X versus Y

Some nights I really can't fathom coming home from a day of tracking, cataloguing, deciphering, and reciting the events of the times, then plunking myself down in front of the keyboard and doing it some more.

But the fact is I could just write stories and stories upon story.

About girls. And girls and news. And rock and roll and girls. Sometimes dogs.

Women, of course, to be more literary. But today’s Sex in the City dames who want to have it all would still want to be called girls anyway, despite the changes wrought by modern feminism. Hanging on to the cult of youth I suppose.

It seems one minute we’re languishing in misery and loneliness, screaming out to foul empty heaven where the cries disappear into the black hole the minute they leave our lungs.
Then a next moment in the cycle comes filled with vicious and passionate dramas of every shape and color, and everything is moving too fast too keep track of because sometimes opportunity doesn't knock, it bashes you over the head.

I would love nothing more than to lash these experiences together into a template for success - or failure - but that has yet to be written and it probably won’t be by me, since I don’t know how it all quite pans out yet.

But I figure I need to write it down. If I can't write the Greatest American Novel I can at least rip it off with my own skewed version and put my name on it.
Like music right? Twisting the words in a different way because they're mine. 1-4-5. Easy.

But blogs do not beg for details, cause there it is "out there," and like music, and art and writing, I hate and will continue to be unsatisifed with my current output due to this crippling obsession with perfectionism.

So perhaps I'll post them from time to time, days long past, names blurred and details re-remembered for mass consumption. Safer that way.

The second gymnast I met in Eugene was a crazy bird who had her own video production company. She came to some of our shows, and somehow knew us through the radio station. I gave her a ride home one night in my Subaru station wagon. As the sun was coming up I tried to tell her that I had to leave, get home. We made out as I sat in the front seat. She stole the keys out of the ignition and shoved them down her pants, then pushed me backward until the seat broke off of the floor.
I fixed it.
About a year later my wife-to-be met this one. She somehow knew everything but the details.

Seasons bleatings

Won't somebody please, Help me with my miseries
Won't somebody see, what this world has done to me.
And I know, I know and I say oh, I say
that no matter where I go
no
I will always see your face
Won't somebody please, Help me with my memory
Can somebody see, yeah what this world has done to me. - Arthur Lee and Love

It never stops getting weirder. In the down times it seems like nothing happens, but then the littlest things come out of nowhere.
Tonight, X-Mas eve, we had perhaps the greatest news content Trifecta I've ever seen - for a half hour show with likely less than a few viewers. To sum up I'll just say - Oregon shark attack, plane crash, mobile meth lab, deputy-turned accused-rapist, Trailers of stolen food (On CHRISTMAS! for theloveofGod) and more.

Then I ended up at a party as a misfit Christmas toy, in the Pearl district, among the elite. I mean not snobby arteeests, real working people, but with money and clout and subtle manners and taste and fancy plans and trips to France, as they ambled about with half-empty champagne bottles, trying to find their spouses, drunk on Christmas Eve. Mostly 'DINKS' as we used to say (Double Income No Kids).
New leather, eyeglasses by designers you can't pronounce, shuffling about in a loft that does more than just a credit check when you start the application process to move in. A balcony overlooking the river, and strangers in shiny jogging suits with small pampered dogs smile at you in the hallway.

Now I may have been afraid at one point in my life that I would not fit in at such a scene. But I looked halfway decent (okay, real good then) could talk the biz, get a laugh or three, and actually felt genuinely comfortable. And not like I was superior and "from the streets" or holier than the usual punk rockers cause I don't generally dwell in said streets all day either. It was almost humanizing on what could have been another lone Xmas on the West Coast.
So there's that.
I scurried out just after midnight so Santa wouldn't miss me and Loopie.

Wrapped

This is a preliminary caution to anyone who may receive presents from me this year - I cannot wrap gifts. I was raised in the Boy Scouts to tie knots, set broken bones, and build fires. I've worked in retail, making pretty packages, I've worked in the mail services, the shipping business, and the package delivery business, yet NO amount of training will EVER enable me to prepare a presentable gift-wrapped present. I can clean a duck and gut a deer. I can roof a house, put up drywall, plaster, wallpaper, paint and build a room with 2X4s. But folding and creasing colorful paper on small boxes is rocket brain surgery science to me. So I apologize forthwith.
That said I resolve this year to stop wasting time, since where the hell did it all go?

1,000 words or less

As you can see I have stopped posting pictures. That's because criminals made off with my camera and a number of other things I use to get through this world after they broke into my car. I won't go into detail since my identity may still be out there.

