by Brian Goldstein
Download - Granny Smith
4/29/2010
Interview with Luka Usmiani: Part 2
by Ida Griesemer
I talked to Luka (of Fluffy Lumbers and No Demons Here) on Saturday, April 3rd. This is the second half of a 2 part interview.
View: Part 1
LL: Does Liam [the Younger] play in a band, or is he always solo?
LU: He has a band. We're actually playing at Swarthmore. I play bass with him, I think at this point.
LL: What is it called?
LU: It's just, Liam the Younger. I think he comes up with a new name every time, so I don't want to say anything in case it's wrong. My friend Ian Dykstra usually plays drums, but he's in Italy right now so Sam's playing drums for Liam for the time being.
We were all going to go down to South by Southwest, a bunch of us, but it ended up just being Fluffy Lumbers and Big Troubles.
At this point, with this generation who is four years younger than Real Estate and Titus, it's just like, everyone has their own band, and we all play in each other's bands.
LL: That's similar to what they're doing too.
LU: Yeah, that’s true. Fluffy Lumbers and Big Troubles, and then the few times that I've played with a full band, it's the same people. It's Fluffy Lumbers and Big Troubles, with us switched around. Now this new lineup that Liam has, it's two guys from Fluffy Lumbers, and his other guitarist has played in Fluffy Lumbers numerous times, so it's a just a rearranging.
LL: Who are the other similar members between Fluffy Lumbers and Big Troubles, besides you?
LU: Alex Craig plays guitar.
LL: Is he coming tonight?
LU: I don't know. Because there's a Big Troubles show tonight. Hopefully he will come up. My friend Ian Drennan is also in Big Troubles, he's the other half. He usually plays guitar with us, but he lives in Boston, so it's hard for him to come down for shows a lot, so we have my friend Sebastian to fill in for him. And then my friend Ian Dykstra who plays with Liam, used to play drums for us, but he lives in Pennsylvania when he's in school, and now he's in Italy, so we're currently without a drummer. But our friend Andrew came down from Massachusetts to drum for us tonight.
LL: So there's a lot of shuffling happening because everyone's in different places.
LU: Yeah. They're not really bands. They're just projects that we all help out with. It's fun that way. To have a shuffle. To hear Fluffy Lumbers tonight might be different than hearing Fluffy Lumbers ever again.
LL: What was the dynamic like at South by Southwest with the two bands? Was it hard to coordinate?
LU: It wasn't hard to coordinate, because we only had 3 or 4 shows each. It was weird because we were supposed to have a drummer for South by Southwest for Fluffy Lumbers, but he got too high and got caught by the cops and had a lot of court dates, and just said, "I can't do it." So me and Sam tried to do a dual thing with a buttload of pedals. And according to Sam it worked, twice, in New York. And then for some reason it didn't work in Austin, and the shows were mediocre, to say the least. It was very last minute. We tried to organize what we would do, but I feel like it's very hit or miss for how long we practiced, which was not very long. I think we just lucked out the first two times, and the last few times were pretty bad.
LL: Do you think it was the setting too? Do you think there's more support in this area?
LU: Definitely not. I mean, there were a lot of people at the first show at South by Southwest, so I guess the “support” was there. I don't know, I don't find a lot of support in Brooklyn, or anything like that. They just look at you. So you just look back. It's fine.
LL: Was it a different feeling in Texas?
LU: No, not at all. If anything I liked the second show better because I think we played to three people. It was more interesting to watch three people watch us, like actually watch us, than to look at a dark room.
I liked playing shows when we were on tour. I liked playing in Memphis. As Big Troubles we were playing in Memphis, and the kids really like it when a band comes by. In Charleston - this is Fluffy Lumbers now - we played in a t.v. museum. A media museum. We played among old projectors and t.v.'s that they had from the 40s or earlier. We played to like, twenty kids, but all these Charleston kids always hang out. They were really nice. Those were some of the best crowds. They really come out for it.
LL: They're more attentive?
LU: Well, you just feel like you're actually playing for people, as opposed to like, playing a show. I went to that show thinking, "I'm playing for these kids in Charleston," rather than, "I'm going to Brooklyn to play a show, and then I'm going home."
LL: So you feel more connected to the audience?
LU: Yeah. Especially when you're trying to get a place to stay that night. It works that way too.
LL: What do you think the show will be like tonight?
LU: I don't know. Last time I booked a show here, I had Fluffy Lumbers and Pants Yell! play, and no one came. It was a Wednesday though. I don't know. I don't have much faith in kids coming out here. I'm trying to get more shows here. I think I only see two shows a year here, tops. It's hard to get anything done here. People don't answer your emails.
LL: So your No Demons Here project, was that what you started recording on your own, and then you got involved in these other projects as people heard that music?
LU: I just started it on my own, planning it to be just on my own. I wrote a bunch of songs, and I was told that they were good, and I kept doing it.
LL: Who gave you that feedback?
LU: My friends. Liam and Sam. The Ians. I had a lot of support from them, so I kept doing it, and playing in Big Troubles and playing in Fluffy Lumbers has really- it changes the way you write a song, or the way you hear a song, being in a band. Sam writes really good pop songs. I wouldn't normally say my songs are pop, but I’ve tried to go into a mindset like that when I'm writing new songs. I try to think, Let me try to write a pop song, because this is what I hear a lot, playing his songs over and over again. And Big Troubles has a specific element to it, so I try to think, Let me try to do this. Let me see what they do, and let me try to do it too. Because playing those songs over and over again, it almost becomes second nature. Like, I'll play the song, but let me play it this way. Because I hear it so much. It turns into this weird, hybrid. From the pool that they're grabbing from, I start to grab from. None of this has been recorded yet, though. None of my new songs. We'll see how it translates on tape.
LL: When are you planning to record them?
LU: Over the summer. I'm too busy now.
LL: It's interesting that you said that they're not really bands, and more projects. What direction do you see them taking? Do see one group becoming more solidly like, "This is a band"?
LU: We're all friends, so I think we'll stick to each other. But if someone can't do it I don't think there are any hard feelings. I feel like I am comfortable to say, "I can't do this." I don't have to consider the band as a priority in my life. It's fun. I don't want it to become a job. I just think it's fun. As long I do it with friends. I mean, it's fun to play big shows, but I'd rather just have fun doing it, than stress out about it, or worry about making money off of it. So that's why I like it being a project and not a band. Even though I think some people like seeing a band. Looking at a group of people and knowing that it's a solid thing, a packaged thing almost.
I think it's nice to keep the same members sometimes, if anyone's paying attention.
There's a certain easiness to look at a band and say, "It's this." I feel like there's a weird mystery when you have one person doing it and everyone shuffles in the back. There are great bands that do that, and I find those bands interesting. I find the person interesting then. Like that band the Lilys just has the main guy and his backing band always changes. And I find that cool. It's his project and every record sounds really different, but it's still the Lilys. And Cass McCombs, every time I saw him he was playing with a different backing band. So that was cool to see.
The stasis is cool, though. You could go either way, now that I think about it. I like seeing the same people all the time.
LL: What about for your own project?
LU: I record songs and then if someone makes a suggestion and I usually go back and rerecord it and see what happens. I'm open to that. But I've never had the experience to actually sit down with a band like, "Let's write this song," or something like that. My songs definitely translate differently as a live band, which has only happened three times. I played with Sam and Alex and Ian from Big Troubles. I've never actually reached any content-ness with what I wanted the live band to sound like. But I'm in no rush. Everyone's busy with their stuff, and I'm content with just recording and not having to worry about it.
I've been trying to work out a solo set, which I'm trying out tonight. I'm opening.
LL: So it's you and then Fluffy Lumbers?
LU: Maybe.
LL: What do you mean, "Maybe?"
LU: Well, depending on when Alex gets here.
