Whatcha got?

Out of nowhere today, I started whistling Michael Penn's "No Myth" in the shower. I even whistled the guitar solos, which are great and blend seamlessly into some of those great little Patrick Warren Chamberlain circus noises. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you're not part of the club.

To confess to a conceit, I didn't really start whistling it out of nowhere. I've been playing and singing Michael Penn songs since I was a teenager. So it's not like it sprang to mind from some strange MTV flashback. What was really strange about it was that just whistling it, I felt that weird magic that his music has exercised on me, off and on, over the years. I go through lulls where it doesn't do much for me. And then they end. I think the lull ended tonight.

There are enough of us out there to keep the man from having to beg his wife for lunch money, probably. But still not so many of us that we run into each other with any great frequency. I briefly fell in love with a girl in high school because we sat and exchanged favorite Penn verses and riffs. When I bought his long-awaited second album, the guy behind the counter was a Penn fan and punched up my "Buy 10 CDs get one free!" card with illicit holes. There was a quiet, excited feeling of conspiracy, like Masons doing a secret handshake.

For me, Penn is one of those artists whose #1 tracks remain special for life. By which I mean that the opening notes of the first song of each album give me as much joy as I felt slipping the dress off my high school girlfriend. Because just like with the dress, they represented the achievement of something I'd been wishing for and waiting for for so long. No Myth, but especially the others-- Long Way Down, Try, Lucky One, Walter Reed.

Just a little magic, courtesy of the man with the guitar and the crazy brother. A little something I got.

Is this thing on?

All right, you hardy souls. O ye who have not dropped me from your RSS feed. This is fair warning that I think I'm going to start writing again. I squeezed out a page or two earlier this week, and it didn't result in too much internal bleeding. Time to end the navel-gazing and go back to tossing these little letters out the window for whoever wants them.

So yeah. Keep your spectacles handy. Or something like that.

An Afternoon in the Garden of Good and Evil

Savannah, Georgia

Ladies and gentlemen: The Deadly Firesnakes

"So what you gonna do when you get back?"

"I'm gonna start a band."

"Oh yeah?"

"Fuck yeah."

"What kinda band? Some bitchin' metal?"

"Naw. 'S gonna be dirty acoustic country-folk-blues-core, man. Like spittin' on the floor, tellin' fuckers to get up an' dance kinda music."

"Acoustic, dirty-"

"Dirty acoustic country-folk-blues-core, man."

"You need a acronym or somethin' for that. That's a mouthful."

"An' if the fuckers don't get up an' dance when you tell 'em to, you give 'em a beatdown. Like bam with a mic stand and shit."

"Can people dance to dirty acoustic whatever?"

"Fuck yeah they can. Sometimes you just gotta tell 'em to."

"Shit. What you gonna call it?"

"The Deadly Firesnakes."

"Ain't there already a-"

"Naw, man, I googled that shit. It's wide open."

"Shit, that's cool, man."

"What you gonna do when you get back?"

"I thought I'd buy one o' them new Playstations."

"Cool."

Welcome to Red's Recovery Room

So don't be an asshole. Go to Amazon for a minute, just to listen to a few soundbites off the Clodhopper album, Red's Recovery Room. Here. I'll even give you a link: Bam.

God damn it. You can buy this thing for $3.98 now.

If you don't want to pick through at random, then at least check the clips for Dinah, Walking Tune, Cafe Joli and Red's Recovery Room. That's just a tickle of the sound in this album, which is fucking amazing. I've had this thing for years, and it never ceases to stupify me.

Cafe Joli is, as I and at least a few others have said before, probably the best damned song ever written and recorded. You can feel this song 'just walkin' down the street' wherever you are. If it doesn't put a smile on your face, then bring down the colors and surrender right now, because you're already dead.

The Specialist, Part Two

"What you fuckin' makin' there?"

"I'm makin' eggs."

"You're makin' fuckin' eggs?"

"That's right. It's breakfast, you know. Good morning."

"Fuckin' good morning. Scrambled, or what?"

"Yeah, scrambled."

"Scramble me some fuckin'-"

"I'm scramblin'."

"I'll make some fuckin' coffee."

"Don't make it too strong."

"I fuckin' like it strong."

"I don't like-"

"Add some fuckin' water then."

"Okay, I'll add some water to mine. Never mind."

"Hey, about fuckin' last night."

"What about last night?"

"How come youse shot that fuckin' guy in the hip?"

"I shot 'im in the pocket."

"In the fuckin' pocket?"

"Yeah. In the pocket."

"You shot him in the fuckin' hip. His pocket don't figure into it."