Still time marches. Wow. There's so much I can't say on the 'blog' since the info could easily get into the wrong heads. It's like pitching stories to editors, I want to write about the cool stuff I know, yet refuse to give away my secret hideouts, favorite things, etc. in fear of coopting them. Like Yogi says, 'No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded.'
Scored last minute tickets to the Irish band-who-owns-the-world last night. Paid face value. The sound was so-so, when you're back to the wall, 3rd level, behind the stage, but we were in anyhow. Twenty years since we saw them at our first concert in Minneapolis for the Unforgettable Fire tour.
Good times, old songs. It's fun to see music where you can appreciate the songs one minute, then find yourself lost in catharsis rocking out, suspended in time the next.

Back - or a-head?

So, ah ... then, I'm walking the pooch once around the block last week when I run into a fellow media cohort. We start shooting the breeze, and it turns out she's in the middle of doing an interview about my neighborhood. So I 'rap' with the developer who's planning on building this warehouse space up and beyond, into some condo/new produce market thing. Which is GREAT from my perspective. I told him all we need is a rock club and I have no reason to leave the hood. Yeah, I've seen the up-and-coming-ness of the ol' Mississippi. But as we spoke I noticed the photog started snapping ME. Didn't know the story actually ran until the hounds at the station started calling me out, saying they recognized the back of my neck.
Who knew.
Here's a link to Anna's article:

TribTown: Mixed-use moves in on Mississippi

Twilight

It's that time of the day where it's the transition between dark and light. The inbetween time.
Experts from unheard of places say it's the most dangerous time to drive a car. The sun is setting and darkness is coming. Many times one can't tell where the horizon ends and the road in front begins. There's a shadow over everything.
Drivers don't know if they should turn on the headlights, staring into the setting sun, or brave the dying glow from a rearview mirror.
The fading light will blind and the night vision hasn't had time to adjust. Because one way or another, we need the light. Whether it's natural or artificial. That's what makes twilight so hard.
The inbetween makes the pain.
Always darkest before the dawn, I suppose. When we can either turn on the lights or don the shades.

S#!tpurse Mondays

Back in the days of the famed Jockey Club we had a tradition called S#!tpurse Mondays.
The Jockey was our home away from home, a crusty shrine to all things Wrong about punk rock. A brick bunker with faded trophies, peeling bordello wallpaper, bathrooms that required a HAZMAT suit, pool tables used for much more than shooting billiards and the greatest jukebox Portland has ever seen.
A haven for misfits, criminals on the run and the terminally unemployed.
Darren was a 45-year-old mohawked adolescent who ran the place during the day. Every Monday, at least during the summer, he would produce an empty purse, usually one left behind by some video-crack hooker, or picked up off the street.
Said purse was then filled with dog excrement, and strategically placed at the bus stop on the corner, which could be seen from the front door.
Without failure, a dope fiend or street wretch would usually look around, snatch the purse and take off with their 'prize.'
The best one ever was when some thug, thinking he was getting away with his crime, took a look around, snuck the purse under his shirt just as the bus was pulling up.
He got on and everyone went out to see. Within a block we could hear the screaming and cursing as that purse flew out the window over I-5 at 30 miles an hour.

Goin Home

Marion Frances Stone 1911-2005

WARNING: Image heavy rant ahead, so I made two pages.

Our Earthly toil plows ahead. Back in PDX now after a week in Minnesota, with a wedding, a surgery, a funeral and a lot of living inbetween. Just hours after my arrival, the family asked me to do the eulogy for my grandmother Marion. OK, cram 94 years of globetrotting, teaching, being the town and family matriarch, playing music - not to mention slaying the world with laughter - into a few minutes on folded paper stuck in my suit pocket. A humble man, I am.
I wanted to do an old gospel song for her, but it was quickly decided all us music and theatrically inclined relatives would have to fight for the spotlight, so let's keep it simple. Grandma Marion would have loved the big show, but things don't always come together, yet we go on.


This is Staples, Minnesota, home of most of my family. A lot of the Midwest looks like this and if you could hear the train whistle and feel the humid air you'd be there. The view is from the ??? star Super 8 motel on Highway 10. Color TV and phone in every room.


Church buddy John Moore won grandma's car at the church auction a few years back ( he didn't intend to buy it, he was just driving up the bids. But he ended up with it anyway. He drove it to the funeral and parked it on the curb as a tribute. When grandma was coming, ya best get outta the way, or deal with the consequences.


They let us tour the recently restored Batcher's Opera House. Marion played for the silent movies here before the 'talkies' came to town.


She played Lord knows how many gigs. I think, but I can't be sure, that I absorbed classical, the blues, gospel, dixieland, big band swing, and country from this woman. I mean, did I miss anything?


