Gather No Moss

Don’t you just hate the Rolling Stones?  They just won’t die and continue to tour constantly.  They sell tickets for seats onstage at exorbitant millionaire prices and they make irrelevant documentaries with now irrelevant filmmakers like Martin Scorsese.  They’re like all the rest of the Baby Boomers – they can’t step out of the spot light for even a second.  Cue the Tom Brokaw narration, please.

In 2005, I was in a friend’s apartment in Saratoga Springs. It was one of those dry, bitter upstate winter nights and the dim light, stale carpeting and exposed, painted pipes of the building kept its nineteenth century aura alive and well. My friend and I were walking down the creaking steps of the building in order to enter the freezing night and eventually find ourselves at a bar.  This friend was older than I was so he was hoping that my fake I.D. would serve me well and he wouldn’t have to ditch me.  We were both equally large Rolling Stones fans and the Stones were just about to embark on yet another one of their world tours.  This friend asked me if I was going to try to get tickets because even though they were damn expensive he, “had to try and see the Stones” just once.  I told him flatly right then that I would never try to see the Rolling Stones alive; because that was not the band I cared about.  The band I cared about lived in the albums I owned and listened to.  They weren’t the ones rolling into the Fleet Center or the Pepsi Arena in Albany. My friend tisked my dismissiveness and we walked out into the cold, orange streets to drink beer with our classmates.

Now, the remarks in the first paragraph are true and they are not true.  Just like my sentiment towards the Rolling Stones is both true and not true as an inclination and idea that people have about anything that was once real to them. “It’s better to burn out than to fade away” is not one of Neil Young’s better lines.  It is a simple sentiment that is as old as anything and as much as I love the son of a bitch, he was prone to spreading hippyisms such as that from time to time. For the Neil Young on Tonight’s the Night singing about Bruce Berry sticking a needle in his arm would not have shared that same sentiment, which makes it both true and not true.  The idea of explosive youth and talent is one of the most appealing ideas in the realm of the human imagination and ability to project desire.  We love our Keatsian and Shellyesque figures: Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Len Bias, James Dean – those talents whose hearts and ability burn too brightly and too rapidly for their bodies to sustain their universal energy.  We all want a figure in our lives to look at in that same way so that we can say, “that we were there with him (or her). I was in that damn room.”  However, we are all not meant to explode (sometimes implode) like that. So, we admire those who are able to age and find grace and maturity.  Because this life is made of many days and for many of us, the real heroes and idols are those that show us how to grow up and accept our changing roles in the world.  We all die at sometime, but most of us die past twenty-seven years old and most of us die with spouses and children and hopefully a mortgage we have paid off as well as a frozen and paid off home equity line of credit.

Now, the Rolling Stones have never understood this concept.  As much as they have admired bluesmen and the image of finding that one dilapidated bar in Mississippi or Alabama where are the strange ghosts and oddities of America rise up (sort of like a 1967 era Dylan), they have never understood that aging like a bluesman means retreating to those remote spaces of culture and not thrusting yourselves and your hips continually in the limelight. 

But the Stones are survivors. That’s their image.

The Stones are certainly survivors. If a nuclear bomb went off, those boys would still be
crawling around in the post-apocalypse. They have weathered the changing cultures and business models of four decades and soon to be five. This piece isn’t meant to be a diatribe against aging musicians.  I am not an ageist and I will not go quoting “I hope I die before I get old,” because I don’t believe in that kind of propaganda either.  What frustrates me about the Stones so much is that they can’t kick the habit.  They have to perform. They have to be out there grinding on the road. And the fact is that their music, more than any star that was extinguished much too soon, epitomizes the energy of youth, the explosiveness, danger and never-ending nights and cases of beer.  When one listens to Nirvana, there is a certain sentiment contained in the music and in the postures of Kurt Cobain – the misplaced aggression, the melody amid the noise – that retains the image of youth, but if you truly let that image sit in repose, it is because he died young.  And the art of one who died young, can’t be influenced by the fact that he or she died young.  In Jimi Hendrix, there was almost that wondering element, that vision to some extraordinary blue twilight, that maturity and nuance in his voice that elevated him to a certain level that I still have trouble explaining.  His talent was obviously immense and so was his taste.  However even with that abundance of gifts, his music does not capture that restlessness of youth and that confusion that the Stones encompass.