"It's what they call it."

"Who da fuck calls it that?"

"The SAS."

"The fuckin' SAS?"

"Yeah, the SAS. The British guys."

"I fuckin' know the SAS. Why the fuck the SAS call that guy's hip the pocket?"

"It ain't that guy's hip. It's everybody's hip. It's just what they call it."

"That some fuckin' British thing? Like a fuckin' trunk is a, a-"

"Boot."

"A fuckin' boot, yeah."

"Nah, it's just what they call it for shootin' people there."

"They got a special fuckin' name for your hip for when they fuckin' shoot it?"

"Yeah."

"What the fuck they call your head when they shoot it? Your fuckin' hat?"

"Nah. They call it the head."

"So why'd you fuckin' shoot that guy in the hip?"

"In the pocket."

"Are you in the fuckin' SAS?"

"Nah. You know I ain't in the SAS."

"Then you shot him in his fuckin' hip. Why'd you shoot him in his fuckin' hip?"

"'Cause the SAS, they figured it out. It works real well for knockin' a guy down. It's like pow, and your legs just fall out."

"They shoot lots a guys in their fuckin' hips?"

"Yeah. They figured it out, like studied it and shit. They shoot a lot a guys, you know. The Brits."

"Fuckin' Brits. Shootin' a bunch a fucks in their hips."

"It works."

"So why didn't you shoot him in the fuckin' head?"

"I did shoot him in the head."

"After you shot him in the fuckin' hip."

"Well he had a gun. I didn't wanna miss."

"His fuckin' head was bigger than his fuckin' hip."

"Yeah, but a guy's head moves around more. It's hard to hit when you're all fired up."

"You was all fired the fuck up, eh?"

"Yeah, they was shootin'."

"Well, I don't fuckin' like it none, shootin' guys in the fuckin' hip."

"Why not?"

"It's a nasty fuckin' place to shoot a guy. It fuckin' hurts. It's fuckin' excessive."

"Well I didn't mean it excessive."

"Nobody fuckin' means to be excessive. You just are like you fuckin' are, and it turns out that you're fuckin' excessive."

"What about Dulles?"

"Who da fuck is Dulles?"

"John Foster Dulles. Secretary a State in the fifties."

"What the fuck are you talkin' about?"

"Massive retaliation. Dulles said America should respond to any attack with massive retaliation. Like throwin' way more shit back at the Russians than they threw at us."

"Massive fuckin' retaliation?"

"Yeah. It's like a whole policy of bein' excessive."

"Are you the fuckin' Secretary of State?"

"Nah."

"Then don't fuckin' shoot no guys in the hip from now on. And another thing. No more fuckin' History Channel for you."

More Pants

Only very recently, today in fact, have I reconciled myself to the unpleasant fact that while I once owned more than one pair of exercise pants, I am now a man who owns merely one pair. This is the sort of difficult set of circumstances that a man can deny for quite some time. But ultimately, he must own up to them.

I remember the heady days of owning as many as three or four pairs of exercise pants. Each had a specialized purpose for which it was perfectly suited, whether that purpose was running in the rain, bicycling in the sun, or kicking the french fries out of a portly gentleman's airway. But for so long now, I have been a man who owns merely one pair of exercise pants.

I won't lie. I truly wish I were still a man who owned several pairs of exercise pants. There is a certain something about a man who owns multiple pairs of exercise pants. As he sloshes by in the rain, you find yourself admiring his gait a little more keenly. As he whisks by on a bright afternoon, you marvel at how he sits in his saddle. As he kicks you in the lung, forcefully expelling the Happy Meal lodged in your trachea, you anticipate tha first breath you will draw through your cleared airway, as you know it will be scented as fresh and bold as clean laundry.

There is a steely glint in the eye of a man who owns three or more pairs of exercise pants. A no-nonsense air of masculine competence. Apparent, but not o'erweening. Case in point: it is known that Sean Connery owned seventeen pairs of exercise pants, whereas Roger Moore had only two.

How many pairs of exercise pants Chuck Norris owns, alas, remains a mystery.

But a man who owns only a single pair of exercise pants is a sad figure indeed. Such a man must contemplate either slavery to his laundry machines, or reconciling himself to "airing out" his one pair of exercise pants between sessions. It is a cruel choice.

For while he may deceive himself into thinking that his "aired out" exercise pants retain a kind of manly musk, they do no such thing. In fact, they come to more closely resemble a murdered possum, left to age somewhere dark and damp until finally being draped across the air vents of one's enemy's automobile. Wet, dead possum musk is no proper substitute for multiple pairs of exercise pants.

O, cruel fate.