Just off Main Street, Staples USA. Not a whole lot had changed since I was there last. It feels like an S.E. Hinton novel.


Wendy (my sis), myself, cousin Ann, and brother in-law Chris at the opera house. Downstairs is an antique store where I got a Johnny Cash 'I walk the line' 45 on the original Sun Records label for $5.

Milking it

The B roll sure is coming in handy. I thought I was just shooting up METH for the show, tonight I guess I was jamming some deadly smack too!
Woohoo!
I mean, cool man, ride that horse ... and, um ... dribble ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Dark side of the 'Horse'

I must admit for the longest while when it came to the 'next' Star Wars' flick I was of the opinion, that 'I have a bad feeling about this.'

There were moments in 'Sith' that absolutely kickass, a couple moments of cringing (but hey, if I watched Star Wars in 1977 at age 34, I would've reacted the same way) but overall, it's all worth it, as the feeling washed over me that it All Makes Sense Now. Stromtroopers, Star Destroyers and twin suns. Redemption.

Oh here's my Dark Horse story:

More Vegas than any man could ever ...

photo by Lolo Simone


The power 'E' had

These photos are courtesy Audio




The Fremont Street, the Old Strip.


Vegas makeup artists only dream of having the eyeliner expertise of FOX 12's Jamie Wilson. This was at Pleasure Island shortly before our departure in the limo.



Angelo Simone, former FOX 12 producer (now KRON), Gangsta pimp, and Vegas roller, along with MC Smith, hottie, producer, and doubling it, seen here with the author.



Yes, I know the pic is oversized. So was this ride, bitches.



Jamie could finally resist no longer a reminiscent taste of Portland's Best Refreshment.



They actually pay me to look this good.

Come on, now baby come on!

The winds howl and rain spatters the PDX Borthwick barn on this pre-spring night but I have no fear. The folks are over on The Continent for the first time in their lives and it's about time. Buy me an ivory bust of Mozart for the piano. Friends in 'relationships' end up hating each other and I do not envy them. Grow a pair already, you know who you are.
The Orb turns again and in a week we'll have another hour of daylight. Sprinklers and barbecues, new shades and more soulful tunes to ride out the sunset.
I'll set the stage and compose the dialogue.
Oh yeah, Vegas plans in the works too.
Bring It.

Hey Ma! The Needle made me bleed.

So we were doing a story last night about how AIDS is running out of control through the dingy sex halls of gay meth users and needed some stock footage of people shooting up for the story.
Naturally, I volunteered.
The photog walked in with a fist full of condoms and syringes and asked the news room 'Who's ready to mainline?'
Except, ya know, he's a kid, he didn't use that terminology.
So as in the past, with my News B-Roll Acting rep as a whore-mongering, blood drinking, tattooed playboy out of control, I got ready to play King Tweaker.
Chopped up some powdered sugar from the prop drawer, rolled up my sleeves and got down to the biz of portraying The Junkie.
We set up the shot, I snorted some railers, tied off with my belt, and prepped the rigs for the big rush, then got a little too excited and stabbed myself with the needle.

"Are these new?!!" I fumed in panic. "They better be effing right outta the box beeyotch, cause I'm bleedin'!"

Turns out they were fresh needles, we got the shot for the piece, and I - once again - get paid to pose as a junkie, whore-mongering direlect on TV.


Score! Bring it on!

(Postscript - The bleeding has stopped. All is well. Don't worry, ma.)

Not caring at all is far worse than hate

Birthday gal

Born into the world, there she is folks. A one of a kind. The Future.
Kristen and Jack congrats, I love you both (all!) very much.

DK

Just can't stop

Soooo .. played a show with cousin Bob's band RCMP at the Dive tonight.
They'all had a great new uni-directional mic that captured acoustic sounds just swell. Then the highlight was after the show when Bob called his W-I-F-E karen (who we LOVE) and she hung up on him.
Ouch, dude!
At least there's pillows on the couch, right?

Ramona Cash Maraglia

Yes, the child is born, February 24, 2005 to Jack Rudo and Kristen Chelsea.
Congrats cats!!
You see how the cycle of life works? We lose a legend, and hope springs anew up to take the place.
Ramona, you've got a lot going for you already. We're all rooting for ya now, baby!

Feb. 24 also happens to be the birthday of ... DK!!!
So THANK YOU RAMONA for taking over the date!
Does this mean I can pass over the day entirely and not have to celebrate my aging anymore? Why, I think so indeed.

Also, gotta get ready for this:

Onward

And forward we go, Charlie, into the great future that unfolds and spreads out in unmeasured tremors and marks on the charts only we can make.

