Where The Guys Are

So I get a frantic phone call the other night from some other guy named Dan. Unusually for him, he's pretty desperate. He tells me I'm just about his last hope. I argue that I'd feel out of place, don't have anything to wear, need a haircut, my second chin's sporting an eleven-o'clock shadow, I don't wear shoes that don't flaunt my unseemly toes this time of year, I seem to have misplaced my box of Q-Tips for like the last fortnight or so, I haven't tied a tie this decade--the usual--but he's adamant. Offers me a 40% off coupon at a dry cleaner's, says it's time I expand my horizons, there'll be $2 Guinness pints. I say why didn't you say so. He says don't be late. That's how I found myself on the other side of the tracks from the semi-weekly-or-is-it-monthly Oddfellows meeting, way on the other side, at a bar simply called The Bar, at the weekly meeting of the Regular Guys.

Let Me Be Frank About It checks my ID at the door and scoffs. "You should trade names with this guy," and introduces me to Sloppy Joe, who looks like I usually do when I'm not so gussied up. I find a seat at the bar and order a pint from some guy named Moe. Next to me are Yesiree Bob and No Way Jose, carrying on some kind of existential argument that will go on all night; Bob ends up buying all their rounds. By and by the entertainment strikes up--Joe Blow on a solo tuba. No Shit Sherlock drops by to tell me I'm sitting in a bar while You Don't No Jack holds court and whips everybody's ass over at the Trivia Contest. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the place hits up everyone else, asking if they'd like to be the fourth in their golf outing next Tuesday. I spy Tricky Dick pickpocketing Peter and then telling Paul, "Here's that twenty I owe you." Uncle Sam and John Bull are over in the corner arguing about tea while John Q. Public stands in the middle of the joint saying hello to everybody. As the bar clock hits the hour mark Steady Eddie does another shot. Even Steven is here, but nobody can find Waldo. Johnny Boy comes in carrying a surfboard, but Charlie shoos him away and he leaves. We hardly knew him. By this time I have to hit the head and am rather disconcerted that the guy next to me at the urinals seems to have wandering eyes. I close up shop quickly and pass Yesiree Bob on his way in. I hear Bob say, "Hey Tom, how's the squint tonight?" Back at the bar I find Kilroy's been there and all the guys are taking up a collection for Pete's sake. I throw in a couple bucks and get my ass outta there, tearing off my clip-on tie as soon I can.

The Tell-Tale Sign You're An Aged Rock Star

Each generation is presented with new, never experienced before challenges. Think of the cohort who invented the wheel, then had to cope with their teenagers taking the first ever joy rides. Or the first Catholics who suddenly had to get culinarily creative on a Friday night. Or Morse's peers who had to deal with the first prank telegraph messages (just what is the dot-dash configuration of "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"?). Obviously, the daunting, never-before-have-people-had-to-face-this challenge of the present generation is, what to do with aging rock stars. It's amazing to think of it, but many of the Founding Fathers (or Queens, and here's to you, Little Richard) of Rock'n'Roll are still alive--Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the previously mentioned Mr. Penniman. Hell, Elvis would be/is only 77. All hail them and the rest, but still, we as fans are faced with several thorny issues concerning how to deal with these former paragons of youth now that they ain't that young anymore.

For years now we've rather naturally taken in stride the gradual steps of an aging career: the balding, the hearing loss, the myriad "comeback" tours and albums (when you've got at least three of each on your resume, you know you're getting old, Mr. Rock Star), the Rock Hall induction, the Super Bowl gig, the tribute albums and concerts, the third or fourth box sets, the ironic singing of lines penned in youth--and all of that's just the last thirty years of Pete Townshend's life. Like Medicare, senior coffee at McDonald's, and EZ Lift chairs for the rest of us, an entire network of safety nets has been erected to ease the once callow, rebellious rocker into senescence. There's Unplugged, and Storytellers, the duets album, the album of standards, the greatest hits live album, the hook-up with the hip young producer album, the songwriters in the round concerts, the rock cruises, and the inevitable writing of the memoirs (David Ritz thanks you all). Say what you will about Elvis's tragic death, but the man put out a lot of schlock when he was alive, and, all the merchandising since his death notwithstanding, imagine the crap he would have made lo these last 35 years!

