The Black Sperm of My Vengeance (every good boy DIES FIRST Conclusion)

The Glitter House, 5 PM. Nothing squelches the excitement of a big show than afternoon sound check. Scheduled six hours before show time, the band sets up their equipment and play cold run-throughs of songs while other bands impatiently wait for their turn to get up and make noise.

Garbage Truck were up playing little snippets of songs from their set like “Polka Dot Flag”, “Lazy And Crazy”, and “Green Blood And Ham”. Midway through “The Riff That Killed” the guys noticed The Neurotics staring at them with angry impatience on their faces. So much for brotherhood on the scene!

“That’s enough guys, next up, Neurotics”, the sound man mumbled through the PA. “Are they here?”
“DAMN STRAIGHT WE’RE HERE!” Gussie Neurotic bellowed from the floor with the rest of his band twitching nervously.

“Hey”, Griff asked, “Where’s Flip Wilson Neurotic?”
“Aw, dude, he’s taking his real estate broker’s license exam but he’ll be here in time to play. He’ll just have to take pot luck, haw haw haw!”
Shit, every man for himself. Griff noticed Bobby Callahan sulking as he tied up his patch cords and packed up his guitar.

“Dudes, bad news”, Bobby turned to face the band, “Kitten Claws backed out of the show!”
“No way!”
“That sucks!”
“Yeah, the club wouldn’t meet their price so Moish Wilson told them to back out, but all’s not lost, guys. Wilson himself will be here tonight checking out our set, Shawna and Miri are comin’, too”.
“And not only that but my pals from Spitball Magazine are comin’, too”.
The band all drooled at the promise of these high-profile guests coming to see them play. Griff just looked bored. Bored with all-girl bands. Bored with power-tripping clowns. Bored with competitive bands. Bored with bad music fanzines.

Griff was always the first to finish up and jump off the stage because all he had was his small trumpet case. “See you guys at eleven”, Griff waved.
“Yeah, right”, chuckled Bradley. Trev chortled a bit, then mumbled something Griff didn’t catch.

He walked towards the back of the club, milling around the bathroom with the utility room nearby. He saw a friendly Mexican guy in his fifties with a Mil Mascaras tattoo on his arm putting away a huge ladder that must have been eight feet tall. Griff nodded at him. “Sup!?”
“Hey, Jefe, do you like The Hardy Boyz?”
“Do I like The Hardy Boyz? Does The Pope piss wine? They’re pinche badass, homes”.
“Yeah, well, how’d you like to help a blanco out and make fifty bucks?” Griff smirked.
“Is it legal?”
“Legal as El Presidente, dude”.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Garbage Truck’s dressing room was the weirdest one at The Glitter House because it had tiny alcoves and winding hallways, so one could hide from the rest of the band if they wanted to. The band made a point of not talking to Griff following their knock-down fight the night before, so Griff and Trixie stayed in a tiny alcove away from everyone. Trixie sat on his lap hugging him while he kissed her. He didn’t tell anyone in the band about her since they were notorious girlfriend stealers. Because of this the sight of Griff with a girl was incredible to them.

Like people gaping at an aquarium people would come in, nervously stare at Griff and Trixie and run out of the room. First it was Mykela who entered, nervously peering over at them.

“Ohhh, Griff!” Trixie cooed loudly. “You have the best comics collection in town, I just love reading them...in my bedroom!” Mykela’s face turned red and she ran out of the room.

Trev then walked in. “So after the show, Griff!” Trixie purred, “Are we going to watch TV on that big, huge screen of yours tonight?” Trev quickly dashed out.

Shawna peeked in, too scared to walk in. “Ohhh, Griff, my bed feels so much smaller since you moved in!” Trixie kissed Griff’s messy black hair. “Darling!” Shawna’s head popped right away.

Trixie laughed, and quietly said, “I recognize those tired whores from Java The Hut! Fuck them”.

“GARBAGE TRUCK, YOU’RE UP IN FIVE!” a bouncer/sound man/whatever boomed loudly.
“Gotta go!” Griff stood up, Trixie jumping off his lap. “Watch the show from the side of the stage”.
“Nah”, she said, “I’m gonna watch it from the back of the hall like a real fan”.
“Okay. See you after the set back here, Trixie”.

Griff walked into the main dressing room and the band all stared at him real funny, as if seeing him for the first time.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The band weaved through musicians and scenesters in the hallway, some of them still sweaty from playing just a few minutes before. When Shawna saw Griff walk by she whipped her blonde head away in disgust.
When they got on stage they looked out at a sold-out concert hall, music fans crowding every corner of the room. Griff recognized some faces but most of them were new fans. Ironically the new fans were the loudest and most excited. He even thought he saw the three thugs from the night before. Weird.

