one of my favorites. She smirked and said she was going to a graduation party and asked if I wanted to come. This was odd—she was breaking the rules. I declined and asked her to call when it was over. We were a very Valley Girl couple and I just couldn’t deal with making small talk with Janet’s preppy girlfriends and jocky guy friends. I was sure a drunk friend would either threaten me (“If you hurt Janet, I will kill you") or ask me what I was doing with Janet, like I was working some angle.

Our relationship had grown complicated. She wanted me to take her to punk shows, invited me to high school parties and suggested double dating. This was breaking the rules. I liked Janet and was amenable to most of these things, but I just couldn’t get over the visual of her leaning back while singing the Loggins and Messina song. It was a deal breaker.

I promptly broke up with Janet after the “blessing,” citing Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton as the reason.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 3. Sick to Death

2011-03-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim

My mother came home from the mall and boasted, “Greg! I saw a punk rocker at the mall today. Do you know him?” To most inane but well-intentioned questions like this, I would have replied, “Duh mom, we don’t all know each other,” but the punk scene in Pleasanton was small to nonexistent so her query wasn’t that far-fetched. I asked her to describe what she saw: “Gre-yeg” (my mother has a strong southern accent so she pronounces my name in two syllables), “I don’t know, he had brightly colored pants, a checkered shirt and checkered shoes and funny looking glasses.” Of course this description offended my punk sensibilities. “Jesus Christ, Mom. That’s not punk! Do I dress like that? That’s totally some poseur!” Poseur was a big putdown in the punk scene, a word you didn’t want flung your way. The popular thought was that if you were punk and lived in the suburbs you were automatically a poseur. I lived in the suburbs, so, of course, I projected this same sentiment to everybody who didn’t live up to my punk standards. According to me, this was pretty much everybody. I was punk as fuck. And also, by definition, a poseur.

My sister had paved the way for me to be punk, so my mother didn’t really blink an eye at my brightly colored mohawk and the hardcore music spewing from my room. She let me graffiti my room from floor to ceiling and even found a way to accept that my favorite band at the time was called Millions of Dead Cops (MDC)—she even printed out a huge banner bearing the band’s name at work, every letter encompassing one 8½ x 11 sheet of paper. It was the early 80s and computers were used to print large volumes of documents on dot matrix printers, so this was exceptionally unique. Upon seeing it in my room, people would ask, “Wow, how did she do that?” Followed by, “Man, your mom is cool.”

I put the banner over the graffiti in my room. It was so long that it covered two walls, forming a dogleg between “Dead” and “Cops.”

Pleasanton was exceedingly normal - you could count the number of punks on two hands. There was Andy, Jerry, Sue, Carrie, Jane and that was pretty much it (or at least they were the only ones we knew about). All my sister’s first generation punk friends had moved to the City (aka San Francisco), leaving us to fend for ourselves.

Andy was a year younger than me and looked like a British punk sans the leather jacket and fuck-with-me hair: tall and skinny with pegged jeans, snug T-shirt, black high-tops and a three-row, studded wrist band on his left wrist. His hair was cropped short and naturally brownish blond. Without hair products, his hair puffed up like a Chia Pet. His parents were hardcore Christians so he had to be home every day by 5 pm for dinner, no matter what; therefore, we referred to him as Andy Be-Home-By-Five.

Jerry was a mod and hung out with us because there were even fewer mods than punks in Pleasanton. He was angry, liked to spit and say fuck you. He smoked clove cigarettes, had one of those mod jackets with a Who target on the back, wore rectangular shades like Paul Weller and played a Rickenbacker bass.

Sue was my girlfriend. She wasn’t punk, but was sassy and was what we liked to call a “punk sympathizer” and a budding punk. She liked Peter Gabriel and Todd Rundgren and called them Gabe and Todd, like she knew them. This was a big problem in our relationship. She also wore dirty saddle shoes every day.

Despite being my age and in the same grade, Carrie and Jane were more my sister’s friends. They graduated early and moved to Hayward to be with their working class punk boyfriends who were in Social Unrest, a very popular punk band in the Bay Area.

Even though we were all very different in our outsider status, we were united by circumstance and geography. Only in the suburbs will you see punks hanging out with hippies hanging out with mods hanging out with theater geeks. There were just not enough freaks to go around, so you had to put away your subculture prejudices and stick together.

Like all good punks, me, Jerry and Andy formed a band. I played guitar, Jerry played bass, and Andy sang. We had a rotating door of drummers—punk drummers were in high demand and almost nonexistent within 20 square miles of Pleasanton. We always had to settle for rock or new wave guys that didn’t look the part. Image was very important, no matter what anybody said.

Most rock guys had long hair and idolized Neil Pert from Rush, which wasn’t a good thing. They tended to consider themselves “musician types” and always pushed us to show off our musicianship. One suggested that we played the Peanuts theme song. He didn’t last long.

The new wave guys always thought they knew what punk was, but they didn’t. They wanted to play “modern rock” and incessantly pestered us about adding a keyboard player. They never lasted either.

With both types of drummers, our comments were always the same: , “Play faster, play harder!” We called ourselves Plastic Jesus, eventually renaming ourselves Anti-Social Youth. We figured Anti-Social Youth covered three of the most popular themes in punk rock: anti, social and youth. Why not put them together?

We practiced in my garage until the neighbors complained and then we were forced to move to my sister’s vacant room. With songs like “Reagan Country” (an ode to the president who kept punk rock relevant in the 80s); “Red, White and Dry” (a sexist anthem about the female anatomy), “Sick to Death” (a nihilist ditty about suburban boredom), we planned to record a demo so we could start playing out. Knowing absolutely nothing about recording, we chose the easy and cheap route of a boom box: press record and then stop.

On the day we recorded, we recruited Sue to push play and stop. Robert, my 9-year-old neighbor and big fan of the band, was there too, in his second Anti-Social Youth T-shirt. The first shirt was confiscated by his mom, with the threat of punishment if he continued to hang around us. We encouraged him to wear the shirt and defy his mom. I even offered to keep the shirt for him in my garage, with the garage door unlocked, so he could wear it at any time. He liked this idea and started wearing it to school, stopping by the garage to pick it up every morning.

Finding the right placement for the boom box was hard. In the open room, the condenser microphone was overloading, which resulted in one long sustain of white noise. We weren’t an art band, so we tried many spots in the room until settling on the closet with the door a quarter open.

Sue pressed record and we launched into “Sick to Death,” our unanimously agreed upon best song:

Sick to death of the live I’m living
Life’s troubles just pass you by
I don’t want to see your face
This is where it all begins

The lyrics purposely didn’t rhyme. I felt rhyming was conventional and not punk.

We didn’t have a P.A. so I had to sing directly into the boom box to be heard. After much experimenting, I found the perfect spot was about 18 inches from the microphone. On my knees and leaning down, I shouted at the boom box, while playing guitar. It was not easy and by the end of most songs, I struggled to maintain my position.

The quality of the recording was horrendous—only we could discern the drums, guitar, bass and vocals. To pretty much everybody else, it sounded like pure noise. Even so, we packaged the cassette with a lyric sheet and information about the band and gave it to friends. We recorded three other songs but chose "Sick to Death" to send to the Maximum Rock-n-Roll radio show, which was the punk rock radio show that ran from midnight to 2 am on Sunday nights.

Three weeks later at 1:55 am—the last song of the night—they played our song. Without an introduction, it followed a band from Fairfield, California (an even farther out suburb of San Francisco) called Carnage. I was ecstatic and moved closer to my clock radio. It was the first time—and one of only a handful of times—I heard my music on the radio.

It was loud, distorted and barely recognizable, but I loved it. The blood rushed to my face, from fear, anxiety and excitement. The song stopped, started, slowed down and sped up, as was the custom of many punk songs at the time. For a little over a minute— the length of the song—I was riveted. It ended with dead air. Thinking the song wasn’t over because of so many starts and stops, they let the silence go on for way too long. Finally, a loud, over-produced song screamed from the radio. I recognized it immediately and was mortified. It was a song by Yes called “Don’t Kill the Whales”—possibly one of the worst, most over-indulgent progressive rock songs of all time. When we recorded, I had taken a used cassette from a pile of tapes and didn’t check to see if anything was on it. Obviously, this Yes cassette predated my introduction into punk rock.

They quickly yanked the song and sounds of laughter filled the airwaves. They thought it was funny, not recognizing the song. If they did, it would have been a different story. After all, my punk credentials were on the line, and I knew everybody in the band plus a few friends were listening.

Tim Yohannon, one of the founders of Maximum Rock-n-Roll, came on and said, “That was Anti-Social Youth with “Sick to Death” from Pleasanton, California. It’s happening everywhere, people—even in Pleasanton.” Those few words were what I was waiting for. Acceptance in to the punk scene by the punk authority, I went to bed smiling.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 2. Dad, I’m a Lesbian

2011-03-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

By Greg Kim

This is a repost from a month or so ago, with minor changes. Sorry, but after my grandstand play yesterday ("I'm posting my whole book in sequential order!!"), I wanted to include it. If you read it, sorry.

Her name was Sara Lee. I couldn’t get over the fact that she shared the same name as my favorite cake. She was our family counselor, paid to deal with the lesbian problem my sister was having. Like all counselors and therapists, she had a peaceful way about her. She dressed in loose clothing, and closed her eyes when conversation turned combative, gently nodding her head up and down. Her empathy rating was off the charts. Once when it was raining, she looked out the window, nodded and said, “Rain cleanses the earth and the soul.” It was intended to be a metaphor for our situation, but it fell flat and no response was made. Even my sister, who was open to that get-in-touch-with-your-feelings crap, was dumbfounded. This hippie introspective talk kinda freaked me out and was the antithesis of my feral suburban upbringing.

To me, at the age of 17, Sara Lee looked like some old hippie I would see on Telegraph writing poetry in a clothbound book when I shopped for records at Rasputin’s. It would be some time before I utilized the services of therapists. I was still a well-adjusted suburban punk, void of guilt, self-reflection and culture. I was ignorant and life was good.

My sister Lisa called me at home and left a message with my mom to call her back. She was in her first year of college at San Francisco State, majoring in Women’s Studies and living in the dorms. I figured the call had something to do with who was playing the Mab or the On-Broadway, as most of my weekends were spent going to punk shows with her friends and sleeping on the floor of her dorm.