But, accustomed as I am--and I'm sure you are--to all of this by now, the question that has bugged me for some time is, what's the Rubicon, what's the jump the shark/couch moment, the definitive dividing line between being an aging rock star--where we can salute the career, bask in past glories, honor, if a bit sadly, the god while he or she is still alive --and being an aged rock star, where the whole thing is just downright depressing and should be kept away from the public? Well, like Steve Jobs must have felt years ago when he realized, "Phones, my God! Who knew? The future is phones!" yesterday I had a eureka moment concerning this aging/aged rock thing. I now know the exact moment when it is clear that our beloved aging rock star, the hero of our youth, has landed at the bottom of the slippery slope and is now not simply completely irrelevant but is dangerous to our collective joie de vire and should be put out to pasture for good--however you want to define that euphemistic idiomatic phrase.

But first let me qualify things. I love the Rolling Stones. It might be an oldies station playing it, but whenever I hear "Jumpin' Jack Flash," or "Brown Sugar" or "The Last Time" on the radio, they all still sound like the freshest, nastiest thing on any airwaves. If I were a pugilistic sort, I'm sure by now my oft-repeated, and oft-scoffed at, statement of incontrovertible fact that the Stones were/are/and ever shall be greater than the Beatles would have gotten me engaged in many a fisticuffs over the years. It's such a foundational truth, that I guess only the hoariest, most despicable cliche applies--you look up Rock'n'Roll in the dictionary, and you'll find a picture of the Stones.

Of course, duh, I'm speaking of the Rolling Stones only in the first 20 years of their by now 50 year existence (sic). Go ahead, name three great songs the Stones have made in the past thirty years; here's a hint, I'll be beyond aged by the time you can even muster an argument for the third one. Hell, they've made a grand total of six, 6! albums in the past thirty years. (By the way, the answer is one. One great song in the last thirty years: "The Worst," off Voodoo Lounge; a Keith song, ironically, from 1994!).

Now I won't bother going through yet again the "pathetic parodies of themselves," "only in it for the (huge amount of ) money" arguments. You've read them all before. And will undoubtedly read them again as they mount whatever becomes their 50 Year Celebration, i.e., hopefully, Swan Song, in the next few months. No, my beef at the moment is with Keef. The Human Riff. The alleged poster boy of all things Rock. Mick is Mick, always was, always will be. God save him. Ronnie's just a hired gun. Charlie is irreproachable; always was and always will be the coolest guy Rock has ever created. But Keith. My God. Years ago I thought it, and I still do, now more fervently than ever--every day he lives he gets less cool. For thirty years now he's been trading on the lovable bad guy schtick. Now he's Goofy Grandpa, professionally raconteuring rather than rocking and touring. We love you Keith, always have and always will, but shut up and go away already.

And what has brought me to such apostasy today? What has me so sacrilegiously blaspheming the mighty Keith Richards? The eureka moment I experienced yesterday. The discovery of the tell-tale sign that the aging rocker has become aged. The end of the living rock god's relevant life: At the bookstore where I work, we received two remaindered (duh) copies of Keith's autobiography, Life, IN LARGE PRINT! Trust me, I know the book retailing business. Keith's audience is not the LARGE PRINT audience. Unless he's ditched Patti and is shacking up with Debbie Macomber, Danielle Steel, or Barbara Taylor Bradford, Keith Richards has no place in the LARGE PRINT section of a bookstore. Good God, Keith, I know you've raised reckless nonchalance to an art form, but why in the name of Robert Johnson did you sign a publishing contract that allowed them to print your book in LARGE PRINT? If you do ever tour again, you better have a special ring of seats for AARP members, where earplugs, Depends, and seat cushions are included in the senior discount price. You never even made a standards album, Keith! How can you go LARGE PRINT on us?

R.I.P. KEITH. IT'S ALL OVER NOW.