4/23/2010
Safari Party
by Tait Foster
I am currently studying in London for a Master’s and while here I’ve been taking account of the true differences that exist between the English and Americans, the most jarring of which took place the other night. A good friend invited me to a dinner party, which she herself had been invited to by a classmate. Only after accepting this invitation were we informed that it was a ‘Safari Party’ with no explanation beyond that. Now, one has to worry about something like this because the British are fucking nuts for their themed parties. It’s not a costume party where you show up wearing a t-shirt that has been cleverly drawn on, or a sharpie-ed on mustache. No, these motherfuckers spend ungodly amounts of money renting and making costumes. A bachelor party in this country is not a night out meeting every stripper in Reno; rather it is about getting dressed up in funny costumes (so far I’ve seen men in Edwardian Dresses, fox-hunting outfits, and inquisition robes with fake plastic tits over them). This in mind I was unsure of what I had actually gotten myself into. Was I going to walk into some weird British version of a furry party? Or was I going to walk in and suddenly be facing somebody who looked like the dude from Jumanji? Unsure of where my night was going to go, I decided to just dress as English as possible (i.e. Argyll socks, checkered collared shirt, blue button up cardigan, and my cigar-size mustache).
I arrived at the pre-determined house, which it should be said was in the middle of what equates to the Upper East Side but in London. Pause and think about that. The pretension of the Upper East Side but in England. Hail Britannia and so on and so forth. I walked upstairs to see a fairly simple layout. In this swanky bachelorette pad were 4 women and 4 men (myself included) all casually dressed, at least for the English. It seemed like a fairly simple affair. Wine bottles were opened, dinner was served. Everyone settled into their seats and into conversation. Everything was great. My fears momentarily subsided. I may have even laughed at myself. ‘What were you thinking?’ I thought, ‘People dressed up as the guy from Jumanji?! Jesus Tait, that’s paranoid even for you. It’s just a dinner party, nice intelligent people, and hey that Brit talking about Sarah Palin is kinda cute.’
These were my thoughts when, after about an hour and a half or so, the phone rang and our hostess answered saying something along the lines of “Sorry sorry, we’ll hurry up.” About 5 minutes later the doorbell rang and in walked four of the biggest douche bag looking motherfuckers I have ever seen. Pinstripe suits, gelled hair - this was Jersey Shore come to merry old England. It was at this point where I was informed of what was going on. These 4 had been at a nearby house with another 4 women who were awaiting the arrival of myself and the 3 other guys to join them for dessert. Suddenly it dawned on me. This was English speed dating! This is the type of shit single people in their late thirties and early forties did before Internet dating. Now I realized what had been going on. I was being sent into another proverbial lion’s den, but this time fully aware of the mindset of all around me (ignorance had truly been bliss). To make matters worse one of the ‘new’ gentlemen introduced himself with the biggest shit eating grin I have ever seen, which wordlessly held all of the competition of this night that I had been wholly unaware of. This smile said, “I’m playing for keeps” and I didn’t even know there was (as Holmes would put it) a game afoot.
Upon arriving at the next house, I suddenly became aware of a further reason for the aforementioned gentlemen’s unsightly grin. The inhabitants of the next house were the textbook definition of the Seven Duffs. The 4 before us (a lawyer, estate agent, and two investment bankers, I shit you not) must have been doing some truly fucked up things to get 4 women so drunk in an hour and a half. It looked like a double power hour of wine had just finished. The drunken nature of the second house led to a more volatile conversation topics. Twice I was harangued over American politics and once again for tricking the British into fighting in Afghanistan. Yes I, Tait Foster, personally tricked the British into allying themselves with the United States in the War in Afghanistan. The mystery has been solved, according to the drunken Linguistics major from the University of Manchester.
After what seemed like a hellish eternity of this, the final act of this social farce reared its head. The other group joined us and then we went out to a bar. Again let me pause and allow that to wash over you. After being shuttled between two groups of girls and everyone (aside from myself) getting sloppy we all met up and went to a bar in the London equivalent of the Upper East Side…
HOLY HOLDEN CAUFIELD BATMAN! I watched as my fellow male compatriots jockeyed for prime positions, a shakedown the likes of which I hadn’t seen since the last song at a Middle School dance; a cruel synthesis of the Siena Palio and Ladies Night at Happy Ending in New York City. There was no room for famous English manners, nor was there room for small talk. These investment bankers knew the score and it was time to seal the deal. Gordon Gekko eat your heart out because these suave and perfumed gentlemen, these heirs of William the Conqueror, Churchill, Oscar Wilde, Keats, and Shakespeare were going to bring these ‘birds’ home if they had to pour the Sambuca shots themselves. I couldn’t believe my eyes, couldn’t believe the sheer sport I was witnessing. I had to get out. A swift and subtle escape is all I could hope for, all I could do to maintain a degree of dignity and sanity knowing I had to survive in this country for a few more months. I quietly backtracked out, bumping into the massive eastern European bouncer and mumbling something about forgetting my umbrella in the lift. Full sprinting to the bus I came out of that night like the ending of so many after-school specials - at home crying softly to myself in the fetal position as Born in the USA played on repeat.
4/22/2010
Interview with Luka Usmiani: Part 1
by Ida Griesemer
On Saturday, April 3rd, I went up to my (and a lot of LL's) alma mater, Sarah Lawrence, for a Fluffy Lumbers show. The plan was also to interview Luka Usmiani, bassist in the band and guy behind No Demons Here. It was a warm evening, we sat on the steps behind Marshall Fields, talked about fireworks and bad album names. We also talked about the following. The interview will appear in 2 parts.
View: Part 2
LL: How long has Fluffy Lumbers been playing together?
LU: I guess since last summer. At the beginning of the summer Sam asked me to play, because we were going to Miami. So those were our first shows. He didn't want to go alone, so he wanted to get a band together.
LL: So Sam was already calling himself Fluffy Lumbers, and he had something booked in Miami?
LU: Well, he had been doing Fluffy Lumbers for maybe a year and a half at that point, and it'd just been solo stuff that he did on keyboards. Then he released a 7” on Weird Hug Records, which is based in Miami and Chicago. They had a festival in Miami and they invited him to play.
LL: What made him decide to bring a band?
LU: I think he didn't want to drive alone. And I guess he wanted to try out the whole band sound. I guess that's the ideal set up for him.
LL: How did you meet each other?
LU: The summer prior to being in the band, we just had a lot of mutual friends, so we just started hanging out. And then we became internet friends through the year - he went to school in Boston, now he transferred here - but we would just talk all the time. We had a lot of interests in common, so he asked me to play bass.
LL: So this was just last year?
LU: Yeah, I finished my freshman year, and then I met him over the summer. Well, I knew who he was, I saw him maybe once or twice, but people always said that we were very similar, so it was weird to finally start hanging out with him. Because I still don't see it.
LL: You'd seen him play before?
LU: No, I mean I have seen him play in other bands he was in, like some pop/punk band he was in, and this band Frat Dad, I saw that. I knew who he was. And he liked a lot of the bands that were happening in Glen Rock.
LL: Can you talk about what Glen Rock is like?
LU: Yeah. It's a suburb in New Jersey near New York. I guess it's an average suburb. It's mostly upper middle class to upper class it's cool, I mean, when I moved there when I was in fourth grade it felt like a t.v. show, almost. I almost felt like I was in "Happy Days." The architecture of the schools was still in the 1940's. So it was very weird to come from - I had lived in another town over the George Washington bridge called Fort Lee. The school there was very 70's and 80's looking, so it was weird to go back in time like that. And just the general demographics of my home town changed, so I felt like I was going into this weird, fabled, New England American dream type thing. I hadn't really come into contact with that, other than t.v.
LL: When did you start playing music?
LU: I had taken piano since I was five till I was fourteen or fifteen. And then in between that I learned how to play guitar. But I didn't really start writing music till my sophomore year.