I called back and Lisa said, “You know I love you, Greg.” This sort of declaration was not unusual for her. She was young, expressive and enjoyed playing the role of mentor to me. Knowing my sister and her propensity for extremes, I prepared for information about a pregnancy or perhaps a pre-operation procedure to become a man. Either possibility was conceivable with my sister. She continued, “I wanted you to be the first to know…I’m a lesbian.” I knew that it was extremely hard and frightening for her to tell me this, but I was 17 and had known she was gay for a long time or at least fluid in her sexuality like so many Women's Studies majors across the planet. My response reflected this: “Duh, Lisa.” She laughed and said, “You knew?” I said, “Well, of course I did. I didn’t figure all those bull-daggers you were hanging around with were married and living in Pleasanton.” I embraced the situation as it gave me the oppressed credentials that I so desperately needed: “Dude, don’t fuck me with me, my sister’s gay.” Without it, all I had was, “Dude, fuck off, I’m from Pleasanton.”

In fine Lisa fashion, she came out to my Mom on Christmas Eve. We were standing in the kitchen cooking dinner and talking:

“Mom, I want to tell you something.” By the tone of her voice, my mother stopped what she was doing and looked at Lisa.

“Ah Jesus, Lisa. What is it?” Bracing for bad news, her face was blank, almost like she flipped a switch and turned herself off.

“I’m a lesbian, Mom.” It was the second time I heard this and her delivery was exactly the same. I assumed that Lisa had consulted some of her “professional” lesbian friends for advice in this matter.

Mom’s response was quick: “Jesus, Lisa. Did Scott turn you gay?" Scott was my sister’s last boyfriend. They had recently broken up. When they were together they were very affectionate—always sitting on each other’s lap and inappropriately touching each other, even when performing mundane tasks, like going to the supermarket. Because of this, I wasn’t fond of being around them as a couple.

Laughing at the absurdity of the response, Lisa replied, “No, Scott didn’t turn me gay, Mom. I’ve always been this way.” She was as gentle as one could be in this situation. I reveled in the fact that my mom said “turn you gay.”

My mother continued on, processing this new information on the fly and reacting without thinking. “How are you gay, you’ve had tons of boyfriends? Why would you choose to be gay? It’s not an easy life.” It was like she was referring to a handbook on why people are gay.

She saved the best one for last, turning her attention to me: “Well, I guess Greg is gay, too.” This took me by surprise. I was happy being a spectator, but not a participant. I gave my sister a look that said, “Deal with this.”

My sister sassed back, enjoying the brief diversion of attention, “Well, why don’t you ask him?”

I preempted her question: “Yeah, I’m gay.” Even though it wasn’t true, it was the obvious answer in this situation.

Lisa stepped in, seeing that this admission could lead to a regrettable medical emergency: “Mom, calm down. Greg’s not gay.” My poor mother. Lisa and I laughed. “But I have one other thing,” she continued. The mood quickly soured. Without a pause, Lisa continued, “I’m in a relationship with a black woman!”

“Oh Jesus, Lisa. You always take things to the extreme, you always have.” My mother was right. Lisa was not one for temperance.

True to her nature, when my sister came out, she exploded. This was typical in my family. Lisa and I had a family motto: “If things don’t get better, make ’em worse.” Many times we made things horrible. Lisa took this motto into her first year of Gaydom. She, of course, embraced separatism. It was the logical stepping stone from hetero to gay. It was the 80s and all the lesbians were doing it. She proudly strapped on penises and wasn’t afraid to talk about it. When we were out at punk shows, she would get in fights that I almost always unwillingly got involved in. She was a big bull-dagger separatist pain-in-the-ass that took no shit.

On a smaller scale, I understood this extremist behavior. When I first got into punk rock, I gathered my Pink Floyd and Police records and purged them from my collection. Instead of selling them at the used record store, I threw them like Frisbees from our front patio, watching them shatter into hundreds of pieces when they collided with street. It was a cathartic act.

During the year of her coming out, we started seeing Sara Lee. I’m not sure whose idea it was, but once a week for a month or so we made the trip to Sara’s practice, a newer building in a small business park off the freeway. Sara arranged the chairs in a circle, where everyone was equal. We dutifully took our places each session, staring at our feet or staring straight ahead, stone-faced. For a very normal family that was loving but not used to sharing their feelings, this was as hard as it got. I was the only one that appeared to be enjoying the theater of it all. Essentially, I was there because the therapist’s title had “family” in it, and I was, well, family.

Sara Lee did her best to broker middle ground between the two factions. Both sides argued history and nature: my parents used my sister’s promiscuous past and her desire to be marginalized; Lisa argued this was how she was born and that her heterosexual beginnings were due to repression. I sat between the two, siding with my sister, knowing it would be blasphemous to side with my parents. Lisa and I were alike in that we were both looking for some sort of self-imposed marginalization, which we found in the opposite of everything that was around us and our upbringing. This is very common in white suburban kids. If being gay and black were a choice, we would have both willingly changed. And, looking back on it, my sister’s desire for significance probably swayed her fluid sexuality from one side to the other.

When negotiations stalled, Sara Lee asked my sister to address my dad. Sara said to my sister, “Lisa, do you want to say something to your father?” Lisa confidently looked at my father, stood and said, “Dad, I’m a lesbian.” Silence permeated the room like tule fog. Even I, the good son with a pink Mohawk, stared at my feet, feeling sorry for everybody in the room. The cat was out of the bag and a new chapter in our family’s history had begun. It was final.

We rode home in silence. It was a beautiful sunny day, but it might as well been a dreary winter day in Cleveland. The coldness was palatable and it wasn’t leaving.

My parents’ relationship with my sister was tumultuous. Mom joined PFLAG, walked in the pride parade and then had a falling out when Lisa and her girlfriend adopted two children. My dad, on the other hand, quietly missed his first born.

Last week I got a call from my sister pertaining to her sexuality. I let it go to my voicemail. The strain of being the good brother and good son took its toll on our relationship. I was sick of being in the middle and hearing both parties bitch about each other.

I retrieved the voicemail: “Little brother, hey, I wanted you to know that I decided to start dating men. I’m dating a guy that looks a lot like you.” I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to call her back and say, “What the fuck, Lisa? Please don’t tell Mom and Dad!”

My mom called the next day and said, “Did you hear the good news?” I guess my parents were right.

White Dope on Punk: Chapter 1. Musicland

2011-03-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

I wrote a book called White Dope on Punk about 2 years ago. It has 19 chapters and an epilogue. I’ve done nothing with it. For the next 20 (work) days, I will post snippets from the chapters (or the full story) in sequential order, editing as I go along. Hopefully this will motivate me to do something with it. Maybe not.

White Dope on Punk
Chapter 1
Musicland
By Greg Kim

Growing up in Pleasanton, California, there was an acknowledged hierarchy of jobs for teenagers.

Number Three Most Desired Teen Job was lifeguard at a pool or beach. Because they were seasonal, these jobs were scarce and highly coveted. The sun was never my friend and I failed Junior Lifesaving in 7th grade, so this was never an option, just a fantasy.

Number Two Most Desired Teen Job was working in a vintage clothing store. For starters, you got first pick of the stuff that came in. You also got to wear whatever you wanted to work, which was very important. Identity is everything to teens and those ripped jeans or 50s house dresses weren’t just your clothes—they were a statement. You also got the added bonus of being able to judge those who came into the store to sell clothes—holding up retro gear, smirking and saying “Yeah, we’re gonna have to pass on this.” This was one job where cattiness was expected.

Of course the Number One Most Desired Teen job was working at a music store. If it was a used record store and you could play your own music, all the better. Nothing gave you more street cred than being “in the music scene.” Seeing as I was exceptionally pale and couldn’t really swim, and not that into fashion, I was destined for bigger things. For one blissful summer I was at the top of the job heap: Sales Clerk at Musicland.

Musicland Records was on the second floor of the Stoneridge Mall. It was book-ended by The Foot Locker and the GNC store, and, as we were told to remind people, “accessible by the northwest escalator that opened up into JC Penny’s.”

GNC was the vitamin store, which also happened to sell bland veggie sandwiches. I devoured these on a daily basis, since I was dabbling in veganism. The Foot Locker didn’t sell the kind of shoes I liked to wear; plus, the employees had to wear those awful striped referee outfits, so I chose to ignore them. At the time, I had only three pairs of shoes: 1) blue Vans, my primary shoes; 2) Vietnam army boots, the ones with the odd green canvas above the ankle; and 3) red Creepers that I bought from a store on Brady Street in San Francisco. These were my favorite, as they looked the weirdest and attracted the most attention. At the time, Creepers were only available in England, so getting them involved finding an import store or convincing a friend that was traveling to Europe to lug back an extra pair of heavy, thick-soled shoes in their suitcase. You would be surprised how many people were willing to do this.

Katy Walrath, my Stevie Nicks wannabe friend from the other High School, held the title of assistant manager at Musicland and encouraged me to apply for a job. She said the Manager was a cokehead and was never around, so it would be fun. I was a little dubious about working with Katy because I suspected she secretly hated me. Anytime she was drunk, and the evening was coming to a close, she would lurch over to me and say, “You think you’re so cool. I hate you. I hate you!” After the third or fourth time hearing this, I tersely replied, “Yeah, I know. You tell me this all the time.” This went on for years. The next day, I would bring it up and she would always shrug and reply, “Watch gonna do?” Eventually it became a joke; although, to this day, she looks at me funny after a few drinks.

I met with the manager, Bruce—a gangly, disheveled fella with a scrappy beard that looked like Hugh Grant’s roommate in Notting Hill. He handed me an honesty test, forgoing any kind of formal interview. That was it. No “Where do you see yourself in five years?” or “If I called your former employer, what would they say about you?” He said to fill it out the way it was supposed to be filled out and winked at me. His movements were jerky and he was sweating. I already liked this guy. Katy also encouraged me to lie on the test. I took this as a sign that both of them thought I was honest.

David left me sitting on a mall bench outside of the record store. I opened the test and scanned its entirety before starting. My fears that the test would be savvy enough to detect my blatant lies were unfounded, and lying proved quite easy. The majority of the questions were about taking drugs, drinking alcohol and stealing. Answers to most questions ended with, “It’s illegal in the State of California (Have you taken drugs?)?" And, a variation on the theme, “The legal drinking age in the State of California is 21 and I’m only 18 years old (Have you ever drank alcohol?)” After a while I got bored and inserted phrases like “the great State of California” and replaced “narcotics” for “drugs.” It was actually an enjoyable test.

