Stuff’s weird

It’s been a strange season.  It seems like everything’s happening all at once and I can’t take it all in.  Marci’s getting married, Lee died, Casey and I started a Jawbreaker cover band with Lance, Josh is moving back to Houston, Leah is moving to Syria, Airon and Steven are moving to Seattle, Andrew moved out of his house, I’m moving back into my old house, Pam moved in down the street from me, I went to Austin a bunch, I went to Gainesville once, I wrote a zine that sold out, I got a credit on the Teenage Kicks LP, and so much more to say about everyone. Damn, it’s like condensing a lifetime into a box that only holds 5 months.  Things like this make me wish I never had to sleep.

I’ve been writing letters.  Well, some were handwritten and some were typewritten.  It depends on where they’re going.  All of them went to girls that don’t live in town any more.    I think my favorite letter was the one I wrote to Francisca.  She moved to New York and lives in Brooklyn, going to school in Manhattan…living the crazy life, I guess.  I typewrote her letter on some Xeroxed skinhead photos I took a few months ago.  Actually, I met her sister the same night I took those photos.  Her name was Magdalena and she told me to give Franny a call because she misses Houston.  I did her one better and wrote a letter.  It reminded me of a time about 2 years ago when Franny and I were still working at Amy’s together.  We were both seniors in high school and our high school careers were coming to a close.  She told me she was excited to go to New York and I told her I was excited to stay in town (I have an unhealthy love for what Houston has to offer).  Before she left, I made her a mixtape (because a Jewel CD was permanently stuck in her sister’s stereo), a lyric sheet, a map of Houston, and I think I wrote her a letter, too.  All this for a girl I barely knew.  I didn’t even hang out with her often.  She didn’t know much about me and I didn’t know much about her, despite knowing each other for years, and I doubt we had much in common. I don’t really know why I did it, it was just fun for us, I guess.  I don’t know why I miss her, either, because I never make plans with her when she’s in town.  I guess it’s an acquired taste, like developing the taste for beer.  An acquired feeling, I guess.  Don’t care for it at first, can’t wait for it now.  Or maybe it’s the association in our brains.  Y’know, like how some people drink beer but hate the taste but love to get drunk so their brain associates the good drunk times with beer so they don’t mind drinking it.  It’s the same thing with girls, the way you can feel kinda drunk just by hanging out with the right kind of girl.  But you drink a bad liquor and you have the reds and the blues for what feels like forever.  Ever meet a bad girl?  Same thing.

forgetters, Wild America, and Come and Take It at the House of Commons

Pam Cantu and I drove to Austin on Friday.  Well, she did the driving and I paid for gas (I don’t know how to drive).  We made it in 2 and a half hours, a personal record.  She somehow got her Honda Fit up to 100 mph, I saw the speedometer with my own eyes.  We almost crashed into a median and died.

On Saturday I was waiting for the Jesus Lizard to begin their set.  The band started and my phone started to ring.  I decided to wait until the Jesus Lizard were done and then call whoever it was back.  During “Mouth Breather,” I get a text from the same number. It was Aaron.  I was about to text him back but at that moment a stagediver kicked my hat, gun range earmuffs, and glasses off.  I picked up my hat and ear protection but I couldn’t find my glasses.  I pulled out a little flashlight on my keychain and got down on one knee and looked for it.  The second I did that, the whole crowd of people made space for me, 2 guys pulled out flashlights, 3 guys pulled out cellphones and started using them as flashlights, and everyone was looking for my glasses.  And one of those guys found them. Awesome.

After the Jesus Lizard set, I called Aaron back and he informed me that forgetters from Brooklyn, New York were playing a house show that night.  I couldn’t get the show confirmed as real and not a hoax, but I couldn’t risk it.  I thanked him and started walking to the address he sent me; it was 2 or 3 miles away and took about an hour to walk.

For those of you who don’t know, forgetters (all lower-case with no article) is a band from Brooklyn, New York with Blake Schwarzenbach (Jawbreaker, Jets to Brazil, Thorns of Life) on guitar and vocals, Caroline Paquita (Bitchin’) on bass, and Kevin Mahon (Against Me!) on drums.  This would be my only chance to ever see Blake play a house show.

When I finally made it to the house, I saw a bunch of people sitting on the front porch and a kid pumping what looked like a potato cannon with a bicycle pump.  That kid was Kyle, I hadn’t seen him since I was about 15 or 16.  I yell from the sidewalk, “Kyle, is that you?”

“Yeah!” he replied.

I walk up the steps and ask him in almost a whisper, “Hey, uh…is forgetters really playing here tonight?”  He said yes.  I walked inside and sat down in the room with the PA.

A guy with a beard was sitting next to me.  “Are you excited, man?” I asked him.  “Yeah, how ’bout you?”  “Totally. I never thought I’d ever see him in the flesh, y’know?”  (Aaron had been using the phrase “in the flesh” for the past week so I made it a mission to use it at least once)  I told him about how Jets to Brazil didn’t come to Houston on their last tour and I told him about all the other legendary shows I had to miss because I was so young.  He was quite a bit older than me so he told me all the bands he had to miss.  I think one of the bands he missed was Jawbreaker because his dad said no and it was a school night and it was snowing.  Blake then walked into the room and put down his guitar.  Then he started talking to some guy.  Me and the bearded guys sat there in silence and watched.  The 2nd bearded guy pulled out a Polaroid camera and, without looking in the viewfinder, pointed the camera from his lap at Blake and pressed the button.  A big bright flash momentarily blinded everyone in the room and the loud mechanics of the photo being exposed made a shrill noise.  “Uhh…hi there…” said Blake.  The 2nd bearded guy waved his hand. “Hi,” he said.