 

The Stones are survivors because they are always there. It’s not just because they have stuck around together as a band for so long. It’s because they are always there in the background of your life, always waiting to spring into action. That is not only at the multiple levels that they have achieved as cultural touchstones from movies, it is also on the extremely personal. And perhaps that is a moot point, because any music should affect you on a personal level more than on a cultural level. However, the Stones have achieved the rare quality of owning relevance on both the widespread cultural level and widespread personal level.  No matter where you are, the Stones infect you and they make you feel young. Even when you are young, they make that youth feel even more real than you know at the time.  An eccentric timeline:

Spring 2002 – I’m driving my Nissan Pathfinder back from my SAT test with two of my closest friends at the time: Erik and Buzzy.  We have the sunroof open and all the windows open and Exile on Main Street on the stereo.  “Let it Loose” is blaring out of my speakers and those soul singers are wailing away as Mick goes, “You’re just a stranger of which I never see no more.” Then the horns pipe up in the back and that twanging reverb guitar puts its two cents in too.  The day was sunny, we went down to the sound where it was low tide, and we walked around in the water and the sand.  We had a car, cigarettes (Buzzy didn’t smoke) and we had just finished a test.  The flashes of the classroom were still in my eyes then as they are now.  And who ever knew that soon one of those friends would be a stranger in many ways to me sooner rather than later and who I never see no more. But that didn’t matter then because we were all with each other and it was spring and summer was almost there and we were all friends.

Fall 2009 – I’m staying at my college roommate’s family’s condo in Stratton.  It’s a core group of us who have gotten closer after college.  We’re up in Vermont because when you are in your early to mid-20’s living in New York, you just have to get out to get a break and to pretend that you just aren’t drawn to going back to the city with all of its challenges and enticing opportunities. We all get drunk one night and decide to play a game of the best goodnight song. So, we all take turns picking songs. My friend Kat picks “You Got the Silver” and of course she had to win what with a thin voiced Keith singing his heart out when the song picks up at the end and the drums go a little crazy and he bursts out, “You got my soul, you got the silver you got the gold, if that’s your love that leaves me blind, I don’t care, no, is that a big surprise?”  The next morning we were impervious to hangovers, made eggs and sandwiches, hiked 15 miles to a lake and then came home and all ate dinner together.

Fall 2006 – Lovesick, feeling dangerous but confident with my progress in life “You Got the Silver” plays on my Nissan Pathfinder car stereo every morning on the way to class.  Driving the same route through Saratoga Springs from my apartment to campus and admiring the tight old neighborhoods that surrounded the school with their homes so full of promise and mystery of the simple or complicated or quite simply the lives that lay there within, I screamed out my window, “You got my soul, you got the silver you got the gold, if that’s your love that leaves me blind, I don’t care, no, is that a big surprise?” The leaves slowly fell, dried and collected against the sedimentary sidewalks and the days grew shorter and shorter.

Fall 2005 – Living in Ireland, I have taken it upon myself to not go to class and to teach myself the intricacies of Ulysses, to remain constantly drunk and to write melancholy poems about people I meet for only seconds.  However, amid all of this immaturity, the moon would sometimes shine extremely bright and full when I would be riding in the window seat of a bus and I’d listen to “Moonlight Mile” and think about traveling under “strange strange skies” and dying to be  “lying by your side” not ever knowing who that  “your” was supposed to be directed towards.

Summer 2002 – Drunk in the screened in porch of a friend who has since moved away from his cozy home right by the water, I confront an old sworn enemy of my youth when he tries to stare me down after a pointless disagreement.  I rage out at him verbally in an even more immature showing.  Once the noise dies down, one of my friends takes me home where I lie in bed listening to “Monkey Man” on my Discman over and over again.  This puts the fighting spirit in me so I start walking all the way back across town towards the water to settle the score. My arms and shoulders are twitching the whole way as I picture myself as some kind of boxer with nothing to lose.  This is all remedied when a friend passes me in his car as I am walking along the road and talks me into going back home.

Summer 2008 – Confused and exhausted throughout most of the heat, the only solace I can find is in the nervous joy, glee and high Keith harmonies of “Connection.”  Well that is the only place aside from the parties in my new apartment where the only thing that seems warm enough to meet the joy and energy is playing Exile on Main Street over and over and letting my friends pick up acoustic guitars and start singing while the beer runs out over and over again.

Late Winter 2010 – At a crossroads in contempt with my job.  Feeling like my creativity is reaching some kind of peak, I ride the subways after eleven and twelve-hour workdays never feeling tired and listening to “Monkey Man” on repeat.  I don’t want to fight anyone anymore, I just want to keep working and keep making things so that I can find what it is I really care about.

We’ll break from that extremely biased look at how the Stones effected my life back to the main point, which is that despite their short comings and the fact that they do continue to move on in the world as if there were no such thing as time, the music of the Rolling Stones continues to defy time and perpetuate that amalgam of feeling that is youth.  You don’t know what that thing you are chasing after is, and neither did the Rolling Stones.  They warbled and snared their way through it and after it just like we all do.  Even when we wake up at forty and are reminded of something lost to us, perhaps in the way that fifty degree weather in March feels like swimming in a pool during the high heat of summer, we don’t know what we are chasing after. Although we may have children then, love our wives, and make all the mortgage payments, electric and insurance payments we need to, we are never closer to identifying that energy that we once called youth, which always lives in us unless we allow ourselves to lose it completely.