The band stormed through their opening number, “Green Blood And Ham”, guitars spitting our feedback, drums pounding like a runaway locomotive, trumpet blaring like Gabriel’s call for Armageddon. A huge swirling pit broke out on the floor with girls pushing themselves away and behemoth boys elbowing each other in the head. Bouncers were flipping out trying to sort out the hardiest ones.

Next song was “The Riff That Killed” and Griff sang his head off on this one, hitting notes he didn’t know were possible. Beyond the swirling pit was an ocean of bodies in the darkness, cascading before his eyes in the dark hall.

In between songs while Bobby tuned up Bradley played the opening chords of “High School Deodorant” which the clueless kids cheered.
“WTF?” thought Griff. He turned to glare at Bradley who just laughed in his face.
Fritz-Franz Klein beat the intro to “Polka Dot Flag” and the band was off and running again. Griff looked out at the crowd and noticed some guys from Spitball Magazine standing by the back of the room.

After the song was over this time G. Bobby Callahan played the opening chords to “High School Deodorant”. Griff turned and glared at him this time.
Off mike Bobby yelled, “I want to dedicate this song to my fallen comrade in arms, Chuck from Shangri-La!”
Everybody applauded. Griff wanted to kill him. He looked out at the hall and thought he saw Dead End Kyle of Paint It Black Records with a small, troll-like man standing next to him.

The next song was “Toss The Midget” and Griff felt as if someone punched him in the side of the head, because his punk rock arrangement was now being played like some bad grunge-death metal crap. The whole band was in on it. They changed the arrangement to make it sound more Seattle, and it sounded awful. Miri and Shawna were on the side of the stage banging their heads like it was the greatest thing they ever heard.

The fifth song was “Sweet Sixteen Lucky Thirteen” and by this time the band was jumping in front of Griff and posing like rock stars. Fed up, Griff stormed to the side of the stage and brought out the eight foot tall ladder, practically missing Bobby’s head by six inches. He kicked open the legs of the ladder, grabbed his microphone and climbed up the ladder in the center of the stage. The band looked on, horrified.

“We are called Garbage Truck, my name is Griff and this concludes my performance tonight”, he reached the top of the ladder, “…and forever!”
Griff leapt off the ladder, arms outstretched like a high diver, diving ten feet down and because of the elevated stage dove an additional ten feet down into the crowd. The crowd let out a deafening roar to the band's disgust. There was no space to run to, so Griff landed on the crowd and was carried off into the back of the room.

The band now played out of sync with each other, losing their place in the song, but it didn’t matter. The sound man was so pissed off he turned off the power on stage, so Garbage Truck stood there looking confused, disoriented, pants off with their tiny dicks in their hands. Griff had the last laugh, he basically fucked them over.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY CLUB, YOU GUYS ARE FINISHED YOU WILL NEVER PLAY THE GLITTER HOUSE AGAIN!” a fat man with gray hair yelled at Bobby with his finger pointing in his face.

Moish Wilson and Dead End Kyle were with him backstage as Griff walked in.
“Oh, there he is! The loser”, Wilson hacked. Bobby turned to him, furious.
“What was the meaning of the behavior, hmm??? You didn’t consult ME about that little stunt, Bubba”, Bobby yelled.

“What’s the matter, buddy, not laughing anymore? It’s not so funny when you’re on the receiving end, is it, asshole?” Griff lunged his head at him.
“THAT’S IT! YOU’RE FIRED! YOU’RE SO FIRED FROM GARBAGE TRUCK. PACK UP YOUR HORN AND DON’T COME BACXK UNTIL I GET AN APOLOGY FROM YOU!” Bobby’s eyes bugged out of his head, yelling.
“That’s telling him!” Wilson egged him on.
Griff shook his head, looking at Bobby hard. “What is this, a joke? You’re firing me from my own band? Are you a total idiot?”

Wilson jumped in front of Griff. “That’s right, Buddy Boy! Did he stutter? Well, did he? Listen, Pally, there’s a new sheriff in town and it’s not you, so from now on you just sing when HE tells you to and you toot that little horn when HE tells you to, got me?”
“Who the fuck are you, some bossy little turd who can’t play an instrument, write a song, fuck, you can’t do anything but yell at people who have talent BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T GOT ANY!”

“Lissen, Chief, I am Moish Wilson of Varmint Booking and I’ve booked better people than the likes of you, Shangri-La-“
“-Dead!”
“Kitten Claws-“
“-Untalented!”
“You’re through, boychick. Go back to whatever street corner Dead End Kyle found you on. You’re nobody to me.”
“And you’re nobody, period, without us bands that make assholes like you and Kyle over there look important, If it wasn’t for guys like me you’d be making change at some video arcade or selling crappy action figures in a store. Without guys like me who make music or paint or anything creative you guys are just hanging your dicks out to dry”.