A week later Katy called and said I got the job. She told me that I was supposed to wear a tie, but I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to. Another formality I was told to ignore—my kind of job.

I ignored the tie request, but I did try to look presentable. At this time in my life presentable was relative. Up to that point I had been sporting a pink triple Mohawk. Despite its rebellious implications, this look was actually rather high maintenance. Being very lazy about my appearance, I never took the time to make the triple hawk look good (if that was really an option). Looking good would entail getting up early and spending time in front of the bathroom mirror coating it with dish soap and hairspray until it stuck up in big liberty spikes. I usually chose to wake up late and left the house at the last minute possible. As a result my Mohawk looked more like a scraggly, pink, comb-over than the bad-ass hairdo worn by the lead singer from The Exploited. I decided to make it a little more wash and wear for the new job and shaved it all off except a small, pink tuft in the front. I looked like a skinhead’s girlfriend.

The first day of work I wore the red Creepers, 1950s wool trousers, a vintage short-sleeve button-up shirt and thin suspenders. Not too shabby. Nobody said anything about my outfit, so I continued to dress like this, alternating between the Creepers and the army boots.

It turned out that working there was actually really fun. David showed up only to collect payroll at the end of every two weeks. He was a great boss - he was never there. Katy and I would goof around, play music and act like the unsupervised 18 year olds we were. We gave out free Kurtis Blow 12 inch records to every 10th customer, and told one homophobe to get lost for trying to return a Bronski Beat record because they supported a gay organization. The only problem was that my looks were attracting some attention.

2011-03-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

Story by my good friend Kim Coenen

I had been around the block a few times. I usually hung out around Baltic. I went straight to jail more often than not, to visit boyfriends of course. I waited and waited for the chance opportunity to get free parking, I lived in SF and this was the Holy
Grail. I had made my mistakes, lapse of judgment if you will, but overall had a clean heart. At the strong advice of dear friends, I decided perhaps after ten years of circling the block in SF waiting for free parking, Seattle might offer some better options.

Seattle taught me how to live. I didn’t circle anymore. I simply drove. The mountains were beautiful and the rain cleansed me. While I was there I also pioneered the grunge sound. Not really. But I was there.

I returned to SF after four years to complete my Masters degree. I didn’t have a car so I no longer needed free parking and it was liberating. During my studies, I met John. John was wholesome and good. John’s family lived on Ventura Blvd. He was smart and kind. We would have a good life.

We both got our Masters degrees in Political Science. We married, bought a nice bungalow house and had a beautiful daughter. He taught at a community college and I stayed home with our child while waiting to apply to doctorate programs once she was off my boob.

St. James life right?

A week after our daughter’s first birthday, John woke up and said he was leaving. I asked what time he would be home for dinner. He would not come home for dinner. He would never come home.

He died on the fourth of July, Independence Day.

I raise my daughter alone. I moved to Atlantic Ave. where the schools are better and the parking is always free.

Metal On Metal

2011-03-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

Inevitably, during every rock show the audience chants some phrase or chorus in unison. Our show was no different. Halfway through the first song, I found myself chanting “Metal on Metal.” I didn’t do it with the gusto of most people, but I did garner enough enthusiasm for the ritual.

In front, the metal heads gave the band the devil sign and everybody else either pumped their fist in unison or followed suit with the metal heads. I was a different story, though. There was some since of misguided pride or age appropriate behavior that stopped me from raising my hands with the horns. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to do it, I wanted to be part of this moment, but I was now exposed in the crowd, away from the safety of the wall and what confidence I had was slowly leaking.

Not wanting to be one of those idiots at concerts that show no emotion while a band is playing, I decided to pump my fist, moving my wrist back and forth, like I was knocking on a door. This failed miserably. My fist hung over the heads of the audience, not like a monument to metal, but more like I was physically challenged. At the last minute, I decided to give the horns; however, I was once again non-committal, so it looked more like I was signing (ASL) or I had Cerebral Palsy. It looked like a fay, limp wrist.

A non-descript man in front of me, next to two 60 plus, white haired, albino guys that looked like a mixture of Kris Kristofferson and the Nelson twins, was also exploring new rock hand techniques. However, he seems more confident and practiced in his rogue hand gesture.

It could only be described as a nod to a goat’s hoof: the 3 middle fingers and thumb of his hand slightly bent, looking like a twisted 4-prong pitch fork, with his pinkie tucked under his ring finger. His hand violently pierced the air, aimed at the band. His face was contorted and demonic. Given that we were at a metal show and metal and goats unfortunately go together, it had to be a goat’s hoof. It was beyond me, but I liked it and embraced his commitment.

2 songs later there was a fight in the middle of the floor, where the obligatory mosh pit waged. Security grabbed the fighter by the back of his neck and arms and walked him to the side of the stage and out the backstage door. Trailing the fighter and security was the goat guy, giving the goat symbol with a demonic smile. It was unclear whether he was part of the fight or not. Either way, he followed them through the backstage door, giving the staff and fighter “the goat” the whole way.

A few minutes later security returned sans the goat guy and the fighter. Even though it appeared that the goat guy was not part of the fight, they did themselves a favor and tossed him with the fighter. He wasn’t long for the show.

The Jewish Closet

2011-03-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

“The Cantor is from Brooklyn, he’s really great,” she said, throwing out Cantor like it was common term. It was a common term except for people like me. Cantor? What the hell is that? Even though I didn’t get Cantor, I was fully aware of the Brooklyn reference: Brooklyn lent him credibility in this world and gave her a little street cred for knowing him. Despite being in the dark, I acknowledged that all the great Cantors were from Brooklyn. Brooklyn? He must be good. She was wearing a sash. There would lots of sashes at this event

We were in Fresno for a Bar Mitzvah and I should’ve Googled Bar Mitzvah and brushed up on the terminology, but I didn’t. Like all things I don’t understand, I nodded, giving off that I was in the club, in the know, stopping short of winking. I had no idea what she talking about, but I would extoll his greatness, if it came down to that. And I was a little worried about being labeled an anti-Semite because of my cultural ignorance. You never know at these things.

We arrived early to get a good seat. I was the Godfather of the Abraham, the Bar Mitzvah boy and, since he was a great, well-mannered, polite, cool kid, I wanted everybody to know that I was just a little more special than them. How do you know Abraham? Oh, I’m his Godfather. Back off.

Yarmulkes lined a table that lead to the Temple. My wife grabbed 2 for Wolfie and I. Anytime I’m doing something Jewish, I never know whether I’m supposed to wear one or not, but I always do because it covers my bald spot. The yarmulke alone is reason enough to choose Judaism over Christianity. Jews should use this as a recruitment tool.

A pew in the third row was open. We sat down and I surveyed the room for familiar faces and similarities to churches. Immediately, I noticed “the Jewish Closet” behind the Rabbi’s area. It was hard to miss and had a Price is Right feel, like the Rabbi would ceremoniously open it and there would be a new car. I knew something good was behind it.

Besides the Jewish closet and the lack of a hanging, semi-clothed Jesus, it kinda looked like Christian church: pews, stained glass, folders for prayer/hymn books (no foot rest, though) and well-dressed people to fill the pews.

The Rabbi, a rotund, red-faced man in his 60s, with a Janet Jackson/Madonna microphone headset, addressed the crowd, chronicling the ceremony from beginning to end. I like the timeline approach, as it gives us something to look forward to - the end of the ceremony. When my parents dragged me to church as young boy, I would take my father’s watch and practice holding my breath - anything to relieve the boredom of church. By the end of the sermon, I was able to hold my breath well over one minute without passing out. I can thank Christianity for my lung capacity.

As the Rabbi came to the last point in the outline of the ceremony, it was easy to decipher what he was really saying: “You gentiles, it’s gonna be a long-ass ceremony. Prepare yourselves. Trust me, I’ve done this a thousand times.” While chuckling, he announced that most kids would not be able to sit through the ceremony and that there was library filled with distractions where they could go to wait it out. He also announced that Abraham would be reading in both English and Hebrew. This last comment was for guys like me – guys that would lean over to their wives and say, “Jesus, Abraham’s speaking another language - Jewish or Arabic or something like that.”

Let the ceremony begin.

Abraham read from the Jewish Prayer book. We stood up, sat down, stood up again and sat down. I pretended to be following along with the Hebrew, reading from right to left, but I was lost. Halfway through I put the book down and didn’t look back.

The Cantor stood on the other side of the stage from Abraham, the Rabbi and the Lady Rabbi, who was dressed in a stylish pantsuit. She turned out to be his Bar Mitzvah teacher – something like that. The Cantor had his own podium. With a short ponytail and barrel chest, he looked like a present day Steven Segal without the grimace. He stood erect when he sang, pressing his acoustic guitar against his diaphragm. If I hadn’t deduced that he was the Cantor, I would’ve thought he was a local opera singer. He was a pro and elevated the Bar Mitzvah from ceremony to concert. I was half expecting him to sell CDs after the show.

This had to be a good gig for the Cantor. I imagined him sitting on a stoop in Brooklyn, with his Cantor friends, talking about the impending Bar Mitzvah:

“So, they’re flying you out to California?”

“Yep.”

“And they’re paying you?”

“Yep.”

“And they’re putting you up in a hotel?

“Yep.”

“Where’s it at?”

“Temple Beth Israel in…Fresno. It’s near, uh, the beach.”

“Wow, can I get your agent’s number?”

The ceremony didn’t get interesting until they opened the Jewish closet. Sitting on the edge of my pew, wondering what the hell was in there, the Rabbi nonchalantly opened the doors. I was hoping he would conjure David Copperfield or at least add a little pizazz, possibly smoke, but all we got was a short tug on the door, revealing something that reminded me of a medieval arms closet, a place where actors at medieval tourist restaurants – the ones where they joust - go to suit up for the dinner shows. I don’t know what I was expecting - an old man with a scraggily beard chipping at a rock? I was a little disappointed.

Back dropped in crushed red velvet, the Jewish closet featured 5 different sized Torahs on pedestals of various heights that formed a backward “V,” the largest on top and the rest sliding down the imaginary arms. I was unaware they were Torahs at the time.