How To Fabricate Bob: The Fake Spitoutyourgum Interview

I'm sure by now everybody's heard about Jonah Lehrer, the writer who got busted fabricating quotes from Bob Dylan for a book about creativity. The irony is of course multi-leveled. To fabricate quotes from the master fabricator about creativity, while somehow being blind to the fact that in this world a few score people seem to dedicate their lives to poring over every word Dylan utters, or allegedly utters, is flat out dumb. What really irks me about all of this is that the purported quotes, in addition to those poorly cut and pasted from famous Bob musings over the years, are so mundane and uncreative. Any quick perusal of a couple interviews with Bob reveals anything but the mundane. Bob's answers to the same old questions are full of red herrings, obfuscations, verbose shaggy dog meanderings, and not a little seemingly spontaneous poetry. If you're going to make up quotes from Bob, do the man justice and have some fun with the language. Instead, Lehrer has Bob saying this stupid nonsense when supposedly asked about creativity: "It's a hard thing to describe. It's just this sense that you got something to say." Huey Lewis, okay, but not Bob Dylan.

What follows, then, is a truly fabricated interview with Bob Dylan, with enough Bobesque bon mots for lazy writers to fill up several tomes. If Bob didn't say these things (and I can't swear that he didn't anymore than I can swear that he did), he should have, or, much more likely than the quote (sic) above, could have.

"Escargot," he answers when I ask, incredulously, "Bob? Is it really you?" We sit side by side in cars pulled to the side in that no-man's-land in the McDonalds parking lot where they tell you to wait while they process your complex drive-thru order. At first I hadn't thought much of the car in front of me in the line, a fire engine red Reliant with New Mexico plates, but now that I see that Bob Dylan is behind the wheel, I'm intrigued. "Nice car, Bob," I offer. Dylan, dressed in a white sleeveless shirt with either some barbeque or blood stains scattered down the front and a pair of bulky jeans, is on a short hiatus between legs of his Never Ending Tour. "I was in Topeka hunting down an old circus, when this car, this car, full of Mexicans pulled up and asked if I wanted to go for a ride." Four days later, it seems, Bob is driving the car, sans Mexicans, through a McDonalds drive-thru in South Euclid, Ohio. When I mumble a series of how's why's and what happened to the Mexicans, he retorts, "It's a hard thing to describe. Sometimes you just sense that a car has got something to say. So you just put it gear. The Mexicans bailed in Dayton. Hey, you know where I can find Michael Stanley's boyhood home?" For the next twenty minutes I sit shotgun in the red Reliant as Bob and I munch on our burgers--his arrive six minutes before mine--and talk.

Didn't they give you a napkin?

I told them to hold the napkin. Always do. Extra ketchup, hold the napkin.

What do you think about all this fuss over the guy who fabricated quotes from you?

I gave up thinking years ago. Along with earrings, Gatorade, and badminton. Thinking's for fools and businessmen and retired hookers. Are your fries cold too?

They haven't brought out my order yet.

Be patient. I learned a long time ago that fast food restaurant delivery systems are all mathematical. And of course, with all things mathematical, truth is the necessary end product. Trust in the mathematical. You won't lose any hair. Or sleep, because you won't need much sleep.

Is math spiritual for you?

Everything 'cept the media, politics, and all-star studded festivals is spiritual. That's not a Happy Meal, is it? I love them toys.

Bob, I gotta ask you. One of my favorite songs of yours is one no one ever asks about. 'Never Say Goodbye.' Where did that come from? How did you create such an amazing, compact tone poem?

I didn't create nothing of that one. Well, one line. I added the "my dreams are made of iron and steel," part. Originally it was 'cotton and silk,' which is understandable, coming from an angel and all.

Angel?

I was in Durango, making that movie. Or was it the other one? Anyway, some nights in Mexico, when it's no longer night but daylight all of a sudden, all you've got is what's left in the bottle, or the angel. That time I chose the angel. Gave me that song complete, 'cept for the iron and steel part. A minor angel, maybe, but at that time, any angel in any dusty town was a gift.

