October 2002 Archives

Why does it seem that when money is low, the last thing you want to do is work, and the last thing you do is live as frugally as possible?

After seeing Dave Sedaris on Thursday at the Temple Buell Theater, I decided I needed to do something completely different again, so I went out dancing, at Club Onyx. The Onyx is run by the same nice group of people who run Cafe Netherworld, one of the first coffee shops I went to in Denver when I was 18 and crashing at my brother's apartment on Bannock. It's basically a Goth club.

I miss dancing sometimes. I remember I used to go to Denver twice a week for Swing Dancing. I don't really like swing dancing any more, but all those ball room dancing classes do pay off and I am very comfortable with my body on the dance floor. It seems to be a release for me; it's also one of the few little times I exercise.

That night, they were playing just a mix of things; it seemed almost like a "Remember when you were in Highschool?" set had been formulated. Remember Du Hast by Rammstein? Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine? They remembered them too. Thankfully, they also remembered New Order and Depeche Mode from "Remember when your older brother was in highschool?" setlist. Goth dancing in general is oddly... odd. Much sulking - perhaps the only dancing style where the objective is to move as little as possible, to seem as if, well, if the dead could dance (ha, Dead Can Dance) this would be what it would look like. It took me about 5 minutes to get acclimated to all the men dressed in black and all the women dressed in vinyl and I stepped on the dance floor.

It occurred to me that most of the people around me were just horrible at dancing, so I didn't follow their lead at all. I took what I knew, Jazz moves, and mooded them out; a little less bouncing, more thoughts of teenaged suicide and I was on it like a razer blade to wrist. No one seemed to even see me and I didn't care if they did. Goth people are generally very nice people once you get over the whole death thing; they're used to being seen as strange and give the same looks to each other as a Joe Businessman would give to them.

I found myself in the same sort of state of not wanting to work any longer at about 7pm on Saturday, the next night. There was a show playing at the Bluebird, just a few blocks away: Imperial Teen. I saw them when the Breeders played, and they were alright. The blurb by the show date said something like "aging indy rock kids will definetly be into the sounds of Imperial Teen, who is anything but immature"- some cruft like that. I dressed the part of the Aging Indy Rock kid anyways, and got a ticket.

The Bluebird was desolate, maybe 30 people in total there, no one was in the pit, so I jaunted in there to see the local opening band, The Maybellines. The lead singer looks like my friend Lara from school and sounds like her to. They have a sounds that makes you want to tap your toes and that's about it. I guess that's what aging indy rockers do. They lead singer gave me a pin for free, oh tear!

Imperial Teen Played an OK set, nothing ground breaking and the show let out at 11pm. You know when a band is getting a bit stagnant when they introduce a song with, "This is the song that almost made us a lot of money." During the encore, I tried to get this pretty girl that was just standing in the corner to dance with me. She gave me the "I don't want you to come near me and I have mace" look, which was fine. For some twisted reason, I feel like I need to be rejected by women a few times, in order to actually warm up to flirting with someone for real.

Afterwards, I went home and went to sleep, to get up early to go to Boulder. I needed to pick up my mail and Cat's father was in town. Cat, Cat's Father and Brother were going to Estes Park and I was tagging along.

I wanted to meet Cat's Father. He sends Cat odd letters. Cat told him about me one time and I guess he asked if I used Old Spice, which I did, and he seemed incredibly excited about that. Secretly, I wanted to know more about Cat and her family and I don't know the next time I'd get a chance to meet a part of them, since they live in Nashville Kentucky and I would be hard pressed to find an excuse to go to that epicenter of Western civilization.

Cat's father was more than I expected. He seemed to me like Santa Claus's younger brother, without a beard, but just as jolly and a bit absent-minded. Cat's afraid of being in a car, which was surprising, until you see her father's driving. He would start a story with more tangents than my own, and spot pretty clouds and wildlife while behind the wheel, forgetting any focus of the road. With the help of Cat's father, the car would wander left, crossing the double yellow line slightly as oncoming traffic would make the appropriate emergency maneuvers, and then adjust itself to the right, going slightly over the right white line, where, in some highways of Colorado, are just a few feet away from a tremendous cliff, almost too high to see the SUV's at the bottom who had similar drivers.