“You’re a bad bet, Pally”, Wilson boomed, “I’d sooner put my money on a sick mutt in a dog race than on you any time!”
Griff picked up a metal folding chair and bashed it into Wilson’s fat face, sending him keeling over unconscious to the floor.
“Alright”, Griff waved the chair at Bobby and Kyle, “Who’s next?” They just stared at him, terrified.
“I thought so”, Griff growled, throwing the chair at them. They both jumped away. Dead End Kyle picked up Wilson’s prone body and dragged it over to a bar stool.

“Hey, can I get some help here?” Dead End Kyle yelled at some bouncers. “I’ve got an unconscious man here!”
The bouncers were busy yanking some punk kid around by the neck. “We’re busy, man, take a number!”

Bobby looked at Kyle, pleadingly. “It’s cool, dog, I’ll start an all new Garbage Truck with a way better singer!”
“What, are you kidding me? The band ain’t shit without Griff”.
“Wait a minute, man, we had a deal!”
“Yeah, the deal was you could lead the band if Griff stayed in the band, but…”
“But that’s Impossible!”
“Not my problem, Hoss!”

The first thing Griff saw when he walked out the door was Trixie Andersson jumping up and down, throwing her arms around him, yelling, “MY HERO! Oh my god, I pissed myself when I saw you jump! Are you okay???”

Griff smiled. “I never felt better”. They walked out of the concert hall arm in arm while The Neurotics were on stage. “Hey, you want to hear something funny? I think I just got kicked out of my own band”.
“Get the fuck out!”
“Did you ever hear such stupid shit in your life? Ah, fuck, I quit anyway! Let’s go get a drink”.

“Wanna learn how to sew leather pants?” Trixie smiled and kissed him.
Griff just smiled as they walked out the club to the sidewalk. As they walked a few paces Trixie suddenly stopped walking and looked serious. “Hey, wait a minute!"

“What’s wrong?”
“Griff, did you ever notice how much better music sounds outside of a club?”
Griff smiled. “No, but I’m glad you noticed”.

Audrey Griffith and Trixie Andersson snaked through the large crowd outside the club. The very same man they cheered jumping into the crowd just 20 minutes ago walked through largely unrecognized and forgotten. Walking hand in hand, they drifted through the nightclub crowd like a pair of ghosts into the night.

The crowd outside the club did the very same thing it always did, musicians passing out flyers for their upcoming shows, fanzine writers scamming to be put on guest lists, punk kids throwing up by the curb, bouncers tossing out unruly yobs, punks setting the dumpsters in the back on fire, and of course, everyone oblivious to the cherry top lights of four fire trucks and five police cars rapidly advancing from a distance towards the noisy and vomitous merry-go-round.

Andy Seven
Hollywood, California
August 2012

Bare Wires (every good boy DIES FIRST Chapter 15)

Griff sat in the heat of his empty apartment, the windows open and shades pulled back. There were boxes all over the room indicating yet another change of residence. He sat on a milk crate, polishing his trumpet and occasionally smirking at his reflection looking back at him fro the bell of the horn.

“I wish I could do something about Jeffrey”, Griff wondered aloud.
“Don’t worry about him,boy. He made his own Hell….” his trumpet quietly rasped back at him.
“He’s living on the street, hungry and homeless…it sucks!”
“You’ve got a very short memory, don’t you? Do you remember what happened just a few years ago? Well, let me refresh your memory…”

“Jeffrey Chandler was doing well, no, better than he’d ever prospered in his miserable life…Studio work, big band teaching jobs at City College…more students than he bargained for…do you remember?”
“What’s wrong with that? He paid his dues, didn’t he?”
“Several times over, indeed…then his stupid, empty head got big, a little too big…he doubled his price for horn lessons.”

“Twenty dollars for a half-hour lesson?” Griff cried, “I can barely make ten bucks per lesson!”
Jeff wiped his glasses, “I’m a very busy man, Griff, I’m really in demand now. Sorry pal, but I can’t lower my new rates just for you, then everyone else will expect the same deal”.
“But I’ve been taking lessons from you for a few years already”.
“I would if I could but I can’t”.
“Well, then I guess this is it”, Griff scratched his hair, “You’re too rich for my blood. Thanks for all the laughs”.

The rasping of the trumpet continued. “The next time you saw him you were happy to see him, you smiled but he snubbed you like a stranger…the bastard…wouldn’t even talk to you…the jobs slowed down for him, hahaha…big surprise…and look at him now, there he is, on the sidewalk, begging you for a dollar….you have surrounded yourself with weasels, my friend…your kindness is wasted…”
“…Wasted…” Griff pondered in a trance.
“You are an artist and there you stand in the presence of thieves and liars…”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Trixie Andersson nervously tapped her foot on the sewing machine in front of her. Making cool clothes didn’t make her nervous but the tall man in the room glaring at her, her soon to be ex-boyfriend, did.

