BLOG ROULETTE 2018

I USED TO HAVE AN ANT FARM

Snippets of dialogue occasionally pop into my head

unasked for

one guy will make a statement, another

will respond and the duo will go

back and forth in some half-formed, half-rational

conversation

it comes to me in almost a half conscious fever

dream and just plays out it

really happens

on this one particular night eleventh hour

work night I'm sitting bored in front of my computer

waiting for the night to wrap up when the

one guy in my head declares,

“I used to have an ant farm.”

The second guy responds with a broad question,

as if he were a vaudeville straight man, asking,

“what happened?”

He never responds with anything like, “why are you telling me this?”

Or, “tell me more about your ant farm.” His reaction

is always just blunt, broad, damn nigh scripted

queries like, “what happened?”

The first guy answers back simply, “they died,”

and the conversation is over.

They all kind of go that way and I'm

left to do what I will with the result.

The work night is over and I embark on a couple of

needed days off.. In the space of those days one

friend informs me she's had what appears to be

another mini-stroke. I tell her she needs to seek medical

help, knowing in advance she probably won't

Another friend writes and tells me he's been diagnosed

with a “slight case” of liver cancer and I know from

past family experience there are no “slight cases”

of liver cancer.

Saturday marks the beginning of my work week.

My wife is off with her mother, shopping and doing

all the other things they do---her usual Saturday.

As the time comes when I usually head off to work

I haven't heard from her all day

Usually it's endless phone tag and before I head out I

call to touch base

She tells me she's sitting in the waiting room of

a 24 hour medical clinic

after suffering sudden, out-of-nowhere

pains in her arms and shoulder

and dizziness

no, she tells me, it's probably not an emergency

no, her mother concurs, we don't think it's a

heart attack

and I drive to work, thinking,

I used to have an ant farm

I used to have an ant farm

I used to have an ant farm.....

3/29/18

**********

          It hit me last night, going through my old blogs, that I haven't done a new blog since, what? Back in October? Mostly it's general derailment....this injury has slowed me down and made every aspect of my life suffer....my personal life, my mobility, my painting, my website, video production, music----you name it----my whole life has kind of hit a wall.

Now----with the ordeal almost in my rear view mirror (Praise the Lord and pass the Regranex!), I can start working toward getting shit back on track.

Still and all, it's not that I've been idle. I actually started work on a number of politically-oriented blogs (four, to be exact) that I've all but given up on. Part of it is the terminal nature of current events---you have to strike while the iron is hot or forget about it. If you run out of steam it's over. Part of it is the sad wisdom that I'm like your favorite alcoholic relative that starts ranting and raving incoherently at the Thanksgiving table---nobody likes it when I get political. Not that I can help it---I've just become THAT GUY that breaks out into vitriol and invective at the drop of a hat---and despite the fact that the last overtly political blog I did was the most highly-viewed one I ever did, I put my finger out into the wind, licking it beforehand for whatever reason they do that on all the old cartoons, and no, just, no, just no.....you don't wanna know.

        The writing and other nonsense continues, though, and the future is ripe with promise---in the coming days, you'll see the S.E. Apocalypse Krew's album, RISE, finally be released----I'm also going to be firing out new blogs----quickest arriving will be a jam on one of my favorite novels ever, Joseph Heller's overlooked SOMETHING HAPPENED.

OH---YEAH----in addition to all of this, the 20^th anniversary of “The Abbey of the Lemur” has passed unceremoniously, largely due to the injury in question....but don't expect this to remain the status quo. I'm working, as we eyeball each other, feeble reader, on the rough screenplay for a feature-length TAOTL documentary that will be the final word on our run of infamy. Don't touch that dial!

**********

Speaking of politics (at least in the broader sense of the word, which is what I prefer to deal with), working in a newsroom brings all kinds of interesting tidbits down the transom. Sure, a lot of it makes me want to retch and throw rocks, but what can I say about that? Your favorite Autistic, alcoholic relative strikes again.

But on to the tidbit in question, which did indeed make me want to retch and throw rocks. From our people in DC, more or less verbatim: A new report shows the Opioid Epidemic costs the U.S. Economy billions of dollars every year. It goes on to say that the human price of this crisis is devastating (and it's nice to see some acknowledgment, here, that there's a “human price”), but there's an economic price as well. A new report from the American Action Forum (a DC-based advocacy group that promotes center-right public policy) says nearly a million people were unemployed because of opioid addiction in 2015, and the numbers would seem to only be getting worse.

Translation: Just say no to drugs, kids----because if you do drugs, you're depriving our sainted Oligarchy of exploitable labor, and that hurts the Bottom Line.

And don't get me wrong, here----when it comes to the abuse of and/or addiction to opioids, I agree, say no. But I feel like I got a peek into the worst workings of the work machine with this faceful of an Alan Greenspan wet dream.......

Speaking of such icky business, a friend shared an article from the NEW YORKER last night (Yeah----I know----yawn!----Wearing my affiliation with NYC's Unbearables on my sleeve, there) that talked about the downside of what's now referred to as “The Gig Economy”. It was actually a pretty good read-----much of it centered around ride-share giant Lyft and their promotion involving a driver who gives birth on the job. I'm just gonna link to the article, because the writer, Jia Tolentino, says it better than I will.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-gig-economy-celebrates-working-yourself-to-death?mbid=nl_170323_Daily&CNDID=49221241&spMailingID=10681265&spUserID=MTg0OTkxNzg0Nzg3S0&spJobID=1121869960&spReportId=MTEyMTg2OTk2MAS2

       Again, this whole notion of a “Gig Economy” is kind of a Neoliberal spank bank feature----picture an entire workforce of at-will contractors gigging away in some variety of part-time servitude, without benefits. Welcome to the future.

I got into a minor flap with one cat, who, as far as I can tell, is getting fat off sales commissions, when I bluntly wrote, “it all needs to come down.” He responded, “what the hell does that even mean?”

If you're one of the lucky few who are making out like a bandit in the Gig Economy, I haven't got time to explain it to you. Sorry---diplomacy was never my strong suit.

'Kay----getting off my proletarian high horse for now.

**********

It's nice to see the angry public response to the whole Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal-----yeah, sorry—--I had about a month's jump on it from the rest of you because Lee Camp and Jimmy Dore broke it all the way back then. (Yeah—--I know----”RUSSIA BOT!!!!”---Suck my nuts, ya goddamn lemming) Forbes apparently wrote about it back in November, favorably. Think about that.