I've never been to Estes Park, but The Shining was set in this sleepy little town. It seemed that Cat had enough of her Father for one decade and was a little ancy to get in Estes Park, get out of Estes park and get her father and brother on a plane back to Nashville, far far away from her apartment. I guess I don't blame her, but she seemed to be really rude to her father -

"Why are we going this way? We have to go that way, don't you know? You have to know, that was the hotel, THE BIG WHITE BUILDING. I'm giving you to the count of 5 to turn the car around. 1... 2... 3... 4...", where the car would then go to the side of the road, barely missing a lone Elk wandering around and flip a bitch to go the direction needed, running over the last true jackalope, as Cat's "5" turns into winnies of fear of her father's driving skills, which must has been picked up while eating cotton candy at the local go cart course.

We found what we were looking for, The Hotel they shot The Shining at. Upon entering the classy restaurant, the Majordomo basically told us, yes the Movie is set here, but no no no, it wasn't shot here. The gift shop was nice. and they had a model of the Stanely Steamer, some car run on water, like that'll ever fly, ha!

I tried to be as nice to Cat's Father as possible during brunch, since this was the first time I have attended a brunch in ten years. My meals these days just sort of slurr into each other; a box of cereal is at the bottom of my drawing table and a carton of milk is to my right, as far away from the computer as possible. When I run out of cereal or the milk gets too warm to bare, I know it's time to go to sleep. Sometimes I just skip the whole step of pouring the cereal in an actual bowl, as the plastic bag inside the cereal box works well enough. After an hour, the cereal gets to the consistency of whatever they were eating in the Matrix on that weird submarine and I feel like I know Kung Fu.

Cat's father and I talked about what we had in common; like, we're both from Connecticut. I would tell him about my childhood; sailing in the waters of the coast of Connecticut and he would tell me all the proper names of landmarks and towns that I had purposely wiped from my memory. It was a bumpy trip down memory lane. Cat stayed anxious, wanted to get out of the Stanely Hotel and get to the airport, lest she go crazy and start murdering certain people. His plane left at about 6pm, we sat down at 2 pm. It takes an hour to get to any sort of gate at DIA, I believe the airport is considered it's own providence, but I might be wrong.

We got home, with a few more merrrs (the opposite of purrrs) from Cat and perhaps one word from his brother, I'm sure being 16 and hanging out with your Father is the highlight of any weekend. Cat's iBook wasn't feeling very cute, as it wouldn't turn on. It was either that time of the month for it, or, it was the Fantastic Foods Miso Soup that was spilled onto the keyboard, which is 3 millimeters of plastic away from the millions of transistors that make up the motherboard. I did as much as I knew how, mostly hitting the restart button, and then the power button; taking the keyboard off and looking real close like at the plastic panel underneigth and going "Hmmmm" a few times.

I did give Cat a present though, while at the book signing, I bought a copy of Barrel Fever for her and had it signed by David Sedaris. It read something like "With the pleasure of meeting your good friend alex". Cat read it and smiled the second nicest I've ever seen her smile and was a breath of relieve to me on how she was acting today. At the signing, the person before me got their book signed, I like Chimps, while Sedaris chuckled to himself about how much he really liked chimps. I told Cat I was going to give the book to her for Christmas, but, eh, I'm a bloke. I asked to borrow the book later.

I got out of Boulder a bit earlier than I expected, but a block away from my house, I received a phone call from Jason, who wanted to go to a Poetry Slam at the Mercury Cafe. I think I'm a tortured poet sometimes, and half of those times, I really am, so I was down wid it. Jason was going to compete in the slam and I wanted to support that.

The slam itself was just goofy. Apparently, to write good poetry in 2002, you need to use a potty word and be really angst about something stupid, like people different than you, or your job, who honestly takes the time away from a job to talka bout it? I wanted to just pass around Earth Balls to everyone. Then, you just have to say these ideas you've written onto a piece of paper really loudly. This pissed me off. angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night is one thing. I hate people that ask me questions while working retail is quite another. The muses have lost their focus and wings. I'll fix that. I made a pact to Jason to read in next week's open poetry reading, although I have nothing to speak of in new material.

After the slam and Jason's 5th glass of wine, a celebration of getting ousted from the comp on the first round, I snuck upstairs, where they do swing dancing on Sundays. I recognized some faces, the same faces who never talked to me much and didn't have a trace of recognition of me now. Was it May that I stopped? Sand in your hands man (ah! I start of a angst poem of the correct caliber!) I snuck a quite dance though, the band went home and CD's were being played. I got stuck with some girl who didn't know how to dance at all. Fuck. A little while later, a beauty of a girl came in, and I got her to dance, or shall I say, I got her to grab my arms and I spun around in circles until she fell, and then I kicked her by accident. I'm good at kicking girls by accident.