“What’s with all this stuff? Where did you get it from?”
“What stuff?”
“These books, the videos, the records”, Lenny Mulligan sourly gestured at bookcases filled with paperbacks, punk rock LPs, film noir videos and more, “This is all great stuff. You never had this stuff before! WHERE did it come from?”
“Oh, I was going to tell you, Lenny, but –“
“You can’t afford any of this shit because you don’t have two nickels to rub together. I always have to pay for dinner, and –“
“Let me interrupt your interruption”, Trixie stopped sewing and picked up a pair of scissors, “…all this stuff belongs to my new boyfriend”.
“I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT!” he stomped his feet angrily like a child.
“I was working my way up to telling you, but-“
“I don’t want to know his name, but just tell me one thing. IS HE BIGGER THAN ME? IS HE???”

Trixie smiled to herself, “Well, come to think of it, he’s very good in –“
“DON’T TELL ME I DON’T WANT TO KNOW! I KNEW IT I KNEW IT!”
“Lenny, he’s moving in. We’re probably going to get our own place in a month or two”.
“Well, I can’t say I didn’t expect this”, Mulligan calmed down. “You never did appreciate the art shows we went to…the Serial Killers playing card show…the Charles Manson solo exhibit…the Nazi Memorabilia art fair…AND you never did appreciate my highly prized gun collection! Huh, well, you’re black, you’ll never understand culture”.
“Neither will you and you’ll never understand girls, either”.

Mulligan got his back up again. “So, where did you meet this bum? Under the bridge? No, let me guess, The Free Clinic?”
Trixie got up from her chair and threw her scissors at the tall white man. “GET OUT! TAKE YOUR TINY DICK AND BULLETS AND MANSON SHIT OUT OF MY HOUSE, YOU PIG!”

+++++++++++++++++++

Ricardo Torres, former drummer of Garbage Truck, pulled up slowly by the chain link fence of the playground at Calvin Coolidge High School. He espied a 13-year old girl goofing off by the jungle gym with her 12-year old friend. Torres rolled down the passenger door window of his Honda Civic.

“Hey! Hey! Bamablina! Whassup?” Ricardo half-whispered, “Wanna party like a rockstar? I got some soda pop, check it out, with some tasty extra flavas, know what I’m sayin’? Hop in the coach and we can jam out”.
The 13-year old girl stopped her fooling around and walked up to the fence.
“Oh, hey, it’s you again”, she squinted her eyes and then yelled, “HEY FREDDIE IT’S HIM THAT CREEPY GUY AGAIN!”

Ricardo turned around and noticed a badass Olds Delta 88 ramming him from behind, a big gangbanger guy running up to his car and banging his fist against the window. “YO BITCH OPEN THE FUCKIN’ DOOR I’M GONNA BURY MY BOOT UP YOUR LITTLE PUNK ASS YOU FUCKIN’ PERVERT!”

Ricardo freaked and stomped his foot on the accelerator, racing through a STOP sign, then another STOP sign, barely missing a collision with a van and an SUV. The Delta 88 was in hot pursuit behind him, honking its horn endlessly, ramming the Civic in the bumper, but it was no contest. The Civic couldn’t outrun it for shit.

Axles were banging against speed bumps making sparks fly up from the cars. Sweat was pouring out of every orifice in Ricardo’s body, he whimpered, “Motherfuckin’ bitches! They always have to have a fuckin’ brother!”
His tinkle began seeping out of his greasy old jeans. He finally twisted the steering wheel until he reached the main intersection.

Two blocks away Jeffrey Chandler, washed-up trumpet player was bumming spare change from people. He clocked the tall, thin white man quickly striding towards a green Taurus Station Wagon.

“Spare change?” Chandler asked in his weak begging voice to Lenny Mulligan, who was already reaching for his car keys. “Please, mister, I could use a dollar, anything you can spare. All I had was a donut last weekend, and I don’t know how much longer-“
“NOW YOU LISTEN TO ME! NORMALLY I DON’T SPEAK TO STREET PEOPLE BUT IN YOUR CASE I’M MAKING AN EXCEPTION! I AM SOOOO SICK AND TIRED OF YOU PARASITE BASTARDS GETTING IN MY FACE BEGGING FOR MONEY I WORK FOR NOT LIKE YOU PEOPLE! YOU TAKERS LIVING OFF US WORKING PEOPLE! OH, YOU SMELL! AND ANOTHER THING!!!”

Jeffrey Chandler wasn’t listening to him anymore. In fact, all he could see was a dirty white Honda Civic with a Delta 88 speeding straight towards them both. Jeff backed away as fast as his limping feet could take him. Mulligan’s face turned red as a beet.
“COME BACK HERE! DON’T YOU DARE WALK AWAY FROM ME WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU!”
The Honda Civic hit Lenny Mulligan so hard he flipped thirty feet in the air, falling on his neck against the curb, emitting a huge crack. He lay supine against the curb, unconscious.

The Civic veered against a line of parked cars, the Delta 88 ramming him and honking its horn, finally pulling over at the sight of a cement mixer pulling out in front of Ricardo’s Civic. Ricardo, unfortunately, turned around to see Mulligan lying in a bloody heap, turning around too late to notice the oncoming cement mixer. It was also too late to slow down as he was easily doing 85 miles an hour.