Anyway, thanks for finally getting pissed over something you should get pissed about, as opposed to all the silly hype over Russian Troll farms----nothing's sadder than watching sincere Hashtag Resistance-types working themselves into a frenzy while the neoliberals move the goalposts all over the field with shifting charges designed to foment a new cold war, fueled largely by abject fear and wishful thinking. Y'all have made conspiracy theories mainstream and acceptable. Kudos.

A lot of folks are (understandably) dealing Facebook out. I'm still here....I guess the dividing line between you and me is that, from 9/11, Bush and the Patriot Act on out, I always assumed my shit was being looked at anyway. Why this is new or shocking to any of you is a mystery to me.

So, until Big Brother or his surgical equivalent come knocking on my door (and it'd have to be a real slow day for me to be of interest), you all know where to find me.

Yeah. Tolja nobody likes it when I do this.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

FETISH/CANDYSHROUD-Demo

ANDI SEXGANG-Achilles in the Eurozone

ALICE COOPER-Love it to Death

L7-Slap Happy

POSTMORTEM: BAGGING AND TAGGING 2016

It's late December as I start writing this and we're coming up on all that Auld Lang Syne nonsense that helps us compartmentalize our lives into digestible blocks of time for posterity or whatever. Bag and tag it, it's done.

I'm probably competing with every sentient being in the Western World in my commentary on 2016, and yeah, yeah, I know, it was awful, eighty billion celebrities died and now we're all supposed to be mad at those tricky Russians who (allegedly) rigged our election by proving that the Democrats were unethical and rigged their primary. Or something to that effect. But I'm going to put another spin on it, and my grumpy ass is gonna be nice for a change.

2016, for me, was actually a pretty good year....I think that the jumping off point for me is that I tend to evaluate what happened over the course of a year by what I did, what I accomplished and so on. As such, I really liked 2016. I got to go back east and visit family members, some of whom I hadn't seen in a decade, some of whom I may never see again. I got to record vocals for my old band and we're going to release the damn thing as an album (Look out, everybody). Exciting new friendships happened, bonds were forged and I got to act in a movie. Rounding out the year, I got to help plan my first solo show as a visual artist.

http://idleclassmag.com/c-f-roberts-decade-margins-opens-jan-27-freedom-dreamer-photographylane-foster-fine-art-studio/ 

 

My wife got to attend this kickass film festival in New York, she got to meet lots of longtime friends face-to-face for the first time and she solidified some new friendships; she appeared in a horror anthology and did her first-ever book signing; she got named music and culture editor for DIABOLIQUE, appeared on eighty bazillion podcasts and got involved in a whole slew of projects that will see the light of day in the coming months.

We're counting our blessings, because there've been quite a few.

Most people were bothered by the seemingly endless list of celebrity deaths this past year and yeah---we lost some heroes and some muses, to the point where a lot of folks were crying, “2016, stop killing people!” To me, 2015 was worse on that front, and I may have been yelling that a bit last year because we lost actual family and friends. My cousin gave me the best reality check ever when he told me, “shit happens, people die and I don't really assign blame to years for that.” And I may have lost an aunt that year, but he lost a mother---so if anyone was able to make that call, it was him. 

I was made aware, over the last week or two, of the condition called Apophenia, which is the tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data, e.g., to perceive patterns where there are none. It's a human condition----we all do it from time to time. This won't be the last time I mention it. Years aren't predatory entities....they don't actively hunt and kill people. I think I learned that in 9^th grade Biology.

For the most part, of course, few if any of us actually believe that. We're talking figuratively---I just got tired of the figurative talk back in February or March.

As for celebrities? We miss who we miss, but celebrities have been dying since there were celebrities, and you can expect that to continue.

 

And yeah, the election was a dumpster fire, but they all are, realistically. I'm no fan of the loud orange guy, but I got through Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, Clinton pushing through NAFTA, GATT and the Telecommunications Act and repealing Glass-Steagall, Obama flushing Habeas Corpus down the toilet....we got this. My hope for all my lefty-liberal friends in the coming four years is that they'll all have a common Boogeyman, which will be nice-----'cause every time Uncle Barack messes with civil liberties they seem to conveniently ignore it....so that's something to look forward to. 

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/27/headlines/obama_signs_defense_bill_establishing_anti_propaganda_center 

 

So we're walking into 2017 without negativity and hoping the seeds we've sewn bear some awesome fruit. Wishing peace, joy, action and prosperity for alla you and yours.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:
TYPE O NEGATIVE-Bloody Kisses
TYPE O NEGATIVE-World Coming Down
RUSH-R40
RICK AND MORTY-Various Episodes

(An) AMBULATORY DUST BOWL

We're bombing down Mission Avenue when the tarp flaps on the little truck in front of us, kicking up gusts of its chalky discharge on us. And doesn't it just bring light to the self-inflicted stigma of going around acting like we're the Joads or something?

“Wooo!” She howls, “welcome to the rolling dust cloud a-go-go!”

“Yeah, home of the mouthful of dirt,” I add. “Future home of Little Burning Man, wherein I will open the festival with a set by my impending side band, Half Chub!”

And yes, if my ongoing duties for the S.E. Apocalypse Krew and 90 Lb. Tumor ever allow, Half Chub will conquer Little Burning Man and other questionable events, as well. We're going to play a lot of covers. What's that one band----that pseudo-ska band with the guy who died? Santeria? No----Sublime. We're gonna do lots of Sublime covers-----mental, free-form fusion jazz versions of Sublime tunes. Them and Saccharine Trust. Probably more Saccharine Trust than Sublime. I actually don't like Sublime all that much.

Wait 'til you see us. Half Chub, man....we're phenomenal. If only we could play....

Later, in an unguarded moment, I'm asked what inspired me to name a band Half Chub.

“Whaddya think?!” I guffaw.

In the ensuing hours we ghost around the main drag like sad detectives trying to find the dividing line between Burning Man Corner (or The Littlest Drainbows, as I like to call them) and Crime TeamTM. We're still not sure where it is.

       Why's it every time someone finds a weird item around here, everyone thinks it belongs to me?

                                                               ##############

       On a more serious note, after a river of time, I have an art show happening:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1091444057620401/

        That's right-----first solo show ever, in Rogers. Been unable to get a single foot in the door in Fayetteville, but Benton County has always been pretty good to me. They're lookin' better and better to me these days...

