Rock Shows - My Morning Jacket 12-14-11

dogshitart

Who Are You Calling Pickaninny?, 2011

Collage on Paper

6 3/4" x 9 3/4"

Fine Mess

The house was very big.The gentleman who’d just rung the doorbell was made to wait almost four whole minutes while the butler made the trek to the front door. The butler’s name was Neccas, he’d been with his master almost fifteen years. He opened the door without consulting the peephole, or - for that matter - any of the many complex and expensive home security elements at his disposal. The visitor was expected and, as usual, on time.

Mr. Neccas was polite. He and his caller exchanged pleasantries. The butler asked after the caller’s family. The Caller asked if Neccas had been “staying out of trouble”. The caller was a gentleman of medium height, a little shorter than the butler’s six foot - three, and dressed from head to toe in black. He was carrying a black nylon satchel over his shoulder, wearing black jeans, black loafers, and a black windbreaker over a black, long-sleeved t-shirt. He was wearing a black baseball hat with the words “A FINE MESS (enger)” embroidered on the front.

After a few seconds, Neccas asked the man in black the same question he asked every time the man visited. He used the same words and the same tone of voice. The man in black responded the way he always responded. He used the same words and the same tone of voice. Then the caller reached into his satchel and pulled from it what appeared to be a plain Manilla envelope. The caller then handed the envelope to the Butler, Neccas, saying:

Well well sir, next week then?

The butler took the envelope, and let the words hang there for a few moments before replying:

Next week. Good.

And then the man in black was gone.

2.

Neccas watched as the man walked back towards his car which - today - was an Audi TT convertible, deep huntsman’s green and clearly modified for performance. The man had left the engine on, and Neccas could hear the thing idling impatiently out there in the driveway. It sounded bored-out hollow, light and mean. Neccas watched the man get in the car and drive off until he saw the brake lights disappear into the tree-line about 100 yards from the great house. Neccas loved cars.

Then he got moving. His employer hated tardiness. He despised it, and had been known to punish - severely - in recognition of his hatred. The master asked him to bring the envelope as soon as the man in black left. Neccas found himself taking the stairs in twos and threes to make up for any time he might have lost staring after the TT.

3.

The Butler did not knock. That was part of the whole thing. He’d been instructed: “Don’t knock, don’t call, don’t announce the visitor or the package. Just come up, come in, hand me the contents of the envelope, load the movie, and leave. I mean leave. Leave the house. Leave the area. Go home. Report back tomorrow morning and resume whatever it was that you’d been doing when the package arrived. Are we clear?”

Yes

Mr. Neccas had replied.

Clear. Clear indeed.

The first time had been a long time ago, butthe procedure and the orders themselves never changed. As Neccas crested the stairs and made for the Master’s chamber, he thought himself lucky for all that. His job - especially on Mondays - was a simple thing and the compensation outsized.

He entered the room without pause, just opened the door and walked in. The Master was lying atop a his bed. The bed - as usual - was made and made well, as if the master hadn’t moved an inch the entire time he’d been lying there. The master did not speak. Neccas approached him on the bed, unfastening the envelope as he went. He reached in and came out with two pieces of fabric, handed them to the boss. The boss held each one up for inspection, as if in appraisal. Neccas had worked with the man for 13 years, and every single Monday for 13 years, the two of them danced this dance.

Necca’s had been working as a door man at the Plaza Hotel. He’d been at the Plaza for almost four years when the master and he had got to talking about the military. Neccas had been a Major, mustered out in 1997. The master had never served. He needed to hire a man, he said. “A valet” He’d said. He was talking about a number. Neccas told him he was making three times that number at the Plaza. The master started talking about another, much greater number. Then he talked of houses, cars, numbered accounts, retirement funds, and gathering interest. Neccas asked for the weekend to think things over.

4.

Neccas was finishing up. He’d poured a four-finger bolt of Jaimeson’s into a heavy crystal rocks glass at room’s wet bar. He’d put the DVD into a wall-mounted player, put the whiskey on a granite top night table. His Master did not speak. The blinds in the room flipped. The bright daylight flooding the room melted - for an instant - to full dark, and then to a comfortable sepia glow from hidden fixtures flush in the ceilings border. A wooden cabinet built into the wall opposite the bed began to open revealing a 96” plasma screen mounted atop a giant subwoofer. Six more subs, mounted under the bed three on a side, switched on and Neccas felt them humming in his ankles. He took a look around. He had - he knew - about sixty seconds left before the show started, and he needed to make sure all was perfect. The master demanded perfection in only a few select areas, and this ritual was at the top of that list. Neccas looked, thought, and looked once more, then - satisfied - he turned for the door. That’s when the Master said :

Wait

The Butler stopped. Spun on his heal. Waited.

The Plasma flicked on, the soft candle-glow in the room faded to black. It was show time. The Master said:

Sit.

And he patted the bed to the right of where he was sitting.

Neccas the Butler sat.

5.

The first frames were of the empty back seat of a car. The seat was a dark-crème leather. An enormous bench. Lincoln logos were visible on the bench top, and the rear widow was a vast expanse of glass looking out on an anonymous neighborhood. At first, Neccas thought it was dusk outside, as the houses, cars, trees, and sky in the scene were all washed out in a neutral greys and whites. Then the door opened and the view outside was a sliver or natural greens and glowing orange. The rear window was tinted, maybe even blacked out completely. The Butler felt sure they were looking at the back seat of a Lincoln town car, by far the most popular choice of model for car services all across the country. Seconds later a woman - almost middle aged, physically fit, honey brown hair that looked natural and a smart-looking pant suit - ducked into the back. She was alone. She was carrying a leather bound file wallet and a black purse that looked expensive. She sat, unweighted, smoothed her clothes against her back, and spoke to the right of the camera:

Thanks so much. I know it was late notice. I promise - I’ll leave a big tip.

She smiled a confused smile. A voice, clear and deep and recognizable, came back at her from off camera.

No problem Miss, happy to be of service. Just sit back, we’ll be there in no time.

Neccas felt a weird twinge, maybe the first inkling that something here was somehow amiss. He knew the voice. Had spent years of time with it, more than enough to be fuckin‘-a positive: The voice from off camera was the man in black’s voice.

6.

Suddenly, the Butler wanted - with every fiber of his deepest self - to be somewhere else, and not watching the woman. By now she’d begun needling through her leather file and checking back with her blackberry, confident that she’d be making her appointment, no longer worried about inconveniencing the man in black. She sat there, head nodding back and forth from file to phone like she was watching a tiny tennis match in her lap, the world unfolding in tinted black and white behind her. The drive went on and on. At one point she’d dialed the phone, and listened in for a while. There was apparently no answer though, because after a while she’d held the phone away from her ear with a disappointed look. Then she pressed a few buttons on the touch screen and went back to her tennis.

Neccas was stealing glances over at the all-unit DVD player. Ten minutes…Fifteen. Silence in the car. Then finally something happened: the car began to slow . The car was stopping. Neccas began to feel the first pangs of relief shudder through him. The woman had made it to her appointment after all, and soon she’d be away from the man in black and safe. All this: The weird package, A Fine Mess (enger), his Master’s unusual request…All of it seemed somehow suddenly benign, a trick of the light, maybe even on purpose. His master - he knew - had a weird sense of humor. He watched intently now, his relief a palpable thing. He saw the woman’s face brighten as the car stopped, she clicked something on the phone and put it back in her purse, closed the file, got ready to gather herself and leave the car.

Then she stopped, and her smile turned into a confused grimace. She opened her mouth to speak, but the man in black had already begun:

Sorry Maam, we’re almost there. Ms. Ryan here was already on the books, heading to the same area. Dispatch called and I said “yes“ without giving it much thought. I hope you don’t mind. Last minute and all that…

The woman was watching outside now, checking out something outside of the car and the camera-eye. She was - Neccas felt sure - watching the approach of “Ms. Ryan”. She replied a hesitant

Uh…oh kay-ee. Yeah…

…and then picked her bag up off the bench as a courtesy to the new passenger. A moment later Ms. Ryan entered the car. She was a shade younger than the woman on the right, bottle-blonde, gym toned, wearing a light grey skirt suit with a hem maybe a centimeter above office/professional. She was holding an expensive looking bag. She apologized to her back-seat mate, then towards the front, speaking to the same area that the first woman had, using the astringent professional voice that middle management folks love to use for service-people.

So sorry sir, so sorry. Thanks for the last minute we so appreciate it.

Then she turned back to the first woman.

At least we can share the costs…

And then man in black intoned, in a voice that made Neccas stomach seize

That, you may, miss. That you certainly may…

And he laughed a creepy fucking laugh. It filled the room, radiating from hidden speakers, and vibrating from the subwoofers under the gigantic bed. He added:

Always better for everybody when two can share the costs.

7.

Neccas had been the oldest of for boys. He and his brothers were created from a fairly typical Irish Catholic upbringing, which - in the 1970’s - had meant lots of children, born as close in age as was physically possible, a stressed out, vile-tongued mother, and a father who worked constantly. The difference in the Neccas house was that the absentee father, Charles Neccas the fourth (!), was a a criminal lawyer, one of the best (and most expensive) in the whole commonwealth of Massachusetts. So the Neccas family - bred and raised in the minivan-less 70’s - had to car that could fit all the children one two three four across the rear bench.