“A rolling stone gathers no moss,” is the proverb that the Rolling Stones’ name comes from. This proverb simultaneously entices us with its suggestion of restlessness and rootlessness as well with its flip side of never staying in one place long enough to learn anything or love anyone.  There is some part of us that will forever long to be clean and indestructible. We want to be young with no responsibilities.  The only ability we want to have is to be on the road, watching things as they pass and never having to consider the lives that spring out of every object that passes our eye.  We “got tee move” and when we move we have to have that swagger of “Tumbling Dice” or the electricity of “Jumping Jack Flash.”  However, we are all looking to take something with us in our lives.  We want to collect memories, love, children and accomplishments. We want to have a home and have someone who we can lay beside.  There is no “road” without the vision of the form of the person that you imagine you will at some point be sleeping next to.  No one ever really wants to “burn out” because we’ve all grown up watching as people “fade away” – and this is not a bad thing. Even though I take my contempt out for the Rolling Stones as they fade away, they are doing what normal people do: forgetting their youth or trying to relive it in some misguided way.  However, we all have a way out of that fate.  We do not have to forget our youth, because we will always have the musics that conjure it up so well for us and as we grow older and our burdens weigh heavier, we can keep our identities separate from our jobs and from our growing responsibilities and remember where we came from, while we acknowledge where we are.  We do not have to lose any of our laughter or liberalism, even as we grow more fiscally conservative for the sake of our children.

So, in the end, whether you like the Stones or not, we are all rolling stones.  At the same moment we are incapable of growing up or embracing responsibility; we lack the patience to learn anything new; we can never sit in one place to settle down; we can’t let ourselves grow stagnant with contentment and are always searching for a new idea, for the creative way that we are going to turn around this economy or revolutionize an industry or foolishly try to write that Great American Novel – foolishly chase what doesn’t exist.  However, at the same turn we long to collect those fragments from our storied lives and place them in a restored home somewhere in south Brooklyn or maybe along the Hudson River.  A home where we can usher the kids or grandkids into, tell them stories, and explain how you must appreciate the spaces in the world and the chances to walk in the woods on a misty morning in April.  We all want to have things. However, it is how we understand in the end that we can’t take any of these things with us that unites that nomadic energy of youth and that poise of age: we are simultaneously clean and invincible, while remaining wise and patient.

But right now, we are young just like the Stones always make me feel.  The Stones on record.  And maybe if I heed their story and pay attention to what I am capable of at any moment, I will learn how to grow older with grace and still be able to keep that feeling the records give me.  I’ll keep it, but I won’t need to show any of you.

Too Bad I Like It...

These year-end lists can be intoxicating. I read them and I just want to argue the merits of the way a list plays out with each of my friends. In my mind, we sit over a freshly French pressed organic brew, gesticulating in a dimly lit cafe with half burnt cigarettes between our ring and middle fingers.

"Zis Springsteen alboom ise shite."

We speak in some sort of accent that is vaguely French, German and Irish.

But seriously, I have been seeing all of the usual year end lists carted out in attempt to sum up the year. This year has been even worse because it is the end of a decade so now writers attempt to sum up the cultural importance of this year of music, film, theatre, TV and current events as a microcosm for the entire decade. Now, don't get me wrong, if I had a weekly column to write and I needed to meet a quota, then I would list it up without a doubt. In fact, I don't have any deadlines to meet, any column quotas to make and I have given you (the GOOD reader) three straight list posts (oops! I just spoiled the ending for this week). However, after seeing these lists placed in each newspaper I read, each website I visit and each egg roll I eat for dinner, the summaries have become a bit repetitive. Because I am a constuctive and optimistic person, I am going to halt my naysaying here and bow to the year-end list, because they are entertaining to read. I will also bow to the decade summary column, because I will be putting my own spin on that very same column, this very same week (I'm actually going to work on this one, cogent ideas, worthwhile theories, etc.).

So, without further ado, I submit to you my "Top Ten Albums of 2009." Now keep in mind that the criteria for this list was not that an album had to necessarily be made or released in 2009, but rather that I listened to it 2009 and thought it made my top ten. The criteria for that top ten being its relevance to me and also how good the music actually is. You may call this subjective (and oh it is) but if we are going to tango, we might as well go all the way and not regret the damn thing in the morning when we are wearing each other's clothes.

As I was saying:


10. Little Feat - "Little Feat"

When I wanted a "go-t0" album for party music this year, I picked up Little Feat's self-titled first album. This sounds like Exile on Main Street-era Stones before the Stones even hit that stride. However close Lowell George and the boys come to sounding like Mick and the Stones, they don't have the same experience and cunning to make it as iconic as the Stones did, yet, there is a looseness here that can't be denied. On "Strawberry Flats" when the band hits those high notes with all of the backing vocals added in, you can see the bar laid out in front of you. The piano is especially terrific on the whole album and you can also hear the a little bit of the roots of Jay Farrar's delivery on some of the vocal tracks. The whole album is a must listen of course, but you can't skip "Druck Store Girl," "Snakes on Everything," "Strawberry Flats" and "Crazy Captain Gunboat Willie."