Wandering into a great divide now, on this birthday midlife crisis hoedown, but enough of that noise.
In the morning we will make loud music and force our presence on this earth, for this time, for this place.

Here's a couple Seattle pics from our trip to the Paul Westerberg and His Only Friends show last weekend. The Showbox ROCKED! And more thanks and kisses to BethAnn for hosting us in the big Rocket City.

First, BethAnn tried to get us to check out some meth lab behind a strip club across from Pike Place but I tried to tell her.
" I get enough of that bad buzz motha-jazz in Oregon. Bring It!!!"

So we found a place over across from the Moore Theater called the Whiskey Bar, and Greg broke his rules about the hard stuff before the show.



Yeah, a ton of layers on and opening with All Shook Down material. It got much sweatier. Then I felt ancient singing along to songs I've loved for twenty years. TWENTY YEARS!!!??!



Needing fast and greasy nourishment, we hit Dick's on Capitol Hill in the early morning hours.

Create a Real Rising Sound

Ho-ka-hey, is a phrase the Lakota warriors would utter before battle, meaning 'It's a good day to die.'

Not meant as some grim goth kid lament on misery, but instead an urgent call to grab the world by the throat and pummel it stupid all day long while you still can. It's always later than you think.

But the hog is really out of the tunnel now, eh? And as I sit here still on the transition from denial to anger it's the suicide that baffles the most. At least you kicked your own ass.
'Real Hunter S. Thompson Killed to Death by Legendary Hunter S. Thompson.' Or maybe vice versa.

But I am sure you had a damn good reason after stomping the Terra here as long as you did, leaving the world a better place, if not a little more empty as of today.

And I bet the note is one hell of a read.

Gratitude and blame are really not opposites. So I thank and blame you Doctor Hunter Stockton Thompson for the directions. But in the end the credo was more Do It Your Own Way than anything else and for that the Angels will at least show mercy. Dunno about the Lord.

Like the countless number of others I was sucked in at an early age and soon began my own savage journey. The low rent, journalism trade fit only for newsjunkie swine, the ears for fast, weird living, and I suppose therein lies the blame.
Nevertheless you were the King Of Fun, a product so rare only the Great American Experiment could spawn.

The old adage, or T-shirt slogan, so fittingly applies - that Heaven won't take you and Hell's afraid you'll take over.
I only hope your ghost finds rest beyond, yet can linger enough to haunt me now and again. It already is.

You showed us that it can be done. Piss on the crybabys with berets and broken pencils at the coffee shop and the slaves to scenester stoogeville. We are the warriors of freedom and individuality.
So I raise this glass to us boys from the dark, bloody ground of Kentucky who Done It Our Way.

Rage. Rage against the dying of the light. Do not go quietly into that Good Night


Reverend DK

02.22.05

Mistah Thompson, he daid.

The AP alert crossed the desk just around 8 p.m. Sunday.
The Doctor blows his brains out.
I'll post a fitting obituary when I have more time, away from the churn and grind of a newsroom full of maniacs and TV junkies.
The world is a less talented place today Doc, still the rest of us go on.
You stomped the Terra.
May you find peace.

DK

Portland, we're sorry

Need a break from the cold, cold winter? Too bad, we're heading even further north this weekend.
Paul is playing the west coast and the first stop is Rocket CIty Friday, then back to the PDX for the Saturday Show.
It's been two years, and about nine since I saw him with a full band. Finally back on the road, being bad and loud, Paul Westerberg and His Only Friends.
I can relate. At any rate, I guess back home it's still snowing.

Oh yeah, and mark yer calendars cause I just can't stop:

Inspiration

My ears are usually always ringing from the night before.
I keep an open pack of clove cigs in my bedroom. It smells like punk rock clubs and the gang of Goth chicks that have followed me around from my youth.
Last night we decided to go see a psychobilly band at the newest hipster bar the Doug Fir and there was definitely Good Comedy for those willing to pay attention. The decor was great, the place is very Lynch, sound was out of sight, staff was a bit brash and the scenester quotient was disgusting - the reason I had never gone in the first place - so thusly goes the narrative.

It's a non-smoking bar. Stupid, yes - especially for a greasy 'billy crowd, but nevertheless, half way through the Shack Shaker's set, as they were pummeling along, I get this:

Her - (Rocker, hipster Portland hottie with a white belt): (leaning over to me) Do you have a light?

Me: (Trying to lean over to talk in her ear, as one must do at a blisteringly loud rock show) 'Honey, I don't think we're allowed to ...'

Her - Pulls away, like I was trying to mack on her.