      More when I get a sec.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

GARY NUMAN-SPLINTER

THE REPLACEMENTS-TIM

THE REPLACEMENTS-HOOTENANY

HUSKER DU-NEW DAY RISING

THREATS AND WARNINGS

After a month where I could barely get around to refilling my meds, breathing room is in sight. This past weekend I've talked a lot about having to “reconstruct meaning” for myself, which might sound a lot larger than it should. In short I'm having to re-teach myself to write and paint after being endlessly, relentlessly hampered for a while.

“Threats and Warnings” (new-ish one on cardboard) might not be the very LAST painting in the Apocalypse Series but it might be the last major one as I draw the whole thing to a close. Two series will continue----abstracts as part of a current series called “The Random” and a new series called “Hot Garbage”. The Purgatory and Apocalypse series were more based around symbolism and mythmaking----Hot Garbage will largely be figurative art (or my permutation thereof) for its own sake. All or most of the paintings in the series will be titled, “Hot Garbage”. Stay tuned. 

DISASSOCIATION AND THE APOCALYPSE

I've always glommed onto graffiti---I like the look of it---I like the coded history of layers of vandalistic scrawlings. One sure sign that I'm about done with the Ozark Experience is that the Army Corps of Engineers have done the dumbest thing on earth by fencing off the ruins of the hotel at Monte Ne...that, to me, was possibly the last holy or sacred place left in this region. Someone asked us a while ago what we found sacred about that place, and would we find it more sacred if preservationists fixed it up. My answer was more or less “no”. I like Coin Harvey's ruin for what it's become—--a hollowed-out hulk covered with the graffiti of the ages----a witchy mecca which we've celebrated in image and noise....

In the late 50s/early 60s you have this young hood who scrawls “Vic + Shelly” on those sodden walls....15 years later his disgrace of a longhaired son is partying at the same site and maybe he draws a pot leaf and/or some slogan on the wall......a few layers of vandalism have emerged since then---maybe he can see “Vic + Shelly”, maybe he can't. He has no idea that was left by his Dad, who he can't stand.....15 to 20 years down the road our stoner has cut his hair and moved on to a corporate job....his son, who's a wannabe gangsta, has now tagged the wall.....three generations of hooliganism in layers. Boggles the mind, huh?

Being autistic, I'm naturally riveted by this stuff and I can kind of get lost in it. Urban/public art enthralls me, but I have no head for it....these days if you gave me a couple of spraycans and said, “go!” I'd have no idea what to put on a wall or why.

These days, though, a part of my autism that's become more pronounced is just an increasing inability to fit my brain into any kind of linear communication----visual or non-visual. People talk like a bunch of goddamned chattering monkeys, I get tired of hearing them talk and I get tired of hearing myself talk and I just stop talking---don't even know what to say.

That level of disassociation fits pretty beautifully into the ethos of the Apocalypse, though. Mike McAdam and I developed this weird style of sloganeering, lexicon and cartoon art with the Apocalypse Krew---we had an identity forming even before we developed musically. It was an incoherent smear of smiley faces, frowney faces, suicidal dreg figures, recurring images and phrases that would dribble off from militant ravings to primal, screaming nonsense words that mostly were comprised of bunched-together, incompatible consonants. Sometimes I sqwzaaaazzztptgh. That still makes sense to me. It really made sense to me in my early-to-mid 20s when I went around in a state of constant angst and agitation and wanted to put my fist through everything.

That level of primal disassociation makes its way into much of the Apocalypse Series, and this painting as well. The heyday of my vandalism was probably as a teen or a young adult and most of it

  revolved around whatever bands I was listening to, which devolved into arguments (on the walls) about the merits of said bands. Pretty meat-and-potatoes. Basquiats, we were not. Banksy, we were not. We were not Banos, Iz the Wiz, Dondi or Lee.

Stylistically, that's the path I follow, here and elsewhere. As the painting is based around one of our songs, snippets of the song's lyrics appear, buried and obscured in layers and layers, as if some janitor keeps painting over the bad kids' etchings----the bad kids keep building a wall of written or drawn entropy as if to tell the hypothetical janitor, “nice try----paint again, Frank!” There is no concrete crystallization of the lyrical content in the space of the painting---just layers of obscured messages, none of which you'll ever get the entirety of. As we come to the surface, you'll see quotes from the Bible (that bit from Matthew about “render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar”) accompanied by the quote from Vonnegut's fictional “Messiah”, Bokonon (“pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn't have the slightest idea what's really going on.”---words to live by!!!)----those are also obscured and marred. No thought completed. Or codified. Or anything.

It's a way of life. It's a way of life for more people than will probably admit to it.

MAKING IT WITCHY

Why use the Manson family as Icons?

Without condoning any of their crimes, the chaos of what they brought to the world is a deeply ingrained part of the geography of my youth. Think of them less as Icons or people to be admired---more as signposts. This is the kind of ride you're in for. It'll get ugly----it'll get bloody. There will be taboos----there will be loud, gibbering, scary madness.

Flashback to 1998 or so: My roommate and I are at a Rave. Mostly we're there to hawk our hallucinogenic videos to a DJ (which winds up being a fruitless endeavor) but we're also ripped and trying to have a good time. I had dreadlocks at the time-----some raver kid walks up to us and starts asking us, “are you peaceful hippies, or are you the other kind?” I think we were taken aback by the question----what the hell did that mean? We tried to assure him that we were “peaceful”----I don't know---maybe he was intimidated and thinking we were redneck bikers who were going to kick his ecstasy-gobbling ass. But a part of me kind of enjoys the fact that we might have been the “Other” kind of Hippie. And his worst nightmare.

At another time several of us went out on a Sunday (early evening) to a Chinese Buffet that we used to frequent back in the day....I think it was one of those lost weekends where we all got pretty blasted. We were probably all pretty bedraggled----again, I had the dreads, which were probably down to my knees by this time---one friend of mine was wearing a tie-dyed shirt, a pair of really gnarly sunglasses and a pentagram necklace---and no, I don't mean a pentacle----I mean A PENTAGRAM----upside down, evil, Satan, yadda yadda yadda. Stoner Metal bands like Queens of the Stone Age, Acid King, Fu Manchu and Monster Magnet were burgeoning at the time and it all kind of made sense to me.

The late church crowd was probably in effect (Sunday in the Ozarks, after all) but I'll tell you this: At least one table in our general vicinity cleared----they asked to be seated elsewhere. The population cleared FAST.

That turned me on.....it still kind of does, to be honest.

Our public access show, “The Abbey of the Lemur”, really played into the same impulse, of course. Dark Counterculture. Think the MC5 and the White Panthers----that was us. In the late 90s/early 2000s.