9. Julian Casablancas - "Phrazes for the Young"

This album was not widely regarded as a success and again Julian picks an odd title for an album (First Impressions of Earth?) that tries to hard to make a generational statement, however, I thought it was one of the best albums to come out this year. Julian overreaches in some parts, but you can't deny that overall, he is very much in control of his sound. The first song "Out of the Blue" is all driving guitars like a brand new Strokes song until we reach the chorus and the synthesizers come in and the song reaches a hook that rivals and perhaps betters any Strokes song and a lot of the top singles of the 80's as well. "Ludlow Street" has gotten the most press because of its wide mixture of genres (country shuffle, rock, electronica) but for me it isn't one of the must listens. "11th Dimension" is obviously the pop hit, but it is the lyrics of "Left and Right in the Dark" and the album closer "Tourist" that really show where Julian has reached a new level of maturity. "Tourist" especially leaves you feeling impressed at where he is standing at his career.

8. Fleetwood Mac - "Rumors"

Obviously a lot has been written about this album. Admittedly, I have been a late arrival to its praise. This year I did give myself the chance to listen to it, not out of any sort of heartbreak, but merely because the time had come. The familiarity of the songs can be jarring at first, however, as you follow the course of the entire album, each song feels right at home and you suddenly lose your identification of songs like "Go Your Own Way" as songs that were overplayed by your classic rock radio station and remember them as "yeah I love that song that comes after 'Don't Stop'. Oh yeah, I love 'Don't Stop'" The album never lets up from the first song "Secondhand News" (my favorite) on. And there aren't many songs that are more fun than "I Don't Want to Know."

7. Paul Simon - "Paul Simon"

At about this time last year, I began looking deeper into Paul Simon's solo catalogue. I had grown up, like most people, listening to Graceland on vinyl at my friend Erik's house when his mom was out and smoking pot on the roof while we tilted the speakers out the window outside towards his lawn. I knew some of the other singles like "Kodachrome" because it was used in every "looking back on growing up montage" in movies. As I was looking into Simon's catalogue, I realized that I had gotten his first solo album a few years ago, but had never really delved into it. Last winter, I took my time in knowing defining songs like "Mother and Child Reunion," which is one of the most lyrically true and moving songs written on Planet Earth, "Peace like a River" and "Run That Body Down." There are also the slighter songs like my favorite "Papa Hobo" (ok it has the line "its a natural reaction I learned in this basketball town" of course I love it) and the album ender "Congratulations," which could be one of Paul Simon's most underrated songs. It is Paul, acoustic guitar and organ, but manages to sound so big when he repeats "love is not a game". If there were an actual church, temple, or mosque that mattered, this would be the music that they played. Holy and simple.

6. Bon Iver - "For Emma, Forever Ago"

This was one of the darling albums of 2008 and I know that. But you saw how it snowed last week, right? This album is the sound of fresh snow. I listened to this extensively last winter (a lot when I was writing) and the breeze of songs like "Flume" were truly inspiring in their simplicity and in how natural they came off without any contrivance of being natural. This may have something to do with Bon Iver's insane voice, which actually sounds like wind. Balance this appeal with the anthemic sound of songs like "For Emma" with its mournful yet celebratory horns (see I like paradox) and the explosive rises in "Creature Fear" and you have an album that will truly hold up years from now. This album blows in, rises, passes and is over before you know it. And once its gone, its like the end of that first snowy night - you just want it back again.

5. Grizzly Bear - "Veckatimest"

I jumped on the Grizzly Bear bandwagon right after Yellow House with everyone else. While I enjoyed that album's ability to explode and change dynamics at a turn, I did feel that the songs went on too long and could be too languid. I hoped that they would reign in that explosiveness into finely crafted songs that didn't exceed the three to four minute mark. When "Two Weeks" first popped upin the summer of 2008 on the Letterman Show, I thought that Grizzly Bear had realized this potential. It turns out they hadn't, but they still made one hell of an album in Veckatimest. It is a much more psychedellic album than Yellow House and features more hooks and songs that stand alone than that album as well. "Southern Point" is one of their finest and most manic songs; we know about "Two Weeks" and the incessant stomp of "While You Wait for the Others"; "Ready, Able" was one of the pleasant surprises, but there are songs on this album that are real "glue songs," and it is obvious what their job is. A song like "About Face" is unremarkable, but in the realm of this album it becomes a welcome respite after "Ready Able" and after the album's pinnacle "While You Wait for the Others", "I Live With You" and "Foreground" help end the album on two very different provocative notes. Had those two songs closed out another album, I don't know that they work as well or are rendered as memorable as they do in their placement here. That is the great merit of this album: it worked much better as an album than Yellow House, which felt at times like "oh, look, there's 'Knife'."