They were good boys, these Neccas. The helped out at church on Sunday, played in the little leagues, stayed out of trouble. They were however, boys, and that meant that a certain amount of trouble was a matter of course. Their mother - a fiery, profane woman with a shock of red hair - usually chose to deal with trouble by selective ignorance. Unless there was blood or a potential law suit, she let the boys police themselves. That is, of course, unless she was driving.

Ramona Neccas loved driving. She loved nice cars. Big, American expanses of steel and leather. Ramona’s dad had been a successful lawyer as well, so she was used to a certain comfort level. Nothing on earth allowed Mrs. Neccas more comfort than burning miles riding the elegant wave-form motion of a gigantic American luxury car. The boys got away with whatever they wanted in most areas, but in the car they knew they’d better damn well keep still. If they didn’t mom might stop the car. If mom stopped the car, well that was about the worst thing that could happen. “Like fighting a wolverine in a phone booth” his brother had once said, and Neccas the Butler thought that was about as good of an assessment as any. A wolverine with long red hair. A wolverine that cursed like a sailor while ripping you apart, and then grounded you. It hadn’t happened many times, but the butler Neccas remembered all of them. The thing he remembered most was the car stopping. There was a feeling there, distinctive and terrible. A feeling that said:

“the ride, so promising and well conceived at the outset, has taken a turn. Now, we will all be sorry”.

In his younger years, Neccas remembered simply bursting into tears after it became clear his mom was pulling over. As he grew, he learned to accept his fate with more grace, sitting - almost placid - as the car rolled into a soft shoulder or rest area, with a look on his face that betrayed nothing.

That’s exactly the look he saw in the faces of the women in the back seat, as the tinted background slowed to a stop in high definition behind them.

8.

They looked out of their respective windows, smiling through pursed lips, as they car ground to a halt. In the rear window there were trees visible, and not much else. Pine trees and tall oaks, and Neccas thought he could make out a birch or two, swaying in the distance. As the car was slowing he thought he heard the sounds of gravel crinkling under the wheels. He allowed himself a quick glance at his Master, who’s face remained impassive but alert, as if he were watching the most fascinating television show he’d ever seen, and didn’t want to make any extra noise or motion that might distract him from that purpose. Neccas looked back at the screen.

The woman on the left, the new woman, just looked on, silent. The woman on the right, the original passenger, began to speak, but then stopped right away. She managed to get out:

What eh….

Just as the car was coming to a complete stop. She stopped though, and a jostling noise, fabric on leather, filled the bedroom. The women’s eyes were now both focused on the same point just to the camera’s right. They were watching - the Butler realized - as the man in black turned around to face them. The woman on the right began again. She’d brightened a bit, looking a little more determined than last time:

Hi. Uh…So, I just

And then two things happened. First, an ominous noise echoed forth from the screen, cracking like salutes from the awesome home theater system. It was a familiar sound, unmistakable and awful: the raking slide of an automatic pistol. Then that very same pistol burst into view from off screen, driven hard through the perfect teeth of the woman on the right by a hand gloved in black.

The rear bench of the Lincoln came alive, and so did the home theater. The woman on the left began to scream. No words, she just tilted back against the seat and began wailing as loud as she could. A high breathless keening that sounded almost supernatural blasting through the expensive fidelity. The woman on the right was in a worse place. Her face, so lovely and well put together at the beginning of the ride, was transformed instantly to a hideous mask of dread, and raw throbbing fear. Blood was dripping and globbing from her savaged mouth, and Neccas could see teeth-parts and saliva in hi-def, staining the giant gun and everything below it. She was whimpering and trembling, and her tears were streaming down, mixing with the liquid ruin around her mouth. The sound from the speakers was otherworldy, like somebody chewing shards of broken glass, amplified ten million times. Within seconds, the right hand woman was screaming as well. Necca’s heard the awful notes join with the crunching sounds, saw the women’s hands join in an absurd silent union. He thought he might be sick.

Then the man in black squeezed the trigger.

The woman on the right must have known, because just before the report her eyes focused absurdly on the barrel and her scream started climbing the registers. The shot was loud and dry - no echo in the back bench of the town car. After it there was silence, for a while.

Neccas had seen a few people shot in his time, and a few of those had been head-shots. Never, though, had he seen anything like what he witnessed on the big screen in the Master’s bedroom. The woman’s head exploded, burst out like it had been wired by demolition experts. One moment there had been a face, a head, a mouth, the next, nothing. Only a black, smoking barrell hovering over a scorched neck. The rear bench - so pristine at the beginning of the ride - was instantly painted over with what looked like ten coats of blood, brain, shattered bone, and honey brown hair. Neccas saw an eye ball hanging absurdly from the ceiling of the car, and the lady’s torso began to fountain dark-purple blood. It spattered against the ceiling and dripped on the twitching body’s torso and lap.

The other woman, the second woman, took the full brunt of the explosion. Her face was so coated with gore that for a second, Neccas thought that she’d been shot as well. Then the woman’s eyes opened and rolled back in her head, and she started bashing her head against the seat. She’d gone “off the chain” - as Neccas’s old XO used to say - and he knew there’d be no getting her back. He watched with fascination as she bobbed and babbled. A few seconds later another black gloved hand reached from off screen. This time it held a syringe instead of the handgun. It plunged the spike into her gore-soaked top just below her collar bone. Within seconds she stopped moving all together, and as the shot faded to black, her breathing, regular and strong, filled the room in perfect amplification. Neccas breathed out hard. The Master said nothing.

dogshitland - Rock Shows

We're very lucky to have some great friends who are kind enough to get us into a lot of really amazing shows in NYC. They are also nice enough to give us special access, and for this we are very appreciative. We want to thank those friends,(we love you guys!), and share some pics that we've taken over the past few months.

Florence and The Machine, Central Park Summerstage 6/24/11

My Morning Jacket, Mann Music Center 8/23/11

Wilco, Central Park Summerstage 9/22-23/11

Jane's Addiction, Irving Plaza 10/18/11

Apefight, Crobar 11/11/11

Foo Fighters, Madison Square Garden 11/13/11

Dave Grohl and Kei$ha

Deer Tick, Webster Hall 11/20/11

moe., Terminal 5 11/25-26/11

David Fricke of Rolling Stone fame. Huge moe.ron, who knew?

Thursday Story / Cort in Vegas.

Cort turned into the pitch dark at the top of the alley. He’d made the tail and walked about five blocks with him, all of it occurring in about five minutes. That five minutes was important. During the five minutes Cort had learned that his pursuit was a male, about 35 years old, maybe a tick over six feet tall. He learned that the guy was armed. Every so often he would fiddle with his sport jacket, and Cort could see a leather strap across his chest, and the holster under his left arm. He learned that the guy was probably not a pro, because pros blend in, and this guy wasn’t blending at all. He was wearing a suit. He was obviously sober, without a companion on a street full of intoxicated people walking in groups of intoxicated people. Most importantly, he learned that the guy was wearing black loafers, and that they gave an odd muted tap sound on the concrete.

So Cort had learned. And now came the test. Stepping into the dark, he could see, about 100 feet away from him, a pool of orange sodium light. It came - he knew - from a tiny bulb lighting what was once the rear entry of an old Vegas girly-show theater. That place was long gone but the doorway, and the dirty orange light, remained. In it’s glow Cort could just make out the brick face on both sides of the alley. Beyond that he could see only inky blackness, but he knew from experience there was a wall there, just a few more steps toward the rear. It was brickwork like the other walls, and it went all the way up ten stories. Cort was walking into a dead end.

He took two steps into the alley and slowed his pace to a near-standstill. There was something coming, something important, but Cort couldn’t risk turning in the dark to face it. Any ambient light shining into the alley would immediately highlight his light complexion and give away his position. He was wearing dark blue jeans and black shoes and a long-sleeved black windbreaker, so to remain invisible all he had to do was avoid the light. He would be to anybody out there until he reached the end about twenty paces ahead. So he slowed down, and listened - very carefully - to everything happening in the world behind him.

Twelve seconds:

1: Cars on the strip, chatter on both sides, a fountain, possibly more than one. 2,3,4: Cars again. Both sides, and the fountains, and the chatter. Also two odd, muted tap sounds from the far side followed by break-screech and a shout “THE FUCK!!”. 5,6: chatter, fountains (definitely more than one), Cars, and now car horns. More muted tap sounds, a bit quicker now. Closer. 7,8: More slammed breaks, more horns. Loud now. A voice - male - yelling insults in Farsi at somebody fifteen feet behind him. 9,10: Cort begins to walk again, trying to hear…11: Odd, muted, taps. Ten feet behind. There was a beat there, a rythym. Cort matched it with his own steps. 12: odd muted taps, doubling his own steps, ten feet behind him. His right foot came down, and he was ready…

***

Ten years before, just after his first tour of command in Iraq, Cort’s wife had given him the last meaningful present of their entire 14 year relationship. He looked back fondly on it, even now after all the hell and pain. He remembered the way she wrapped it in a big television box to fool him, make him think it was something else. He could see himself, drowsy from Christmas eve drinking and totally fooled by the wrapping. He remembered sifting through the tissue paper, finding the tiny case in all that packing material. He’d not known - just for an instant - what the fuck it was. It was tiny. It weighed nothing. He’d been turning it in his fingers for minutes when, finally, she’d let him off the hook. Snatching it from him, she held it up in his face. I was made of webbing, looked like a Velcro “sports” wallet from when he was a kid. At a closer look, he could see a black border on the right. Plastic, or maybe carbon. His wife grabbed that little stripe of polished black, and Cort heard a almost silent “click” sound. The webbing fell away, his ex closed her fist, and Cort understood.