Their set was great.  I recognized one of the songs was a Thorns of Life song, I think it’s called “Oh Deathly Death.”  My friend Leah was at the show with one of her friends.  I told them how legendary this forgetters show was going to be, but they didn’t get it.  They actually left before the forgetters set.  If I believed in god, this moment would have thrown my theism down the drain.

Bread & Roses and the Christmas Truce of World War I

One of my favorite folk bands is Bread & Roses from Boston, Massachusetts.  They broke up a year or two ago and had only played together for a few years.  It was one of those folk bands that comprised of musicians who had grown up listening and playing punk rock music.  The music was doused with bluegrass and Celtic styled banjo playing, mandolin, acoustic guitar, gruff vocals, fiddles, and upright bass.  Their songs were a mix of old and modern stories, from stories of soldiers in World War I to the ironic sales of selling GG Allin t-shirts at the mall.  Their last album will probably never be released but I have a copy and have been listening to it every day for the past few weeks.  Before I had only the live bootleg versions so hearing a “proper” recording of my favorite song, “Boxing Day 1914,” is like listening to it for the first time all over again.  It wasn’t until I heard the recorded version that I realized what the song was about.

I remember around 7th grade I was reading about holidays celebrated by many countries, excluding America, such as May Day and Boxing Day.  I had European friends with parents that celebrated May Day but I never knew anyone that celebrated Boxing Day, usually on the day after Christmas.  My history teacher in 7th grade knew quite a bit about it and he also was the first person to tell me about the World War I Christmas Truce.  He told us of how German troops and English troops sat in cold, wet trenches fighting nonstop.  There was always sounds of gunshots and bombs blasting day and night.  You could never have a silent moment to yourself.  But on Christmas Eve, the Germans ceased fire.  They lit candles and decorated the ground level of their side of the battlefield with Christmas trees.  They sang Christmas carols that echoed out of the trenches.  The English troops also ceased fire, although apprehensively.  They, too, started to sing Christmas carols.  Written in broken English, the German troops began holding up signs asking for a momentary truce.  The English troops also held up signs asking for a temporary cease of fire.  Then slowly, the soldiers on both sides of the war crawled out of their trenches, walked across no-man’s-land, and shook hands.  For two days, they exchanged gifts instead of bullets and ate dinner together instead of individually.  They played soccer against one another instead of war.  But more importantly, they allowed each other to bury the dead, something neither side could do because of the dangerous gunfire above ground.  During the truce, some soldiers of opposing sides actually exchanged addresses to write each other after the war.  The celebration lasted until Christmas.  By Boxing Day, the war continued.

Bread & Roses’ song “Boxing Day 1914” (which I hosted here to download) is about an English soldier during these two days who exchanged addresses with a German soldier.  I can’t believe I never caught this years ago; it makes perfect sense.  Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, of 1914, the year of World War I.  I should’ve known instantly.

Old friend, can you remember the tiny lights that sprung up over no man’s land?  And how without a signal, we threw down our weary arms and how without a second thought we stood and ran.

Old friend, can you remember the frozen muddy wasteland suddenly pristine?  For the first and last time ever, I could hear myself think over the grinding voice of the machine.

Corporals translated our delight as Christmas Day turned into night.  With laughter on our tongues where there’d been only orders and screams. We danced along the bodies like children in a dream.

Old friend, can you forgive me?  The Pidgin English promises I’ll never keep.  Christmas Eves that I spent drinking at my writing desk and Christmas mornings my children watched their father weep.

And nothing I’ve done since has felt as real as the first step I took across that frozen field.  When we said our last goodbyes, I can’t remember who blinked first, but I can see your face as clearly as I read this scribbled curse, this scribbled address that I hid away in shame.

Long after we had found out
All the slaughtered soldiers’ names,
Can you forgive me my old friend?
I picked my rifle up again on Boxing Day.

Muhammadali, GTRS, Motion Turns it On, & Passengers at Little John’s house

Little John had a little BBQ at his house a few weeks ago.  A couple of kegs, a grill burning all afternoon; it was awesome and I didn’t even have a beer (I reminded myself to not drink because a few weeks prior at the Todo Moto clubhouse, I told myself I wouldn’t drink but ended up with 7 Miller High Lifes in my system within 2 hours).  The weather was idyllic; by that I mean it was hot and humid and the mosquitoes were buzzing, the image in my mind of a Houston barbecue.  Kegstands abound. I met a kid there named Alex.  He was only 16 or 17.  I gotta watch out for him, he’s beating me at the “youngest kid at the show” game.  He was filming the bands with a fancy camera he borrowed from his school. I can’t wait til it’s online.

Muhmmadali:

GTRS:

Motion Turns It On (they did an awesome Screeching Weasel cover)

Passengers:

Tarkington, Texas

The Perseid meteor shower occurs every year.  I am 19 years and before Tuesday, I had never seen it before.

I got a phone call from Darcy on Tuesday asking me what I planned on doing.  I told her that I planned on staying in.  She remembered me mentioning something about a meteor shower before.  About 45 minutes later, her truck pulled up in front of my house.  Alex was driving and our first stop was in Humble.  Clay and Sonia live there and we talked about garden solarization and I looked through their poster collection.  Sonia gave me a massage because I won a contest.  When our business at home was done we all drove to Tarkington, about an hour and half’s drive outside of Houston. That’s where Logan’s farm was and it was a great place to get away from the city’s lights.  We set up a little spot in the middle of a cow pasture and watched the stars and meteors.

I put my camera on a tripod and left it on a 30 second exposure to see if I could catch any of the meteors, but the only photo that came out pleasant was an accident.  While my shutter was open, a few of the people on the blanket pulled out a camera and took a picture of themselves.  The flash on their camera was caught by mine and I was pretty stoked when I saw the picture that came out.