I was never a Peace, Love and Flowers guy. I mean, I am----ultimately that's what I want for everyone----flowers optional----but I've known people over the years who were of the school of “you can't get mad...anger is WRONG! Anger is BAD!” Thing about a lot of those people is, I watched them go crazy. BAD crazy. MEAN crazy. HARMFUL TO THOSE AROUND THEM crazy. And the most sanctimonious people I knew became the most horrible people I ever met.

Anger's fine....anger helps bring about justice. Anger is an energy. You want to be able to work past that anger and get yourself to a healthy, sane place....but anger, in and of itself, is a good thing to stay in touch with. Anger helps you get shit done. 

Anyway, the Apocalypse Series has about run its course. By the time our album comes out I probably will have moved past it to something new.....things will get different but the piss and vinegar remains.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

ANTHRAX-Among the Living

PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED-First Issue

PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED-Second Edition/Metal Box

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND-White Light/White Heat

copyright 2016 Molotov Editions

APOCALYPSE NOTES: WRAPPING IT UP

“It's all over but the shouting”

---VAN HALEN

“I am now in control of all things”

---Allegedly written by the Zodiac Killer

We were done at North Main Music. We grabbed a little lunch and then I got to meet, ever-so-fleetingly, the lovely Robyn Neville.....maybe we'll get to hang out more next time I'm in town. After that it was off to Mike's house to record the one last song.

Upon my arrival at Chez McAdam Mike had to give me that Shadow Protocol----which is to say the drill involved in dealing with his dog, Shadow. Shadow's a good dog and an exceptional watchdog. Once we'd gotten through that it was a trip upstairs to deal with the final bit of recorded fun. And “fun” was the operative word.

The setup was pretty simple: Mike and me mic'd up and just going for it raw, him on acoustic guitar and me vocalizing. Past all the rave-ups, all the screaming and yelling and all the sturm und drang it was down to a goofy, folky protest song to wrap the whole package up in a big, sarcastic bow.

My intial vision for “The Candidate's a Religious Man” was actually similar to some of the binaural recordings Lou Reed did with Richard Robinson in the mid 70s (“Kicks” and “All through the Night” being my favorite examples)----the folk song itself would loop in and out of ambient noise and vacuous conversations that might take place at a party or an intimate gathering .

We didn't have any of that going on, although I secretly found myself wishing Shadow might be looking out the window and start barking at the UPS guy or the Roto Rooter truck. YAY SPONTENAEITY!!! Didn't happen, though.

ONE LAST THING: “THE CANDIDATE'S A RELIGIOUS MAN TALKING BLUES”

“Ah, but I've grown older and wiser

and that's why I'm turning you in”

---PHIL OCHS

I had endless trouble with being tight throughout the recording session, but with “Candidiate” it was just going to be loose city, no matter how you sliced it. That wasn't really a detriment (I don't think so, anyway)----the song just lends itself to that. We had multiple start-overs and do-overs and it was different every time we did it. It was really just one riff running through the whole thing and so there was a lot of ample space for us to play around and have fun.

In the intro I rechristened the song “The Candidate's a Religious Man Talking Blues”, almost trying to lend it a kind of faux-Robert-Johnson-cum-Bob-Dylan style gravitas.

Some verses remained the same....

“The Candidate's a religious Man

so let's catch him in a place of worship

Tell that old lady praying in front of him

to stop looking at the camera

The Candidate's a religious man

so let him spew some dogma from a soapbox

Up those credibility points!

Break out that makeup, our boy is for sale!

The Candidate's a Religious Man

So let's plug his kids with sedatives

Show all those viewers they're well-behaved

True offspring of a pillar of the community

The Candidate's a religious man

So let's cover up his booze problem

Break out that mouthwash quick!

Try to hide that whole thing about rehab”

When we wrote this song it was a reaction to the likes of Bush I, Bill Clinton, Al and Tipper Gore, et. al, but from there you add a few new verses to update it and you could drop in Hillary, The Donald, Ted Cruz and whoever. It's a hop, a skip and a jump just to bring it forward....

“The Candidate's a religious man

let's make sure he's Christian

not one of those weird, obscure sects

It's gotta be one that looks good in public opinion polls

The Candidate's a religious man

a star in the 24 hour news cycle

run his speeches past those focus groups

get those spin doctors to nip and tuck his opinions”

The last verse originally had this line that Mike and I crooned together, “so put away his Quaaludes!” I felt like I had to update that a little, since Quaaludes aren't really a thing anymore....what was a trendy drug that gets abused these days. I vacillated between Adderol and Oxycontin...in the end it became “put away his Oxy” because it just sings better.

By and large I've stuck to my guns on the fact that the S.E. Apocalypse Krew's politics are BROAD, because I hate all these fascist fuckers. Republicans, Democrats, I don't give a shit-----they're all dirty and corrupt and they'll probably end up getting our asses killed in the long run. “Candidate” is a number that stays pretty relevant, and 25 years after we wrote this thing it just gets better as the political climate gets stranger and more ridiculous.

We bounced it around several times before we finally got a good take. It sounded fun and we got a laugh out of it. It was easily one of the simpler recordings we did, but hopefully an amusing little slice of intimacy in the midst of the roaring din.....

It was a wrap.

APOCALYPSE NOTES: EXPLODING

“Hello.....is it me you're looking for?”

---Lionel Ritchie

One thing Mike and I carped constantly about back in the early days of the Apocalypse Krew was asinine, sappy love songs. Part of it was a bad case of Serious Young Man's disease; the rest of it I'll just chalk up to the songs' fault. Yeah---I'm magnanimous like that. Whatevs. A lot of my issues were that I felt a lot of these songs were disingenuous. When Eric Carmen sings “turn the radio on for that sweet sound....make me lose control”----what the hell's he talking about? ! What, exactly is “losing control”? Is it dangerous to do while you're driving? Let's just call a duck a duck, okay? He's basically saying, “make me come”. I guess there's the list of words you can't say on the radio, but to me, it boiled down to how it's inappropriate to lay the cards on the table and just say, “hey, baby, let's fuck!” And at that point in my life I had no patience with what I saw as a very calculated, cynical form of insincerity. To me, it was the closest legitization of date rape to ever be applauded by the masses.

So we'd go 'round and 'round about our mutual disgust with stuff like that.

We were working in this hotel at the time---we were dishwashers, with occasional forays into floor cleaning and food prep....I was sweeping down the floor around the salad bar when Mike walked up to me and showed me a piece of paper....on it were the lyrics to “First Stare”.