***

The other guy was elated. He’d tracked the guy for blocks without being detected, and now the dumb fuck was ducking into a dark alley where the report of a suppressed Walther PPK would hardly be noticed amidst all the drama and noise of the Vegas Strip. His people had told him to be careful. His people had told him the guy was good. By tomorrow he would be the man who beat the man, and in this game - he knew - that kind of reputation meant everything. He could hardly contain his excitement as he saw his quarry turn into the shadows, almost got himself killed crossing the busy strip. He calmed himself though, forced himself to walk, not sprint, through the traffic towards the alley. There were more honks, brakes squealed, a guy yelled at him in a language he didn’t understand. But by the time he reached the other side, he’d tuned all of it out. He couldn’t see his mark back there, but he knew he hadn’t been spotted, and any second the guy would be in relief against the dim orange glow. The other guy thought he was stalking, wading in for the kill silently, undetected. Instead, his situation was the exact opposite: He was the prey being stalked. He was the rabbit, the hunted. He was the prey, being muscled and baited to the killing ground with such skill and subtlety , that he didn’t realize it was happening until it was far too late. He reached under his jacket, thumbed the safety on the Walther, and let the shadows swallowed him up.

***

Cort had matched the guy five steps. So for those five steps, they advanced at the same rate,
one on front of the other into the void. He was counting in his head, marking the steps. He heard fabric ruffled, metal on leather. In his minds eye he saw the guy, right hand in his jacket, trying to be silent.
Instead of taking the next step, Cort planted his right foot, still being cat-quiet. He put all his weight on it, loading up the knee like a DH thinking yard. He bent with the forward motion and dipped his right arm almost to the pavement, twisting slightly to his blind side to gather more torque. For a split second he froze like that, his fist cocked and skimming the ground, all 225 pounds of his weight balanced perfectly on his right leg, bent at the knee. He drew his wife’s Christmas present from all those years ago, palmed it in his left hand. Then he listened, counting down the last three footsteps of the guy‘s life.

***

The guy had drawn his weapon, was raising up against the mark. Still walking forward in the dark, he could here his man still doing the same mere feet ahead of him. They were almost at the lighted section of the alley, and now he leveled the pistol and aimed at the slightest outline of a shadow moving against dim light. His mind sent the signal to his finger to squeeze and the message traveled from his eyes to his brain to his arm and then his trigger finger almost instantly. It wasn’t fast enough. He had pulled the trigger. He was sure of it. But instead of the soft spit of a suppressed .22, he heard a yell. More than a yell, a war cry. His gun hand was rising up, being knocked to the side, violently. Then, something that felt like a hammer crashed into his face.

***

Cort had a ten foot lead on the guy, so after he stopped, coiled himself, and waited, tuned everything out but the guys footsteps 1...2...3...and then Cort went. He exploded up and back to his left, swinging his left hand - and with it, his ex wife’s last Christmas present - out before him in a wide arc from left to right, and using the twisting motion to carry his right elbow through a similar, slightly higher arc a moment later, aimed directly at the space where he knew the guy’s head would be. Cort’s two hundred plus pounds were flying through the air, frictionless and full of adrenaline-propelled inertia, and pure, red rage. His elbow, whipsawed by the centrifugal force and momentum, might as well have been a crowbar. He was going to knock the guy back out in the street. He was going to blow the guy’s head right off his shoulders. And then, he wasn’t.

***

At the last second, the guy knew. Weather it was a shadow moving in his field of vision, or just blind luck, the guy fucking knew and the knowing saved him. He heard a gasp well from in front of him, close and at ground level. He stopped walking and leaned his weight onto his back foot. His head drifted back almost four inches with the movement, and so the part of his face that Cort’s elbow was going to destroy was instantly downsized. Instead of the entire left side of the man’s head, the Elbow only caught the tiniest sliver of the man’s chin, and it wasn’t near enough. Cort’s whole body whipped behind the elbow. He let his momentum pull him. As he found his feet he tried to complete the spin and end up crouching at the base of the wall, but he misjudged his available space. The wall took him by surprise. He plowed into it with a mighty “thud”. The guy - gun still in hand thanks to the glancing blow - found himself an array of good options, and Cort very very few. There was three feet of distance between them and - thanks to his impact against the wall the guy knew exactly where Cort was.

***

Mr James Bond, doesn’t know the tools of his trade?

Well to be fair, a Velcro wallet isn’t - strictly speaking - a tool of my trade.

She squeezed in the center of the webbing, and he saw the tiny strip of plastic pop free. His ex wife grabbed it, tucked it into her fist, and yanked. Now she held her fist out and pointing up, and Cort saw a three inch blade - black, non-metallic - sticking up from it. Something about that blade too. It Didn’t look like the rest. It was glass or plexi…

It’s a diamond blade, never needs sharpening. The rest is graphite. About the same size and weight as a credit card, but indestructible and sharp enough to shave with. It’s illegal in…

…Every state but Alaska, I know.

He took it back from her without asking and turned it in his hands. The blade was flat carbon black, but he could see little glints of light sparkling off the edge. He was spellbound.

My boss used to have one. I didn’t know they still even made them.

They don’t. Thank Ebay and my natural patience. Every time you cut somebody you can think of me.

And he still did. Every time.

***

Cort felt in the dark around the flat part of his tiny gift’s blade. It was wet. Soaked even, Cort could feel hot, sticky fluid covering his hand and soaking him past his wrist. He’d scored with the first blow, deep. The missed elbow wouldn’t matter, and the guy was probably just realizing that now. Just as the thought was coursing through his mind, Cort heard the dry click of a suppressed .22 caliber pistol hitting the ground directly in front of him, almost as his feet. He struck out with his hands, grabbing forward, trying to catch the guy before he went down. He did, but only just barely. The guy slumped in his grip, his breath was already coming in wet gasps and sputters. Cort picked him up from the back of the head, lifted his feet off the ground, ran him back against the bricks. Hard, but not enough to shut him down. He needed more time. He was thinking of a question. The guy’s head bounced with a hollow sounding “thunk”. His whole body went slack. Then Cort moved him two feet to the right, into the hazy orange glow of the sodium lamp. He saw his face, and his world started doing flips. He asked his question. A low growl. One word:

“why?”

The fucker smiled. Spit blood into Cort’s face. Laughed.

Cort felt down the guys stomach, found the gash, shoved his left hand, still death-gripping the blade, into the guy up to the elbow. He went under the ribs, through tissue and between bones, blasting through organs and tissue, moving the blade around. He felt things moving in the guy, shocked and beaten and turning off for good. The guy’s eyes went wide, he breathed out, wet and raspy, and died against the wall. Cort let him slide down, sloughed him off of his arm. Spit on the body and walked out of the alley. He stopped at the front - just before the shadow gave way to the neon bursts and dioxide scents of the strip - and just looked all around for a few seconds. Then he scuttled back into the shadows, felt around for the pistol and found it, separated the suppressor, checked the magazine and thumbed the safety. He pocketed all of it, and walked back out into Las Vegas.

Monday Story #4: Thistle

He woke up, leveraged a leg off the bed to gain a sitting position. He sat, sweating in the dark rooms in the back of the club until there two minutes left. It was bright, sauna-hot and slow-motion humid, but when he got out there they all screamed and went berzerk, shouting songs. His name. The guys…

Pierce you fuckeehhhhhaaaahh

Thisssaaahhhh….ther

Pierce Fuck You!

And the place seemed much much smaller than the last time. Six months ago and some days; he hadn’t remembered any of it until right then, plugging in. He stepped into his mic and spoke:

Yes. Everybody…

Berzerk again, only louder. The room seemed smaller still. He turned left with a barely perceptible wave to the guy at the board: a finger pointing up. The system came up with a short buzz, and he felt the subs, distant, seismic, pulsing up his legs, through the stage. He hadn’t eaten in 33 hours and 25 minutes and he’d been awake three and one half hours in the last 24. Last night he’d been 504 miles away from where he stood now. The first song he thought of issued soon after from the sunburst Telecaster hanging around his neck. “Impressive”. He wrote it when he turned 15, doing drugs with his friends.

It’s basically “Sympathy for the devil”…

That’s what he told P, the first time they’d played together, years before.

“A lot of songs are”

P had said it like picking up a cue, like he’d prepared. P had been a stroke of luck.

The song began in near silence. Single, deep bass notes stretched for sustain over a chopped-up 4/4.

If there’s mountains….up in heaven
Mountains…up in heaven

They’d need to be high, up
They’d need to be so high up…

The 4/4 shade gained, became substantial, nano-seconds behind the bass notes, still booming and sustaining. Moving air. He heard a general crowd swoon followed by a thousand rebel-yelling twenty-somethings. Everyone on the place switched gears with the band and suddenly a perfect-feeling agreement settled over the room. Escape velocity. He sang louder.

Cause the smallest mountains down here,
The mountains down here are big enough…

Downshift, four beats, and back up five. Everything modulating and rising. Before the big part, the crowd-pop flood tide collides with the electric shore. The place feels much, much smaller than last time.