The Rabbi grabbed the largest Torah like a large baby, struggling to bump it off its pedestal. He presented it to the crowd like an offering. Unsure of whether to clap, I sat on my hands and waited. No applause. He returned it to its new resting a place and removed its top, a gold crown ala Burger King and Chef Boyardee and placed it on what looked like an abridged Menorah near the Cantor. It tilted precariously.

Now exposed, I got a good look at the Torah. It was part Hoover vacuum bag, part hookah, part bagpipe and it probably could churn butter with a few adjustments. And it looked heavy, like the vacuum had sucked up some rocks.

The Rabbi called to the stage two women from the church .They would be the first of many people to participate in the service. Gently peeling back the Hoover vacuum bag, the women moved away from the Torah, revealing a scroll. The wooden arms that I mistook as the tenor drone of a bagpipe, the shaft of the hookah and the arm of a butter churner, held the holy ream of paper. They brought it over to Abraham and he read from it in Hebrew.

During the ceremony, the Torah was passed from great grandparents to grandparents to parents and then on to Abraham. Abraham’s Hebrew teacher, the one in a business pantsuit with heels, exulted Abraham’s attributes, going a little too far, saying she really enjoyed their “off-topic conversations during his private lessons.” It was a little creepy.

The Rabbi earnestly spoke to Abraham about representing the Jewish people, doing good for the Jewish people and working for the Jewish people. This was a little too Jewish for me. Abraham is such a good kid, the kinda kid that gives adults hope that all teenagers aren’t douchebags, and he should be shared with all humanity, not just the Jewish people. The Rabbi and I were on the outs after this. Selfish bastard.

After all the good words, Abraham took the Torah on a tour of the Temple. Like everybody else who came in contact with the bulky Torah, Abraham awkwardly paraded it from pew to pew. The real Jews touched the Torah with the Book of Prayer and then kissed the binding of the book. As Abraham came closer to us, Wolfie, my son, and I pushed out to the aisle with our books. As he passed, Wolfie touched the book to the Torah and so did I, but I also kissed the book, pandering to the religion. As I did, I looked around, smiling, seeing if anybody was looking at me. I was proud of my kippah and the kiss I just planted on the book.

Near the end of the ceremony, the Rabbi called my family to the stage. Abraham’s parents told us were part of the ceremony, but didn’t explain what we’d be doing. I was hoping it didn’t involve reading in Hebrew.

The Rabbi positioned us on one side of the closet; the other side was close friends. I positioned myself closest to the handle, in case it involved opening the door. With a little prompting from the Rabbi, we opened the door together and then closed it a short while later. I don’t remember the significance of opening and closing the doors, but it was late in the ceremony, so I assume we were putting the big Torah to rest. I was a little heady from being so close to the closet.

The Cantor sang and the Rabbi pronounced Abraham a man. We got up, stretched and moved to the adjacent room, where the ceremony commenced.

I made small talk with people I kinda knew, knew and had no Idea who the hell they were. I had lots of questions: What is a Cantor? How heavy is the Torah? Do you pay extra for using the largest Torah? What’s the deal with the Jewish closet? Lady Rabbi was was kinda pretty, don’t you think? These questions were reserved for people I knew. Most chit chat centered on the ceremony and Abraham.

At the end of the evening, while I explained to Abraham’s dad in the parking lot that getting a DUI on his son’s Bar Mitzvah wasn’t a good idea, a straggler from the party approached. His car was next to mine. Not getting his fill of small talk, he said in passing, “How about that Cantor? He’s from Brooklyn, you know,”

White Punks on Hope

2011-03-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

Donna was a frequent visitor to our warehouse and supported our stringent anarchist views. Not many people could deal with us because we had such a strong sense of right and wrong. Many nights, she and her friend Judy (a blond version of her) would visit and stay late, eating fried potatoes and listening to music. This night she was there to see a band. Our neighbors rented another space in the warehouse to put on shows on the weekends. Somehow they managed to get good bands like the Meat Puppets, Soul Asylum and Beefeater to play, along with countless hardcore shows.

Since we were anarchist snobs, we didn't always make the scene. We were too busy burning ATMs, spray painting walls and writing “comrades” across the globe to shuffle our cloth china flats downstairs. On this night, though, we had just got back from Santa Cruz. It was 1986, my 22nd birthday, and it was customary to make the sojourn south to Santa Cruz for all of our birthdays. At the time, it was the only place in the Bay Area that sold vegan pizza.

Donna Punk Rock knocked on our door and told us there was a good band playing next door and that we should come down. We obliged and made our way to the downstairs hallway, across the makeshift bridge of two-by-fours and out the knobless door into complete darkness that led to where the band was playing. This is what not paying rent will get you.

As we watched the band, Donna said she had two tickets to see Aerosmith at the Cow Palace and asked if I wanted to go for my birthday. Having been a big Aerosmith fan in my youth, I accepted and off we went across the bridge, careful not to let anyone know where we were going. Aerosmith was definitely not anarchy; however, all of us had bands in our closets that we listened to on the sly. Even bands like Black Flag were considered sexist and not appropriate to our beliefs.

The early 80s were a dark time for Aerosmith. Steve Tyler was in the throes of heroin addiction and Joe Perry and Brad Whitford, founding members, were long gone, pursuing failed musical projects.

As expected, the show was horrible. Half the seats were filled and the people who did attend mirrored the ragged bunch they had paid 30 bucks to see, but I was happy to be away from the warehouse. It was my birthday and seeing Aerosmith conjured memories of Creem magazine and Day on the Greens.

During the encore, they played a new song called “Angel.” This was the first of many soft rock, over emotional ballads Aerosmith would churn out in the next two decades; although this one never became that big of a hit. As the piano started, a giant neon “A” (for Aerosmith) lowered from behind the stage. Of course, “A” was my favorite letter; I even referred to myself as an “A,” short for Anarchist.

Perched behind Steven Tyler’s head, the “A” was like a full moon. I raised my hand in the air, touching my thumb to my ring finger, forming a circle. I lowered my hand a few inches in front of my squinting right eye and circled the giant “A” on the stage. Since the circled "A" is the symbol for Anarchy, I believed that every “A” should be circled. All around me, people were holding up Bic lighters. Donna looked at me and wondered what I was doing. I chose to say nothing, keeping my outreached hand extended. It was my own personal not-so joke. I was a very serious young man.

We drove back over the bridge listening to Flux of Pink Indians, transitioning from has-been arena rock back to warehouse punk. Appreciative that Donna took me to the show, I invited her up to our space. Christ on Parade was playing across the hall and we peeked in to watch a few songs. Having seen them hundreds of times, I suggested that we leave and see what my roommates were doing. On the nights of shows, our place served as sort of a backstage or VIP lounge for our friends and the anarchy intelligentsia. Our warehouse had an air of mystery and clout, which people gravitated toward. For a Pleasanton punk, I had hit the big time.

Rowland with a W

2011-03-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

By Victoria Jaschob

Paris can be unbearably hot and sticky in the summertime, and 1982 was
no exception. I was nineteen and living in a big apartment on the Left Bank,supposedly studying film at the Sorbonne. During the day I worked in my flatmate’s reggae music store, and at night I ran the lights for my other flatmate’s tiny theater. In between, I smoked Silk Cut cigarettes, drank “33” beer, and listened to music: reggae, punk, and Edith Piaf. The thing I wasn’t doing, my actual reason for being in Paris, was going to film school. But I didn’t care. In those days, all I really cared about was music, drinking, and boys.

One drawback to living in Paris, especially in the summer, is that you get a lot of people you don’t know showing up unannounced, wanting you to take them to tourist spots like the Eiffel Tower and Shakespeare and Co., the American booksellers. My flatmates and I hung out with reggae musicians and pirate radio DJs, male prostitutes and British actors. Cool people. The last place I wanted to go was somewhere like Shakespeare and Co., with all the bloody tourists. So my heart sank when I answered the phone one hot night in July, to hear a male voice with an Australian accent telling me he was a friend of so-and-so’s from London and she’d given him my number and he was coming to Paris in a few days and could we meet up?

Merde, I thought, Shakespeare and Co.

I could barely place the connection – a girl I’d stayed with for one night on the Isle of Dogs the winter before. I’d completely forgotten her, but apparently I’d given her my phone number, and she’d passed it on to this dorky-sounding Australian. No way was I hanging out with this guy - his name was Bingo, for a start.

“So, Bingo, what brings you to Paris? On holiday?” I asked without
enthusiasm.

“I’m touring with a band, actually. I’m sort of like their…roadie.”

I pictured a pudgy little guy, carrying the snare drum for some passe act
from my parents’ generation, like the Inkspots or someone. I asked who the
band was, and when he told me their name I was instantly all attention. It wasn’t the Inkspots. In fact, I’d just seen them on the cover of the NME, the British music journal that was my personal bible. They had an unusual look, to put it mildly: the bass player dressed like a cowboy by way of the Village People; the singer was a Neanderthal with a jet-black porcupine of hair; the drummer looked like the head boy of an English boarding school; and the guitar player, well, he looked like nothing on earth. I thought he was the most exotic thing I’d ever seen: a fragile woodland creature who’d just crawled out from under a fern. The article described their sound as chaotic, visceral, dark – even dangerous. Without having heard a note of their music, I knew they were going to be my new favorite band.

“They’re called The Birthday Party,” said Bingo. “I’ll put you on the guest
list, ok?”

Come the day of the show, however, I was in a foul mood. The weather
was particularly sultry, and I was convinced I’d make the trip all the way across town only to find I wasn’t on the list after all. I was in no mood to be humiliated by the club’s notoriously rude doormen, and accordingly I’d made up my mind not to go. But about six o’clock the phone rang. My flatmate answered.

“It’s for you, Tricky. Some Australian.” (Tricky was her nickname for me.)
I reluctantly picked up the receiver.

“It’s Bingo!” said the slightly breathless voice on the other end. “I put you on the guest list. You’re still coming, aren’t you?”

I gave in. “Hi Bingo. Sure, I’ll be there.”

“So, how will I recognize you?” he asked.

“Um, I’m short, with spiky blonde hair…how about you?”

“I’m 6’ 5”, and I’ll be wearing all black leather,” he replied.

Well, you shouldn’t be too hard to spot, I thought. The evening was
looking up.