“Chuck---check this out----I wrote a song,” he said.

The lyric on the sheet of paper started off innocently (and innocuously) enough....”I love you/ if you don't say you love me I just don't know what I'll do”...” 'Cause tonight's the night I love you/ and tonight's the night I care/ and I knew it was gonna be this way/ from our very first stare”....

 

So far, so (deliberately) mediocre.....but things got weird quick...the next lyrical passage went

(Revolting)---as if this were a musical notation----

“ AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHGGHHHH!!!!!!!

If you don't fuckin' love me I'm gonna shred you to little pieces

If you don't scream for me I'm gonna make you wish you were still alive

Bleed for me!!!!”

Yeah----we were on to some next-level shit, here, as the kids say these days....

Then came the chorus:

“EXPLODE! EXPLODE! EXPLODE! EXPLODE!”

At this point, there between the cook's line and the salad bar, I was doubled over in front of God and everybody, howling with laughter. I knew exactly what Mike was going for, and it was absolutely slaying me.

It was the antidote to every inane, patronizing top-40 romantic ballad making the rounds. And who could beat a chorus that was just repeated screams of “EXPLODE!!!!!”?

I went out and got a tee-shirt made (they used to have these stores that customized tee-shirts back in the day)----a red shirt with the word “EXPLODE” printed in Old English lettering...I still have it. It no longer fits---my wife sometimes wears it.

“First Stare” kinda nominally kicked around our repertoire for years...we never recorded a formal demo of it. We played around with a version that barely came together....my take on the song was that you'd always have this poppy intro but then it would turn into a brutal thrash metal rave-up wherein the song would basically see the various members racing each other to the end of the song while I screamed my fool brains out....

When Mike and I first started talking about recording the old stuff I expressed a lot of interest in finally recording “First Stare”---it'd be the ultimate “fuck you” to the top 40 popsters. Mike confessed to me that his vision for the song was always that there was no real song, per se---it would just be noise. That wasn't ever really my vision for the song, but we were talkin' “First Stare”, here, and I was willing to compromise.

The ideas changed as we went along. At one point, Mike sent me a bare-bones track that was intended for the “fast” part....the track was actually based on an earlier number that fell by the wayside called “Black Harvest”. “Black Harvest” was an anti-nuclear war song that was really cut out of the same cloth as “Black”---it was a moody, dark song that started off acoustic and turned into an angry rave-up. I never thought of “Black Harvest” as a backbone for “First Stare”, but hell if it didn't work.

Later on I was on the phone with Mike and he expressed the further view to me that he had ideas about the track turning into “twenty pounds of shit in a five pound bag”----he recommended “Shine” by Todd Rundgren as a big illustration of what he was talking about. Rundgren, of course, even when he was slinging chaos, was much more subtle than anything the Apocalypse Krew was doing, but I saw the parallel and it intrigued me.

Flash forward to the recording session. I finally got a picture of the monster that “First Stare” would turn into. It sat on the timeline in a multitude of layers that looked to me like a lot of the timelines I did late in the day for “The Abbey of the Lemur”. It was immense---there were layers and layers and layers of audio.

What Mike had laid down was this insane mishmash of the “Black Harvest” riff snarled up with a montage of a lot of our stranger old recorded moments----synthesizer wreckage, demented lo-fi soundscapes, spoken word snippets, me beating on a Baldwin Organ, insane jabbering and distorted racket.

“First Stare” had become a Burroughs-style cut up!!!!! I was absolutely floored. This shit was insane!

We jumped into the ballad-part. I was never sure how to tackle this and we ran through it a few times.....Mike told me after a couple of takes that he thought the best way to tackle the vocal would be just to Lou Reed the fuck out of it and bang out the most insincere delivery I could.

(And yeah, in case it just blew by you, I used “Lou Reed” as a Verb.)

Which works, since our entire genre spoof was on songs we were completely skeptical toward. As I said before, I felt as though the sappy MOR love song was the most cynical, vapid, dishonest form out there, so taking the piss felt like the way to go.

When we got past the intro, Mike told me we were going to approach the main body of the song a little differently. “I want you to do the vocal for this without the music.”

Huh?

OKAY.

So in keeping with the cut-up nature of the beast----I went into the booth and yelled the lyric minus any musical accompaniment----let the chips fall where they may. I added a few weird ad libs----passages from “Chapel of Love” and Sinatra's “All the Way”, with the same leather-lunged delivery.

I had also expressed interest in playing a guitar track quite some time beforehand. Mike asked me if I still wanted to do it. I had this thought that we wouldn't have time for that, but this was looking good----we'd knocked everything out reasonably early. He pulled out the guitar, and BAM!!! It was happening. I was hooked up top a howling sonic monster, and I just went apeshit, throwing in some whammy bar racket, some Greg Ginn fingers-caught-in-the-strings shit and, more frequently than not, long, caterwauling drones and blasts of feedback right up the Velvet Underground/”European Son” Alley.

This went on for about ten minutes....Mike, at one point, had departed to take care of one thing or another. I figured he could just throw it into the horrendous stewing pot and fade it in and out as he saw fit. I have no idea what the final result will be, but Mike's playing with a pretty insane arsenal of crap. I have no doubt it will be epic and unprecedented.

We were done at the studios at North Main Music. But one more song remained.

APOCALYPSE NOTES: HARDBALLIN'

So I was up, wide-eyed and bushytailed for day two of our recording session.....my brother had gotten back to the motel room very late and I was reluctant to wake him up with so little sleep but I was up and around and he got up and around...taxi driver body clock, I guess.

We piled out of the motel and I probably owe him a lifetime of fruitbaskets for actually carting me around Nashua for the purpose of the Apocalypse Krew. He needed some sleep.

We puttered around South Nashua for a while and at this juncture I have to go off on a tangient regarding the ubiquity of chains.

At this point (as previously stated) it had been ten years since I'd been in that part of the country...and my last trip to New England had largely seen me hanging around in Mass. My brother and I were both hankering for Breakfast....back in the day I would have probably opted for something greasy at Bickford's. Now, there IS actually still a Bickford's in (I think) Acton, MA, but the two stores in Nashua had shuffled off this mortal coil a long time ago. The South End Bickford's had been replaced, unceremoniously, by Walgreen's, which I believe, though I could be wrong, had a CVS across the street from it. (Seems to be the case in many locations---I imagine Pharmacy Gangbangers engaged in drive-by shootings, but that's just my funny way of seeing things)

Shit, man....you could get me going off in a hundred different ways about the closing of the map---I look around Nashua and then I look around Fayetteville-----what used to be Lechmere is now Target and I'm like, yeah----we've got one of those, too. Bickford's is now Walgreen's, and of course, you can't get away from those. Panera? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've got one of those, too.

