...ploys and gambits...
...sorry skip, i don't feel much like dancing right now...
...i grew up in the ghetto, and we were too poor to own a cd player until i was well past puberty...the cost of contemporary music was simply beyond our means and so i spent much of the nineties scowering dirty bank street record stores that later became massage parlours and pornography stores...
...sifting through artists of a golden age starring up at me from dusty milk crates; the semi-androgynous sounds of iggy pop, lou reed and david bowie...dope traces wafting up from each faded psychedelic rarity...my greatest find was the 'Captain & Tennille's Greatest Hits' on 8-track that i fished out of a filthy cleareance bin, knowing that i would never be able to play it...
...in my wood panelled basement, with no weed or alcohol, my cousin and i would listen to 'tommy' in its entirety and all seventeen minutes of 'in a gadda davida'...the seraphically organic voice of carol king, the raw fury of janis joplin or the unearthly rhythms of jimi hexdrix, of macarthur park, melting in the dark, that sweet green icing flowing down, and the recipe we would never have again...
...our clothes came from thrift stores, before it was hip to shop there, and we pretended we were too cool to care...i guess we were the original mod, only we didn't know it then...that thought resonated with me today as i navigated an industrial park in my well worn track jacket, mop-top hair cut and vintage chuck taylor converse high top sneakers...
...i was purplexed and needed to think...so i put the buds in my ears, turned up the music of my youth and let myself detach from the world around me as i set myself on course along my predictable pedestrial commute...
...sometimes in our strive to make an impression, we grasp at anything that comes our way, even when it is in direct conflict our our interests...but it took me by surprise, so instinctively i put up my smoke screen, licked my wounds and limped away in defeat...
...i was reminded of a dank little night club a hundred years ago...spurned by a similar sort, i retreated into the arms of a slender british lass, our lips locked, our sweat soaked bodies pressed together, moving in sequence to the last song of the evening...
...if my story has a theme, it is one of parallels...i seem to relive the same moments from chapter to chapter, and the plot has become so predictable that i've learned to anticipate the outcome...but i'm a man of logic, and though my instincts are seldom wrong, i seldom act on them alone...
"You hit me once, I hit you back
You gave a kick, I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed
A kick to the teeth is good for some
A kiss with a fist is better then none
A kiss with a fist is better then none"
...i grew up in the ghetto, and we were too poor to own a cd player until i was well past puberty...the cost of contemporary music was simply beyond our means and so i spent much of the nineties scowering dirty bank street record stores that later became massage parlours and pornography stores...
...sifting through artists of a golden age starring up at me from dusty milk crates; the semi-androgynous sounds of iggy pop, lou reed and david bowie...dope traces wafting up from each faded psychedelic rarity...my greatest find was the 'Captain & Tennille's Greatest Hits' on 8-track that i fished out of a filthy cleareance bin, knowing that i would never be able to play it...
...in my wood panelled basement, with no weed or alcohol, my cousin and i would listen to 'tommy' in its entirety and all seventeen minutes of 'in a gadda davida'...the seraphically organic voice of carol king, the raw fury of janis joplin or the unearthly rhythms of jimi hexdrix, of macarthur park, melting in the dark, that sweet green icing flowing down, and the recipe we would never have again...
...our clothes came from thrift stores, before it was hip to shop there, and we pretended we were too cool to care...i guess we were the original mod, only we didn't know it then...that thought resonated with me today as i navigated an industrial park in my well worn track jacket, mop-top hair cut and vintage chuck taylor converse high top sneakers...
...i was purplexed and needed to think...so i put the buds in my ears, turned up the music of my youth and let myself detach from the world around me as i set myself on course along my predictable pedestrial commute...
...sometimes in our strive to make an impression, we grasp at anything that comes our way, even when it is in direct conflict our our interests...but it took me by surprise, so instinctively i put up my smoke screen, licked my wounds and limped away in defeat...
...i was reminded of a dank little night club a hundred years ago...spurned by a similar sort, i retreated into the arms of a slender british lass, our lips locked, our sweat soaked bodies pressed together, moving in sequence to the last song of the evening...
...if my story has a theme, it is one of parallels...i seem to relive the same moments from chapter to chapter, and the plot has become so predictable that i've learned to anticipate the outcome...but i'm a man of logic, and though my instincts are seldom wrong, i seldom act on them alone...
"You hit me once, I hit you back
You gave a kick, I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed
A kick to the teeth is good for some
A kiss with a fist is better then none
A kiss with a fist is better then none"