I got to Bains-Douches, the snooty club built inside an old bathhouse, and
not only was I on the guest list, there was a backstage pass waiting for me as well. It just didn’t get any better than this. I breezed past the glaring doormen, bought an over-priced beer, and stood in front of the stage. The club wasn’t even full – I had a clear view of whatever was about to transpire on the low platform. The Birthday Party didn’t actually start their set - no tune-up, no count off – they just sort of exploded: “Hands up – who wants to die?” Tracy, the bass player, bent his spine back into a perfect arch, cowboy hat firmly in place; Mick bashed out complex, gut-churning rhythms on the drums; Lydia Lunch sang a couple of numbers; and I think there was a saxophone at one point. It was
everything the NME had described, and then some.

Nick, the singer, launched himself into the crowd at every opportunity,
limbs flailing, and it quickly became clear that Bingo’s job was simply to haul him out when it looked like he’d had enough abuse from the audience. But I couldn’t take my eyes off Rowland, the guitar player, who paced around the stage like a caged animal, while his Fender made noises like all the demons of hell. The sound of it did something to my insides, and the way he looked added to it: he was a starved urchin with porcelain skin and cheekbones that could cut glass. He and Nick danced around each other like a deranged Astaire & Rogers, the perfect couple.

When it was over, far too soon, I felt like something in my DNA had been
permanently re-arranged. I was standing on the dance floor in a sort of daze, when Bingo saw me and motioned me over. He was unmistakable - freakishly tall, dressed in black leather from head to foot, with a bushy mop of curly brown hair. He took me backstage, got me a beer from the band’s stash, and we chatted. He was effusive, despite his somewhat alarming appearance. I didn’t say much; I was still full of the music and busy absorbing the backstage scene.

A whiny French journalist kept trying to approach Nick – first he wanted a
beer, then he wanted an interview – but it soon became clear that whatever he wanted, he wasn’t getting anything. Finally Nick stood up, grabbed him by the hair, dragged him across the floor, and threw him out the dressing room door. At that point, I started to feel guilty about the warm Heineken I was drinking and tried to make myself as unobtrusive as possible. Unbelievably, after a few minutes the journalist came back and cowered just outside the dressing room door. Bingo excused himself, loomed up in front of him, and said, quietly but firmly, “Don’t. Upset. Nick.” The journalist slunk away, for good this time.

Then Bingo came back, sat down next to me and cheerily asked if I would
join him and the band upstairs for dinner. When I hesitated, he assured me it was no problem, they wouldn’t mind at all. He was persistent, but I was more than a little intimidated, not to mention star-struck. As much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t bring myself do it. I didn’t want to be like the French journalist: just another sycophantic, parasitic creep sucking up their oxygen. Also, I was a little nervous about Bingo’s expectations.

“Thanks anyway,” I said. “I think I’ll just go home.” I walked all the way
back to my flat through the warm night, reliving every minute. I knew that nothing I’d experienced musically up to this point had prepared me for the onslaught of The Birthday Party, and nothing that came after would quite measure up.

At the end of the summer, I went back to the States, moved to the Mission District, and dropped out of film school. I bought all the Birthday Party records I could find, and spent hours lying around my hot, cockroachy apartment on Shotwell Street, listening to their music and staring at the guitar player’s photo. He was my dream-man: androgynous, mysterious, tragic. Even the way he spelled his name was perverse: Rowland with a W.

The Birthday Party finally came to San Francisco a year later, shortly
before they split up for good. The night of the show, I dressed carefully in the height of Goth Girl fashion: black thrift-store dress, backcombed hair, rosaries and crucifixes draped around my neck. Walking down Haight Street, I came upon a smashed vase on the sidewalk, apparently fallen from the apartment above. The flowers were fine, though, and without a thought I scooped them up and carried them into the club. I knew exactly what I needed to do. I stood at the front of the stage, directly in front of my guitar hero. The band was still great, maybe not quite as mind-blowing as the first time (what is?), but Rowland’s guitar still howled and squealed in that way that got to me deep inside, and once more, I was transfixed.

As soon as the show ended, still clutching my flowers, I went around to the
backstage entrance only to be confronted by a black man the size of a small
mountain guarding the door. Obviously the club had hired extra security, given the band’s reputation for mayhem. I just stood there. The guard looked me up and down, took in the hair, the rosaries, the now-wilted flowers – then, miraculously, unhooked the rope and ushered me through. Just like that, I was in the sanctum sanctorum. Rowland was slumped in a chair with his head resting on the table in front of him. He looked like a broken-winged angel who’d tumbled down from heaven and landed right in the middle of the I-Beam’s dressing room. I gently laid the flowers on the table where he could see them.

“Thank you,” he said in a small voice, without raising his head. It was all I needed to hear.

I spotted Mick, the drummer, and went over to say hello. I asked if Bingo
was touring with them this time.

He looked startled. “How do you know Bingo?” he asked.

I explained to him how we’d met at the show in Paris the year before, and told him about hanging out backstage afterward, drinking beer with the band. He nodded, and thought for a minute.

“You should have come to dinner,” he said.

March 2011

Losing My Plaster Cast Ass in the ’89 ‘Quake

2011-03-11T11:26:00.000-08:00

Mary hid behind her hair. Even on the phone you felt like she was hiding behind something. She answered questions with yes and no answers; didn’t ask questions and instead of laughing at my multiple attempts at jokes, she just said “hilarious.” Talking to her in person was painful; talking to her on the phone was excruciating, so my conversations were always very short:

“Where you going tonight? Who’s gonna be there?” That was the extent of it.

I eventually lost contact with her for the very reasons I mentioned: she just didn’t sparkle. A few years later I heard she was bartending in the Mission and now went by Crazy Mary. Her new moniker befuddled me.

At 5:07 on October 17, 1989 the ground began to shake, gently at first. I was on the phone to Mary going through our yes and no routine. I asked if she felt that – her apartment was 2 blocks from mine – and she said yes. I immediately yelled that I had to go while lunging for my stereo that was falling from my closet. I caught it and quickly put it on my bed. I ran under my doorway and yelled down the hall to my three roommates who were crowded under two doorframes. “Do you feel it?” It was a stupid question. The walls were violently shaking and the noise was deafening. We were on the third floor of an old Victorian. I kept repeating in my head, “Don’t collapse, don’t collapse, don’t collapse.”

Eventually the shaking subsided and the noise quit. What felt like an hour was only 30 seconds. The ground settled like Jell-O in a bowl and then stopped. Silence. We ran to each other, meeting in the middle of the hallway.

“Did you feel that? Jesus, that was big!!”

We didn’t know what to say or what to do. The phones and electricity were both out. Having been through a few earthquakes, I didn’t know if this was the big one, or just another large earthquake.

We ran back to our bedrooms to assess the damage.

Hanging on a strip of wall between my closet and door was a plaster cast of woman’s ass. Life size, it ran from the lower back to the upper thigh and extended about 6-8 inches from the wall, forming a half moon. The artist – marked John ’76 on the undercarriage – adhered cut-off jean short to the butt cheeks, ala Daisy Duke. A glossy paint of blue and flesh color adorned the sculpture. It was a marvel to behold and was my most prized possession. I purchased it for $3.99 at Thrift Town, Hayward. It had to be a high school art project.

Like the boys from Motley Crue touching posters of naked woman backstage stage in the Home, Sweet, Home video, I considered the ass a good luck charm, lightly placing my hand on it before going out on a Friday and Saturday night. It was a source of conversation and I incessantly talked about it. You know my ass…

I didn’t want to look. I knew the ass hadn’t survived. It was fragile to begin with – maybe a quarter inch thick - and was chipping at the edges.

My room was a wreck. Anything that wasn’t bolted down lay scattered on the floor. My other prized possession - a ceramic lamp of a big breasted stewardess with the words “Come Fly Me” on the bass - was intact, sustaining a large ship to the body that could be repaired.

At my feet, the ass lay in ruins. Shattered like a windshield, the jeans precariously holding the mosaic of plaster together, I picked it up and threw it away. I couldn’t look at it. It was done, over. This is how I deal with adversity - I walk away.

The next morning the sun shined, an abbreviated version of the paper came out and all seemed normal. The fires from the night before were smoldering. A few friends stopped by and we all went to Alamo Square to hang out. The park was speckled with tents from the night before. Many people were afraid of aftershocks, so they opted to camp rather than going back to their apartments. The park, which was mainly utilized by tourists and dog owners, was as crowded as it had ever been. We all seemed to be there for no reason other than to be with each other.

Man-Child

2011-03-10T14:25:00.000-08:00

Slowly remembering the night before and how I called Mel selfish, I exhibited caution before raising my head.

It was a morning to swear off alcohol for at least a day, or at least consider the idea. My hair was clumped together like dried sap from too many shots of crème de menthe being poured on my head.

It had been a rough night, one that is either looked back upon as a really good time or the start of bad times. It came back in blocks of bright color and in fast motion, the only clear thought being my asshole behavior with Mel at the end of the night.

I feigned illness in an attempt to get pity. I knew what I had said to Mel, but there was a good chance I had said something mean to Tom and/or George, too. Not knowing the proper greeting for this situation, I fell back on a tried and true opening:

“Hey.” I spoke softly, testing the water. It seemed like the best approach.

“Hey Foot,” Mel pleasantly replied, smoking and driving. By the tone of her voice, I knew everything was ok. Tom was in the passenger seat, sucking on licorice root. He had heard that licorice root was good for the throat, so he had a never-ending supply and was always chewing on it like a cigar. It was customary for Tom not to speak after a tough night of drinking and playing. His voice was hoarse and he wanted to save what was left of it. He had a harmonica for situations like these, when a question warranted some kind of response: one toot on the harmonica meant yes and two toots meant no.

“Hey Tom,” I said, desperately wanting to rehash the night before, even though I knew doing so would bring up the end of the night. “How are you doing?” Tom grabbed his harmonica and tooted once. I took it as a positive affirmation that he was doing well. But I knew he was as hung-over as I was and that he was probably extremely worried about his voice for the Madison show.

Halfway up interstate 94, we stopped at Wendy’s for lunch. I was still lying on the dirty floor of the van and, no matter how much I wanted to join them, the thought of food repulsed me. All my energy was focused on not throwing up. Despite the allure of a baked potato with sour cream and chives, I knew just the sight of it would send me running to the bathroom or an empty bag.

“Foot, you coming?” Tom questioned, while Mel and George looked on. I waved them off, knowing that they’d understand my absence.