LL: Did you play in bands in high school at all?
LU: No. I played in one band briefly when I was in eighth grade. But I hurt my hand and they said they didn't want me to play anymore. I hurt my hand in volleyball in gym, and I said "I can't play today," and they said, "Well, if you can't play today, you can't play at all." They were trying to be serious about it.
LL: So you mainly just played on your own, took lessons…
LU: Yeah, I took lessons on my own in the beginning high school. Then I just faded out of doing music really until my freshman year of college. I was bored in my room so I just started playing again.
LL: What made you get back into it?
LU: I guess talking with Sam really helped. My friend Liam was doing four track recordings through high school and that was inspiring to me.
LL: Liam went to Glen Rock High?
LU: Yeah. And having the band Titus Andronicus loom over us in our town was like, "I wanna do this, I wish I could do this." And then by sophomore year, I would talk to Sam, and I guess he egged me on to try recording, and I recorded, and got better at it, and bought more equipment, and kept doing it.
LL: Did you go to shows locally when you were in high school?
LU: Yeah, I went to a couple local shows towards the end. I didn't really come into my group of friends until senior year of high school, so they know more about it. I hear stories about them. Pat from Titus Andronicus would have these concerts called Pat Stock, which was a response to Glen Stock, which our high school had to support yearbooks or whatever. So his band Seizing Elian would play, which was his band prior to the band that was prior to Titus Andronicus. The whole Glen Rock / Ridgewood music scene, quote unquote, like the guys from Real Estate and Titus Andronicus– I guess that all happened and went. So when they graduated high school they were doing their own things. So it almost segregated again. Cause there was a lot of shi- I don't know. Whatever the Ridgewood kids my age were doing at this point, was really not happening in conjunction with the Glen Rock kids. It was just that we weren't really hanging out with the guys in Ridgewood, in terms of music. And at that point in Glen Rock it was some punk bands that had their own scene that was kind of aside from us, and then my friend Liam was in a band called VCR with this guy Sarim who is in Liquor Store now. There was a metal band too, Cranial Damage. Not that it fell apart, but the towns were more separate communities then.
LL: So there was a period of time when the towns were more connected?
LU: I guess. I don't know, I was too young. I was a freshman in high school and I didn't really hang out with those kids. It was happening more when they were in high school, really in high school, and I was in eighth grade. And then freshman year they were all seniors, so they were finishing that up.
LL: But it felt like there was a crossover? People from Glen Rock would go to those shows?
LU: Definitely. There were house shows that people would put on, and it would be before kids had drivers' licenses. They would walk to the next town, which is kind of a hike, to get to the houses. That was a scene that I spectated, cause I wasn't really part of that group of friends yet. And it - I guess not fell apart, everyone just went to college and did their own thing.
View: Part 2
4/21/2010
Off the Menu
by Kayla Morse
In the car on the way to the restaurant, Rachel asked me what exactly we were--"were-were" she said, or rather "are-are"--and I said, "If you-you haven't decided that-that for yourself already, then I-I can't help you." What I'd wanted to say was, I know you've never coupled with this kind of genitalia before, but there are some things you're going to have to fucking figure out on your own, but I did not. I did not because there are some things she's going to have to fucking figure out on her own.
Rachel said, "Did you hear about Etienne?" Yes, yes, I told her, I had.
Rachel casually mentioned that her husband probably knew about us. "I sure hope he doesn't kill me before this is over," I said, and she laughed, picked up the phone I hadn't noticed was vibrating and said into it, "We're on our way."
Lance and Sylvianne were already at the restaurant and rose when we arrived. Lance kissed my hand and told me it'd been much too long. Sylvianne dropped her lids and gave me and Rachel a blank stare. "Oh, loves. Who has the drugs?"
The restaurant was one where the famous people are seated strategically and the maître d' can smell the hundreds of thousands you pull a year or the millions you were born with. I'm trying to say it was nice, rich people only.
Sylvianne dropped her lids and gave me a blank stare. "Oh, kid. Your dick hasn't changed as much as your hair, has it?"
I'd cut my hair because Rachel liked it better that way, shorter, so that she could see my ears.
"Have you heard about Elizabeth and Wiley?" Lance asked, sitting back down and placing his napkin in his lap like a poor person.
"No, we haven't," Rachel said.
She loved to answer for both of us. One of her "things." Perhaps she did it with her husband as well: We do.
I had heard about Elizabeth and Wiley. They were a mess. They'd gone to Dubai and holed up with some president-grade hookers and smoked something off and hadn't left their hotel room in a week and a half. The hookers were gone, but they were still there, taking lots of baths, I'd heard. Crying and ordering room service and throwing the food when they didn't recognize it.
"They're buying another apartment in the city. Apparently that merger served Wiley better than anticipated."
"What merger?" Rachel asked. Sylvianne laughed.
"Oh, silent one. Private contract. Happened last year."
Sylvianne put her head down on the table.
"Get the girl some drugs!" Lance cheersed Rachel.
I pushed a bag of assorted pills between Sylvianne's mouth and the tablecloth. Rachel didn't realize it, but her expression adjusted minimally as I did so. The muscles around her lips always tightened a few degrees when I touched other girls' mouths.
"Is this your rucksack?" Sylvi asked.
Lance was about to take a sip of wine when he pulled away his glass half a second from his lips and looked at me and Rachel. "Have you heard about Berlin and Nichols?"
Rachel said, "Yes, yes we have." She shrugged her shoulders and her mouth went with.
I hadn't heard, but now it was too late to ask.
Sylvianne loosed the contents of the rucksack onto her plate and began separating the pills out of the larger pile one by one, a pill of each color. She lined the colored ones up on her tongue into as much of a rainbow as she could muster and let the wine knock them to the back of her throat. I'd always thought she was sexy. Sometimes when she did more drugs than necessary all at once it made my dick hard.
James and Renee arrived. Renee was braless, wearing a sheer top and a black skirt. What Renee lacked in style she made up for in ribs shown. Renee sat down and took one of the yellow pills Sylvi had left on her plate.
"What to drink, what to drink," she said, opening the menu.
"Rachel, you look excellent," James said. I dropped my lids and gave James a blank stare.
"Have you heard about Sasha and Miro?" Renee asked, looking up. I had. Had Rachel? Rachel had not.
"Do tell," Rachel said.
Sylvianne slid one finger over the arc of my thigh, and gave Renee an expectant look. "Good news?"
"Depends who you talk to," Renee said, eyebrows arched, and she and James laughed.
"I wouldn't go that far," Renee said, eyebrow arched, and she and James shared a worn-down exhale. "Sasha had another abortion and Miro said she's done with her even though Sasha had the abortion for Miro because, god, you know how Miro feels about children and how Sasha feels about Miro."
Sylvianne sang, "Que mi-ro, mi-ro," and poured herself another glass.
Lance pressed his knife down against the center of his lip so that puffed bubbles of skin crowded the metal. He used the knife to point at James. "James. James James James. Whatever happened to that girl from the summer home?"
"Oh god, her." James leaned back in his chair. He looked at Renee, who cocked her head and smiled. Renee seemed to enjoy the short histories of summer homes, girls who turned with the leaves. "I'm sure someone at this table has a more interesting story to tell than the one I have about her," James said.
"Go on," Sylvianne said, tapping her fork against her cheek.
"I killed her," he said, and she laughed.
"I drugged her," he said, and she laughed.
"She took up painting," he said, and she laughed.
"What a marvelous girl," Sylvianne said. "Did you hear about Mitch and Trudy?" she asked. Renee, Lance, and I had. James and Rachel had not. "They don't exist! They simply don't. Not even a tiny little bit.," she said. This was true.
"I've begun seeing my ex-girlfriend's therapist," Lance said.
"Shauna?"
"Nikki."
"Emily?"
"Starla."
"Renee?"