Me - Realizing this, I try to reach out to her, and tell her, 'No, I was trying to explain we can't smoke in here.'

Her - Runs away even faster, thinking I'm trying to grab her ass now.

Me - Feeling retarded -What the Hell must that have looked like?

Note to self - Next time, just light her damn cigarette.

Postscript - I finally found the chick and went up to her to explain, 'Look baby, I wasn't trying to MAKE OUT WITH you, I just wanted to say they don't allow smoking in here. HaHa.' She was cool.

We're gonna wake up and Live Dammit!!!!

Strict time

You think you can't be stopped and what the Hell if you're wrong? Make love to your muse all night and stare back in the mirror, still it goes on and on.
On and on these days will fight back, going through motions in time. But clocks tick tock and memories lag behind.

Strange days plague us in different ways.
Oh yeah - I used up all my web space so far to post The Hazmats stuff, so until The Cripes songs are down on "tape," check out the HomeSlice bizznatch.

Taste this

Starting to post a trickle of songs for The Hazmats

Thursday, February 03, 2005

The beat goes on

The search for four strings of ryhthm goes on. Gads man, I just want this
auditioning crap to end. Play the bass? Are you a pro?
What kind of music do you like? Where'd you go to school? How old are you? ...
Well. At least there's punk rock nurses.
(!)

Just lookin' out of the window
Watchin' the asphalt grow
Thinkin' how it all looks hand-me-down
Good Times
Keepin' your head above water
Makin' a wave when you can
Temporary lay-offs
Good Times
Easy Credit rip-offs
Good Times
Aint we lucky we got 'em
Good Times

The hands of time

Look fast and you may miss it. The clock hands chop chop along at a blistering pace and you turn around and where's the decade go?
Got a posting on MySpace today asking to list the bands you been in. Crimony, that made me calculate the old milage ticker. (WARNING: Shameless name dropping ahead!)
Not to mention the time we made Jerry Garcia cry, bought Jonathan Richman a salad at Doc's Pad, plundered the Reverend's liquor and Grohl's guitar strings, paid the Cowgirl's parking tickets, stole Nashville Pussy's women, forced Mojo Nixon to read Suzanne Sommer's poetry, hit on Westerberg's future wife ... and, you get the idea ... many, many other bad bad things.
Hell in not too long, I'll have been making rock music for 20 years.
What do you want YOUR gravestone to say?

Testify

Many a Sunday I find the greatest rock and roll inspiration I've ever heard. It's the little church around the corner from Potown Records HQ.
This gospel goup rocks the block like band of boomin angels, shoutin' and a thumpin away on the rhythm as I stroll by in the sunshine.
No joke, Charlie.
I see the light!!!

Panic in the streets of Portland

Yes, here it is. The twisted, blisteringly fast, liquid life of a writer.
This is where I make the funniest news show on the planet:
Coming back to work on Saturday is my Monday.

Someone's gotta do it.

These days

The question ain't 'what is'
The question is 'what ain't'
We gonna do

Best things in life are free
But a car wash and a haircut
Can't be beat

Yikes

Living the same day again and again used to be static. But is now dynamic. Just be functional and alert til it's time for the next audition. Then Rock and Roll. Repeat. Maintain.
The VQ's kicked off their tour last night in Ptown with Muff's bassist Ronnie. Kicked up holy hell.
Rach - you're an angel straight from heaven.

Crack and whine

Yes, it's true. The Cripes will audition for new bass players this week. And soon the day will be here when the songs are full and the sound is complete. Until then, head down and plow through.

Slayed

Well, we've done it again. The FOX 12 News team spanks the competetion until man-yanna, covering "WINTER BLAST 2005!"
It's not over yet, but the thaw looks like it's a comin' Sunday. The overtime isn't bad, but it just feels good to know our crew digs in hard and fast and comes out of the corner like a bruiser, and even if it's only a pat on the back at the end of the ordeal it's worth it, knowin a days' hard work pays.
Now if only the sex offender's ice coated meth lab would blow up, sparked by pack of half starved pitbulls, driven mad by the howling winter winds, chomping on live wires and gasoline.
One can dream.

Winter treachery

California Crybabies who don't know how to deal with winter. Yet here we are on the air with wall 2 wall coverage of the 'Winter Blast' 2005.
BE AFRAID!!!

Manic schlamanick

For not long enough, I've operated on the catch phrase 'You Never Know.'
And it's true 'dat it never let me down.
Keep on fighting and stay real, when you feel like giving up put the noggin down and grind ahead. We don't have much time, and the Fates will let us know when to move on. And what matters. Sing it.

NoPo is my home