Hanging from the lock of the side door of the van was a plastic bag that we used for garbage. I moved closer to it, knowing that it was just a matter of seconds before I threw up. As my eyes passed over the lip of the bag, I saw what was in it: discarded cigarettes, mixed with scraps of food in a broth of dregs from an orange soda can. It smelled and looked disgusting. I threw up immediately, gagging, half in the bag and the rest on my arm. I threw open the door and chucked the bag, relieving what was left in my stomach on the blacktop.

I kept the side door open. It was hot, the heat exacerbating my misery. The parking lot glistened from the high temperatures and the freeway hummed in a low key. With my head bent down, I waited for them to return and anticipated throwing up again. It never came.

“I’m never drinking Peppermint Schnapps again. What the fuck is that shit anyway?” I said as Mel, Tom and George approached the van, sated from Wendy’s. They brought me back some fries. I shook my head.

“Come on, Foot, you've got to eat something,” Mel said, playing the role of caretaker to her three man-children.

“No, thanks. I just threw up,” pointing to the bag lying on the ground, the throw-up leaking onto the concrete. They were all empathetic, having been there before.

Writing Comedy for Dave Chappelle

2011-03-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

At a Roman airport 5 years ago, my friend Anne leaned against the ticket counter. She was on her honeymoon. While her partner engaged the clerk, she turned around and Dave Chappelle was looking at her. Like someone waving to you in a crowd, she checked her immediate surroundings for a friendlier face. There was nobody – he was looking at her. Chappelle and Anne were the only two black people in the airport – of course he was looking at her.

Chappelle sauntered over and said hello. It took Anne a few seconds to gain her wits. She blushed and acknowledged that he was indeed Dave Chappelle. After she regained control, they talked about what strangers talk about in Rome: traffic, smog and the Colisseum.

When showing pictures of her trip, she saved the best photo for last. Upstaging the previous pictures of European history, Anne and Chappelle stood side by side - Anne sporting an animated smile and Chappelle donning his patented smirk.

Anne told me this story a little over 5 years ago. Simple story. Memorable only because of Chappelle.

Last week a friend was at a comedy club in LA. While watching a mutual friend perform stand-up, Chappelle walked on stage. This made me think of Anne’s story.

A few days later I talked to Anne about Chappelle. She told me the story again and I was flabbergasted. This is how I remembered it:

While standing in line at the ticket counter in a Roman airport, a man approached Anne from behind. He leaned in and whispered, “If anything goes down, let’s stick together.” She turned and it was Dave Chappelle. Small talk ensued.

Since starting this blog, I’ve been fascinated with my memory – what I remember, what I distort and what I forget. I’m starting to believe that “what I distort” is winning the memory race.

Unlike other false memories, I believe I know why I changed her story and what made me do it.

Without adding “If anything goes down, let’s stick together,” it’s only memorable because of Chappelle - Anne meets Chappelle in an airport. That’s it. What I remembered was that they were the only two black people in the airport (she didn’t mention this fact the second time she told the story). I inserted myself in Chappelle’s shoes, saying what I thought he should’ve said to Anne, based upon being in a room full of whitey.

That’s how I think my brain remembers. It erases the mundane and fills it in with fantasy. I perpetuate fantasy through stories (written and verbal) and it eventually becomes truth.

Be careful what you tell me, but most people already know this.

AIDS. What's That All About?

2011-03-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

Dressed in grey Sta-Prest pants and an old cowboy button-up, he explained the rules for catching the bus on the way back: “If you want to get back, listen up. Someone pointed out to me that due to construction, I may not be able to pick up some of you on the way back from Reno. That’s where I’m returning from. If that’s the case, Amtrak will send out a van or another bus.” He paused, observing the 30 or so of us who fit the description of long distance bus riders. “Let me ask you a question. How many buses do you think Amtrak owns?” Scanning the crowd, we collectively shuffled our feet and looked away from his gaze. I wanted to say something – maybe 30,000, but I was out of my element.

Undeterred from the lack of participation, he continued: “Zero! That’s right, zero buses. Pretty smart, eh?”

This got a reaction. The people with traveling companions conferred with each other, speculating on the validity of his statement. Traveling alone, I pondered the question in my head. Knowing my lack of logic, I quickly dismissed the question, preferring to bathe in the circumstance. I was at an Amtrak bus station in Sacramento at 9:50 am on a Tuesday morning and the bus driver was asking us question about Amtrak’s business practices. This was worth the trip alone.

The bus driver caught my eye and gazed upon my smirk. I tend to smile largely, when I’m nervous and excited. Not wanting to be the dick that gives a smart-ass remark, I shook him off, quickly moving my head back and forth. He moved on.

Exhausting any chance of an answer, he continued: “Yep, Amtrak doesn’t own a single bus. They contract to other bus and transportation companies, so the vehicles coming to get you many not say Amtrak on the side. If you’re waiting for the bus to return, and a bus, van, taxi, whatever pulls up next you, tap on their window and ask, ‘Are you Amtrak?’ You’re welcome.” And with “you’re welcome,” he walked off, like he was on stage. All of us weren’t sure what do. I wanted to clap.

He appeared a few minutes later as a bus pulled into a large bay. This was our bus. He murmured, “Stockton bus. We’re always waiting on the Stockton bus.” A few regulars chuckled and the rest of us nodded, acknowledging the reference. For the last 2 years, Stockton was voted the most miserable city in the U.S., taking over cultural hot spots like Fresno and Bakersfield as the shittiest city and butt of all jokes.

This was the first stop on my way to Roseville, California, to pick up a vehicle at a car dealership. The plan was rather complex: drive to Emeryville and take the 7 am Amtrak to Sacramento. From there, catch a bus to Roseville and then call a cab to take me to the car dealership. Pay for the vehicle with a $40,000 dollar check and drive the new vehicle to a parking lot in San Francisco. Take the BART Richmond line to Ashby and walk the mile or so back to my car in Emeryville. I figured this would take 10 hours. All this could’ve been avoided if I just enlisted a co-worker to drive with me to Sacramento, but the thought of awkward discourse and great lulls in conversation for the 2 ½ hour drive lead me to choose this path, the 10 hour path. It was well worth it.

Roseville was 30 minutes from the bus station, with one stop in Citrus Heights. Exiting the freeway, I paid close attention to the street names. This knowledge would come in handy if I had to walk to the dealership. Given that it’s not easy to get a cab in San Francisco, I assumed it would be twice as hard in Roseville. And there was always the good possibility that cab service didn’t exist.

The bus station looked like a drive-thru coffee shop, the ones you see in the middle of parking lots. Inside there was about 10 seats pushed against the wall, one occupied by a young, fat Goth kid, incessantly looking at his laptop while listening to indie metal on his headphones. I got the feeling that he was only there for the free Wi-Fi and air-condition. My presence annoyed him.

On the wall was a phone with a number for a cab company. I picked it up and dialed. After a few rings, a grumpy, sleeping sounding man answered, “Hello?” I hate it when you call a business and they answer the phone like this.

“Is this the cab company?” I had already forgotten the name of the company and i was pissed about how he answered.

“Yeah.” That was it. I should’ve known better. I was a cabbie when I was 25 and I was well aware of the gruff nature of answering the phone.

“I’m at the bus station. Do you offer cab service to this area.?" Still trying to polite, I hoped to salvage the call. Getting up at 6 am had left me tired and cranky and I was in no mood to walk an unspecified distance in the valley sun.

“About a half hour” and he hung up. Dick!

I walked outside, sat on a bench, observed the small parking lot and then came back in and cancelled the cab. It wasn’t coming, it never was.

I pulled my hat out of my bag and headed east. According to the map, it was about a mile on one road and then another mile on a second road. Hopefully it wasn’t much longer than 2 miles. I already had to go to the bathroom and peeing on the side of the road was out of the question.

With the dealership in site, I took off my hat and quaffed my hair, blindly pushing the patchy follicles upward. I was aware what a sweaty hat would do to my balding crown and I wanted to be somewhat presentable. Presentable was new-ish sneakers and a laundered stripe shirt.

The irony of taking a train, bus and then walking 2 miles to pick up a $40,000 dollar vehicle was not lost on me. Therefore, I snuck onto the lot, acting like somebody dropped me off. Nobody noticed.

Larry the salesman met me in the lobby, looking like a non-bloated Luke Wilson. He appeared to be a nice guy. We sat next to a floor-to-ceiling aquarium and he went over the process of purchasing the vehicle. First I would meet with their finance guy, explaining that this might take a while because he was busy, and then he would go over the vehicle with me. Pretty simple.

Feeling a little uncomfortable at the prospect of making small talk with Larry as we waited for the finance guy, I said, “You don’t have to sit here with me. Just tell the finance guy to come get me when he’s ready.” He had no problem with this. He left to pull around the vehicle and get it ready.

Darin didn’t look like a finance guy. With a tightly trimmed goatee and taught skin, he gave off the impression of ex-military – hard living and hung-over. He probably owned as many tank tops as t-shirts and spent his weekends on the Delta, captaining a speedboat.

I took a seat and he laid out his resume: car salesman from the age of 19, worked at various dealerships and eventually moved into the finance side of car sales. Made sense to me.

Like a good salesperson, he asked about me and where i worked. We had lots of common ground: we were the same age, having grown up in the same high school district, and frequented some of the same places, as kids. When I told him about my do-gooder job he became noticeably distant. He looked down. Slowly raising his head, he looked me in the eye, as if he was going to confess.

“Whoa, AIDS. What’s that all about?” It wasn’t what I expected. As ignorant as the statement sounded, I could tell AIDS had affected his life in some way. He sat silently, running through his past: “You know, it was the 80s. You know, right?” looking at me for confirmation. No I don’t know, dude. I was punk as shit in the 80s. I shook my head yes.

“We drank and got high all the time. It was the 80s. I had unprotected sex with lots of women. It was before AIDS. We didn’t know. We didn’t know. It was the 80s.” He had a bad case of survivor’s guilt. I’m not sure what he wanted from me, but I took on the roll as counselor and wanted to tell him it was all right. If I were his friend, I would’ve offered a hand.

I was also preparing for the gay bomb that some of these swinging heteros would occasionally drop on me. I’ve come to realize that when strangers find out I work at an AIDS organization, they assume I’m gay. Only after this do I get the straight boys dropping their drunken gay dalliances.