Her sister and another friend of hers were also there and Jason popped up. We began to talk for a while. Everyone was getting bored, one of the girls slipped the phrase "Well, you know, living in Arvada..." and I perked up and blurted out, "Arvada, do you know... Jack?" and they yelped in excitment, "YES!", with high fives all around. A point of contact. Beautiful.

I told them I the story that I just saw the Violent Femmes show with Jack and they told me that one time they were waiting in a bedroom at a party, with the idea that the first guy to come into the bedroom with them, was going to get fucked. Jack was the guy and they turned him down.

We agreed to meet next week for the slam and also at the Bright Eyes show on Tuesday.

Monday I didn't do anything

Tuesday was the night of the Bright Eyes show.

I was going to print pictures from the Violent Femmes show for that girl I met there , call her to go see Bright Eyes with me and then buy tickets. I didn't do either, but went to the show anyways, which was sold out.

Standing outside freezing, a classmate of mine walked passed me and we recognized each other.

"Got tickets to the show?"

"Nope."

"Hmm, they're sold out"

"Oh, want to go see Tiger Army?"

"Yes."

So that's what we did. They were playing at the Ogden. They're like Gothy Rockabilly guys and they're known for the bassist playing a standup bass. Fun music. I thought that they were headlining, but no! The Damned were. I tried to see the Damned almost a year ago when they were playing with Rob Zombie on the CU campus, but they pulled out a day before. I think they're one of those punk bands from the 70's with like, one orignal member left, who actually works as a stage hand and counts his royalty fees backstage, but I might be wrong. It just seemed that if any 5 people were to play in a band together, it wouldn't be these 5. The lead singer looked like a Vegas lounger perfomer, the bassist was ready to dance with me at the Onyx, the keyboardist looked related to Richard Simmons and the guitarist and Drummer looked about 16, but with many more bad tattoos than necessary. And they didn't play Love Song. After going to that show, I realized I was getting bored of going to music shows, and needed a break, or my wallet was going to squeak.

The next Friday, I trekked to Boulder again. I needed to pick up mail once again and I also decided that I WANT TO BE A GRAFFITI ARTIST. I'm keeping it a secret as to why I want to be this, but I do. Really badly. My friend Steoh left me a whole box of spray paint when she moved to Japan and they've just been sitting, dormant in my closet. On the bus there, I just so happened to sit next to the jolly, nosy homeless person, who had a million questions about my spray paint and wanted to go into business, spaying sheets and selling them outside on the open mall. I declined, right after he offered to pay me $3, so he could huff the paint in the back. I swear to you, at about Westminster, when I was looking out the window, he stole one of my cans and took it to the back and did just that, the odd smell of paint thinner and enamel filling the hermetically sealed bus. The last thing I wanted to do was to get kicked off a bus because some homeless guy was getting his fix on my royal blue Krylon. I prayed to the Tikki gods, and I was in Boulder, without incident.

Checking mail was actually fun, as I received my tax refund, after doing my taxes 6 month late. Got paid for some freelance work and newly purchased skateboards danced in my head. I visited where my previous work place was and left a card for Rob, whose wife just had a baby, named Ethan.

I walked all through Boulder with a gallon of black paint and a bad of spray paints and got no looks, except for one girl on the phone how looked me up and down and up again. Spray Painters are sexy. I made myself to the Boulder Art Wall. Boulder actually has a place for you to spray paint, legally - right next to the skate park. This is American culture as I like it.

After a few hours I had a mural of James Dean,

along with a corny quote by him lettered alongside. I tagged the piece with, "skazat"; my newly self-dubbed graffiti name. For those who don't know Russian, it means To say, in... Russian.

I hung out with my friend Brooke, but was pooped. Her friends seemed really boring and plastic and I caught the next bus home. Apparently, there was an accident on the local Denver route, so the driver told us to get off the bus if we're going all the way to Market Street, which I was. When I got off the first bus, my plastic bag broke and my spray paints went everywhere. I scampered to pick them up, waving the bus driver to hold on a minute, which he obliged. I then got to on the bus to pay fare, which for means showing the driver my 6 month past expired pass from when I went to CU Boulder. He asked the obvious question, "Is that... spraypaint?" No, Basquiat, it's hairspray, I'm a hair stylist in training and I'm touring different salons to get more of a feel for the business, you know, get connections, learn different techniques, see what this whole beeswax and dread lock thing is here.