At least there's still a goddamned Barnes and Noble. It's nice to know folks in either town are still reading....don't even get me started on the incremental death of record and video stores unless you want an all-day screaming tirade.

We initially opted for IHOP and discovered in fairly short order that they weren't even open. Chris disclosed to me that they might not be open some days because they were having a hard time “hiring cooks”.

Oh. Wow.

Maybe time to start treating your workers better, IHOP?

In the end we opted for drive through action. Hey----I got a large coffee...I was good to go.

The slow, creeping erasure of localism is always a bone of contention with me...Mike and I would later have a conversation regarding this----he espoused the notion that we might all see accents going bye-bye in the next decade or so.

He might be on to something. When Heather and I first got engaged she and my brother wound up on the phone together---he asked her if she'd been born in California.

Now, Heather was actually born and bred in Arkansas. You'd never know it talking to her...if you talk to her Mom, she's about as Southern as anyone you've ever heard....but you'd never guess it talking to my wife.

So...food for thought....fuel for nightmares. Do with it what you will.

By the time we showed up at North Main Music Mike was already there and we were ready to continue.

“PIG”: THE HATE AND THE HILARITY

We opted to start with “Pig” on day two....it would require a lot of screaming and yelling, so there was no getting one's feet wet---I was jumping right in.

As stated in a previous installment, if I wanted to give anyone a quick, hard, uncomplicated dose of what the S.E. Apocalypse Krew were about it would be three songs: “Threats and Warnings”, “Kid Eternity” and “Pig”.

“Pig” was unquestionably the most brutal of the triumvurate----a fast, deliberately obnoxious blast of pure, non-diluted hostility for hostility's own sake.

I think I'd written the lyric (or a rough approximation of it) in the mid-80s...pre-Apocalypse Krew, around the time I'd gotten into hardcore punk---it was a great vehicle for a lot of my frustration, issues with authority and what have you. By the time Mike and I had formed the band it became a natural keeper....we had a lot of rage to get out of our systems.

“I don't like you, I don't like you

You talk too much, you stab my back

Ask too many questions I don't wanna answer

Your values suck, you'd better change your act

I hate your guts, I hate your guts

You badmouth everybody, I hope you die

CHORUS:

YOU'RE A PIG (x4)”

What no one—especially in this politically dainty day and age----will ever under understand is how much fun we had with this song, or how uproariously funny we always found it.

There was never any finesse to this...we didn't revisit it with an iota of new maturity----pure fury, rage and stupidity and precious little else. I screamed the damned thing like a wounded warthog and the Krew rampaged along as per usual----short, fast and blunt.

“Fry your ass, fry your ass

You make me puke, you make me ill

I'd rather die than talk to you

Go back to your hole, die in the grass

I hope you scream forever in hell”

JESUS CHRIST!!!! How much do you have to dislike someone in order to want them to “scream forever in hell”?! Again, no one will probably ever understand how much we bust up over this ridiculous song.

BUT THERE'S MORE!!!!! I initially considered this particular take of “Pig” much longer than the original demos (and it may still be) and so I actually took it upon myself to write additional verses for the new cut. In the end I thought it was all too much and decided to let the song “breathe”---maybe give Mike more room for some guitar fireworks----and just go with the original words.

But in case you were wondering, there are other lyrics, now, for “Pig”, which were not recorded. So here, on my stoopid blog, for the first (and probably LAST) time ever, here are the newish and unrecorded additional lyrics for “Pig”. Enjoy.

“I want you dead, you fucking prick

I promise it's not me, it's you

I can't live another minute with you on this planet.

Motherfucker, you make me spew

Hate's a many splendored thing

I'm sorry for this little tiff

The world's too small for you and me

I wanna push you off a cliff

Suck my dick, suck my dick

I'm sure you'll let me know who's boss

You make me puke, you make me sick

I wanna nail you to a cross”

Fun, or what? No?

How much must you dislike someone to want to nail them to a cross?!!!

Mike had added a new treat to the end of “Pig”---as the song screeches to an abrupt halt a little loop of silly, sampled ragtime music plays the track out. Impeccable? Nay, PERFECT, sez I!!!! I loved it! It was the icing on the volatile cake, the Porky Pig stuttering “that's all, folks!” On top of our mini-symphony of primal scream nuttiness.

And so day two was officially underway.

THE NEW STUFF, PART ONE: “RISE”

“Rise” was “newer” than some of the other tracks we were recording....which is to say its genesis might have been early-to-mid-90s.

One or two instrumental demos may have floated around at one point or another but I never added a vocal to it----Mike was getting busy with Tristan Park and a lot of my attention at the time was going into writing and/or zining. The Apocalypse Krew was more or less over at that point, though there were still these loose ends...I think there may have been an initial lyric for it, but it was another “lost” lyric like “Fear and Hate”----I was going to need to rewrite it.

Fortunately, unlike “Fear and Hate”, I'd actually gotten a recording of “Rise” to work from, so I'd actually managed, with some difficulty, to crank out a lyric.

This was a fucking HARD one and I'd labored over it off and on for months. What I wanted to do, in a lot of respects, was write an S.E. Apocalypse Krew song that would ride along with the old stuff but in a lot of ways be more representative of “now”, mid-2010s. If I had an audience listening to old songs of ours like “Pig”, “Threats and Warnings”, “23” et. al., what would I want to tell them now that I thought was important?

We took the title, “Rise”, from a legend scrawled in blood at the LaBianca murder site by the Manson family---we had thought of making it our first album title and it fit in very well with songs like “Threats and Warnings”. Musically, the song was an aggressive piece of work that was like falling down a flight of stairs with no end in sight---glorious main riff and then a rough-ass chorus that was like a car crash----there was this weird mid-section that almost went into what felt like waltz-time before ripping back into the main section. I love this fucking tune.

In some ways, “Rise” wasn't going to be that demanding a track on my voice because I was almost going to speak-sing a lot of it. The chorus would require some leather-lunged yelling, but other than that---not much wear-and-tear.

In other respects it dawned on me, very late, that this was going to be very difficult. The lyrical structure of “Rise” was DENSE. Rhythmically, it was similar to Black Flag's “In my Head”(albeit a lot meaner)---a busy song with a busy, bunched-up lyric that went along with it and precious little room to breathe.