4. Fleetwood Mac - "Tusk"

The discussion of this album deserves its own post entirely and I will get to that someday, but for now I need to keep it concise. The follow-up to Rumors, this album is as schizophrenic as them come. It feels like Buckingham and Everyone Else, which is what makes it work so well. Buckingham's songs come on like distorted Buddy Holly stomps and Brian Wilson Jr. compositions, while Stevie Nick's wicked witchery is kicked up in places ("Sisters of the Moon") and refined in others ("Sara"), and all the while Christine McVie is singing some of the sweetest and melodic songs put to music (besides McCartney). The range of emotions that the album covers from "Ledge" to "That's All For Everone" to "Honey Hi" to "Tusk" to "Never Forget" is almost unparalleled. There is a reason why this is the ultimate Sunday afternoon/evening album.

3. Neil Young - "After the Goldrush"

I have always been a great Neil Young fan. The Ditch Trilogy touches a part of me that not a lot of other music has been able to. When I was in bad places, I held my copy of Zuma over my chest and recited the lyrics to "My Country Tis of Thee." However, I never gave this album enough attention as I did to his other work. This album kicked around my car when I was a little kid and when I first heard the song "After the Goldrush" when I was seven years old, it was the first time I have a memory of a palpable feeling of melancholy - what that melancholy was, I don't know and still don't, which is probably why Neil Young can sing in the voice he sings on in that song: it's just a mystery. You can't escape the walls on this album "Oh, Lonesome Me," "Only Love Can Break Your Heart," "I Believe in You" and the title track. Nor can you escape Neil's taste for levity and groove on "Until the Morning Comes" and "Cripple Creek Ferry". And there is the inevitable ragged glory of "Southern Man" and "When You Dance You Can Really Love." You want one song to steal the show, because it seems like that's the way it should play out, but it never does - they're all phenomenal.

2. Wilco - "Wilco(The Album)

I've already written a full post about this album this year. You all know how I feel about the self-referential aspects of the album title and the opening song. This band is perhaps my favorite band of all time so I am biased and openly biased. Their latest album hit me in just the right way. As I see people assessing the past decade - the ups and downs, the illusions and the promise that the next ten years will hope to build on until it too becomes a commodity - this album showing a working band assessing its career and its ability to always come back with a new approach on each successive album seemed to make sense and seemed timely in a strange way. The album is filled with excercises and poses from Wilco's entire career, but they never feel posed or contrived - Wilco are just telling you that this is what they do and what they can do and we should all appreciate it, because with each chance they have taken on each successive album they have become this band. So let's have them continue on and let's allow our young bands to do the same. I hope they don't become Springsteen.

1. Animal Collective "Merriweather Post Pavilion"

Oh, come on! This one was going to be obvious. The album of the year, the album of the moment, of the movement. You can't deny it. Its all been said: endlessly experimental, accessible, a communal album. However, my friend recently brought up a good point when thinking back on Merriweather Post Pavilion. He said to me, "I hope that Animal Collective don't start making world music." And its true, what is experimental and accessible about this album about "Brothersport" and about "Taste" can on a turn become some sort of bland ambient world music that all races can listen to, which is a strange thing to say about rock music. However, the great thing about Animal Collective is that we never have to worry about that actually happening, because they write lyrics like "I want to walk around with you," and "I want four walls with adobe slabs for my girls." They say these things and actually mean them - which is what is important, because phrases like those and the sentiments behind them, are what the greatest art is made of. Now, if only they can reincorporate some of that alienation and regret from "Cuckoo Cuckoo". Maybe next year...

Next, the decade summary as seen from 2009.

Now, the next installment of "From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt"

Ben

They put the drape over her body. I could see the last glimpse of the red along her ribcage. Then it was all blue.

“We’ll take it from here, Dr. O’Donnell.”

I nodded and watched as they wheeled her corpse down the hall. I looked over at the nurse’s desk. They looked down at their paperwork.

My shoes clacked against the floor. It was freshly waxed. I was wearing dress shoes. I got to my office and realized I still had my gloves on. The blood was turning dark and dry on them. It already looked old.

I opened the door peeling my left glove off. Connor was sitting in one of the chairs that faced my desk. He was still wearing his scrubs too. He didn’t turn around.

I pulled off my left glove and the band smacked rubber.

“What is it, Connor?”

Silence.

“What the fuck do you want to say to me?”

He turned around. That one strand stretching across his forehead.

“It’s over, Ben.”

I take another drink of the Cutty and place the bottle down next to my record player. I kneel down and open up the cabinet below. I run my hand along the musty smelling carboard of the vinyl covers. I know just where I want to go. Let it Bleed. I slide it out and pull the sleeve off, holding the record gently on the edges. I place it on the turntable. I pick up the needle and line it up on the track line. The black wax is spinning and now the old crackles come from the speakers – strumming guitars.

Well we all need someone we can lean on
And if you want it, you can lean on me.
Well we all need somone we can lean on
And if you want it, you can lean on me.