"Dr. Gauld." He sighed and looked at a neighboring table. "It's strange, you know. He must know I'm withholding."
"They always know," said Sylvianne.
"Then what's the point?"
"Well, did you hear about Starla?" she asked.
"And Dr. Gauld?"
"And Dr. Laumans."
Sylvianne's eyes lost focus and her lids began their struggle. We could hear her brain behind them, cha-kunking upward like a noisy elevator in an old building, fueled by that window display of pills plop-plopping into her stomach acid, firing off baby alka-seltzer bubblettes. The fizz manifested itself in a burp and she was slow to laugh.
"I once had an analyst who could read my mind," Rachel said.
"Well that's no fun," James said.
"The sex was great, though."
The sex was great, though, I mouthed into the rim of my glass before swallowing. Sylvianne burped again.
"Oh god, don't look now. Behind you," Lance averted his eyes from Renee, "At one o'clock, no, midnight--"
"Noon," James said, hiding his face in his menu.
"Noon o'clock. It's Nichols."
"You weren't even in the Cold War," Sylvianne said, taking another sip of wine, spilling a little onto her plate.
"What's she wearing?" Rachel ducked low to the table, catlike with elbows bent and spine sloped.
"She wouldn't come over here," I said, hopeful.
"She is--Fuck! She's coming over. Oh, goddamnit." Renee pressed her nose to the wine list.
"Why would--"
"Well look who it is," Nichols said, tapping the stitches on the left corner of her mouth with a couple of red fingernails, the five on her other hand wrapped around the back of Sylvianne's seat. "Hey, lover." She kissed James on the mouth.
"Hello," James said--an attempt to be both sensual and indifferent. I saw cool desperation. "Who are you with?"
"Who am I with? That's always the question." She laughed. "Who are you with?"
"Friends."
"And this?" She tapped a red nail against Sylvianne's back.
"A tranny I picked up on the West side."
Sylvianne tried to lower her lids but her eyeballs up and disappeared.
"I'm with Etienne," Nichols said. She smiled at me, closed-mouth. I felt a stitch burst somewhere on my insides. "That is who I'm with."
I looked past her to their table, which was empty.
Sylvianne's head dropped back against the space between Nichols' ribs. She fit, for a moment, perfectly, until she lolled to one side and lost the groove.
Nichols pulled Sylvi's head up by the bangs so that it hung slack in the middle and taut at the ends like a hammock. "I'm not sure this one is breathing anymore."
Sylvianne's eyelids twitched in an unsuccessful attempt to reopen.
"Sometimes I ride the subway without makeup for fun."
Nichols pulled Sylvi's head back by the bangs--
"I'm fine. FINE."
Nichols pulled Sylvi's head back by the bangs--
Her forehead was full of sweat, eyelids straining against grip and gravity. Nichols set Sylvi's head down on the appetizer plate.
"She's fine. FINE," Renee said. Nichols looked at me again and smiled. Once, after we'd had sex, I sat on the toilet for 10 minutes discovering each slivery clump of flesh tucked under my fingernails, marveling.
"Have you heard about Sophie and Ellis?" Nichols asked.
"Isn't Sophie sober now?" I asked.
"What does that mean?" Renee asked.
"Only over the counter."
"What about Ellis?" James asked.
Nichols looked around the restaurant. "You never know who's in these places. Ellis is out of the country. His father got him out. He killed a boy, some teenage party promoter. Very messy."
"How'd he kill him?" Lance looked skeptical.
"A number of blunt objects. A bust of Benjamin Franklin among them."
Lance stared at her for a moment after she finished speaking. "Nichols, you look different."
"I got my eyelashes extended," she said. "Makes a world of difference. And you'd think telling people about it would diminish it, but no. Eyes listen so much more closely than ears."
"I want red wine, right?" Renee asked James.
"Stop by, come say hi to Etienne." Nichols hip-swiveled her way back to her table in an effort to avoid the swarm of chairs and purses, seat backs and handbags.
Sylvianne stayed on the appetizer plate.
"I'm surprised she's out in public," Lance said, gesturing towards Nichols' table. We turned our heads to get another look at her ass but she had disappeared and the table remained empty.
"Did she look good?" James asked, depressingly earnest.
Renee cocked her head at him. I inhaled to bury the comment I'd been on the verge of making. Of course she looked good, but the restorative surgery must've drawn lines we couldn't see.
"It is what it is," Lance said into his menu.
Big purple ones that ran ragged beneath her red dress.
"Guess who I saw at 99 last night?" Rachel said. Rachel, who had told me she would be with her husband all evening.
"Who?" James asked.
"Courtney." She dropped the word and let it sit on the table. Renee gasped.
"Courtney?" Lance repeated.
"Courtney," she said, again dropping it and letting it sit.
"How'd she look?" James asked.
Rachel was enjoying this. Perhaps she had gone to 99 without me just so that she might have this dinner moment of spotlight gossip. She waited a moment. She raised her eyebrows. She looked at Renee, then at James. A bit of yellowy foam slid out of Sylvianne's mouth and pooled onto her plate.
"Great. She looked great."
"No kidding."
"Yup."
With her information released, gobbled, Rachel's power deflated. She had a sip of wine, adjusted her hemline. Courtney--she was old news. Oh yeah, Courtney? Rachel saw her at 99 last night, last week. Rachel, at 99, all alone. The sex was great, though. What's next? What are we ordering? How was the sex? Has anyone else considered the thick, knotted scar tissue beneath Nichols' Herve Leger?
I realized I'd been talking out loud. For a moment, the table quiet like a storm surge. Renee smiled. --Did you hear about Rachel and Sidney? Abrupt. Ball of flames. Everyone stopped and stared. And there was a dead girl on the plate next to them the whole time! Etienne saw it all. I know.--
4/19/2010
Family Road Trip
by Hank May
Interview by Hannah May
Download - Family Road Trip
The first time I ever heard my brother's song “I'm Going Home to Night” was back in the summer of 2005. I was about to start college and Hank had just turned fifteen, and we were in the car with my mom heading somewhere on the freeway. Hank had played some of his songs for me before but this one was stronger and more confident than his earlier recordings, and it marked a new beginning in Hank's lifelong commitment to rock and roll. This time, his voice didn't shy away from his articulate, surreal lyrics. Over the past couple of years I’ve heard Hank play “I’m Going Home Tonight” in backyards in Studio City, at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, on Arkansas porches during family reunions, in a loft in Bushwick, and most recently in the basement of a bar in Flatbush. Sometimes he’s accompanied by a trumpet and drums and an upright bass and his best friend on guitar, and sometimes he’s all by himself. Sometimes he screams so hard he has to pause the show to puke, and thankfully there’s usually a friend nearby prepared with a plastic bag.
Now Hank’s about to wrap up his Sophmore year at Bard College and over the past few years he’s created a collection of gorgeous, passionate, intelligent songs. Even though he spends most of his time in the woods of upstate New York, the songs on the upcoming album belong largely to the city where we grew up. Hank describes the beauty of pigeons, asphalt, and broken glass, and the songs are complex and intricate enough to accurately mirror life in Los Angeles. L.A. becomes a "treacherous city," full of crooked cops and privileged kids with selfish grins, but it's also home, a place where “the sound of traffic keeps you safe at night.” I got my brother to answer a few questions about his song writing process and what's in store for Rock Dove's future.
LL: Hank, when can we expect an actual album? Or does making a real album even matter, in terms of how you've been distributing your music so far (mostly online through your website)?
HM: I really want to make an album, but I'm growing tired of the songs that i had originally planned to include. The album loses songs by the month. Songs are discarded quicker than they are written.
I think a real album does matter. I'm not happy with the way I've been sharing my music, throwing up half-ass recordings that I never completed.
LL: So the songs on your website might not make it onto the album?
HM: Those will probably make it onto the album. Maybe not "Passing Out Coupons on Hollywood Blvd."