You heartless bastard….
You made it all so impressive!

Heartless bastard,
it’s all so impressive

He remembered, not to long after they started up, almost 14 years ago, there was guy who wrote for the Ithacan. He was the music guy, and his name was Larry Biggs. Larry was the first fan of the band thistle. Larry knew it. He wore it like the badge of honor it was, and he told everyone he met (and Larry met a lot of people) that his friend Douglas Pierce was going to save rock and roll. He was evangelically committed to the music, and instrumental in getting the gigs and the crowds during those frst delicate years when they were all so young. The first time LB wrote them up, he used words that Pierce had never forgotten. He loved them so much he’d quoted his friend Biggs in the liners to Big Automatic: “They say that a good Thistle show would make you two inches taller and irresistible to the opposite sex.” he’d written, “This is music for intensity. Music to fuck to. Music to commit a murder to. Music that sounds like some awesome and indefinite THING riding you down and scouring your soul”.

The smallest mountains down here are big enough. Big enough.

He’d never really believe the words, not exactly, but when everything was clicking, sometimes Pierce understood what his buddy was getting at so long ago. But then, always by the end of the song, ( or show, or tour, or year) rolled around, he found he always forgot again.

They played four hours, and after that he slept until thanksgiving in New Hope PA. When it was all over he ran off, ducked through the dusty back offices, almost-jogging back to the dark place at the back of the bus. They came for him later. First the guys, horsing around and banging at the door. Then later it was a girls voice. Her voice?

He nestled deep under the covers in the tiny rolling bedroom. He’d be 300 miles away tomorrow night, and probably sicker than he felt even now. He stared up in the dark, half awake and half asleep for the entire six hour ride.

dogshitart

Beauty Behind Your Misery, 2011

Collage on Paper

6 3/4" x 9 3/4"

Shooting the Shit #1 - Bill Carbone

Max Creek is 40 years old, and for a rock band - especially one that doesn’t take the slow route cross-country few times a year - that’s fucking old. They are also very, very good. Creek is a big, loud, dynamically exploratory American rock band. Three guys up front (Keys>Lead Guitar>Bass going from stage right to left), two in the back, and everybody playing at once and as one. With so many vital, wizened voices banging around in the mix, keeping things moving forward while maintaining the all- important element of surprise is of supreme importance to whomever mans the kits. One bad habit, one wrong-hearted tendency and the whole thing goes spinning out of phase.

One skinsman over-playing in a two-drummer attack sounds like 200 single drummers fucking up badly. Once the beat drags - with two kit players grasping for the “one”, and so much other noise happening - it’s very hard to rescue things without a complete shutdown. Creek is on a short list of bands that regularly deploy two drummers. In that regard, they’ve been the beneficiaries of a statistical improbability bordering on the miraculous: whoever gets plugged in back there always seems to be able to make it work.

Bob Gosselin (‘71-‘85) was a big beat guy, and he kept the drum throne - solo - until a gifted young percussionist named Rob Fried drifted in and the Creek two-drum line-up was first conceived. By 1985, Gosselin was out. Replacing him was another deep-pocket masher, this one a music-school chap with a vast array of styles at his command, and a MAJOR force-of-nature X-factor. Greg Deguglielmo - With Fried still there comping and parrying the whole time - guided the band through a career’s worth of studio records and a couple of live releases. By 1991 Deguglielmo pulled back his commitment to the band to pursue other musical avenues, and was ceded by a guy named Greg Vasso. Mr. Vasso - recruited over to Max Creek from first-wave, neo-hippie jammers Jiggle the Handle - brought another (surprise!) gifted musical presence (if not a slightly softer touch than the elemental Deguglielmo) and the band flourished under his beat-making. By 1996, Scott Allshouse - all precision, technique, and cool remove - had taken over the lion’s share of performance drumming from Vasso. As the 2000 decade wore on, however, Vasso quietly melted back into the fold, this time playing a brilliant number two to Allshouse’s omnipotent one. The first decade of 2000’s saw Vasso, Degugs, Allshouse, and Fried (until his untimely exit form the planet in ‘06) as moving, interchangeable parts in an unplanned, usually unannounced rotation. The arrangement’s yielded an enthusiast’s dream of wildly unpredictable, deeply psychedelic performances, with the empathy between the old masters evolving and flourishing under the unique rhythmic questions posed by four profoundly different, uniformly expert drummers.

Now - inevitably - another drumming sea-change is declaring itself: Allshouse and Vasso are still showing up, but they’re also raising kids and working. With Deguglielmo living and working in California, Max Creek needed another man to maintain their incomparably strong presence in NE. Enter Bill Carbone.

DSL caught up to Carbone a few days ago for what will - hopefully - be the first of many such discussions. We found him knowledgeable and quick, but above all humble, respectful, and appreciative of the opportunity with the awesome and important New England rock institution of Max Creek. Thanks to Bill for making this thing happen for us and quick.

DSL: ok. First let's do this: How did you decide you to wanted to drum. First I mean, when you were young. Why are you drumming?

BC: I was born that way, or close to it I think. My mom always told me that from when I was old enough to pick Christmas ornaments I'd pick drummer boys. Although I remember wanting to play guitar in 3rd grade and them not teaching it, so I waited till 4th and got my practice pad and started in band.

As for why, that's a harder question. I mean, I've always loved it and I made it my identity from an early age, probably like 6th grade on. I just decided "This is what I'm going to do." but the funny thing is I don't think I was very good, nor did I really practice much, I just played all the time. I don't think I learned how to actually get better until I was like 18, and then I started really working hard on stuff. But even then, I don't know, I feel like I really just started hitting in the last few years, but even now I still feel like I suck a lot of the time!

DSL: Fourth grade! Band in fourth grade, or still just lessons?

BC: Band. Song number one: Hot Cross Buns, on a practice pad. It was epic.

DSL: one a penny two a penny?

BC: Hot cross buns. You've done it. Ha, lol. You're a drummer too, right?

DSL: Yeah, I think. I took lessons with a guy named Frank Defusco in RI. Started at four. He used that tune to teach syncopation.

BC: Another great Italian drummer. There are many of us.

DSL: Heh. Practice pad play. Haven't done that in a while. So you say you "learned how to get better." Talk about that for a bit. How did you learn? Ears? Observation? Practice...

BC: It happened in phases really. First, on a strictly technical level I started lessons with Bob Gullotti in Boston. He basically taught me how to practice. He has a regimen thing, it's kind of a variation on the Alan Dawson method, where you work 6different things each week, and you divide your practice sessions equally for those things. That way you sort of attack each angle.I also studied with Bob Moses, who was a serious dickhead but did teach me an awful lot about musicality. His whole thing was anti-technique, to constantly think about melody. And as much as he pissed me off--he was really pretty cold to me and actually discouraged me from doing things that were importatnt to me in very immature ways for a teacher--that stuff rubbed off for sure. I definitely think about melody all the time.
But after that I've been really into musicality, like getting out of books and exercises and into learning as much as possible by ear. And groove. Just trying to soak up Idris Muhammad and Bernard Purdie and shut up and play a groove so that everyone can dance and listen to the vocals and guitar which is really what they want to hear anyway. And recently I've been back into technique though because sometimes I feel like I'm just not cutting it there. Great ideas, not all cleanly executed! Plus I've been listening to Chris Dave which will scare any drummer back to the practice room.

DSL: Melody vs. Pocket...Sort of the question of the ages for drummers and rhythm sections in general. You find yourself coming down heavier on one side or the other? Do you even seek to do that?

BC: Not really because both are awesome and they're not really mutually exclusive. Any good melody usually has a rhythmic clave built into it on some level, so there will be some way to play pocket in a way that it can almost sound like the tune even when everyone else stops. Trying to think of an example...and I can't! But it still makes sense, I think.

DSL: I have an impression that around 1968-9, most of what constituted rock drumming, was just guys appreciating Elvin Jones and trying to rope that into a rock context. Ginger Baker, Moon, Kruetzman...But then I feel like right after Led Zeppelin One, the whole thing shifted. Now Kenny Jones...Jim Gordon...Levon...even Bonham himself started prioritizing the time keeping. It might not be totally true, but it seems to be true on a big-picture level.

BC: Yeah, I can see that on some level. I think more than anything cleanliness became important. The wild abandon of Mitch Mitchell doesn't translate that well to a slick recording studio. Steve Gadd's super clean funk works better.

DSL: And at the same time Zappa's drummers were moving the opposite direction, with Chester Thompson begat Vinnie Colaiuta, and then Bozzio, and then Chad Wackerman, the total 180 degree opposite of "pocket" drummer.

BC: Well I agree and disagree! Those guys had monster pockets to the point that they could play ANYTHING and it still grooved.

DSL: That's true. But busy in the sticking.

BC: Yes, for sure. But Zappa is an enigma. And he ran a top down organization, so it's still sort of clean.

DSL: Seems that way. Everybody who ever played in that band swears the guy was like a corporation. Adrian Belew said the tours were like business trips!

BC: I'm sure. It seems like even the craziness was somewhat cultivated. But I still love it!

DSL: Ok now, backtrack a stitch: What were the first records you found yourself appreciating? Rock records? Parents records? Where was your head musically when you started and where is it now?