Jagger is singing like he always wanted to be a cowboy. When I hear a Stones song like this I remember all of the smokey bars and clubs I’ve been in. The times when people crowded around and the talk itself was pure energy and no matter how bad I felt the next day if I could get some of that feeling in me again I knew I would be alright – the invisible vision of a good time and of tinkling glasses. How much of that is just the elusiveness of youth? Because I can remember how important everything felt just because I was young and could talk to people and people knew me and knew about my legendary nights and bouts with the bottle. Now who knows me? I’m sitting alone in a study that is made up of years, pictures, books and dust like anything else. What is that thing that is always on the tip of your tongue when you’re young? Is it a word? The answer would mean a whole lot.

Yeah, we all need someone we can dream on
And if you want it, well you can dream on me.
Yeah, we all need someone we can cream on
And if you want to, well you can cream on me.

When you think about it, though, life can be very simple. Like our engagement party. Rose’s father – old Gerald with his stately moustache drinking Tokaj in a teacup – had it in the VFW Hall basement. He’d done well as a lawyer but he liked the basic things. He was just an average guy. All of our friends were behind the little concession counter they had giving out cups and cups of beer while above them the the menu was missing letters. Ham urger. F ench Fri. Pe s – Cola. My dad dancing with Rose and her mother. I watched them twisting their legs and feet when Gerald clasped his hand on my shoulder.

“You’re a smart kid, Ben.”

“You saw that article too?”

He had a hearty laugh that sounded as though everything funny surprised him, or as if it were the first joke that had ever been invented.

“No, but I mean it. I’ve never met a quicker young man than you.”

“Thanks, Gerald.”

“I’m very happy for the two of you.”

“That means a lot.”

“You’re going to do right by her? Aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

He pulled up the waist of his pants, they were already a little high.

“I mean a smart young man like you – things come easy. I know you’ve got a lot of ambition. I just hope it doesn’t tempt you too far. So far that my daughter might suffer because of it. You know I can always put in a word at the firm for you. I know you haven’t studied for that but you should consider…”

We all need someone we can feed on
And if you want it, well you can feed on me.
Take my arm, take my leg
Oh, baby, dont you take my head.

“No,” I said firmly. Maybe I was too firm. “You don’t need to help me out with your firm. We’re going to be alright. I love Rose. I know that.”

“That’s what I thought and I’m happy. That’s also what I’m afraid of.”

He turned, grabbing my shoulders, and hugged me.

“I have some Tokaj behind the counter.”

And I always hated him for that. I hated him for being afraid of how devoted I was to his daughter and always doubting my dreams and disguising it as some sort of respect or awe for my intelligence. Maybe even that night wasn’t as simple as I thought.

We all need someone we can bleed on
And if you want it, baby, well you can bleed on me
We all need someone we can bleed on
And if you want it, why dont you bleed on me

But as time passes with songs like this one and the other musics of life, I still see everyone linking arms over shoulders - Connor and I there with all of the neighborhood guys. It was simple because it was a night all about me and Rose. That’s all it was ever really about for me. Even when I slept past noon or woke up in the bathtub wet after one of those city nights.

I wasn’t close to being famous. I don’t think anyone knew me just like no one knows me now and I’m alone in my study.

“Come on, Benny, open your eyes.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You’ve finally made it and now you don’t want to look in the lights?”

“Maybe I don’t want to know.”

“Come on, open. You promised me in our vows.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah, in sickness and death.”

I open my eyes. It looks and smells like the VFW hall.

“What is this?”

“Something simple. Dad would’ve liked it.”

“Yeah.”

“I wish the kids could’ve seen it.”

“Yeah, me too.”

The Eve of the Eve of the Eve...

Like I said last week, I am going to keep in the spirit of the holidays by doing another post that is essentially a list. I've been pretty damn busy at work and my internet is slipping in and out and hard to get a handle of as I try to steal it from neighbors and other innocent bystanders (the real holiday spirit) so excuse me if I can't give you the usual inspiring and soul supporting prose that you all (all?) know by memory by now and love so much. Plus we had a big party at the apartment this past weekend that I am still throwing garbage out from (it was one of my favorites on record, though).

So, in the spirit of being tired, like the episode Eumaeus in Ulysses, and the After the Goldrush album I am listening to, I am giving to you - the viewer (right medium? no?) - my list of the "Top Twenty Movies To Watch on TV." This list is based on my theory that there are a certain canon (buzzword college readers) of movies that only get better with commercials. This list has also been culled from countless college weekends being hungover and needing a shitty TV movie to grip onto to bring me back from the brink of desolation. I have spouted these movies off ad nauseum to friends much to their disgust, however, now I am going to really document it so everyone can puke. Worthless? Sure. Serious? Maybe. Serious? Just like everything.

Now stay out of my way while I hope "Cripple Creek Ferry" on repeat buoys this writing. I might need a little Little Feat with "Crazy Captain Gunboat Willie" if things get real tough.

20. A Time to Kill - Melodramatic. Hot, sweaty Sandra Bullock. Matthew McConaughey when he had potential. "Yes, they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!" With soundbytes like that, you need commercial to give you a break while you contemplate what a stupid movie it is.