It was going to be very difficult to get this thing out of my mouth onto a recording....it was going to be very difficult to jump from one line to another---let alone from one verse to the next.

This is me at age 54, with no practice and no practice space, having not really sung in any capacity in about 20-plus years. If the circumstances were different it might have been another story, but the blessing of this whole digital recording thing they do now is we could tackle the song line by line...

The choruses were easy in that it was just me screaming “IIIII WIIIIILL RIIIIIIIIIIIIISE!!!!!!” over and over. The rest wasn't too demanding on my larynx but they were a tongue twister and I would have to hit one line at a time.

“This is your window so listen up now

I ain't got the time to be misunderstood

I've got no compunctions 'bout hammering down

Don't tell me you wouldn't if you knew you could

You can't get no traction and so little action

with the victim mentality holding you down”

This borders on a direct contradiction of stuff I wrote in the '80s like “Kid Eternity” where people were telling me “life is what you make it” and I felt like some kind of a victim---and yeah, phrases like that still feel like a dismissive tactic to me, but if old geezer me was to tell anyone listening to our music right now anything it would be don't play victim, don't act like a victim and don't trust those who do---be a goddamn warrior!!!!! Don't knuckle under to anyone and don't let 'em play you for a chump.

“Losers and squids blow away like debris

Nothing can stop my apocalypse now

Everyone's doggin' it, teeming around

leading to nowhere and no one knows when

What would they do if it all came down now?

We're bringing it down so it's a blessed event”

Here I'm copping some rhetoric from my public access show, “The Abbey of the Lemur”, more or less verbatim. Our original “schtick” on the show was that we were a loveable death cult and the audience could come along and laugh along with our quest for world domination and generalized subversion.

“swim with the tide and you just might survive”

A tip of the hat to New Age author Shakti Gawain, here. Which would probably horrify her.

“You can cover your ass or be crushed by the wave

A nation of numbskulls can't hold us back”

And a tip of the hat to Public Enemy.

“If you've got a problem get out of the way

“Dregs of the world your wakeup call's here

If they side-eye you tell them you're no one they know”

We had this surly saying in the Apocalypse Krew anytime anyone looked at us askance or with any kind of curiosity----”no one you know....no one you like....no one cute....” defiance and resentment.

“If they give you an attitude death from above

You give them fair warning saying look out below

You can't run the ratrace when the rats always win

Now is the time to let it explode”

And of course, “Explode” is a BIG Apocalypse Krew self-reference. Yeah, we're cheeky.....we're witty....

Two down, several others to go.....

APOCALYPSE NOTES: THE FOUR FOOD GROUPS

Day One of our session was winding down....I had some obligations to take care of but we could surely knock a couple of other numbers out.

“MEDICINE CABINET”: LIL' BOX-O-DEMONS

“Climb in the back with your head in the clouds and you're gone”

---The Beatles

I reckoned “Medicine Cabinet” would be an easy one to bang out. It didn't demand a whole lot from me, vocally speaking.

At this point there was no getting around it----I was saving all the rough stuff for Day Two.

“If you seen the demons I seen

You might just shit your pants

This ain't no Motley Crue

This ain't no high school dance

When I'm in the mood

to nullify my life

Gimme what I want,

I ain't got all night

CHORUS:

There's a devil in my brain

Medicine Cabinet Yeah”

In the 80s I never bought the hype about Motley Crue being the kings of excess. Vince Neil's biggest partying accomplishment was getting Razzle from Hanoi Rocks killed, and Hanoi Rocks, sadly, were worth ten Motley Crues. We were always opposed to the whole dumb, shallow party-all-night mentality of the hair bands, though....I could never call myself Straight Edge, but our mentality was always to show the downside of getting high and partying....some guy dying during triage----how's that for a party? Boston hardcore band DYS writing songs about nodding off on heroin was more of a party song to me...Lou Reed singing “The Last Shot”. The Heartbreakers singing “Chinese Rocks” or “One Track Mind”----how are those for party anthems?

“When I crack that vial

Watch the sweat pour over me

I crave the apocalypse

in my head to set me free

Just as soon go lose my head

than let you bring me down

I'm too far from the shore

Can't help me, gonna drown”

I've played with a few things in my time, although my personal poison has always been booze. Mild on the scale, I guess, but I understand Addict Brain. I understand looking in the fridge on a Sunday morning and feeling your heart sink because you don't think you've got enough to get you through the weekend. My late friend, Brian Shane, the guy who really, truly turned me on to Lou Reed and/or the Velvet Underground, was alluding to the Velvets' song, “Heroin”, and told me he understood the impulse of looking forward to a long, deep, dreamless sleep...Brian was an alcoholic (although most of his life as I knew it was spent more on the wagon than off) and if the Apocalypse Krew were going to do a “party anthem”, that was the spirit I was going to follow.

“Had enough of the past

Better be movin' on

Better feed my head

Better dead and gone

Come the rush of the tide

Oblivion's sweet roar

Don't say what's bad for me

I can't hear you anymore”

Stiv Bators, from Day One, was my muse on “Medicine Cabinet”, and I tried to channel that. I put the lyric forth in a flat, slimy, laconic drawl that hadn't changed much from earlier demos. It was one of the easier numbers to tackle.

“Medicine Cabinet” actually evolved out of a cover of an old Tommy Bolin tune called “Shake the Devil”, although by the time we were done with it it bore little resemblance to the original...Bolin's song veered into the territory of moody reggae....ours became a slab of monolithic blues-metal that had kind of a bump-and-grind to it. If there's any remaining thread, it's the Devil itself---Tommy's demon----the one he ultimately succumbed to----was drugs, and we're exploring the same themes in this song----so the La Ronde effect continues....

HATE (AND RELIGION) FOR SALE: “JESUS ON A STICK”.

“I am a Hope Dope Pusher!”

---Jello Biafra

It was getting late but we were bent on knocking out one more and we decided to go with “Jesus on a Stick”.

This was always one of our wild cards. One thing you might not know about us is we're big funk fans. Sly and the Family Stone, P-Funk, the Ohio Players, old, good Stevie Wonder, old, good Kool and the Gang, Earth, Wind and Fire, Fishbone, War-----me and Mike are there. There are a smattering of funk-based songs in our repertoire....”Infection”, “Carvach”, the unrecorded (and super-politically-incorrect) “Love Pig”----but “Jesus on a Stick” is the one that made the cut.