BC: I remember and they're funny. Weird Al Yankovic, I believe, whatever came out in 1983...he was my first concert. Then Billy Idol during the whole White Wedding thing, because his name was Billy, and then a little later Poison's first album.

DSL: Of course.

BC: And Run-DMC too (laughs).

DSL: Open Up and Say…Ahh?

BC: The one with Talk Dirty to Me on it. Is that what's it's called?

DSL: Yeah, unless I'm misremembering.

BC: Nice. I loved that album, or cassette I should say. And also the Beastie Boys first, and Van Halen 1984 for a little more classy stuff

DSL: I loved Poison back then. All those tunes. Unskinny Bop, and of course Every Rose Has Its Thorn. Classic.

BC: Then I just loved hard rock, metal and stuff like that, also Rush of course. Yes. Prog-Rock. All the shit kids in CT that play music like! (laughs)
I HATED the Dead until my freshman year of high school.

DSL: (laughs) ...I went to UConn. I know what you speak of...!

BC: When someone hipped me to improvisation and a few other things...

DSL: Yes, yes tell me about improv. What works? What doesn't? Tell me how your understanding of that kind of playing evolved. Talk about listening...

BC: Well, it kind of goes into what I was saying about learning to practice. I got really into avant-garde jazz in high school, like late Coltrane and William Parker and Charles Gayle and stuff, so I was super into "free" playing and did learn a lot about listening. But I also did the jazz thing where you learn how to play all this shit and then you just go on stage and cram it in the music all over the place and it really took me a long time to get past that. My best friend used to be my best teacher and say "you're doing math up there." Even now I have like a little bullshit alarm in my head that goes off when I play something that didn't have anything to do with what was happening.

The (Max) Creek guys are MASTER listeners. They just listen to each other all night. They don't care if the crowd isn't listening, they'll play a quiet jam OVER a talking audience, it's freaking awesome. It's like pure love when they do that. They've known each other so long and there's all that stuff that happens personally over time--I'm not saying that they don't like each other because that's not the case--but when they play together it's just trust and love and companionship. It's inspiring and I have a lot of work to do to get to their level. But I love that challenge.

DSL: Funny. Creek’s audience usually starts murmuring immediately when the guys quiet down. And sometimes John (Rider) and Scott (Murawski)start murmuring to each other. Those are great moments, because when you listen back on the tape, you can't tell at all. Like for a few minutes there, these guys were having a conversation with each other, like a speaking conversation and still just melting down.

BC: They do that all the time! It's one of the scariest moments for me as the new guy. Sometimes I'm just like "What the hell is going on?!?!" I don't know if I should start or stop...

DSL: Let’s talk about those three guys up front. What's the deal there? They are major guys who nobody knows about. There is heavy, nasty shit that goes between them up there. You find the energy sort of charged just because of the skills? Or is it comfy, easy to sort of blend in and find a place?

BC: It's comfy for me because the way they improvise is what I've always wanted to do. They're super good though, and they really want me to be me, which is so great. That's a tall order though when you consider all the history there; there are SO many people that have played those tunes! I truly believe Scott is one of the greatest guitarists ever to play jam music. It's just a fact, non-negotiable. I always thought that he was good, but now that I've played with him, hands down! And I really love John and Mark(Mercier) too. Mark has this super funky N'awlins kind of thing, and he's a total presence. So much more so than keyboard players in jam groups. He grooves so hard too, I find myself listening to him for direction a lot. And I love John too. The way he plays is the reason it's Creek. He grooves and plays totally cool lines without locking into anything that can't stop repeating.
As to why they're not better known, there are a lot of reasons people toss around for that, but I'm probably the least in the know there!

DSL: I agree there. It's strange to see a band of guys who are THAT good not playing bigger places, but on the other hand, you guys have 2500 people that will follow you to the moon, and in that there's a real success. The loop is small, but it's vital as hell. I agree on all three players. I think they're pretty much state-of-the-art at their instrument.

BC: Yeah for sure. And yes, that is one serious fan base! I hope that some younger people will catch on though. I play Toad's (Place, New Haven, CT) with Shakedown once a month and it's full of kids that would love the Creek if they just saw it.

DSL: I'm going to throw out some names, just fire back anything that comes to mind:
Neil Peart.

BC: Talented but tight.

DSL: Max Roach

BC: The greatest ever. The body in which melody, groove, tradition, experimentation and leftist politics coalesced.

DSL: Ha...excellent. Tony Williams.

BC: Power and finesse. The curse of Tony Williams. As in everyone wants to play like him but can't, so they just fuck up the music trying.

DSL: It's true. His work on (Live at the) Plug Nickel is a sort of Rosetta Stone for me. When he was like 18!

BC: Yeah, pretty untouchable. FAAAAAAAST. Hey Greg, I've gotta bolt in a few minutes, but if there's more I'd be happy to get back at it tomorrow. You can hit me with a few more names first though.

DSL: Nice. No problem. We will definitely do it again.

Thursday Story

Kim Forrest heard the scream from the bathroom and instantly developed a shitty, two-temple headache. Before she could shout back a response there was another scream and she figured she’d have to be on-site to investigate the awful scene in the bathroom. Yet another scream - this one the loudest by far - rang out as she jogged over. She entered the bathroom ready for anything, except for what she actually found there. Her son - the three year old - was standing by the bathtub where her daughter had been soaking peacefully. He was holding the removable bowl section from his toilet trainer in two hands, upside down, over the bath. The girl - eight years old in scant weeks - was positioned directly under the bowl. She wasn’t screaming anymore, and seemed to be having fit in her once placid bathwater. Kim deduced why almost five whole seconds before visual confirmation: Her son had pooped and peed (yeah!), and then dumped his waste into his sisters bath. The fire alarm went off then, because Kim had run to the bathroom and left veggies to burn on the stove. The house was soon filled with the scent of burned broccoli and her son’s shit. When the phone began to ring a few minutes later Kim had to laugh.

Hello

Hello, is this Cort?

I’m sorry?

I’m looking for somebody called Cort. I was given this number. Is he available?

I’m sorry, that person doesn’t live here anymore.

(silence)

Hello? I said…

I heard.

Uh…OK.

You sure? Cort’s not around?

Nope. I never met him. His kid just shit in the bathtub though. You wanna come help me sort through this? It’s not your buddy Cort but it is screaming kids and poop. Fun!OK. Thanks.

OK.

She hung up, and entertained - just for a second - the idea that the person hadn’t believed her.

***

She says no. He don’t live there anymore. She says she don’t have his number, doesn’t know the guy. Now what?

Oh well then, I guess we just give up. She says he’s not there, I’m sure that’s the truth if it. Just go to the next item on the to do list right? Asshole. Go there. Find this guy. Shoot his kid in the face if he gives you any trouble. Find this fucking guy.

(silence)

Gordo…You still there? I hope fuckin’ not. Go! Get Pierce first.

Pierce. Right.

You’re gonna find Cort there. Kill him. Anybody else that’s there too. Then Pierce.

Yeah? Pierce…

Yeah. He’s involved here somehow an I don’t feel like asking. Shoot his head when he’s not looking would be my advice. Have him help with Cort, then pow.

Pow. OK.

Call me when it’s done. Leave them all there. Make it look standard.

Standard. Got it.

And hurry the fuck up. My money…

***

Denton Pierce had decided long ago that he would kill Gordon Penns. The only question was when. It wasn’t personal, DP just Knew the guy would fuck something up, or - more likely - do something stupid and force him to take martial action. On that day he’d be losing a valuable asset, and probably have to work harder himself for the loss. Gordo - pathetic and dull-witted as he was - seemed to have a hypnotic effect people. Penns stood a robust 6’8” and seemed to Dent to be ever gaining weight. He almost as wide as he was tall, and had a head like a medicine ball. With all of it tweaked and flashed to maximum effect, especially in the enthusiastic performance of his job’s daily accountabilities as head scary guy for the “Deadly Demon of Roxbury”, Penns had probably saved him thousands in bullets alone.

Even so, he would have to go. He’d tried to sit down with Drey about it, but his boss had bigger things on his mind. Now, with Drey in Mexico for at least three weeks, maybe Penn’s time had come. The boss man would have the ass coming home, and when his boss was displeased, people usually died. Mostly though, it was Denton and Gordo doing the killing.

Drey’s reputation billowed around him like acrid black smoke, each tale of heartlessness and cruelty more fantastic than the last, but Pierce was skeptical. His boss was a murderer and a thief and a grifter, but he was the shortest fucking murderer, thief, and grifter in the history of history. Dent had trouble looking the guy in the eye without having to suppress a massive gut laugh. Five feet, nothing - in generously healed boots - was Mr. Meldrik Drey, practically a midget. And the short thing didn’t even begin to cover it. It’s not that he was particularly brutal or even particularly violent. Dent had been a hired killer for 35 years, assholes were part of the job description. No, lil Meldrick was a riddle far too vast and dynamic to be labeled with only one convenient slag.

Wednesday Story: Nanos 3

For Bobbi Kretzel, the waiting was the hell of it. They’d re-dosed him with that nasty shit and pain was no longer a factor. Now, he was alone in the woods with only his dread to keep him company, and every passing moment of his vigil tore away another ugly slab of his sanity. Even worse, the events of the last 24 hours were haunting him on a continuous, repeating crawl in his withered mind, and they held a sick, painful torture all their own.