LL: No! I love that song. Anyway, how do you think being in college has affected your song writing?
HM: College is not an atmosphere conducive to prolific songwriting. It has slowed me down. Living in a building with lots of kids and paper-thin walls keeps me from screaming my songs, and I scream them at home in Los Angeles in May Day, the room my father carved out of the garage for me and others to use as a studio. That sort of freedom to scream inspires the lyrics a lot of the time.
But living in the woods has brought the plants, animals, and tranquility into my lyrics, "City Boy" and "Speed Trap" as clear examples.
LL: Yeah, I was going to ask about "Speed Trap" in particular because it seems to be about ambivalence to city life.
HM: Yes, and "City Boy" too, but less ambivalence and more disgust.
LL: Do you want to talk about some of your influences, musical and otherwise? I know you reference a Sherwoord Anderson story in "The Roaring Land."
HM: Not really, but yeah Winesburg, Ohio is in that song, and so is Speak/Memory, for the record: "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness" and also the lines about a home video of your family without you before you.
LL: Ok, what about a favorite show memory?
HM: Rock Dove shows began as polite and humble affairs. We were sober for the first couple. But they quickly turned wild, angry, and infinitely more fun. That was around the time that the Hank May moniker was dropped and Rock Dove was born. The first show as Rock Dove was the first show that caused me to puke (maybe not, but that's a good lie).
LL: The puking seems to have settled down.
HM: Yes.
LL: But I always loved seeing Djavan ready with a bag.
HM: I've built up a tolerance to rock and roll. Our greatest show was at Bridget Rodman's house for Winter Wondercall in a small living room packed with kids and Djavan between me and the crowd with two crucial jobs: protecting my pedals from the mosh pit and holding the plastic bag for me to vomit in while still strumming.
Many noses bled that night.
LL:if you could see any band play that you've never seen before, who would it be?
HM: Living or dead?
LL: Either.
HM: Elliott Smith. I've been listening to Elliott Smith all day. But yeah, Elliott Smith or a Modest Mouse show during the mid-90s.
I'd do some terrible things for that time traveling trip.
LL: Also, if you could go on tour with an current band, who would it be?
HM:I'm thinking American Princes or Magic Hassle[Our cousin David Slade's bands].
LL: That would be so much fun.
HM: I know right!?
LL: I would be so jealous. Off topic, but did you see mom's Dublin photos and dad's new hat?
HM: YES. At first I saw it sort of hidden under an umbrella, I think, and then I saw it fully exposed. Wonderful hat.
LL: It's really something. So, do you usually start the songwriting process with lyrics, or with music? And how collaborative is the process when you include instruments like trumpets and cellos?
HM: The songs usually begin as musical skeletons to be dressed with the flesh of my lyrics, which either come separate from the music or out of the melodies themselves.
I usually write all the parts and then teach them to my friends. However, Patrick Taylor writes his own bass lines and Luke Silas comes up with most of the drum parts, but I write the trumpet parts on Finale. And I write the guitar parts and teach them to Xander [Whistler], and he writes guitar parts for me to play in Pilgrim [Xander's band]. I think we should start a third band that's entirely collaborative.
LL: Ok, one last question: if Rock Dove was a food, what food would it be?
HM: Is that a serious question?
LL: Yes! Well, no. Kind of.
HM: It would a pot brownie and a shot of whiskey.
4/14/2010
and growing
by Ariella Ruth
8:36 pm mountain time
it’s time for something rhythmic and pointed. i recently heard that you could tell if a mountain is young or old based on the roundness of the top. so what i’d say is, from where i’m standing, we’re just blue turning wheels waiting for eastern weather. the train fogs and it’s just like the downtown station, but there are no crickets. my finger moves letters in air. i would kill every cricket in the world just to hear my dog breathing next to me on the kitchen floor. i could go the whole rest of my life without hearing a loon and it wouldn’t make any difference. they’re all werewolves to me anyways. a beak, yellow with ravaged fur. barefoot on green carpet all i can hear is the floor. she shuffles and breathes. the air is heavy and she’s on the porch involuntarily. has anyone stayed anywhere? to put numbers on you would be to count away my moments and bring us closer to shrouded thoughts. i crave to make a tunnel through a crowd. i’m sick of people telling me what to do with my FEET! where’s the carriage and pavement? i’ll ride slanted in the sun. the cricket outside my window thinks he’s a jester. this city-town is bizarre, hollow and wide. several times throughout the day i have to remind myself of my location. i need something in arms and ties and chairs and neck veins and neck veins and blue veins that only show at night. tired only above the neck. cuticles turned in dryness and heat and a falsely drawn mouth. no it’s not at all acceptable to assume that anyone wants to pay for your opera. the wrinkles don’t fall from being hung. humid, please go like sage to each corner of this room, in shelves and drawers and closets. in salem, he said “please remove any negative energy from this space and replace it with our most positive energy.” nights are ripe they are somehow still the hardest. it’s nice to meet you. are you my second child, are you? no one can eat eleven peaches in seven days. produce me. i see a pattern for vegetable fingers. maybe these leaves will wake up my hands. i could flip around on you until civil twilight and still not know a word. “she likes to travel around, she’ll love you and she’ll push you down.” “by all accounts it shouldn’t last long.” heart words with no body.
4/07/2010
The Heimlich
by Olek Malahoff
Illustration by Matt McCann
The night surges forwards and backwards. At one point it's 3 AM and I am at my laptop diligently punching keys. My roommate kicks my door down. The hinges are old. A horrendous creak sounds and the screws rip the wood off.
“Quick! Do you know the Heimlich?!”
I respond in the affirmative, so he grabs the cat by the hind legs with one hand as he shoves a dead bird into the cat's mouth. Luckily, the cat, which from now on will only be referred to as “it,” bites down and swallows the bird whole. “I... don't know if I know how to do it on cats though.”
I lied earlier. I said yes to my roommates question, when in truth I should not have. I've never had any classes or anything. All I know about it is what I learned from TV and informational pamphlets in restaurants. I could look it up, but I learn by doing. Like the time I took apart a two-stroke moped engine or lost my virginity. My roommate leaves when I'm not looking.
3/31/2010
A Completely Cool, Multi-Purpose Movie!
by Michael Pollock
True Stories opens with the words, “A film about a bunch of people in Virgil, Texas.” This is the closest thing to an explanation that the movie supplies. It is part musical, part slide show, part parody, part homage, part self-parody, part commentary, and music video. Sometimes the songs naturally spring up, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes characters acknowledge the camera, sometimes they don’t. It does not make a whole lot of sense, but sense has never been a priority of the Talking Heads.
The film tours the small town of Virgil, Texas as it adjusts to the new housing sprawl brought by the micro-chip producing Vericorp. There is nothing not ‘80s about it. Our guide on this tour is the bolo tie-wearing and Talking Heads front man, David Byrne. Byrne has little to no impact on the plot, rather he introduces us to the town’s people and goes off on philosophical rants that intentionally lead nowhere. Occasionally, he drops comments like, “things that never had names before are now easily described,” only to steal any possible meaning that the audience might gain by following with, “it makes conversation easy.”What plot there is revolves around Louis Fyne, played by John Goodman before Roseanne ruined him. Louis is a good-natured technician, and self-proclaimed “dancing fool,” looking for a woman to love and marry. We follow Louis on several dates, watch his dating commercial, and see him perform “People Like Us” in the penultimate scene.
Only three songs, “Wild Life,” “Love For Sale,” and “City of Dreams,” are performed by the Talking Heads. A preacher, a FOUR H club, a conjuto, a fashion show announcer, and other citizens of Virgil sing the rest of the True Stories soundtrack. I have been listening to the album version of these songs for years before I saw the movie. It is easy to stay loyal to those songs I loved in high school, because the movie versions take on a life of their own. Pop Staples singing “Papa Legba” during a voodoo ceremony is obviously very different from Byrne singing it as I ride in my mom’s Camry. With windows down, I used to mumble along to the song, but Staple’s nonchalant voice, robes, and talismans give meaning to the gibberish lyrics.