The cheap white car crumpled like a paper plane against the cement mixer, Torres’ head smashing into his steering wheel, instantly breaking his neck on impact, the entire front end just a distant memory.

Ricardo Torres took his last ride to PreTeen Paradise. He was dead as a dog, lying in a tangled wreck of metal, broken glass, and puddles of radiator fluid, motor oil, blood and leaky urine. It took over an hour to extract his body from the Jaws of Life.

Lenny Mulligan, on the other hand, wasn’t dead, but will probably never have full capacity of his tiny penis, dexterity of his guns, or the ability to fully appreciate his Nazi memorabilia again.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Garbage Truck was rehearsing at Action Rehearsal Studios for the following night’s show at The Glitter House, their biggest ever. The band, newly shortened down to five members, was pretty excited about doing the show. Unfortunately, there was something a little funny in the air that night.

“Let’s do Sweet Sixteen Lucky Thirteen”, Griff called it to the other guys. The band started up the song. Griff sang:

“You just turned sixteen on Friday 13th
Like a black cat you creep…in your sleep
And then you wake…like an earthquake
Like an earthquake…like a mother’s mistake….”

The bridge came up, Griff stepped back and FF Klein, drummer, played an entirely new drum break. Griff made a face and turned around to look at the drummer.

“Stop…STOP!” Griff yelled into the mike. The band reluctantly stopped playing.
“What was that, dude? You totally turned the beat backwards. That’s not the way we’ve been doing it. Play it the same way we’ve been doing it”.
FF Klein glanced over at Bobby Callahan, guitarist, while Griff was talking to him.
“What the fuck are you looking at him for? I’m talking to you, man!”
“Alright, Griff, chill, bro”.
“Yeah, just play it the way I wrote it and then I’ll chill”.

Griff fake bent down to “tie his shoe” and looked at the mirror by the side of the wall and saw Klein winking at Callahan, who smirked and gave him the high sign. Bradley held his mouth to keep from laughing.

The band started the song again and, once again the bridge had the twonky drum change. Griff fumed and threw his arms up, signaling everyone to shut up.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Griff yelled at FF Klein. “Didn’t I just tell you to play it the way I wrote it?”
“Yeah, well, check it out”, Bobby interjected, “We thought we needed a wicked grunge drum break, not so punk, you know. The song sounds kinda old, we wanted to make it sound new”.
“Who cares about sounding new? This is the song I wrote!”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t work, you know. We’re not just sidemen for you, it’s our songs, our band too, y’know”, Bobby got his Irish up.

“It’s your band? Now it’s your band, Bobby?” Griff stalked around in a circle like a panther in a cage, fuming and ready to blow his stack. “Fritz, you just joined, what, two weeks ago, now it’s your band?”
“Dude, don’t be a dictator”.
“I’m worse off than a dictator, a dictator has a country, all I have is four fuckin’ clowns that complain all the time”.

Bradley piped up. “You know we have our own ideas, it’s our band, too man”.
“Oh, now you pipe up. Did you write the songs? Did you book any of the Frisco shows? Do you design the flyers, the t-shirts, did you even pay for any of these things? No, I do it all, I pay for it all, I got us the record deal - you didn’t. 'Your band'”.
“OUR band”, Bobby pushed.
“Oh, what? You hang out with that fuck face Moish Wilson and you think you’re a high roller in the music business now? I got us the Paint It Black Records deal, Mr. Rock Business asshole. I got all the Frisco bookings, not Varmint Booking. Between you and that dick holder you couldn’t organize a cub scout picnic”.

Trev looked at Bobby, “Tell him, Bobby, tell him”.
Griff glared at Trev, “Tell him what? Huh? Tell him what?”
Bobby cleared his throat. “You know all the songs you’ve been making us play? Well, we want equal songwriting credit for publishing”.
“The songs I stayed home and wrote while you stupid pricks were out getting high? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“WELL THAT’S HOW KITTEN CLAWS DOES IT!”

Griff kicked over his microphone stand. CRASH! The PA moaned large deafening feedback through the speakers. “I’m going out to get some fresh air, and you guys can go fuck yourselves dry. I’ll see your stupid asses tomorrow night, and after that, who the fuck knows?”
Bobby decided to get bold. “Yeah, well, maybe your days are numbered instead of ours”.

Griff grabbed his trumpet case. “Fine, douche, you fuckin’ stand to lose more than I ever will…I don’t care and more importantly YOU FUCKIN’ HYENAS CAN GO PISS UP A ROPE!”

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Blind with anger to the point that everything looked red and blurry, Griff drove down Hollywood Boulevard barely paying attention to the traffic in front of him. After almost running a red light in his rage-filled delirium, he pulled over to the nearest bar.