You know angels, personally?

A ton of them. Some of them are my best friends. Never can tell which are the Fallen ones or not. Not that it makes a whole lot of difference. Does it? Angels provide.

Give me an example of a song you wrote that wasn't provided by angels. One you actually worked on, created.

'Sally Sue Brown.'

You didn't write that one, Bob.

I didn't? Well, I should have. Great song. (He hesitates a minute and stares out the windshield.) It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry, I guess.

That wasn't an angel song? You wrote that one from scratch? I love that song.

What? Oh, the song? No, what? I was just stating the obvious. Armageddon and all. I'll give you a harmonica if you let me have half of that apple pie.

E flat?

Whatever. Hmm, apple pie.

We savor our separate halves of that apple pie while watching an old man put money in the newspaper box and then fail to get the thing open. "I could write a double album about that man and that newspaper box, if I wanted to. But I'd rather find a gas station selling gas for less than $3.75," Bob says, and I take that as my cue that my lunch with Bob is over. As I close the passenger side door of the Reliant and thank Bob for his time and company, he kind of winks and says, "I like the way you chew, man." The left he makes onto Mayfield Road in the middle of lunchtime traffic is sublime, and I'd like to think one of the many car horns that follow in its wake is Bob tootin' me goodbye.

The Future Of Crotchety

Call it secular grace. A moment when the cosmos rips itself a tad and permits one a glance beyond the time-space mirage into the future. I'm working the register the other night when a woman comes up with two boys, one about 10 the other about 8. She plunks the pile of books (heavy on Star Wars kids tomes) on the counter and immediately turns her back to peruse the tchotchkes in the queue line along with the older boy. The younger one leans his elbows on the counter and watches as I zap each book with the magic bar-code scanner gun/wand. One of those young boys infinitely curious about the rude mechanics of life. He doesn't say a word, simply watches a guy at work, with all the fascination such a thing conjures for a kid. I finish and wait patiently for the woman and the older boy to pluck one last impulse item. The younger kid just stares at me, no longer full of wonder at my actions. Ten fifteen maybe twenty seconds pass before the little kid has enough. In a wizened tone of voice heavy with years of frustrated waiting no way the kid could have experienced yet, he proclaims, "The guy doesn't have all night, grandma."

Far beyond the somersaults my mind does at being called "the guy," and light years beyond the happy face I put on when grandma turns around, sans tchotchkes, and completes the transaction, my mind dances with delight at meeting a kindred soul--another crotchety middle-aged man, embodied in the soul of this cute little kid. Ah, rest easy, I tell myself. Life as you know it will go on just fine long after you're gone. By the time this kid is my age I'll be six feet under but resting comfortably, definitely not spinning, because I now know my spirit of annoyed frustration at the sundry minuscule nuisances of life will live on. Out of fear at not wanting to creep the kid out and thrust him into full-blown old man curmudgeon on the spot, I restrain my natural instincts to give him a fist bump, wink, and say, with full empathy, "Brother."

But God that kid's put upon declaration to his grandma that I don't have time for all this felt like a warm slap on the back from my guardian angel. I know I know I know.