Like Byrne’s presence, the songs pop–up with no regard to the plot and the lyrics don’t bother to push the story along. Rather than being an annoyance, this is the joy of the movie. You never know when someone is going to start singing and you never know when Byrne is going to go off on a theoretical tangent only to admit that he has forgotten what he was talking about. The movie can certainly be watched straight through, and there are plenty of youtube clips, but I often stream True Stories on Netflix, and let it play, as if it were an album, while I clean or make food. I hum to the music, wash a cereal crusted bowl and giggle when John Goodman remarks on his own “consistent panda shape.” Perhaps True Stories is structured, not by plot, but by charm.
3/26/2010
Thanks America!
by Joshua Abelow
Where am I?
Everybody is so nice
And mindless and fat
And dead.
Oh, that's right! I'm in
America.
I almost forgot. It's hard
To keep track when
You live out of your
Suitcase.
Well, Here I am.
God Bless America!
If it weren't for all these
Nice, mindless, fat, dead people
I'd be so confused.
3/23/2010
Boris Diaw and the Infinite Sadness: Part 2
by Sam Cooper
View: Part 1
Rob let himself in through the basement door on the side of the house. Elliot was wearing a red Joel Pryzbilla jersey that went to his knees.
“Hey, where’s the beer?” Elliot asked.
"I forgot. I can go back out…”
“No, no, no…I have some whiskey. How does that do you?” Elliot asked.
“What kind?”
“Snob. It’s Irish.”
Elliot motioned for Rob to follow him up the stairs. Elliot found his roommates through an ad in the Mercury. They were a couple who had married the summer before and bought a big old house that they struggled to pay the mortgage on month after month. The guy, Cecil, was a nurse practitioner, and the wife, Sequoia, had a masters in graphic design. Cecil made good money but wanted to pay off his student loans, and Sequoia worked freelance and had hefty student loans of her own. They fought frequently.
Elliot brought down two glasses and filled them with ice cubes. He handed one to Rob and then they walked back downstairs. The basement was mostly finished, with Elliot’s small bedroom and half bath, an area with dark green shag carpet, a couch with a little mold, and a washer and drier. Elliot put up a dart board. Rob sat on the couch while Elliot fetched the whiskey from his room. He handed it to Rob.
“Dublin’s Derby Blended Whiskey. The bottle is plastic.” Rob said.
“The Wall Street Journal recommended it.” Elliot said.
“Bullshit.”
“Ok, it was on sale, but it originally cost 12 dollars.”
Rob shook his head and extended his glass. Elliot poured until he filled the glass and then did the same with his own.
“To finding your love.” They banged glasses and sipped. Rob winced and coughed. Elliot laughed.
“Darts?” He asked Rob.
They played a round of Cricket with Rob winning by eighty points, both refreshing their drinks twice. They played another game and replenished their drinks three more times. The second game was closer. Elliot won by ten.
“One more?” Elliot asked.
“What time is it?”
Elliot checked his watch “7:15.”
“What time do we need to catch the bus?”
“7:53, and the stop is just around the corner.”
“Oh. Yeah. One more game. I am going to go get more ice. You?”
“Yeah.” Elliot handed Rob his glass. “Gonna piss.”
Rob returned with fresh ice and Elliot topped of both glasses. “Me first?” He asked Rob.
“Yup."
Elliot threw and hit a double 20, a triple 20, and an 18. “Lick my nuts,” Elliot said. “Hey, did I tell you about the screen play I started writing today?”
“Does it have midgets?” Rob had heard countless novel, screenplay, short film, and TV pilot ideas from Elliot. Most of them involved midgets.
“The Hills Have Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. It’s a Willie Nelson themed horror movie. It’s set in a small West Texan town. A rash of murders - teenage girls, old ladies, a hotel desk clerk - happen whenever the DJ of the town’s only radio station plays a Willie Nelson song. It’s then up to the DJ to team up with the feisty new red-headed lady sheriff to find out who is committing these dastardly deeds. But then, when the DJ shuts down the station, someone keeps playing Willie Nelson songs. Turns out to be the deputy, who once had an affair with one of Willie’s wives - the one who played in his band. The movie ends with the deputy in a little plane looking at a full moon out the window, about to decent in Burlington, Vermont, with the music from "Moonlight in Vermont" off of Stardust. What do you think? I was thinking Bobcat Goldwaith as the DJ and Julia Roberts as the sheriff. Or Jody foster with a dye job. Or maybe Vivica Fox with red extensions for some racial tension. Anyway, what do you think?”
“Sounds commercially viable. How far along are you?”
“I downloaded Final Cut Pro and made a plot flow chart and did some character development lists, like what is the DJ’s favorite kind of sandwich (egg salad on pumpernickel) and what is the red headed sheriff’s favorite movie (Y Tu Mama Tambien if white, Rear Window if black). You know, the important stuff.”
“What about Space Jam for the killer?”
“Racist.” Elliot said and threw his darts.
They played and both struggled to close out 15 and 16. Only a few fingers of whiskey remained in the bottle when Elliot checked his watch. “Its 8:32.”
“I’ll drive.” Rob said.
“I was hoping you would say that. I know a secret parking place near the Garden.” They went out into the cool night without coats and climbed into Ellen’s green Isuzu Rodeo singing “Don’t Fence Me In.”
* * *
Ellen arrived at the police station in a cab at 6:30 in the morning. She saw Rob and Elliot sitting on a bench out front. They rose and walked to the cab. Rob had two black eyes and dried vomit on the front of his sweater. Elliot had a large band aid on his chin and dried blood on his neckline. One of the arm holes of his jersey was ripped and so he appeared to be wearing a long red toga.
Rob hugged her and said sorry. Elliot stood behind them and said thank you to Ellen. The three walked out and got into the waiting cab.
Elliot sat in the front seat. The cab driver, a skinny guy about their age with dyed long black hair, black t-shirt, black jeans, and black fingerless gloves said: “So what kind of fun did you two gentleman get into last night?”
“Blazer game,” Elliot said. “They threw us out for being too handsome and too loyal and too proud of our adopted city.”
Rob turned to Ellen “So the two guys next to us were jerks, rooting for the Suns, and we, very drunk, well…”
“One of them was the Asian guy from Smashing Pumpkins,” Elliot said.
“James Iha?” the driver asked.
“That’s his name. James Iha! Thank you, sir. Well, James Iha was screaming about the refs and talking trash, and his buddy was a big fella, perhaps a lumberjack or Arena League football player, and he was also screaming at our guys, calling Brandon Roy a bitch, and Greg Oden a big bitch, and Joel Pryzbilla a white bitch, and Batoom a French bitch, and well I would say we asked them civilly to stop.”
Rob interrupted, “We were pretty drunk. I told the big one to the shut the fuck up before I ripped out his eye ball for Rip City.”
“Awesome,” said the cab driver.
“James Iha told Rob to shut the fuck up, and I said ‘Look here Siamese Dream, you and your ogre should go back to 1979. Tonight, Tonight.’ I was really proud of myself for coming up with so many Smashing Pumpkins references in such short order, though I had been thinking of them from them moment we sat next to the guy. Anyway, he was about to slap me, or it looked like that when I spit in eye.” Elliot turned to Rob.
“The big guy then pushed Elliot and he toppled over three rows of people, smashing his chin on a hand railing. I punched the big guy in the back of the head, then James Iha threw a hard elbow in my face. Elliot tried to climb back over the three rows of people he had already fallen over, gushing blood from his face all over them.”
“Jesus,” Ellen said.
Rob continued “Yeah, that’s when security carried all four us out. When we were outside the Garden, Elliot tried to hit James Iha, and I started kicking at the big guy. And then out of nowhere some cops came and dragged us off and let those fuckers go on their merry way.”