Larry got a hold of himself and moved onto to safer subjects, while trying to up-sale me on various warranties and three-year deals.

I signed, initialed and dated various documents. Standing to leave, I shook Larry’s hand and moved toward the door. He said, “Take good care.” I took “take good care” not “take care” as an extra special goodbye, given the content of our conversation. I was a little worried that he might invite me for a boat ride on the Delta.

Darin was out front waiting for me. He kicked the tires and walked me through the vehicle. The transaction was done and I was eager to get going. I would learn about the vehicle through driving it and consulting the manual.

While Darin and I circled the vehicle, I noticed a young salesman watching us. Any time I looked over at him he would give me a big smile. Given that he didn’t shy away when I noticed him, I assume he was in training, watching Darin close the deal.

Darin and I shook hands. Before I got in the vehicle, the young salesman approached and said, “Can I take a picture of your shoes? My girlfriend would love them.” So this was why he lingered. A bit startled and embarrassed by the request, I said, “Sure, they’re just vans. My wife got’em at the outlet store in Gilroy.” While leaning down to take the picture, he said, “No, she’d love the whole package – the shoes, socks and jeans.” So much for dressing up.

Chicken Stop

2011-03-07T09:59:00.000-08:00

(This is the second post from Tom Pitts on Sit Down, Casper. He’s agreed to take over duties on the first Monday of the month. Thanks. Tom)

Dog Shit Park. That’s what they called it. It was the place I drank my coffee every morning. I was usually bent over, hung-over, and groaning with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. While most of the other dog owners would be cheery, on their way to work, calling to their dogs in high, spirited voices, I sat, confused about what had just transpired the night before, dreading the work hours ahead.

I let my dog dart between the endless new arrivals. My dog was in his element, sniffing butts and chasing tails. I felt anti-social and out of place with the comfortable looking young professionals and their pure bred dogs and I’d keep to myself as they went about their business.

As the morning wore on, the dog owners would come and go, picking up shit and tossing tennis balls out to their respective dogs. My job started late in the morning, so I watched them come and go. Dog interplay. Quick frolicking relationships, before their poop was scooped and they were locked away in a kitchen or crate for another 9 hours till their owners got home.

At nine am the park began to empty out. The people remaining were in no rush. They were dog owners that had no jobs to go to. That is when I met the Colonel. His real name was Don, but he shared more than just a physical appearance with the famous Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken Fame, he shared the same southern drawl.

Don was gay. The southern drawl was infused with a feminine lilt, a sassy twang that told you not only his sexual orientation and his origins, but that he was fiercely proud of both. He wore his hair, too, like the great Colonel Sanders, or maybe a little more like that other famous Colonel, Colonel Custer. It was tied back in a pony tail and boasted a full goatee in front. To update the age old look, Don died it pink. The pink had faded into his blond grey hair to give the impression that it had always had a pinkish hue. One imagined Don running around the Mississippi Delta, ten years old, with his blondish pink pony tail flapping at his neck like a raccoon tail, tricking Tom Sawyers and Huck Finns into sordid sexual experimentations before being exiled out to California where there were other deviants of his kind.

In the mornings Don bitched. It was what got his blood moving. He bitched about the other dog owners, he bitched about the dog shit in the park, he bitched about the weather, but mostly he bitched about having no money.

He watched his old poodle, discolored and dirty with uneven hair, limp around the bench where he sat telling anyone who would listen about the unfairness of being on a fixed income.

He had many ideas for how to bring in a few extra dollars, but shot most of them down himself.

“Collect bottles? Honey, I collect ‘em … then I drain ‘em. I don’t bring ‘em back. I leave that to the ne’er do wells. Can you imagine? Me? Pushing a cart? Not a chance … too unladylike.”

He’d tried working at home.

“Phone sex? I loved it, honey, but at the end they wanted to charge me instead of pay me!”

He refused to accept that he was unemployable. He always remained upbeat about his situation, sweetening his rationale with some southern sounding saying, things swishy enough that they sounded as though they’d just been sung from the lips of a southern belle.

“Not every day can be a Doris Day, sweetheart!”

One day, he decided that he’d found the vocation best suited to him: Dog-walker.

“Fuck these lesbian bitches who think they’ve got a corner on the industry. It’s time to give these dogs some real hospitality.”

Don showed us the hand drawn fliers that he was going to hang up all over the Lower Haight. He’d proudly undercut the rates he’d seen on other fliers and told us all he was now just waiting by the phone for business to roll in.

It was a few weeks before Don showed up at the park again. I asked if he’d been busy with his dog walking business.

“Don’t ask,” he said, but he began to answer anyway. “I waited five days for a phone call. Finally, the phone rings and I go to meet my first customer. I ring the bell and when the door opens, get this … there’s a guy holding a chicken.”

“A chicken?” I said

“Uh-huh, that’s what I said, ‘a chicken? You gotta be kiddin’ me.’ But this freak is real serious, serious as a heart attack. This sumbitch wants me to walk his chicken twice a day.” Don paused to shake his head. “I figured, what the hell, if I’m getting’ paid, I don’t care if he wants me to walk a Siberian tiger. I mean, this is my first customer. I thought, maybe this is how it’s gonna be, my new business, exotic.”

“A chicken?” I asked. “An actual chicken?”

“Yeah,” he squealed, “A regular garden variety chicken, with the little red thingy on top and everything. I know, what are people thinking? A chicken in the city. Good lord. What next? I mean come on.”

“So what’d ya do?”

“I walked it.” He said in a pitch that suggested surprise for me even asking. “Hell, he was my very first customer, I wasn’t gonna turn him down.”

He paused for me to affirm his work ethic. I took a slow drag off my cigarette.

“I mean, it was a nice chicken and all. Cute little thing, had a little collar and a leash and everything. Of course, I looked ridiculous, like a maniac, walking a chicken on a leash.”

“I’m sure you’ve suffered worse humiliations.” I said.

“Oh no, wait there’s more. I’m walking this little chicken, and it’s a good little chicken, walking right up in front of me. Real proud. Pretty soon, people are saying hello. Hello to the chicken, and hello to me. I’m starting to like this chicken. Well it comes time for us to cross the street. And what happens? This chicken decides to dart right out in between two parked cars. I thought the damn thing was gonna get run over. I didn’t know what to do, I just gave a tug on that leash and said … Chicken Stop!”

“And did it?” I asked.

“Well do know what?” Don’s voice got a little bit higher and a little bit quieter. “When I tugged on that leash, it broke that damn chicken’s neck.”

Don flicked his wrist back to show me. “Snap!”

“I had to take that poor chicken back to that sumbitch and tell him that I killed his pet.”

We both paused and looked at the ground for a minute, listening to our dogs paws click around us on the asphalt walkway. It was turning into a beautiful summer day.

“It’s shame too, ‘cause I woulda stuck that sumbitch in my freezer and I’d be having southern fried chicken tonight.”

Tom Pitts 8\24\2010

Waiting for Bruce Springsteen on the 4th of July.

2011-03-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

The night before I flew to New Jersey to visit my grandparents in the summer of 1980, Sam and I scored a Thai stick from a neighborhood dealer and retrieved a 12 pack of Henry Weinhard’s from the dumpster behind Andy’s liquor store. Sam worked at Andy’s stocking shelves and always brought out a 6 pack or two to the dumpster with the evening trash. Rooting around in trash is well worth it if the end result is alcohol.

Before setting up shop in the park of our housing tract, we walked over Jason’s house to retrieve our communal pipe. It was buried in a plastic bag on the side of the house. Not wanting to include Jason in the night’s festivities, Sam quietly jumped over the fence, dug up the pipe and hopped back over, without out alerting Jason or his parents. We did this all the time and never got caught.

Leaning against a fence in the middle of our housing tract, Sam and I smoked pot and drank the stolen beer. Since I was leaving the next day, it should’ve been a memorable night of reflection and broken plans. It wasn’t. It was the typical teenager talk: who’s an asshole, fighting over bands we liked and didn’t like and girls – making fun of ugly girls. Our neighborhood friends joined us and it was an outdoor party. It was always an outdoor party.

On takeoff, I threw up in a barf bag. Knowing that this would probably happen, I position the bag within arm’s distance, next to the in-flight magazine. The Flight Attendant was nice enough to throw it away. I explained that I always threw-up on planes. She smiled, took the bag and walked away. No explanation needed.

For the rest of the flight, I tried to sleep and concentrate on not throwing up, repeating in my head: don’t throw, don’t throw up. This worked until we landed.

As the wheels of the planes touched down, I was busy filling up another barf bag. I was a mess. My over-sized mom shades had not left my head for the whole flight and I waved off any attempt at water or feeding me. I knew it would all come back up.

The plane stopped and passengers jostled to get their carry-ons and move toward the door. I had nowhere to put the barf bag so I placed it on the floor, leaning against the wall. On the lip of the bag, there was twisty-tie that I secured. I figured it would be ok and the cleaning crew would dispose of it.

Of course, I was wrong. The bag immediately toppled and started a river of barf that disappeared under the seat in front of me. I immediately distanced myself.

My grandparents met me at the gate. They reported to my parents that I was a little under the weather for the first few days of my trip. My parents knew the real story.

This would be a big year for me, a year of change. Aerosmith, Yes and Bruce Springsteen were quickly losing ground to the future: The Ramones, The Clash and The Jam. Before leaving, I went to my mom/s beautician and said I wanted to look like Sting, handing her a picture from the Police’s Reggatta de Blanc record. It would only be a few months before I tossed my Pink Floyd records in the air and replaced them with Minor Threat.

Without a car, I went to the beach on warm days, crabbed in the bay on cold days and wandered Seaside Heights amusement park at night, winning rock swag from numerous vendors; I took the bus to my childhood home in Allendale and visited my cousin in Princeton. However, my main objective of the summer was to go to the Asbury Park on the 4th of July. I thought maybe, just maybe, Bruce Springsteen would be there, walking the boardwalk like in one of his songs.

Asbury Park was a ghost town, a resort that closed up shop years ago and abandoned all hope. It was like a Bruce Springsteen song. Most businesses except a few tourist shops had closed and moved south to Pt. Pleasant, Seaside Heights or Wildwood. Only a few people walked the large boardwalk, looking for something of the past that wasn’t there. I was one of them.

Not wanting to go back, I explored the abandoned buildings and walked through the t-shirt shops, leafing through multiple Springsteen shirts. I still held out hope that Bruce and the Big Man were there, somewhere. Where else would he be on the 4th of July?