The bar was long and narrow, so dark Griff almost stumbled over a few bar stools. He gravitated towards the bright wall of bottles lined up behind the bar with the bartender polishing glasses, staring at the two Latino boys jumping around on their stools.

“Hi, what’s it going to be tonight?”
“Bushmills Irish Whiskey…and I’ll pop for a round of whatever the guys over there are having”.
“One Mick Express and two Jagermeister shots”, he rapped his knuckles on the bar.

The two boys smiled at Griff. “Oh, thank you, Handsome!” one of them chirped.
They all toasted each other, even the bartender hitting a shot glass himself.
“Look at him, he looks tragic, like he fell off a Corvette…”, one boy said.
“…or a Speedboat, in a bathing suit”, the other whispered.
“Shut up! Did I tell you about Puto Johnny, he got pinched stealing a bathing suit at Target”.
“Stupid bitch it probably wasn’t even his size”.

“To the music business”, Griff lifted his shot glass, “A toast to the memory of punk rock, free jazz and garage rock, may they all rest in peace!”
“Whattsamatta buddy, don’t you like music?” the bartender grinned. “You look like a rock guy to me”.
“I was, but not anymore. It’s all over”.

One of the boys ran up to the bartender, “Shawn, play some Peggy Lee, Peggy Lee, Peggy Lee”. He jumped up and down like a little kid.
Shawn turned around and flipped a switch. “Miss Peggy Lee it is”. He pulled out the Bushmills and refilled Griff’s glass, punctuated by a rap of the knuckles against the bar.
“This one’s on the house”.

The haunting music started and the two boys slow danced up and down the aisle. Peggy Lee sang:

“Is that all there is, is that all there is
Is that all there is, my friend?
Then let’s keep dancing, break out the booze, and have a ball
If that’s all there is…”

The two boys held each other tight and tried singing along but didn’t know the words, so there was a lot of humming and bickering, “That’s not how it goes, slut don’t ruin it for me!”
“Well you can’t sing it for shit, either bitch!”
Griff smiled at them, tears rolling down his face.

Peggy Lee continued:

“I know what you must be saying to yourselves,
if that's the way she feels about it why doesn't she just end it all?
Oh, no, not me. I'm in no hurry for that final disappointment,
for I know just as well as I'm standing here talking to you
when that final moment comes and I'm breathing my last breath…”

Griff lowered his head, rubbing his eyes, when he heard one of the boys shrieking, “LAND ON ME PAPI, LAND ON ME!!!!”
He raised his head to see the boys still in a clutch but staring at the TV set above them. The TV was showing a wrestling match - it was The Hardy Boyz in the square circle. Jeff Hardy was climbing an enormous ladder, getting ready to jump off and land on his sprawling opponent.
“Shush, shut your mouth girl! He wouldn’t land on you if you had a million bucks tied around your tired balls!” He lightly slapped his boyfriend’s face.
“Look at that flying hunky boy!”
“Oh girl!”

Griff sobered up, watching Jeff Hardy jump off the ladder, a lightning flash of sheer muscle and flying blonde hair landing on his opponent and pinning him down. His back stiffened as if a current switched on inside him. He tossed back the rest of his drink and threw down a twenty dollar bill.
“Hey thanks for the drinks and the music”, Griff rapped on the bar top. “I’ve got some phantasmagorical shit to do. Good night, everybody!”
The couple waved at the scruffy young man busting out the barroom door into the brighter darkness.

Copyright, 1968-Is That All There Is? by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

After The Kiss, A Murder

“Kiss me, detective!” she hissed.
I grabbed Jill by the waist and pulled her towards me, her soft, warm body pressed hard against mine. Her lips were hotter than the Sahara, her burning tongue entering my mouth and scorching the cavern-like insides. I could smell her sex, the musky invitation whispering, “Take me tonight!”

“How about that cup of java you promised me?” Jill fetchingly teased.
“The kitchen’s to your right”, I jabbed my thumb to the revolving door. “Heat up the percolator, sweetness, and make it snappy!”
She left the room, her tight yellow shift dress switching away, her brassy red hair tantalizing me like a devil’s crown.
I lit up an unfiltered Chesterfield and walked over to the hi-fi, clicking on my favorite Les Baxter album. Baxter was always guaranteed to bring out the tigress in any woman!

I parked my carcass on the plaid sofa, trying to tame my primitive ardor for the time being. What was I going to tell Chief Connell? What was a private detective doing romancing a murder suspect, albeit one with 38-24-36 measurements?
I weighed all my options while the guilty temptress was in the kitchen brewing that precious joe.

“Everything under control in there, baby?” I called to the closed door. I took another perfunctory drag of my smoke as I heard footsteps stomping down the hall towards my apartment.
BANG BANG BANG! A fist pounded against my door.
“Something tells me that’s not Chicken Delight”, I rakishly chuckled.