"Um, yeah", I said.

"Those aren't allowed on the bus, sir"

What the fuck? How did he think I got to Boulder?, "What the fuck, how do you think I got here?"

"It doesn't matter, I can't allow you on the bus"

I revealed to him the fact that I just got off the local Denver bus (true) and paid that fare (a white lie) and that I was pissed. He didn't care. I took the half hour it was going to take for the next local bus to Denver to appear to grab plastic bags out of trash to put my paint cans in and soiled newspaper to put around the sides of the bag. Am I sneaky or what?

My amazing spy skills got me on the next bus, and Lara called, inviting me to see Eric's band, Swayback, who incidentally shares the same drummer as the Gammits I think. Weird. I told her she needed to pick me up and I offered her my body. She came around about an hour later take me to the 15th Street Tavern to meet up with Dan, Jason and Wade

Pretty Girls Make Graves (so true) was the headlining band, the lead singer not five feet tall. I was way in the back, so I saw the guitarists doing their emo thing and every once in a while, the singer would hold up the microphone and twirl it around. Not a bad show, it was nice seeing Eric again and watching Jason try to pick up women who we know have boyfriends and seeing Dan hung over. We went out for Taco Bell afterwards and I ended my night, late, given Lara a smooch on the cheak.

Last Friday, I felt absolutely unfocused and without a speck of motivation to do the piles of school work and work work, so I looked around to see if any shows were playing and luckily there was: The Red Elvises. I had never heard of them before, but the term "Rockabilly" and "Russian" were in close proximity to their promotional band photo of the three members posing naked, hidden only by their instruments. It was a cheap show as well and located just a few blocks from my apartment at the Bluebird. Fifteen minutes before the show, I called someone I never met and asked if she wanted to see the show. She did.

I met Sarah between the Bluebird and the 711 I had to visit to get the last 20 bucks any ATM will allow me to get out of my checking account. After that withdraw, I had exactly $6.28 and two overused credit cards to my name. Ramen is going to be a friendship I'll need to revive. Upon meeting Sarah, I noticed that she was strikingly pretty, and absolutely uninterested in my sexually. Ah, the way a guy thinks.

The Red Elvises came on after a crappy opening band and they rocked. They made fun of everything that dealt with Rock 'n Roll, or rather, ROKENROI - They swayed their guitars in unison to the beat, the lead singer was wearing pants from Def Leopard's estate sale and the Bassist wore silk, leopard print pajamas and dyed his hair to match. After each song, they'd yell something like "You can't stop the Rock!" and then sing something in Russian, or even Jewish folk songs the likes of which haven't been heard at this decibel since the Jewish Elvis, Neil Diamond took to the stage.

Saturday, I picked up the work on a painting that I tried to start Friday. One of the stupidest things about being in art school is that you get labeled by your peers and professors. I have been labeled, what they call a "Figurative" painter; this means I draw naked people in precise detail. I hate labels and decided to trip up everyone by doing something incredibly abstract. My problem with abstract paintings is that they suck usually and they seem to take absolutely no time. It's the old saying "The viewer has to get smarter as the art gets dumber". Post Modernism is this weird thing that allows anything to pass as art. At 10pm, I actually started to paint the damn thing; it's made of 144 unique squares, of varying intensity, layed out on a 2' by 2' piece of some kind of scrap wood I found outside.

Sunday, I worked on it some more, and the same after school Monday, which I stayed up till Tuesday morning to finish before the critique. My hands were so sore and tired from painting this, I gave up on using brushes all together and would just mix and put on colors with my fingers, smudging the with a closed fist. It came out really well, something you must see in person. Each layer has a different transparency that you can see perhaps 3 or 4 levels deep in some areas. I've shown it to a few people, and everyone wants to touch it. Which they do. Which you aren't supposed to do. Ever.

On the busride to school, I saw a red van with the words "The Red Elvises" painted on. Coincidance?

I actually slept through the critique, wasted from the previous day. I didn't even show my piece. Instead of being labeled an artist, I'm probably labeled a slacker now. Great. There is no calming sound than a fellow student bull shitting something they threw together an hour before the class. I can't stand work done this way and this must be the root of why art out there is over such a low bar. I'll fix that.

Wednesday, the Violent Femmes came to town again and I decided to see them. I wrote a note to someone at school (a pretty girl, of course) saying they need to go with me and they wrote a note back saying "no", or rather "gee I'm busy, you gave me 3 hours of notice, what's wrong with you?" but nicer sounding words. In the note I wrote I told her that I needed a girl to go with so I wouldn't get harassed and called a pussy or things to that extent from, the likes of (Juice) Jack. I ended up going with Jack.