“I tried to reason with the cops, saying they were Suns fans, but the cops weren’t interested. I sobered up in cuffs.” Elliot said.
“Rob kept falling asleep.”
“Since the other two guys got let off, no one pressed charges, and we were told to sleep it off.”
“And I did,” Rob chimed in.
They arrived at Rob and Ellen’s apartment, and Elliot paid the cab driver and gave him a 10 dollar tip for being such a good audience.
“So where is my car?”
“It’s at the Burger King near the Rose Garden. Unless it was towed,” Elliot said bashfully.
“Fuck.” Ellen said and raised her arms in exasperation.” And you lost my keys?”
“Yeah, well, I think they fell out of my pocket in the scuffle. They could be at the lost and found at the Rose Garden. If not, I’m sure AAA can do something.”
Ellen shook her head and then looked at her phone. “Fuck. I am going to be late for work. I am going to have to catch a bus. Fuck.” She started walking towards the bus stop near their apartment. She turned and said, “Rob, you are going to take care of this today, right? Right? I need my car.”
“Yeah, yeah, I will. I’m sorry,” he said.
“Me too. Thanks for getting us Ellen.” Elliot said.
“Are you going to be drunk assholes forever?” She marched down the street.
Rob and Elliot stood still and silent for a few moments.
“I am probably going to be a drunk asshole forever. I’ve always imagined myself as the drunken dad. Not abusive, but at times embarrassing. So, breakfast?”
“IHOP?” Rob said.
“Brilliant,” answered Elliot and they walked back to Elliot’s Honda and drove to the IHOP out by the airport.
They sat. “So do you think she will find out?” Rob asked.
“Only if you tell her. Or we get arrested for real.” Elliot said without looking up from his menu. What they had told Ellen and the cab driver had been true, up to a point. After they were hustled out of the stadium there were no cops. The two stumbled back to Ellen’s Rodeo, and Elliot convinced Rob to drive to the Dancing Bear, his favorite and perhaps the city’s saddest strip club. Elliot and Rob then dramatically reenacted their fight with the James Iha and the large guy, during which Rob drove off into a telephone pole. They were unharmed but the car was totaled. Elliot called an ask-no-questions towing company, the name and number of which he had gotten from his older brother, a successful lawyer and alcoholic. For a flat fee of a thousand dollars the tow truck took the car to a lot and then disabled it and sold it off for parts. Rob argued with Elliot that the car wasn’t worth a thousand dollars. Elliot explained the thousand dollars was to keep your record clean and to make sure that when you reported the car stolen to the insurance company it didn’t show up anywhere. After that matter was settled, it was Rob’s idea to have Ellen pick them up from the police station.
Rob pulled the keys to the car from his pocket. “Ok, so I tell her I got the keys from the Rose Garden, went to the Burger King, and the car was gone. Called the impound lot listed in the Burger King parking lot, and the car wasn’t there. Then I tell her to report the car as stolen to her insurance company, she gets the money and buys a newer car, and we all live happily ever after.”
Elliot nodded.
“How did your brother know about that?” Rob asked.
“He once represented a cop in a divorce. Jeff asked him what happens when cops get DUIs, and the cop handed him the tow company’s card.”
Elliot had the banana nut waffles and Rob ate a western omelet. Rob thought about telling Ellen the truth and how she would react while Elliot described a rash he had that was shaped like a dolphin. The waitress came to the table and asked if they needed anything and Elliot said, “Just the check.”
3/22/2010
Boris Diaw and the Infinite Sadness: Part 1
by Sam Cooper
"Boris Diaw" will appear in 2 parts. The second half will be on LL tomorrow, Tuesday, March 23rd.
Ellen unlocked the car and Elliot grabbed the passenger side door handle. Rob pushed him and said “Nope,” and got in the front seat of the green 1994 Isuzu Rodeo while Elliot walked around to sit behind the driver.
“It’s ok, I prefer to be chauffeured,” he said, and then gave two dainty claps.
Ellen drove him three blocks to the yellow house where he had a basement room. Elliot thanked Ellen, said he would give them a call, and then waved as he entered through the side door.
“You complain to me about Elliot all the time, and then when we are all together, you encourage him like that. His idea about pulling down puzzle master Will Shortz’s pants and filming it for Youtube was awful, and you kept laughing and egging him on” Rob said.
Ellen had one hand on the wheel on one her belly. “I do complain about Elliot, but I like him. He is funny and smart and I have known him as long as I have known you. What I complain about is his drinking, and the terrible things he does. Last night I watched him pee in a Suburban’s gas tank. He saw me see him, and then slurred something about political integrity and the Kyoto Protocols. He then tried to drive home and it was only when I pulled out my phone and said I was going call the police to report him as a DUI that he gave me his keys. This was after he vomited on that girl. That’s another thing…”
Rob interrupted “Ok, I admit, and I think he would to, that he has some issues with women.”
“What about the girl whose cat he drove to an animal shelter in Olympia.”
Rob shook his head. “You always bring that up. It was two years ago. He’s gotten a lot better about that sort of thing.”
Ellen huffed and sighed. “He is sleeping with two girls he works with, one of whom is only eighteen, and…”
“She’s 19, almost 20.” Rob said.
Ellen shook her head. “That is not really the point. I would never let any girl I know near Elliot, but I have felt that way for years. Nothing new. What I really hate though is that he is such a bad influence on you. I drink, you drink, we both occasionally get drunk. I am not trying to be hypocritical, but when you drink with Elliot you turn into his minion. He says “Jump” and you say “from what bridge?” You can be as cruel as he is, and you make a terrible mess. When you've been out drinking with him and come home the sink smells of urine and half the contents of the fridge are in the bathtub.”
Ellen parked and Rob got out of the car. “It is not as bad as it used to be,” he said.
“That’s because I said I wouldn’t live with you if you let him come over and drink at our place.” He and Ellen walked up the stairs.
They entered the apartment they had moved into three weeks prior. Rob pulled Ellen to the couch and began an act of conciliatory cuddle. Ellen reciprocated and they cooed and moaned and kissed and then Rob attempted to perform cunnilingus on his girlfriend of fifteen months. She passively discouraged and then passively encouraged the act. This lasted for four minuets before Ellen pushed Rob away and ran to the bathroom and had loud diarrhea with the door open.
Rob called out, “I am going to go out for a run.”
Ellen responded, “I am going to stay close to the toilet. Can you return those DVDs to the library?”
“Sure, do you need me to pick anything up?” Rob asked.
“Um, no, maybe, I don’t know, ginger ale maybe, saltines.”
“Ok,” he said as he changed into his short running shorts and running sneakers and then left the apartment, DVDs under his arm.
Rob slipped the DVDs through the return slot at the Albina branch of the library then crossed the street. Rob ran on the outer loop of the park lined with wood chips, around the two baseball fields, four basketball courts, the big and the little play grounds the soccer field. Twice around was almost a mile, and Rob ran seven times around in one direction, and seven times around in the other. There were guys at the basketball court shooting, waiting for more to show up to run three on three. Eight or nine dogs with an even mix of couples and singles handling them strolled around the wood chipped loop. Rob finished and stretched by the backstop. A man with a gray pony tail tried to fly a kite on the soccer field and an unattended boy of six or seven urinated on one of the goals.
Rob did fifty push ups on the wet grass, wiped his dirty palms on his shorts, and walked to the natural food store. He took a green basket and walked the aisles looking for samples. He had a little square of free trade dark chocolate, a little spoonful of Greek style honey flavored yogurt and a little shot glass sized paper cup of persimmon flavored dandy-lion tea. He placed a six pack of the organic ginger ale in his basket and then went looking for the saltines. He found them, the package adorned with Paul Newman’s face, in the aisle with bulk nuts. He filled a plastic bag with what he thought was about half a pound of cashews and then sauntered to the register. A white guy about his age with blond dread locks and a light beard greeted him and asked how he was doing. Rob and this guy had the same 44 second conversation at least once every three days. Rob said he was doing well, and the dreadlocked guy said he was too, and then Rob swiped his card and then the dreadlock guy asked if Rob wanted the receipt, and Rob declined and took his paper sack of ginger ale, saltines, and nuts out of the store.