Welcome To Sixth Heaven, Cloud Eight

Good Eternity! I'm angel Steve, Marketing Manager and Guest Services Director here at SixEight. I trust you'll find everything here quite perfect--God knows you deserve it. Now I realize you're still a bit disoriented from the move, it's only natural, or, as you'll begin to realize, a bit SUPERnatural. That's our motto here at SixEight, by the way, we put the super in natural! Yes indeed, SixEight, not quite the SevenNine everybody hears about, but Heaven nonetheless; you made it! Congratulations. Well, now sure, a little disappointment is only natural, but I'm certain that in a few short eons you'll get over that. Just about every soul here--including us angels--has gone through the initial sense of disappointment, chagrin even, but trust me, SixEight is indeed paradise. Now remember how you felt when the Paris honeymoon plans didn't quite come to fruition? But then you discovered that for honeymoon purposes the Poconos ended up being, well, quite rock'n'roll indeed? Yes we know, and no, don't worry, there is no blushing in Heaven, no matter the cloud. Anyway, just relax and take in some of the more obvious amenities to help you get situated. No, those are mandolins. The harps are reserved for, yes, that's right, SevenNine. Hey, there are no rivalries, no envy here throughout the entire seven-tiered Heaven, thank God, but, um, really, entre nous, harp music? Eternity? Dwell on that for a millennium or two. Hunh? Mandolins is where it's at, we all believe. Again, not to disrespect or anything, but at FourThree? Glockenspiels. You'd have thought Lucifer would have taken all those before he took the plunge. Yes, I, know him. Knew him. Quite charming in his way, obviously. Anyway,  let's see, over here, why yes, that is a tree. No, no, pluck away. No shortages here. Plenty of bacon trees for everybody. I prefer the crispier ones, just beyond that next puff there. Well, no, sorry, no streams of scotch here. That's a good one. Just gravy rivulets. Well, yes, indeed, SevenNine's shower heads are adjustable in that way; I prefer the massaging gin setting myself. Well we angels get cloud leave every epoch or two. Well, what can I say? It's SevenNine, after all. Trust me, though, by the end of my vacation--every time--I am more than ready to get back to SixEight. Because, well, SixEight is just more relaxed, homey, you know? SevenNine's just a bit too starchy and, well, anal for my tastes. How does angel Gary--you'll meet him soon enough, he's our activities director, well, sure, all sorts of fun stuff--anyway, as Gary likes to say after he returns from his cloud leave, "You can take the life away from a martyr--sometimes all too easily--but you can never take the martyr complex away from the martyr." Nuff said, hunh, hunh? Anyhoo, let me just let you wander around for a few decades and get used to the lay of the cloud, your neighboring souls, the whole, gosh, heavenly aura--whoo, low bridge, duck!--ha ha, that's SixSix, a bit rambunctious that cloud. Look, you'll love it. Relax, enjoy, it's home. Now I'm off to my daily coffee with Job. You know the conversation we've just had--why SixEight and not SevenNine? The one you'll soon realize is nonsense when you come to fully appreciate your place in Heaven? I've been having the same one with Job for a few thousand years now. Let me just say, not to complain, but for us angels, another day in paradise isn't always paradise; it's work. I earn that semi-epochly massaging gin shower, buddy. Ciao.

The Moose Whisperer

Talcum Siemens prides himself on being the most adept moose whisperer in the state. Most folks'll grant him this and three or four adjoining counties, but as for the entire state, well, a fella named Harkness up near Butte might take offense to that claim. Only it ain't really whispering. More like cajoling, with a touch of secular seduction thrown in. Talcum, especially with three or four Coors in him--and most folks don't know any other kind of Talcum--don't whisper nothing, not even sweet nothings in his better half Gloria's ears, well, ear, the unsevered one. He a hollerer, what Filbert Octane says. But maybe that hollerin' cajolin' is what works best on a moose. Photographic evidence aside, not a one person I know can exorcise the ornery outta a moose quicker and more permanently than old Talcum. Filbert Octane says I'm speaking in Coors tongues everytime I tell the story, but I swear on my NRA lifetime membership I once witnessed Talcum command a moose to sit, beg for some jerky, and then roll over. He a shaman or whatnot, I tell Filbert; Filbert spits and say sham-man more'n'likely and you the shammee, Sistrunk. Filbert's envious of the world on account of his neck, or lack thereof.