BANG CRASH! The door cracked open, giving way to a metal claw. I pulled my Smith & Wesson out of my shoulder holster and aimed at the breaking door because I knew exactly who it was. By the time I reached my deduction he demolished my door and came charging at me.

It was Jeremiah, the murderous Danish seaman who already threatened me the other day at Fisherman’s Wharf. Corpulent and standing at 6’6” tall, the peg-legged psycho with the iron claw glared at me.
“This be the last time you get in my hair, shamus!” His bushy black beard bobbed on his ruddy-complexioned face. “Now you give me what I came for, or I cut you up like skipjack, yah!”

“I told you once and I’ll tell you again, Squarehead, I don’t have your damn golden gizmo!” I pointed my heater at his monstrous Scandinavian demon’s head. “Stay where you are!”
“Yah, I tink not, snooper!” he charged at me. Before I could squeeze a few shots at him he pulled the pistol out of my hand with his claw. The gun flew across the room and smashed into my African Fertility God statue, toppling it over.

“I finish you, yah, like I gut minnow!” His yellow separated teeth gleamed. He picked the lapels of my Brooks Brothers suit with his claw and lifted me up by the throat with his one good hand, choking me. I tried kicking him hard in the groin but all I could hit was his damned wooden leg.

“Hah, Hah. Hah! You squirm like eel, dis goot fun!” He hacked phlegm as he laughed. “For de last time, where is the dingus?”
“Let me down ya big ape and I’ll kick it loose!” I wheezed, losing my breath.
Jeremiah loosened his grip on me and dropped me onto my plush thick piled rug. That bastard - my fall aggaravated an old football injury! I almost hit my head on the tinted glass coffee table.
“Hokay but no funny stuff or I kill!”

I was about to try something clever when the revolving door opened. There stood a thin, shapely man without his red hair and yellow shift dress on, in his underwear holding a gun in one hand and a percolator in the other. Fooled again by a pro! The doll was a dude!
“Okay, boys, reach for the ceiling, nice and slow, both of you!” he yelled.

“Angel”, I froze in shock, “Is that you?”
“You didn’t really think I was a woman, did you? I’m after the golden gizmo just like Olaf over here!”
“But, but, but, I thought we had something real!” I exclaimed in horror.
“Listen, sailor, I’ll do anything to get that golden booger, ANYTHING. Besides, that dress certainly does things to my figure!” he swung his hips. I thought I was going to get sick all over my expensive thick piled rug. Les Baxter played on in the background.

“Ugh, you’re that nelly who hangs around the docks, I know you, I fix you like I fix him!” Jeremiah yelled.
“Don’t make a move! I’m walking out with the dingus, not you, fish!”
“Ach, you fish, not me! I walk out wid dingus, girly boy!”
“Not a chance, butch!”

While these two maniacs argued I quickly grabbed my expensive table lamp and smashed the top half of the bulb, taking the base with its exposed wires and smashed it against the percolator in Miss Jill’s hand. The combination of spilled coffee and live electric wires made Jill go into a seizure. The lights in the apartment flickered like crazy.

“Now you give!” Jeremiah lunged towards me with his thick peg leg.
I stood between him and the former Miss Jill who was still flopping around like a gutted fish. I pushed Jeremiah towards Jill and his hook caught to the handle of the percolator. They twitched in a lover’s clutch of electrocution, both bodies hung together and twitching to their electric death.

I kicked the plug out of the wall and watched as both bodies fell to the floor, very cold, very blue, and very dead.

I walked over to the hi-fi, turned off Les Baxter and turned to the telephone. I picked up the receiver and dialed Chief Connell’s personal hot line.
“Hello, Connell? It’s Goldsmith, yeah, me”, I looked down at the two corpses, sailor and drag queen, clutched together in death. “Buckle up your seat belt, Skipper. I’ve got your killers ready for delivery”.

The Hard Word (Australia, 2002)

Every once in awhile you see a movie that doesn’t make much sense, completely implausible, BUT…it’s got great actors, likeable characters, snappy dialogue, dazzling cinematography, exciting editing, some of the wildest music this side of an old James Bond movie, and you have to simply sit back and enjoy it, anyway.

“The Hard Word” isn’t a brilliant film but it’s a fun time-waster, a film that almost dares you to like it even though it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The film starts out showing a trio of Australian bank robbing brothers led by Guy Pearce cooling their heels in penitentiary.

Pearce is a prison librarian, his easy-going brother Mal is the prison butcher, and short-fused brother Shane just lifts weights and cusses a lot. Their defending attorney Frank Malone (Robert Taylor) keeps them in the cooler in between heists he arranges for them (??) while trying to bone Pearce’s wife, Carol (played by Rachel Griffiths) on the side.

Although the idea of prisoners being taken out of the pen to pull a heist is pretty ludicrous the ridiculosity doesn’t end there, because the job they pull is robbing the prize money at the Melbourne Cup, the Australian equivalent to the Kentucky Derby. With the help of two extra thugs, esp. a short-fused psycho named Tarzan, well, if it was so simple for five yobs to hold up the Melbourne Cup it would be done all the time. But so what? It’s only a movie.