19. American Pie - Surprisingly classic even ten years later. After all the other crazy (but genius) latter die sequels you forget that the first movie had a good teen vibe, Stiffler was actually hilarious, and it wasn't that stupid. Although it sort of was. Better when you can zone out and have it broken up by commercials. Do you need to own it?

18. Wedding Crashers - Has gotten TV overkill and has been overquoted and over Will Ferrelled, however, Owen Wilson translates to a shitty movie being on TV and making you feel comfortable. You'll see later on.

17. Mystic Pizza - Now, you're going to say, "Domino, you've gone soft. Go watch some more basketball or drink some more of that booze you're always talking about." I say, "Just watch it."

16. Can't Hardly Wait - The ultimate shitty high school movie that is widely regarded as being great. I feel like this movie was made with commercials inserted into it. Ah, 1997.

15. Mummy - Some of the movies above this movie are far better than it. However, nothing sucks you in like this damn movie when its on USA or TNT or TBS or sometimes all three at the same time. You have terrible Brendan Fraser as the poor man's Indiana Jones, plenty of bit stereotype characters. A somewhat entertaining Egyptian legend and Rachel Weiss holding the whole thing afloat. Yet, I can't stay away. Gimme a beer.

14. Rocky V - There is no other time you are going to watch this move except at the end of a Rocky marathon on AMC. However, you get one of the dumbest plots of all time and one of the best characters of all time "George Washington Duke." Next time a Rocky marathon is on, take a risk on V. I'm sure you will regret it.

13. Teen Wolf - Not on cable as frequently as you'd expect so it loses points. I only catch it on HBO usually. However, I had to put it on here. It goes without saying that this is one of the best movies of all time. And if you read Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball when he compares Kobe to the Teen Wolf and compares the Teen Wolf/Scott Howard transformation to the "Secret" of basketball, you will understand everything. Plus, as Simmons points out, it has the worst sports editing of any movie, fascinating stats in the final game, and one of the weirdest high school dynamics in any teen movie, let alone an 80's teen movie. What an enigma! It should be number 1!

12. Look Who's Talking - Again you are going to say, "Domino, what happened to the ball? The masculinity? This movie is stupid." Yeah, but its about a talking baby who tries to communicate with his thoughts and he sounds like Bruce Willis. Rock this baby (no pun intended) on mute with your friends and you are in stupid heaven.

11. Breakfast Club - The ultimate 80's movie. It just misses out on the top ten. Its a staple on TV. Like I said about Can't Hardly Wait, it feels like the commercials are in the movie at this point.

10. 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story - The top ten starts off with a movie that was actually a made for TV movie. ESPN Films brings it home with the story of Dale Earnhardt. Barry Pepper delivers a tour de force performance as the Intimidator. Spouting off lines like "Nobody beats me ever!" to Dale Jr. when they are carrying bags of lawnseed. Gets better every time you catch it on at 2:00 AM on ESPN 2. Goes great with a Dr. Pepper Bomb (half cup of Miller Light with a shot of amaretto dropped in).

9. Jaws - Three hours flat. The shark. The music. Brody. Quint. Quint getting eaten. But you forget about the commercial break they squeeze in right before Brody and Hooper swim into shore once Jaws has blown up. Plus you have to love when long, classic (in this case, classic scary) movies get further drawn out by commercials. This works well in the afternoons on Saturday when you feel like you are accomplishing something by not watching college sports or in the evenings on Saturday when a classic movie makes sipping those first two beers seem that much classier. Ah, hell its probably not.


8. Aliens/Alien(tie) - Its hard to choose between these two. Again, they are both relatively long movies, which translate (in my ranking system) to great TV movies. Do you go for the action and "Game over man!" soundbytes of Aliens? Or do you go for the drawn out outer-space haunted house feel of Alien? Either way, with the commercial when you go to take a piss you get to freak yourself out before you grab the next beer. Even though its a tie, I think the edge goes to Alien. Watch that movie on mute with some music on (Grateful Dead) let the observations and the jokes fly.

6. Ghostbusters - Are you turning this off when it comes on TV? How often do you reach for it on your DVD shelf even though it makes sense as an addition and most people have it? I don't and you should just throw it out and let Comedy Central sweep you away with promos for their next shitty show.

5. You, Me and Dupree - A recent addition that keeps gaining steam. A cozy performance by Owen Wilson, a rock solid Dillon performance, a decent friend premise, nice Hudson underwear shots. Would you own this on DVD? No. Would you watch it exhausted on a Sunday night before Mad Men? Absolutely.

4. Major League 2 - By all means a much better movie than Major League, it goes through such dry patches being on TV that it loses points. However it is sustained by the classic "this is only one year later how did everying get so crazy?" questions you ask yourself and your friends when you watch it. You can see Charlie Sheen mailing in his performance. And it has the immortal, "Fly ball. Caught." You are not changing the channel. Oh, wait. You are. That's the whole point of this list.

3. Godfather - Strangely more episodic than the extremely episodic Godfather Part II. Fits perfectly on TV. Classic commercial break after the hospital scene with Michael, Enzo the baker, and the cop.