Anyway, the picture. Yep. Since I was no more than boot high the Old Men round here grunt and say trust a moose, but never moose. As in meese, plural. They say it like they chanting something in church they been chanting and believing without thinking their whole lives. I expect Talcum is now a convert. Said he was drinking out back with Honey Dew, his all-time favorite moose, like usual whenever Gloria gets to unraveling her list of wifely demands. Honey Dew allegedly likes Olympia better, cording to Talcum, but all Talcum had in cooler was his usual Coors case, so Honey Dew condescended to hoist a few with Talcum. Nothing out of the ordinary, swears Talcum, just the usual repartee tween man and moose--Gloria's nagging, the price of gas from Talcum, derned ticks and those bastard Sasquatches from Honey Dew--and then Talcum gets up for a routine Coors drain and then--midstream--wham, Kryptonite, the one moose in these parts not on speaking terms with Talcum and who, cording to Talcum, is a bad influence on all the others--knocks him down and apparently out. Next thing he knows he wakes up on top of his truck, trussed, with who but Filbert Octane ("cahoots, I tell you, one hundred percent cahoots," Talcum raged later over a couple recuperative Coors in my smokehouse) snapping pictures while Kryptonite smirks behind the wheel. That's Kryptonite's protege Jimmy in the back with bottle. Honey Dew, sans beer, looking sheepish between the two, apologized like hell to Talcum afterward. Talcum's playing non-commital with his forgiveness at present, but he can't hold a grudge long on Honey Dew we all agree.

"Wait 'til bow-hunting season, Sistrunk. Wait 'til then," is about all Talcum will say these days. "Filbert Octane's gonna find out what's for."

Assorted Other Habits Of Mildly Effective People (R.I.P. Stephen Covey)

Far be it from me to allow all sorts of local, national, global events to stir me from my impromtu estivation, i.e. summer vacation, but farther be it from me not to honor the passing several days ago of an individual whose work has enriched me for years, self-help guru Stephen Covey. I can't say I've ever read (rather self-evident) Mr. Covey's magnum opus, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, but in my many years of selling books, I sure have sold my fair share of them, so many I bet, that undoubetdly Mr. Covey is responsible for a percentage or three of my GIP. Thank you, sir.

And so it is that I now consider the death of another cultural icon with mixed emotions: sad at the demise, gleeful with anticipation of the treasure trove of goodies bound to be unloosed--the outtakes, the alternate versions, the early drafts, the never-deemed-fit-for-publication scribbles. The assorted supposed ephemera that will allow us fans to fully judge the scope of the artist and give us a glimpse at the particular mechanics of genius. And farthest be it from me not to indulge my warped imagination and speculate here just what some of those outtakes are. If I know my book retail business, I'm sure it will be only a matter of months before we see something akin to the following.

23 Miscellaneous Habits/Predilections of Mildly Effective Folks

1. Two-week vacations, not two-month.
2. Avoid self-help books.
3. It's very easy to master the skill of putting your pants on two legs at a time; do it.
4. While stopping to smell the roses, sample the begonias as well, they're quite a treat.
5. Full commitment to the intricate gesture/comment of firmly gripping a person's shoulder, looking him or her directly in the eyes, nodding your head with a tight-lipped quarter-smile, and blithely, though with just a hint of gravity, saying, "But of course," will keep all the crazies you encounter in their place.
6. More ketchup, less mustard.
7. "Watch your parking meters," is a bit extreme; read instead, "Keep an eye out for parking meters."
8. The grass is always greener where the water bill is higher.
9. Transform aphorisms into habits/predilections.
10. Accost, verbally, maybe even fistily, those who crutch themselves on "It is what it is." A little, "Well, for starters, your nose ain't what it used to is," can go miles for the both of you.
11. A bird in the hand is silly, unless you're in England.
12. Bring nothing to the table except a better table. A swivel chair is pretty good too.
13. Number the list after writing it to guard against artificial padding and hair-pulling.
14. Declare the damn thing unplayable, take your punishment, and get on with it. There are no heroes on a golf course; only survivors.
15. Respect the Sun, woo the Moon, and always cover Uranus.
16. Dot your t's and cross your i's sometimes, just to keep the bastards guessing.
17. Good fences might make good neighbors, but inviting them to your all-night party cements the relationship.
18. A well-climbed tree begs no hugging.
19. Clothes do not make the man, but they sure can un-make him.
20. Austen to impress, Bronte (Emily, duh) to court, E.L. James to score.
21. Blackjack to wield, not to play.
22. Get a good night's sleep any hour of the day.
23. Blog more often.