Bobbi - like Sloop and Tom Speed across town - was a victim of the NOLA dope drought. He’d been two days deep into a wicked detox when T called. Bob’s phone was somewhere folded into the moist sheets and smelly blankets that comprised his “bed”, he could hear it vibrate in there. Mocking him. By the time Bobbi had summoned the energy required to go find the thing, the caller had already hung up and sent a text. Kretzel saw who it was from and allowed himself a little hope. The text came from his fuck-buddy and fellow junky Tanry Certain. She‘d. had been working on a package for two days, promising to call Kretz the minute he found anything. The text indicated that she had.

Twenty minutes later, Tanry and Kretz were pulling up just outside the ninth ward FEMA park in T‘s shitbox black Camry. After a quick Gipper speech by T, Kretz was off, cursing his girlfriend’s confidence in the deal, and himself for being so flaky and addicted. Pam’s trailer found, Bob knocked and called out “Pam?”.

For a few minutes he thought maybe she was out, slinging drugs and attitude in the bars, maybe. He was just about to knock and call once more when he heard noises from inside the trailer. The noises turned to a series of clicks and metallic banging, and then the biggest human being Kretz had ever seen answered the door.

Hey. C ‘min…

And then he turned and headed - Kretz assumed - for the deeper regions of the FEMA trailer. When Bobbi finally got his tired, dope-starved body into the thing, the humongous dude was no where to be seen. Unfortunately Pam was, right there in front of him, eye-fucking him until he sat down at her breakfast nook. She said:

***

Where’s the girl?

Bobbi was no kind of liar even with all his wits about him. Now, in his weakened, confused state of withdrawal, He shouldn’t have even tried. In the end, of course, that’s just what he did:

What girl?

There was silence for almost a minute. Kretz could hear the big guy wheezing away in the other room. What was his name? Kretz spoke again:

Pam, you gotta do me solid here. I know. I know. I owe. But we both sick Pam. I can’t get you paid unless I’m healthy and I can’t get healthy if you won’t bless me for a few days.

Pam thought about it, but not for long:

What balls you got Kretz. Big. Brassy ones. You need a wheelbarrow to cart them shits through? Look at you…

Pam pl…

Shut up. Shut the fuck up Kretz you gonna make me do something both of us regret. You’re into me for a nickel. You ducked me for a week. Now you’re sick, and you know I can help, and so here you are. You have the 5 bucks?

Uh…

That’s a “no”. Ok, you got any money?

The Lady Pam was going bald, and she was old as shit. Kretz heard her yelling but the effect was canceled out by Pam’s comically unappealing visage. She had one tooth, it was in the bottom of her mouth right out front. Pam didn’t close her mouth all the way between sentences. Kretz was staring at the tooth, and he felt it staring back at him, a patch of muddy, leftover snow on the reeking compost pile of Pam‘s face. To distract himself from laughing Kretz patted his pocket and said:

56 dollars.

Pam couldn’t help but laugh then. Drug addicts never failed to amuse her in their predictability. She asked a question she knew the answer to already:

What about your girl? She told me she got money. Just get some her money, no?

No.

No? Why no?

Ugh…

It’s a rhetorical question dumbfuck. I know why no. It’s because you never told your girl about the three grams I gave you last week, or the seven the week before that. She doesn’t know you watched her get sick, and weak, lying the whole time just so you could have a bigger taste. I’m embarrassed for you motherfucker.

And Bobbi Kretzel’s hope, diminutive and unsure as it was, came to a crashing end. He started subconsciously glancing around the room like a trapped alley cat.

***

T. was still asleep when her man came freaking and yelling out of the FEMA-ville. And even, though there was a great deal of freaking and yelling, T remained asleep. Bobbi wasted almost five whole seconds just listening to her faint snoring. He was puzzled. T never snored. Frantic as he was, Bob had no time for subtlety. He plucked a Styrofoam coffee cup from the dashboard console. It was from almost 3 months ago, and about half-full, but T woke up fast when Bobbi dumped I on her head.

Bahhh. Ahugh (cough cough) ah, ah. Eueeeww fuck fuck. What the fuck?! What the FUCK! Bob? Please!

And they both stopped moving. Bobbi sat back. There was a brief silence, then T:

We have to spike right now. RIGHT fucking now Bobbi…

It Kretz another five whole minutes of arguing and cajoling to get the girl to budge. Bob knew she got it from her mother. T’s mother was a cunt. They were speeding away from the ninth by the time Bobbi stopped shivering long enough to educate the girl:

Fuckin dude is 6’ 9” as big as a fuckin’ Mini Cooper. I didn’t know he was out. That’s Pam’s son with the guy who did that thing at the church…The babies?

The babies? Oh shit…

Bobbi could see her remembering at only the mere suggestion. Like everybody else, T. was powerless in withdrawal. Bob felt like sociopath for his deeds and his scheming, but then when he considered how bad he felt, he felt it proved he was no sociopath. He had that exact train of thought three times before the girl spoke again.

That guy did that?


The very same. He’s got a face tattoo for fucks fuckin’ sake! That alone is enough to warrant extreme prejudice. Fuck fuck fuck! You should see him. He’s as fat as a fuckin mini-van. He gotta duck walkin’ around in the FEMA trailer. Like REALLY duck. Fuck.


He took a breath and prepared to continue when a voice - melodic and hurt-sounding - came slithering from the darkness in the Caddy’s back seat:

Damn dood. I aint THAT fat. Fuck.

T and Bobbi wheeled around at once and saw two red eyes glowing from the pitch-black shadows. Pam’s boy Lerion spoke again:

I fit back here, right?

***

The savage mass on the outside of the blazing pile was eventually consumed in the flames. The writhing mob had encased itself in the soot and smoke and for a while, to Bobbi D, it looked as if they’d actually become the fire itself. He watched and watched, his mind playing a double - switch with the dancers and the fire, and he noticed a weird light, like a shadow of a gigantic branch. It was above the gigantic X’s one remaining post. Very bright. Bob didn’t know what it was, but he couldn’t look away.

Eventually, daylight. Bobbi was no longer in the truck bed, because the men had been told not to mess the truck up. Suddenly the day went pitch-dark in the blink of an eye, like an eclipse. L had leaned over Bobbi from the above, invading and occupying the space just inches from the terrified kid’s head. The face was the size of a man-hole cover, and darker than any Bobbi Driscoll had ever seen. All at once it washed over him, the run to Pam’s, the dope search, the fire in the woods, T…It was all too real, too heavy, and Bobbi felt a tear slide down his cheek and and heard it tap onto the soft, rooted floor of the swamp. It seemed like hours he waited for the giant to speak, but over the past 24 hours Bobbi’d learned that Pam’s kid was a man of very few words. More tears dropped with the swamp morphing and breathing around them, and the army of bugs (BUGS) making avant/orchestral sheets of itchy noise. The giant was studying him, Bobbi was sure. He still couldn’t speak, but he felt the tears plummet in slow motion each more cold and wet than the last. Whatever it was they’d hit him with, shit was finally wearing off.

That shit’s wearing off aint it?

The voice was awful. It was low and flat and inevitable - sounding. B found himself thankful he’d not heard much of it, and worried about how much more he might have to hear yet.

Answer me boy. You can feel shit now?

Bobbi had intended to answer, but the words weren’t there in his mind. He wanted to explain to Lady Pam’s boy that, yes, whatever had kept him paralyzed for the last 16 or so hours was finally beginning to wear off. FUCK yes, he could feel the ropes scraping and ripping at the flesh on his wrists, and yes, his legs ached from disuse. All these things he wanted to make clear to the huge black man, but unfortunately for B, his mind and lips couldn’t work to make it happen. Instead he just sighed helplessly and stared into Lerion, grovelling for his very life with nothing but glassy, terrified eyes. The giant spoke again:

We see motherfucker.

And the Lerion grabbed what appeared to be a machete from the trunk bed. Bobby watched the giantscould for as long as he could, with the world turning white and then red, and then black all around him.

***

He woke up, and the pain was everything. His skin was burning and his eyes felt four sizes too big for their sockets. His body and sould felt like they were being cooked in a blast furnace. Inside his mind he was screaming, but only a low, wheezing moan passed his lips. He prayed and prayed for death’s relief.

Instead, they dragged him to the center of a dirt clearing and stripped him naked. Lerion spoke:

Boy if you gonna die, I’d get to it soon. We jus got to the uncomfortable part.

Bobbi couldn’t see the other guy, but he saw that he was being untied. First the ankles, then wrists. He was lying the ground, and may have blacked out, but for the explosive noise suddenly ripping into sudden, bright life just behind his right ear. It was all Bobbi could muster to nudge his head left so he could see, and regretted the move as soon as he’d done it. Lerion was holding the biggest chainsaw he’d ever seen, revving it, and looking the chain up and down like a sommelier testing a vintage for legs. Bobbi tried to close his eyes, but could not.

He didn’t feel the cutting until Lerion hit bone, but when the enormous blade blew through his scapula, a new definition of pain dawned on Bobbi Kretzel. An eternal pain, clear and sharp as broken glass and permanent as death, became the whole of his existence. No forest, no Lerion, no dirt, no fire-ritual in the woods, no dead girl and no hideous bugs. Only white pain shocking through his frame and turning every cell of his being to an angry molten agony. It took minutes, and the giant boy Lerion threw each limb in front of his face in the dirt. He finished and shut the evil saw down, appreciated his handiwork. Bobbi watched the limbs and suffered. He didn’t hear Lerion say:

Still bleedin momma, I knew it. Not enough paste.