2. Major League - When I first moved into my apartment in Brooklyn, there was a night when some acquaintances from college came over to drink. This was before I had started my job and I wasn't necessarily close with some of these people, but we were having a good time. I had Major League on mute while we listened to music. The movie ended at 10:00 PM on AMC. Followed by an encore. I left the encore on and laughed my ass off knowing all the lines. Mute or no mute this is one of the best sports movies of all time and one of the most "Yes! I can't believe its on! Its a miracle movies" you'll ever find - even if TV does take away from the fact that it is the best cursing movie of all time. Plus it spurred my "Reverse Major League" movie idea. Where an old kind man owns a baseball team in a terrible town like Bismarck and all the players want to move to Miami. So the old man hires Steve Urkel to give him a potion to make himself young so he joins the team and starts trying, foiling the tanking plans of his teammates and becoming a legend of the state of North Dakota. Genius? Sure.

1. The Godfather Part II - Over three hours long without commercials, this legendary film becomes over four hours when it is put on AMC. There is something strangely assuring about a movie being on for almost five hours in the middle of the day on one channel when you are feeling desolate, drunk and depraved on late Sunday afternoon in November. And this is made all the better as you watch Michael Corleone swirl himself into isolation and power in the best impersonation of Shakespeare (i.e. Henry IV) of all time. Thank god there was never a mobster Henry V. ST. CRISPIN'S DAY!

Welp, that's that. I'll be back after the Christmas weekend no doubt with plenty of new ideas and meditations for you after getting drunk in my hometown and not being able to accept gifts from my family. Plus the new year will be coming up, the end of a decade, tons of lists, people feeling terrible and trying to foist plans on us both - there will be endless things to ramble about. Look forward to it.

Now, the next installment of "From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt":

Maggie

Its hot in this god forsaken hole in the wall and my cramps are bad. This is all fun, though. Tom outside having a chat with that girl. I can’t see him from here. It’s all fun for us depressives to come out and get a drink. Poor dad sitting alone up at the house. We shouldn’t have left him like that. Is he crying about her? About tomorrow? Has he cried yet? Ever? All men have to come to tears sometime don’t they? That guide in Siberia. He cried when one of his dogs died on the trip with us. His knee bent in snow pants quietly scruffing and scraping the snow the breath rising and his staccato sobs. I never saw Jake. Not even…

I throw the dart.

It lands in the first level of nineteen. That closes that one out. The others did nothing for me. I walk up to the board to circle my X.

“Now all I need are the bullseyes,” I say to Liza.

“Let’s hope you can get those quick.”

“That’s the competitive spirit I like to see.”

We’re both bored but what else are we going to do in this shitty place? I have been in worse - bars with dirt floors in Central and South America. Its only that this place is in our backyard and I get to be reminded of watching old friends puke in the back when I’d come home from college. Guys a year older than trying to make out with me because I’d “gotten hotter and really become a women since you went away to college.”

Liza steps up and throws her first dart. It hits the outside section of ten. I don’t know why I agreed with Tom’s idea to come down here, but then again I do know why because it is better to get out of the house and it even looks like James is loosening up over there in the corner. I remember hearing about him being involved with beating up Danny Christian. His friend Paul and the other James almost got sued for it. They were good friends in the end because they admitted that James never through a punch – never touched the kid.

And look at Eve just watching him. Shame on him. Shame on her too for not going over there and just listening to him about saying a quick hello. She should’ve known he was drunk. I could tell. Ah it’s uncomfortable in here.

“Eve you should go over and drag him back.”

She puts on a smile and pretends like its not bothering her. But it would bother me. I wouldn’t let him talk to a slut like Arielle Gregors.

“Oh, no,” she says. “I’ll let him catch up. He needs to lighten up a little. He’s taken this all so hard.”

We’ve all taken it hard. Maybe we should be taking it harder. Maybe I should get out of here before I see someone I know and go sit with dad.

“Yeah, he has a way of doing that.”

“That’s what attracted me to him.”

I take a drink of my pint and set it down. “What that he was so serious?”

“No that he welcomed responsibility. That he was willing to. You know it feels different when you date a guy who you could recognize as a husband or a good father. I don’t know maybe I’m crazy.”

She’s not crazy. She’s right.

“Jake, I’m home.”

I walked down the hall, the lights were dim and there he was to take my coat. His tie was draped around his neck. I looked down at the coffee table. Two glasses of wine. One red and one white.
His hands on my waist.

“I’m not sure I know,” I say.

Eve looks down at her drink. Liza taps me on the shoulder and hands me the darts. I touch one sharp tip and feel it try to pierce my skin. Over Liza’s shoulder I see a girl with blonde hair sneaking up on her. I raise my eyebrows and motion with my head for her to turn around. She does.

“Liza! What are you doing home?”

“Oh, hey Lindsey,” she says. She’s tentative. She doesn’t want to be there or be seen just as much as me. My baby sister. The other girl hugs her. I’m sure she’s a bitch.