Paging through my well-worn copy of Dave Marsh’s Bruce Springsteen biography that I brought with me, I sat on a bench, looking at the ocean. I knew the Atlantic well. It was high tide and dead sand dollar jelly fish littered the surf from the weekend storm. The summer was dragging on and I had 4 weeks left before I went home to attend an ultimate Frisbee tournament with my team the Pleasanton Rastafarians (yes, that was the name).

It was time to go, he wasn’t here. Past Madame Marie’s, 2 loud, very drunk men wearing over-sized foam cowboy hats were making their way down the boardwalk. Besides their attention grabbing hats, they didn’t look like anybody else. Their hair, their dress, shoes – everything was different. With their self-assured cockiness, locals immediately pegged them from New York City. I had no idea, but at least they were interesting.

I kept my head down as I passed them. One of them stopped, turned and yelled, “Hey Dave, this kid has your book.” Wearing a yellow foam cowboy, Dave Marsh, author of the Bruce Springsteen biography I was holding, walked out of a t-shirt shop, big smile across his face, drunk as his friends. I had no idea who he was.

In the time it took him to approach, his friends told me he wrote the book I was holding. Without being too mean, they poked fun that I was in Asbury Park on the 4th of July waiting for Bruce Springsteen. He signed my book, autographed an Asbury Park postcard that I had purchased and patiently answered every Springsteen question I threw at him. Apparently the other two in cowboy hats were somebody too.

The night before I flew home, I went to Seaside Heights and got my right ear pierced. Before placing the piercing gun to my ear lobe, the teenager behind the counter informed me that getting your right ear pierced meant you were gay. It was like a verbal waiver. I said I knew, acknowledging that I couldn’t try to get my money back at a later time.

The next morning while taking a piss in the airport bathroom, a man to my right looked at my ear and said: “Faggot.”

Summer was over and so was rock-n-roll.

A Short History of My Ass

2011-03-02T10:58:00.000-08:00

I’m not really sure why, when or how it started. It wasn’t something I did that contributed to it like drinking too much, eating salty foods or not taking showers, even though these things will probably contribute to a future problem. Wait and see. I feel it was more an organic process like losing your hair: it usually takes a decade or so – if you’re lucky - to lose it; therefore, you’re pretty used to your new face when it happens. You just don’t wake up and say, “Ahh, I’m bald.” My problem started as an irritation, moved on to a minor rash, then got nasty and starting hurting like a splinter.

I was poor at the time of the first rash. I was on G.A (General Assistance) and paid $250 to live in my friend’s laundry room. I built a loft, so it wasn’t that bad, but somehow, mice managed to get on my bed and shit everywhere!

At first I thought the rash could be solved with a little lotion. At night, while lying in bed, I would hoist my knees over my head (a move that I still use) and put on any kind of lotion that was around – usually hand lotion. This brought temporary relief, just because it was cool and soft. It did nothing to help the rash.

I made an appointment at Tom Waddell, a clinic run out of a trailer near city hall. It was known as the homeless clinic. I had been there before so I figured I’d be comfortable dropping my drawers for a strange Doctor. Besides, it was a homeless clinic – what abscesses or rashes have they not seen? Disgusting shit is part of their job.

My clinic experience up until then was mostly at the dick clinic on 7th -- a place that specialized in STDs and good stuff like that. I never got out of that place without them sticking a Q-tip up my urethra. It doesn’t hurt as much as you’d think.

My appointment was early on a Tuesday morning. I wasn’t working - or, so to say, I was working for the state – so time and day wasn’t important. I checked in and after answering a few questions - the first one being, "do you have insurance?" - I sat down and waited for my turn. Like I predicted, most of the people waiting with me were homeless. I had noticed a few grocery carts parked outside. Instead of reading Highlights or the paper, I decided to try and make a little conversation.

God gave me two gifts: 1] the ability to recall the time and place of every movie I’ve watched and 2] the ability of bullshit – to find common ground with anybody. For example, if I were stuck in a mineshaft with a Klansman, the conversation would probably go like this:

Me: “Hey, what’s up?

Klan guy: “Nothing. How are you?”

Since he was in the Klan and probably had done some bad things, I doubt that he would inquire about “how I was doing.” But for the story’s sake, let’s pretend that he was one of the “good ones.”

Me: “Fine, thank you. I like your sheets. What thread count are they?”

So, I decided to talk the fella next to me, who obviously had no association with the Klan, I think. I opened: “Hi, how ya doin?” A tried and true classic, guaranteed to work. He raised his eyebrows and said, “Not good, why do you think I’m here?” Fair enough. I wanted to say, “Stop your complaining, cart boy. Check out my ass!”

I sat passively like the rest and waited for my name to be called. So much for a little conversation.

“Greg Kim?”

“That’s me,” I said in a way that hopefully differentiated me from the homeless people. She looked at me as if she knew my slumming type, which she did. There was another one just like me with a 10 am appointment…skateboard in hand.

She led me across the street to the old Public Health building, her DPH I.D. moving from side to side as she walked. She told me to take another seat and wait for my name to be called. I was getting good at waiting.

They called my name and off I went to another corridor of the vast building. A city health worker took me to a room where there was a patient table, a large light and everything you would find in a doctor’s office except this room was about 40’ by 40.’ It looked like an eastern European hospital before the wall came down.

The doctor entered and explained that she worked at a reputable hospitable in the vicinity and donated one day of her time to the clinic. With her credentials exposed, a definite attempt to assuage my worries, she asked if I wouldn’t mind if several interns accompanied her while she examined me. I said, “No problem.” I was used to humiliation.

“So, what seems to be the trouble, Greg?”

She addressed me by name: good training and gives me a sense a familiarity. I liked her.

I said, “I have a rash on my buttocks.” I like to use the formal buttocks instead of the preferred ass when dealing with professionals.

“Well, let’s take a look. Why don’t you take off your pants and hop up onto the table, face first.”

I dropped my drawers and jumped up, my pants scrunched below my knees. She turned on the light and pulled it close, my ass tingling from the heat of the powerful bulb.

“Wow, that must hurt. How long has it been like this?”

I responded, “It hurts, but I’ve grown used to it. I don’t remember when it started: a year, maybe two, maybe more?”

She asked me to get on all fours where she could get a better look. She adjusted the lamp and invited the students to take a closer look. I felt a slight breeze on my ass from the students’ shuffling. A moment like this was a sign to get a job and get insurance. I was butt naked and 16 eyes were zeroed-in on my ass! Do I need more incentive than this?

She poked around with a wooden depressor and asked simple questions like, “Does this hurt?” I answered “yes” to every question.

She turned off the lamp and said I could put on my clothes. I had a fungal problem and she prescribed some lotion that would help. She said I should try to keep it dry, fully toweling off after showers and swimming. She also mentioned that once the swelling went down I should come back to see about the thinning of the skin. Thinning of the skin? What the hell is that?

Flomax…Take it to the Maxx!

2011-03-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

When I turned 40, I went to the Doctor and basically said, “I’m 40, I’m ready for you to stick your finger up my butt.” She quickly replied, “Nope, that’s when you’re 50, unless there’s a problem. Is there a problem?” This was an easy answer, “NO!!!.”

Either way, I was prepared for the visit: I showered, vigorously scrubbing my anus and the surrounding attractions, and put on underwear, a normality that I usually didn’t partake in. I had been caught at the Doctor without underwear a few times and it was embarrassing. This time would be different. I would be clothed underneath the robe.

6 years later I was at the Doctor again and things had changed. My shoulder hurt, I was paranoid about Diabetes and it felt like I pissed 100 times a day. I finally had issues I needed to talk about.

She entered and asked me how I was doing, looking at my chart and going over my last visit, which was a year ago. Since I turned 40, I get a physical every year.

Delaying the issues, I lied and said I was fine. Instead of inquiring about the causes of Diabetes, I asked, “Do you think those pharmacy salespeople - the ones with the roller bags stuffed full of drugs - get robbed a lot?” Opening with a human interest story or quip about the surroundings usually helps ease into the hard talk. Or, in my case, delays the issue. I like to differentiate myself from the miserable, cranky sick people in the waiting room. My miserable, cranky phrase will come soon enough.

Giving the question some thought, she replied, “I’m not sure. They only carry subscription sizes of innocuous drugs. I don’t think they carry Oxytocin and similar drugs.” Good enough for me.

“What about Flomax,” I continued, “Do you think they carry Flomax? If they do, do they ever give you Flomax t-shirts, pens or any other promotional items?” Odd question, but it made sense to me.

Since entering the frequent urination phase of my life, my ears perk up when I see or read a solution to this heartbreak. Add a catchy name like Flomax and a commercial of three grey haired guys cruising Highway 1 in a convertible without having to stop for a pee break and I’m in, all in.

Ignoring my request for Flomax swag, she jumped Diabetes and the sore shoulder, launching into my frequent urination problems.

“How often do you go a day?” she inquired. “Do you get up to go in the middle of the night?” Instead of telling her that I drink massive amounts of Diet Pepsi, chased by water in the morning and evening, I lied and said a little Pepsi and lots of water. It’s my not so dirty little secret. Something I have to work on.

After a few more questions, she reaches for a glove and asks me to roll over on my side, like Burt Reynolds posing for Playgirl. It was too late to tell her about my Diet Pepsi addiction; too late to divulge that I lied about my liquid intake; too late to say I pee because i drink too much. I accepted my fate.

I apologized: “I’m really sorry about this. Sorry.”

“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “It’s part of my job.”

“Yeah, but it’s the worst part of your job,” I added.

As she approached, glove hand in the hair, I said, “You know, this is going to change our relationship.”

She laughed. She knew I wasn’t being gross.

It’s over in a second.

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” she said, falling back on what you say after getting a shot.

I nodded. I’ve had a few fingers up my butt, just not in this context, so I knew what I was getting into.

Frequent urination stole the thunder. We brushed past Diabetes (paranoid!) and the shoulder injury (deal with it!).

While quickly putting on my pants, she asked if I was OK. I must’ve had a blank look on my face, staring at some inanimate object in the room.

Knocking me out of my trance, I said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I was thinking about when I got tested for Gonorrhea. It’s way worse.”

She chuckled, shook her head and said, “Have a good day, Greg. See ya in a year...I hope.”