He didn’t hear Lady Pam say, from behind him:

Well that’s why I brought this baby. Step back…

Bobbi didn’t see Pam step into his field of vision, flicking a flint over a blow-torch. Didn’t see the blue flame jump from the brass nozzle. Didn’t feel as Pam burned each new-exposed stump into a smoking black nub.

Bobbi didn’t hear Lerion, behind him once more:

Shit momma. Hard part.

He didn’t hear the reply:

I can do it, you can’t. Done it enough…

Bobbi did feel a weird pressure in the place where his legs had been a few minutes ago, but with the pain having short circuited his nerve endings, that weird pressure was about all he felt. The pressure increased, though, and he sure felt that. Something was being jacked into him, and through him. B felt stuff moving inside him, and puncturing. He felt something moving through his gut, into his stomach and then he started gagging. He couldn’t breathe, his tongue was being forced to one side and his head was forced back from the inside. Bobbi felt his teeth, something pushing on his teeth, pushing through them. His mouth opened involuntarily and a rusty pipe two inches wide came blasting out of it, the tip - Bobbi could see it clear, inches from his face - was covered with fluids of black,dark crimson and purple. Suddenly he was being borne up. He has high now, off the ground a bit, and staring at the revolting pipe propping him in the dirt like a demented puppet. He was staring up at cloudy sky, but it turned back, quickly like a thunderhead moving over. Then the thunderhead was buzzing, and it washed over him, and Bobbi’s cursed eyes finally shut.

Scene

The scene here, marked - for the last three or so years - by the maturation and ample accessibility of two exemplary acts - has become an almost unmanageable commitment. Transcendent performances are a monthly, sometimes weekly occurrence. It’s the kind of lifestyle where you get to see any and all shit-sandwiches your daily existence might be force feeding you, magically transformed into 12-course musical feasts of soul-scouring potency every few weeks. You know it! It’s a guarantee. Week after week, Providence locals find ourselves either just coming off, or just getting our babysitters, buzzes, and cash-flow in order to withstand another, ultra hi-leverage rock and roll throw-down. It’s a confluence of unlikely events with an uncanny ability to set things right, like a great golden psyche-reset button. Available here, now - cheap - with an almost intimidating frequency.

During the fifteen years between 1985 and 2000, I was convinced that that truly great rock bands needed to be either the inventor(s) of something, it’s logical creative end-point, or the greatest current example of the form (ex: Springsteen is the logical creative end-point for a kind of conscious folk invented by Woody Guthrie and perfected by Bob Dylan, Janes Addiction is the logical creative end-point in trio + front-person acts featuring dudes with high voices invented and perfected by Led Zeppelin). But all the great bands of the last decade have been acts that mix and blend, citing influences the way a great writer references the masters. This is especially true of Deer Tick, who started out as one dude named John McCauley with an obvious talent for mixing and blending the best features of the bands he loved. Nirvana, Springsteen, and Dylan are the most obvious, probably because McCauley name-checks those three in almost every interview he‘s ever sat for, but there is a lot of history beyond just the obvious classic rock in the guy’s bag. What’s more, his reverence for the greats seems as limitless as his work ethic. He gets cross country, does John McCauley, as a one man show, even, and for a very long time, back and forth through the heartlands and festivals. No band, no show really, just him, and guitars (acoustic and electric), and these nasty fucking songs. Now, as the anti-leader of a sharp touring band composed of guys as talented as he himself is, McCauley has spent the last three years honing the other absolutely necessary skill of the modern, relevant rock act: the ability blow up spots, with extreme prejudice in multiple locales night after whiskey-stinking night.

And how. The shows at the Met - a midweek twofer celebrating the release of DT’s latest “Divine Providence” exhibited a band of young guys who know a lot more than most old guys. They played Dylan. They played standards. They stopped one show to pull down projection screens, turn up the television sets, and grok out to the Letterman performance they put down earlier that day. At one point they broke loose with note-faithful (+snazzy key-droning) cover of Nirvana’s “On a Plain” and a mosh pit kicked up. A violent one too: I saw a big girl get blown the fuck up by a bigger guy, and then helped up by another big dude who wiped a spot of bloody shit of her face and gave her a little noogie-nelson before tousling her hair and releasing her back into the wild. I made that last part up I think, but it’s possible I did not. That’s how this band makes things for the two-plus hours they usually carry on: rowdy, violently exultant, not afraid to surrender, at times, to alcohol-fogged confusion and pure, raw volume.

That was Deer Tick three weeks ago. Sometime during the two night stand, they booked another Provy outing, this one a month down the road at a bigger venue closer to downtown. Now that shit is coming up next week, two nights before Thanksgiving, at the 2000-seat Providence Performing Art Center. Another impending Deer Tick catharsis would definitely be the ONLY non-family/kid thing on my mind until the performance itself, if it weren’t for the act taking another downtown stage the very next night: Max Creek is pulling into Lupo’s November 23, the night after Deer Tick, and the night before Thanksgiving.

***

Two years ago, I finally worked up the motivation to go check out Max Creek again. I’d moved back to Providence from New Jersey almost six years before that, and Creek - I knew - had been a near constant musical presence in Providence since well before I ever left. When I was 15, Creek’s weekly shows at the Living Room (Not old-polka hall Living Room, this was the factory-converted-to-loft space living room with the giant plexi-glass bubble) served as a sacramental preparatory happenings where you could buy - and test drive - the drugs you’d bought for the weekend in the relatively safe confines of a Wednesday night. Creek was the first club-set I ever watched, and I remember being alarmed that the first sets at the Living Room usually ended after I was supposed to be home. I also remember the payoff being well-worth the two-week grounding that would result from staying for the second frame.

Then life moved on, and - like most things I loved in High School - Creek just sort of melted out of my life. I told a lot of college buddies about them, made some time to check them out for a few years in the early 90’s and then…Flatline. I honestly cannot remember so much as thinking the words “Max Creek” for the entire decade between 1993 and 2006. I didn’t spend a lot of time in New England, and that’s where that band was, almost all the time. Two years ago I finally got a chance to see Max Creek again, after a decade plus of no consideration at all, and left in unqualified amazement. Creek, almost 30 years into it when we last crossed paths, had apparently used the years between to forge an empathy perhaps unmatched in all of rock history: 40 years of getting better and better and better.. 40 years deep into the honing of blended phrasing, ensemble improvising, and on-a-dime dynamic turns. 40 years of weekly, high-volume harmonic / psychic convergences.

***

It took Creek about 20 seconds of a “Love Makes You Loose Your Mind” opener to force an immediate change of strategy, and here we are a month later and I’m still talking about the Creek show. I’d love to screed on and on about it. So crazily expert and intense was this performance that I could probably go like moment-to-moment, breaking down each whiplash one and surgically deft two like an anthropologist logging dung-beetles. Appreciating and celebrating each and every intricacy and invention with word upon word and sentence upon sentence until…Well until Max Creek takes the stage again next week, right after Deer Tick and just before Thanksgiving.

I won’t. For one thing, the show is available (like many Creek performances) on Archive, so you can go grab it and dissect it on your own time. The real reason is, there’s no fucking time. Little more than a week now before all this happens again, and there’s babysitters and cash-flow considerations in need of attention. The great golden psyche-reset button is about to be pushed again, and my affairs need to be in order.

Monday Story #3

Six hours later nobody - save for the rapidly stiffening corpses of the Burke family - had left the building. Law Danes knew he‘d be busy as soon as he saw the congealing puddles of blood and fluid flooding out the Burke’s living room. The place looked like a bomb full of bright red paint had gone off, spraying and spattering and pooling the thick, rank-smelling mess on every surface in the room. There were family pictures, and a lot of them were so blood-soaked that the faces were hardly visible through the foggy red coating. A piano in one corner had tiny crimson stalagmites hanging under the keys. There were stripes and dots and pools everywhere. Danes sat by a bay window that looked like red stained glass, eyes closed, trying to sell himself on the scenario he’d been willing in his head. Sitting there on the Burke family’s love seat, he ducked his head between his knees, needing and grasping at fist-fulls of his too-long brown hair as he went over what knew and tried to see the next steps.

The problem was the footprints. Everything else hung together and made sense, and then the footprints blew it all to hell. Danes had seen enough slit throats in his time to understand exactly how the Burke family had gone. The blood in the living room told that story in 3D: Murder/suicide. Dad does the three other family members, then jams the blade into his own throat and expires. For about 20 minutes, Danes thought he might get home, if not on time, than perhaps not as late as he might have. Then a last detail declared itself, and Danes knew he was in for the long haul. There was another blood pattern leading clear of the room. At first blush, the gory trail seemed to support the idea of a murder / suicide staring Martin Burke as the principal. A closer look flipped everything over, and Danes was back at square one.

Leading from the Burke family’s living room, LD was just able to barley make out the forward part of a footprint. The heel-print had been swiped into a gooey looking skid-mark about one foot wide. The skid mark got a little wider after that, the next print was also smeared, this time the dragged victim wiping out everything but the very outside edge of a left footprint. The long smear - running about ten feet in length - was what forensics geeks called a drag pattern, and it blew the murder-suicide theory out of the realm of possibility. Now Danes had a new focus. The footprint told a compelling half-story, with detective Danes responsible for the it’s prompt and logically air-tight conclusion.