Jack's only 20, so we had to sit in the balcony of the Ogden, which sucks. Before the show, he had me buy beer. I bought Red Stripe because they were out of PBR and we drank some at my apartment and then he hid some behind a random building that we picked up and drank before the show. It was like being in highschool again and doing all the things I didn't do. And now we were going to see the Violent Femmes.

They're old.

I saw them in Vail and Amy and I snuck back stage to get their autograph and to promptly get kicked out. It has to be said that having a late 30's, early 40's guy sing about getting his dad to give him the car (Tonight), is just oddly nostalgic. The Femmes look like they're bored playing songs they wrote 20 years ago with 20 years less experience playing their instruments. I kept myself busy trying to get Jack to sneak downstairs which he didn't do, so I ditched him for the encore, telling him I'd meet him outside afterwards.

I randomly got tangled with a girl that started to play my hat covered head as a drum. I've been having odd luck meeting people at shows. We had the "VFemmes Moment", which everyone has had, even if they didn't know it. Jenny's is bouncing on a friend's trampoline when she was 12 while Blister in the Sun was playing, Jack's was actually in third grade, he would play American Music again and again, fast forwarding to the part that goes "I need a date to the Prom"; he did a good impression of how Gordon sings, "Nobody, go to the Prom, with me? Baaaaaaby". Pussy.

One of my VFemmes moments was making out with a beautiful girl the summer after highschool, listening to the Add It Up CD, a friend told me to get, before I knew all the songs I liked were from the same people. We were listening to "Kiss Off" and both stopped suffocating ourselves in each other's faces to mouth "I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record" to each other. I had the same moment with this unknown girl at the show. She told me she wanted prints of the pictures and wanted my phone number because she knew I wouldn't call her. I like this girl already. The bassist, Brian was signing autographs after the show and she borrowed his pen to get my number and give me hers. Brian looked a bit quizzical, thinking she wanted it to get his Jon Handcock. Oh no, I'm the Rock Star tonight.

I went outside to look for Jack, who had ditched me. It gets nippy in the Denver October Evenings, and I looked pathetic in my size small t-shirt. I like wearing shirts that are just a bit too small for me, it shows off the nipple rings.

Yet another girl came up to me and stated the obvious and her friend offered to give me a ride home, which I took for some reason. We first went to a Hippy bar and she bought me a beer and we looked at all the hippies around us while listening to Phish, Phish cover bands and the Dead. I found out she was a sign maker and I swear, I've seen her before while walking near Santa Fe Ave., putting up a sign. Coincidance? A sign?

We had a gay time, but I found out she had a boyfriend, fresh from prison. She did tell me if she wasn't hitched, we would be getting hot and sweaty together, if that's a consolation. We finished our beer and we walked to her apartment. Her boyfriend had ditcher her at the show and he was the only one with the keys to the apartment. Hoping he was there, she tapped on the window. No answer. She called him on my phone. No answer. I was about the say "well, gee, if ya need ta, you can stay at my house (snicker snicker), but she tried the outside door, which was unlocked, and then the inside door, which was also unlocked. In the apartment, I noticed that she had a black and white Fender Stratocaster, just like me, Coincidance?

Her friend drove me home and I went to sleep much too late than my bedtime should be.

The next day, after school, I saw David Sedaris, author of Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day. He's one of the most satirical writers out there and everyone should read at least one of his books. I called Cat up and I met her there with a friend of hers and we sat at the tippidy top of the temple Buell Theatre taking it all in. David's voice is enough to cause a small riot, but his fucked up family life provides the hot air for him to breath with.

Right before the show, we realized that it had been almost exactly a year since we were dating each other and we gave each other a sneering eye, as if to relive those times together in a split second; the same way people say you relive your whole life just before you die.

We were talking before the show, catching up on what we were up to. I was talking about myself, naturally and told her about this grafitti comission I'm going to go for. She didn't think that would fit me, she saw me as an abstract painter. Now I don't know what to do about what people think I am.

Cat had to leave early to pick up her father and brother from the airport, but I stayed for the end and afterwards, for the book signing, which took ages but it was nice to meet an author of a book I've read, since all my favorite bands and literary authors are dead.

I went to sleep with a head buzzing and wondering how I paid for all of this cosmopolitan gatherings and what I would do next weekend.