It's a medium-paced song with sort of a breezy funk-rock riff that picks up into more of a stomping, hard rock chorus. The main vocal, on the verses, is kind of weird for me....what I envision on the song, sound-wise, is kind of a compressed voice that makes it sound as though the speaker/narrator/character of the song is cajoling you through a bullhorn. I see the character as almost an old-skool carnival barker or snake oil salesman.

“I got a new kind of kick

called Jesus on a Stick

no reason to complain

it tastes good and melts your brain

fifty cents a lick, it's salvation

America's new taste sensation

tastes so sweet you'll wanna come

then wipe out the heathen scum

oust the obscene, make way for the clean

clean up this place for our master race”

Then on the chorus it's the usual stuff with me yelling:

“ CHORUS:

LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION

DEATH TO THOSE WHO DON'T JOIN THE CLUB

DON'T QUESTION WHY, SHUT UP AND BUY

DON'T QUESTION WHY, SHUT UP AND BUY”

“Jesus on a Stick” is a hot button song that's bound to offend a whole variety of people...religious people are apt to balk at the title alone....once they get past that some might appreciate the joke----others might find themselves the butt of the joke.

The singer/speaker/carnival barker character is selling a particularly virulent version of religion to anyone who's willing to grab a piece.

Having grown up in a rather genteel Catholic family in 60's/early '70's New England (and yeah, before you get all fired up I'm aware of the issues behind that and I see through it as well as you do---I'm aware, though, that our catechism seemed considerably kinder compared to a lot of the xenophobic evangelism that had a groundswell in the '70s and exploded during the Reagan years) I felt like the sort of rabid fundamentalism pushed by the moral majority and outfits like that in the '80s was nothing remotely resembling what I'd been taught about as “Christianity” growing up. I wrote “Jesus on a Stick” as a reaction to interviews with KKK/Nazi types who I heard espousing bigotry and hostility as a part of what made them “good Christians”.

“Now you're hooked on this hot new taste

for more you'll do just what I say

golden road of fate, pave it with hate

we are the chosen, all others must suffer

go burn down a Jewish Temple

lynch a nigger, it's that simple

bow to a flag to prove you're loyal

then take a faggot and boil him in oil”

You could leave it right at that or you could insert the names, “Mexicans”, “Muslims” and “Trangenders in bathrooms” and it still works fine today.

Of course, that opens up a whole new rogue's gallery of potential offendees, and that, naturally, includes our friends, the Politically Correct. I'm talking about the kinds of people who will knee-jerk at terms like “nigger” and “faggot”, take everything literally (not unlike a lot of the biblical literalists they consider themselves to be the opposition of) and and not be able to wrap their tiny, spoonfed brains around concepts like Context or Irony. They're the so-called “liberals” who want to ban HUCKLEBERRY FINN because they think it's racist; They're the kinds of nimrods who thought Jonathan Swift really wanted to eat the Irish. They have to run to a grief counselor if you should even mention the idea of satire to them...they're the living embodiment of Brain Death.

Granted, I'm always of two minds with this shit....a good many peoples' solution to political correctness is to run around using terms like “faggot” and “nigger” all willy-nilly as an act of defiance and inasmuch as (having said this in a previous rant) being a writer I want my words to hurt I want them to hurt for a GOOD REASON and I want people to UNDERSTAND why I'm using those words---I don't think throwing them around indiscriminately and stupidly really helps things. Context is everything.

“Build an idol to the brainwash

new third reich while others watch

shun and slaughter the infidels

it's the new world, wipe out everyone else

Shut up and buy!

Shut up and buy!”

I added a new line to the song as the last chorus ended, coming up from under the chorus with a descant of “Do yourself a flavor---say hello to flavor”----leave us not forget, after all---our carnival barker is selling a PRODUCT.

There were odd little non-sequitors that Mike and I threw all throughout the original demo....lots of “YEEEHAW”s and “Why don' we jes' throw them dirty minorities raght outta TOWN???” I eschewed them all in the new version but instead continued in my carnival-barker-with-a-bullhorn riff, yowling, “WEER GONNA BUILD A WAAAALLLLL!!! WEER GONNA BUILD A WAAAALLLL!!!!” One for the Donald and his followers---the true heirs to the irony of this song.

The vocal done I stepped out of the booth and Mike was at the console guffawing.

So...rock'n'roll, chemical dependency, religion and humor....that's it, right? The four food groups? No?

We were done for the day. “Not bad,” said Mike. “We knocked out nine songs, we've got....” he surveyed the list. “Seven more.”

“What are they, exactly?”

He ran down the list. “Rise”, “Pig”, “Black”, “Fear and Hate”, “First Stare”, “Outsider”, “The Candidate's a Religious Man”.

There were a few double-takes here for me; We had discussed “Fear and Hate” but he had never sent me a new take of it in the Dropbox. Likewise I had never gotten a new version of “Black” and was halfway under the impression that we might actually throw the old demo for “Black II” on the CD....if anything from that era was capable of making that transition it MIGHT have been that one---it was probably the cleanest of what we'd done back at that time.

Under any circumstance I had brought a rough rewrite along with me and would tailor the structure to whatever shape “Black” took.

“Fear and Hate” was another matter----I'd written a lyric for it at some point in the mid-90s prior to moving down to Arkansas...the lyric had since been lost. I had centered it around my circumstances at that time---I was living alone in what may as well have been a condemned building surrounded by some rough neighbors, most of whom were rebrobates and dopers of one stripe or another. Probably just as well those lyrics went MIA---no one needed my baggage at that time.

Mike uploaded the track onto my phone and I would take it back and write a new lyric overnight.

After that I visited with family....my brother and I had gotten a motel room in Nashua and at the tail end of riding around with him and my niece on the back roads between Mass and New Hampshire (my brother drives a taxi, and his knack for negotiating those suburban labyrinths is beyond me) I was presented with a late night choice; join them at the local multiplex in hate-watching “Batman vs. Superman” or go back to the Motel 6 and write the damn lyrics. I'd let my brother cajole me into seeing “Deadpool” the night before, and despite my running belief that these Superhero epics are hitting a bubble that's about to go bust, I quite enjoyed it----even gave my fingers a mild sprain throwing the devil horns over a Zamboni joke. I brake for Zamboni jokes.

I couldn't go near “Batman vs. Superman” on a bet, though....that thing looked like a goddamned turd. I couldn't even watch it on a snark premise.

So it was back to the motel and I was going to bang out a new lyric to “Fear and Hate” if it killed me.

I busted out the phone, a piece of paper and a pen, cracked a 40 and went to work.