At the end of the drag pattern lay the twisted corpse of a man, naked and pale as a ghost. He was in a heap there, his throat laid open like the rest of the victim’s throats: a clean, deep gash from ear to ear. The man’s right hand was a still-hardening mess of red fluid and rent flesh, with a cranky looking shard of red-stained glass three feet forward of the corpse and pointing straight out the garage door, as if encouraging a quick exit. Marty Burke’s legs gathered and twisted under him as if the floor had sucked him downward violently, twisting his broken body at improbable angles and a final position only a dead man can assume. Problem was, Mr. Burke hadn’t any other injuries that would have caused he drag pattern. Mr. Burke hadn’t been stabbed or shot, and no man could walk the 15 feet from living room with a slit throat. Danes went back over the drag-pattern. It took minutes. Two toes in the doorway between rooms, a heel in the front hall, and three and a half toes almost directly under Mr. Burke’s body. Clear as day. In addition, there was hardly any blood at all in the room where Burke fell, especially compared with the Jackson Pollock installation in the den.

Forensics cut the swatches of the footprints and the county coroner started removal. Danes moved to the front to the front of the house and prepared to make a department statement. A murder of a townsperson in the town where they reside means State investigators wouldn’t lead the investigation. It was LD’s dance from the jump, so that meant almost daily debriefings to the pencils. His throat constricted at the thought. There were few things Lawson Danes hated more than public speaking, and one of them was speaking to the press.

***

A makeshift pulpit had formed in the Burkes two car garage. There were no cars in it, both Burke vehicles were parked in the driveway. There were - however - lots and lots of unimportant looking crap. Danes had two uniforms clear it out, and was walking out to meet the reporters there when he remembered the old man. All day Law felt something out of place at the site. It was a grizzly scene and certainly not any sort of normal for the town, but Danes had seen plenty worse than this in his previous line of work. The violent ripping of human flesh stopped having any kind of visceral effect on LD a long time ago. Something though, was off, and as he looked out from the garage at the TV and newspaper crews, he realized exactly what it was. He turned heel, hoping none of the reporters had seen his almost-speaking. He grabbed a uniform named Chris Diniccola and the two of them ducked into a Burke Bedroom. The younger girl’s judging by the decor. Hannah Montana on the walls. American Girl dolls scattered all throughout the room. LD closed the door behind them and button locked it. It took him 47 seconds exactly to tell Diniccola what he wanted, and another five seconds for Diniccola to say “Yes”. They both left the little girl’s room at the same time, and broke in opposite directions out the door.

***

“…And so, I’m sorry. Ah ah I mean, we. We, all of us at the East Greenwich PD and Providence County send regards out to the families and we are tracking enough good information right now that I’m sure we’ll have some good news about this case come morning…Thanks…”

Chris turned heal and scurried back inside the house, ignoring the cries of “wait!” and “Officer Dinnicola a question!?”. He had to take a minute to collect himself, and so he retreated to the Burke girl’s room once again. He was about to button lock it when a familiar voice scolded him from the other side:

Dinnicola you sweaty little guinea…

Chris opened the door against his better judgment, cringing slightly at the prospect of facing Watch-Commander Moss's post-lunch breath from danger-close.

What the fuck are you fucking up to with that bullshit presser? And we here’s fucking Danes?

Diniccola gathered himself for the second, before begining the much harder part of the instructions Danes had given. He must’ve gathered too long though, because Sgt. Moss started right up again without letting him talk:

Outta words Cronkite? I’m not, so hear this: LD is the point person on this shit here. I want him in front of camera’s when camera’s are around, and in front of me when I’m around. You tell him the paper better be right, and it better be tonight. You got that woppy?

Woppy?

Yeah. Now go un-fuck this shit. GO.

Officer Dinnicola, though, was already going. He took a sheepish look at his shoes, and made himself small, shuffling past Moss and out of the Burke kid’s room

***

It hit LD and he shivered a little, just looking out at the teaming gaggle of reporters and their various suckerfish. He saw at least 25 crew, air staff, and interns all standing in a semi-circle a few yards out from the garage. LD knew every single one by name, first and last, and that was a huge problem. All day long the personnel the crime scene were remarking how quiet the neighborhood was, how empty. Now, 7:00 pm, just when the Burke house should have had gawkers ten deep behind a guarded security cordon, Danes found himself looking out on a crowd composed entirely of professional media people. In a district where folks come rushing outside to rubberneck at even the most trivial car accidents and mishaps, the entire block ought to have been on the Burke front lawn. Instead, LD found himself presiding over the world’s quietest quad-homicide. The only neighbor to even bother to show up was the guy - Hightower was his name - that called 911 after hearing strange sounds emanating from inside the Burke residence at 8:45 that morning. LD figure he had about an hour before the press tracked him down, so he planned to start at Mr. Hightower’s residence, “sixth house on the right” the uniforms had told him, and go from there.

The neighborhood’s layout was one of the very old fashioned kind. The houses on both sides of the street appeared to share a common, un-fenced-in backyard running the length of the block - about two football fields worth of common lawn. LD started tramping up the vast expanse of grass towards Mr. Hightower’s place, roughly 100 yards from the Burke‘s. Instead, Law only made it as far as the Burke’s next door neighbor’s. There was a sign over the back slider that Danes could hardly make out in the flat-grey dusk. It read: “The Reed’s”. The slider was open. LD made a mental note to check back there after talking to Hightower, and then stopped dead in his tracks about 20 yards away.

There was a person laying down over the door-frame.

***

Martin Burke was wide awake. The dreams, the reverie, the infinite comfort, all of it fell away, leaving only the cold grey world and all it’s angles. He’d shed every bit of the heavy drowse that never failed to mark his regaining control from Jess. Now - also as per usual - giving it back to her was all he could think about. He lay waiting, staring up at the ceiling, willing the time to pass, seeing no results. He was just dozing off to his first sleep in 72 hours when his blessed Queen summoned him again:

Martin, stand up.

It wasn’t a voice in his head really, more like ideas dawning in his mind that he knew weren’t his. His body came under the control of the other, and soon he was understanding the situation in exactly the same way as the Jess. Even after countless times giving his body and mind over to her, Burke still marveled and swooned as she poured herself inside him. It felt like home. He called Penny in an even, placid sounding voice, and when she came before him, he gave the Queen’s command:

Get the Sig from under the couch love. I spent the round from the chamber so rake the slide before you take a bead. That‘s it. Use the suppressor.

He watched confusion appear and dissapear on the girls face like an electrical jolt, and continued:

There’s a police officer coming this way. He’s on foot, walking through the back yards. I want you to open the deck door, and I want you to call out, loudly, like your being attacked. I want you to scream “Somebody help me!!!!” and then let the door close. Step back into the shadows of the house then, and wait for the cop to come up on the deck. When he appears in front of the screen door., I want you to shoot him, three times, in the heart, right through the screen. Then once he’s down, you’ll go outside and empty the chamber into the man’s head. After that Jess wants us with her.

The girls face lit up, and she began to hop up and down in delight:

Aunty Jess AND I get to use suppression? Jess Jess Jess! I love my aunty Jess!

***

LD approached the body, climbing the three deck-steps, drawing his Colt Anaconda out of it’s shoulder holster as knelt beside he body. It was facing away from him, and lying on it’s side in a twisted heap. LD reached across for the far shoulder and gave a yank to but the body face-up. He met no resistance at all and fell, almost on his back, on the damp joists. He took a moment to steady himself, and another to curse same for thinking the Scarecrow was a body. Looking again, he noticed the marked absence of ankles and shoes, and the prescence of hay where the rest should have been. There were days in his past where his younger eyes would have saved him the divergence from his path, and pronouce: SCARECROW LAWN DECORATION from ten yards out. It had been a long day. He was just getting himself on his feet, considering weather or not to enter the house without backup, when he heard the scream.

It was long and high-pitched and very very close:

Auuuuuuggghhhhhhhh…Hellllllp! Helllllp Meeeeeeeee!!!!!!

Terrified, overwhelmed, and primal.

The cry of a child, in trouble and close.

***

It was pitch dark outside by now, with no ambient light anywhere for miles. No lamp-light, or torch light, or any kind of light spilling out from any of the houses into any of the yards. Burke watched from the far corner of the room. It was pitch dark in the house as well, but if the Queen didn’t have them up to some task or other, she’d had them snoozing. They’d been working so much by night for the last few days, Burke felt like their eyes had all relaxed completely by now, and even in the total blackness of the backyard, he could still make out enough outline and shadow to find his way. Watching the little girl eject the Sig’s magazine, check it, re-insert, chamber a round, and screw a suppressor to the barrel, he realized the same must be true for her. A little shock of pride went through him, and he smiled in the black dark.

Penny took a knee, steadying her gun hand on a side table and taking a bead on the screen door. They heard Martin Running from a few houses down, his feet thumping an urgent rythym, getting louder in his advance. Burk whispered:

Just breathe easy sweetie. Let him come.

And for a few minutes, the only sound in the night was the sound of Detective Lawson Danes, running as fast as he could.