After double-crossing Frank and his two rent-a-thugs (incl. Tarzan) the boys run off with the swag after scamming an innocent, drunken girl in the parking lot who Malcolm falls head over heels over (“You small better than Christmas dinner” gushes the larcenous foodie). On a side note, all three brothers get their rocks off at some point during the film, i.e., Shane gets jiggy with the hot redhead prison psychiatrist.

All through the movie Dale (Pearce) accuses his wife Carol of banging Frank while Frank in turn accuses her of banging anybody in pants, making us wonder all through the film which side she’s on. By the end of the film she has to make the ultimate decision, will it be her husband, dead-end con Dale or smarmy, connected attorney Frank? It’s all up to her.

It’s great seeing Guy Pearce playing an Australian thug, dirty, greasy and long-haired, way more badass than his work in “Factory Girl”, “Bedtime Stories”, and “The King’s Speech”. It's also cool seeing Rachel Griffiths play a cheap blonde after playing nerds in “Very Annie Mary”, “Muriel’s Wedding”, and “Hilary & Jackie”. They both give excellent performances, and I also thought Joel Edgerton and Damien Richardson playing Pearce’s crazy brothers were outstanding.

“The Hard Word” is highly recommended simply because it’s like a quick slug of Red Bull, not necessarily nutritious but so adrenaline charged you can’t resist the ass-kicking rush it gives you. Check it out.

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After a mind-numbingly long delay Todd Solondz’s latest film “Dark Horse” has finally seen a release. Now that it’s out the expression “catch the movie" has taken on a new meaning as the film couldn’t sit still to survive a screening.

When I found out it was out I planned on “catching” it at the Westside Pavilion Landmark where it played on Tuesday and Wednesday; however, by Thursday and Friday it was playing at The Nuart Theater in Westwood. Before I could even get to the theater it had been moved to The Chinese Theater (not the big one, but the Chinese 6 Cineplex next door) in Hollywood for Saturday and Sunday. That's three different locations within the course of a week!

By the way, the film stars Selma Blair, Christopher Walken, and Mia Farrow, a pretty heavyweight crew of actors, and again, this is Todd Solondz, the director of “Welcome To The Dollhouse” and “Happiness” we’re talking about. To see a film treated so poorly by distributors and exhibitors answers every question as to why the film industry is failing.

Moon Of Alabama

I recently finished reading Bertolt Brecht’s play “The Rise And Fall of the City of Mahagonny”, a stunning musical play about a man-made paradise of debauchery. Although the play takes place in the Gulf Coast it more likely brings to mind the sleaze of Las Vegas, highly predictive of Sin City since this great play was written in the late Twenties.

In this play four working stiffs from Alaska travel to a bed of sin called Mahagonny (note the word "Agony"). The boys blow all their dough, much debauchery ensues, culminating in the death of JJ Smith by overeating, Alaskawolf Joe by a fatal KO in the ring, and Jimmy Gallagher's sentence to death by electrocution for being broke, his hard-earned pay bankrupted by drink, gambling and women in Mah-agonny. Gallagher's death sentence for the sin of being flat broke seems more relevant today than ever.

First performed in 1930, Mahagonny was the drama world quivalent to Igor Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring", prompting boos, fist fights, riots et al at its initial performance. Dark and raunchy for its time, it brought a new experience to musical theatre that was probably the most radical thing theatergoers had ever seen.

The popular line of opinion is that Mahagonny is Brecht’s anti-capitalist concepts at work in that it shows a society so completely intoxicated by greed that it ultimately comes undone and destroys itself in a blizzard of excess. I think that the excess of alcoholism, gambling and womanizing are common traits that ruin anyone regardless of class affiliation.

As shown in the videos depicted here you can see that the German production is far more explicit in its views of decadence, shown in a highly theatrical cabaret style, as opposed to the American version, which is more traditional in its pretensions towards standard theatre. The production differences between the German vs. American version almost looks like two entirely different plays!

Pictured above is the Audra McDonald version of “Moon of Alabama”, also known as “The Alabama Song” or “Whiskey Bar”. Two other versions of the Kurt Weill melody are included here, one a duet from Nina Hagen and Meret Becker and the other from an Italian production featuring Valentina Valente. While the song isn’t particularly phenomenal, the differences in style all four singers take still represents the story well. The song is performed towards the beginning of the opera when Jenny and the prostitutes arrive in Mahagonny to work all the marks in town.

The influence of “The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny” is far reaching, and can be found in works as diverse as Tom Waits, Randy Newman, The Doors, David Bowie (who covered "Albama Song"), Slapp Happy and even Lars Von Trier's film "Dogville". While the “Threepenny Opera” is Brecht and Weill's most infamous opera, “The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny” is the piece that changed modern opera forever.