The door to their third floor apartment, D7, was unlocked. He came in, took the nuts, crackers, and ginger ale and placed them on the small table in the kitchen. He went to the bathroom and had a long pee with door closed. His urine was reddish orange. He shook his head, washed his hands, washed his face, drank a large glass of water, then took a hot shower during which he again peed reddish orange.
He got out, drank another glass of water, brushed his teeth, and then applied deodorant to his under arms and medicated body powder to his genitals and inner thighs. He went into the bedroom where he and Ellen each had desks and rolling chairs and their own closets and chests of drawers. He put on clean boxer shorts and the jeans he had worn to brunch. He then flexed his pectoral muscles and bulled his neck in the mirror before putting on a new white v-neck t shirt. He walked into the bedroom where he and Ellen slept. They had painted the walls a pale green two weeks before. Ellen’s laptop rested on their queen sized bed that remained frameless. Ellen said she didn’t want anything until they could afford a nice bed. Rob picked up her computer. It was warm. He entered password: bugsythebunnyRIP and saw that Ellen had been on a website devoted to life-sized butter sculptures of famous people: Oprah, Jesus, Drew Carey. He put her laptop down. On her night stand were her phone and keys.
He walked through the living room to the kitchen and didn’t see Ellen. He called out her name. He walked into each bed room, the bath room, went through the living room back to the kitchen, and then repeated that circle two more times. Rob shrugged, took a seat on the couch and read the arts section from last week’s Sunday paper. Maybe Ellen went out to get a fresh paper he thought, and then became lost in a long article about an off-Broadway play with a paraplegic Australian Muslim imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for 3 years who finds Christ through the kindness of a sympathetic Southern soldier. Rob finished the article and then walked around the apartment again, stopping in every room looking for Ellen. He checked the bathroom three times. He walked out to the hall, and then down the stairway, calling her name. He returned to apartment, checked every room again, and then looked out the windows for her. The ones in the bed rooms faced the street where her car was parked. The windows in the kitchen faced a nicer apartment building. In the alley between there was nothing but dumpsters. Rob picked up Ellen’s phone and there were six missed calls: two from her mother and two from each of her sisters. The last out-going call she made was to Elliot that morning inviting him to brunch.
Rob went to the room with the mirror and said out loud, “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Don’t panic. It's ok.” He then took off his t-shirt and flexed his pectoral muscles five times, put his shirt back on, and then checked every room for Ellen.
He felt his phone buzz. It was Elliot. He picked up.
“Dude, Cecil’s mom just dropped by looking for Cecil and Sequoia, who are out at some new-age retreat near Hood River for the weekend, and offered me some Blazer tickets. They are playing the Suns. Good seats too. You in?”
“Uh, well, Ellen is sorta,” Rob stopped and closed his eyes to find the right word.
“Dude, only got two tickets. You will have to leave her be for a couple of hours. Can you handle it? She can watch the game on the TV down at the Triple Nickel and maybe see you and me so she knows you’re safe.”
“Uh, Elliot, Ellen’s not here. She was sick, and then I went out for a run, and now she is gone. Its been like 3 hours since I saw her.”
“Hmm,” Elliot said, “Call her.”
“She left her phone here,” Rob responded.
“Weird.”
“Yeah. Weird. Am I being paranoid?”
“No, no, I mean, yeah, probably. She is probably fine. Maybe one of her girlfriends came and picked her up or something and she forgot her phone. Or ran out to do laundry or something.”
“The Laundry room!” Rob hung up and ran down the four flights of stairs to the basement. In a windowless white room with five big white washers and five big white dryers lay Ellen slumped on the folding table. Rob shook her. She woke up, startled. Her face was red and blotchy and her breath had a stench of expired dairy with a metallic tinge. “Hey.” Rob said.
“Hey” Ellen said groggily. Rob hugged her, and she hugged him back and said “I shit the bed.”
“Oh.” Rob said and hugged her tighter. “I didn’t know where you were.”
“Oh.” Ellen said, “I hope you didn’t worry.”
“I did a little.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Why don’t you go up and get in bed and I will take care of this. I’ll put on the other sheets and you can lie down. I got ginger ale and saltines.”
“Ok.” Ellen said. “Comforter is in the dryer. It probably needs another go round in the machine. The sheets should be done. And my clothes are in there too. I’m really sorry.”
“No, no, no” Rob said gently. They walked up the stairs together. Rob put on the extra set of sheets, pale blue flannel ones Ellen’s sister Gwen had given them as a house warming present. Ellen climbed into the bed and Rob brought her a plate of crackers arranged in a fanned circle and a tall glass of ginger ale with ice. She thanked him, and asked if he could go pick out a few DVDs from the shelf.
“Goonies?” he asked.
“Goonies is in the right ball park. Goonies, Back to the Future, and surprise me.”
Rob liked Ellen’s DVD collection. He had 25 or so DVDs, mostly from the bargain bin at the chain video store, the 2 for $10 kind, where the price accurately reflected the films’ quality.
Rob picked out Volunteers, one of his movies. He brought the three to Ellen in bed. “Is this the one where Tom Hanks is in the Peace Corps in Thailand in a tuxedo, and that his wife is also in?”
“And John Candy.” Rob owned four movies with John Candy.
“Perfect.” Ellen said.
“I am going to go and deal with the laundry. Feel free to start the movie, I’ll be back up in a few.”
“Ok. Thank you.” Rob kissed her on the forehead and didn’t cringe when he smelled her breath.
Rob moved the sheets and Ellen’s underwear and jeans and shirt to a dryer. He took out her bra, unsure as to if it could be machine dried, and then set the comforter to another dry cycle. He carried the bra back up to the apartment and hung it on shower door as he had seen Ellen do with such sundries.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out. Elliot. Rob answered.
“So should I call the morgue?”
“Dude.” Rob said.
“Sorry. You find her?”
“Yeah. She was asleep in the laundry room.”
“So I was right. Another life saved by the towering genius of Elliot Green. Chalk it up.”
“I don’t see how you saved her life.”
“I didn’t. I saved yours. You were all frantic - you could have had a heart attack, or driven distractedly and ran into a telephone pole, or hung yourself.” Elliot said. “Anyway, I got Blazer tickets. It’s the Suns. Should be a great game. Amare is back. Nash vs. Roy. The seven-seconds-or-less offense against Rip City’s occasionally smothering defense. Come on.”
“Uh, Ellen is pretty sick. I should probably stay here.”
“Come on. She fell asleep in the laundry room. Come on. She needs sleep. Not you fetching this and that and then trying to feel her up. Come on.”
“Let me go check on her. I’ll call you back, but you know,” and Rob hung up.
Ellen was asleep and Tom Hanks was still at Yale. Rob sat on the bed next to her. Ellen snored. He closed her laptop and moved it to her night table. He took the plate of pale crumbs and the glass of watery soda and put them in the sink.
He called Elliot back. “When is tip off?”
“8:30.”
“Ok, I have to finish a load in the dryer and then I will come and pick you up at around 8:15.”
“Lets have a few drinks first. I love eight dollar beers as much as the next guy, but I love them even more after I am a little hammered. Why don’t you come over here, bring some nice beer, we'll get a little drunk, then go to the game and stay buzzed without going broke.”
“Ok. I’ll be there soon.” Rob said and hung up the phone.
He wrote a note on post-it that said, “Went to the Blazer game with El (free tickets), hope you are feeling better. If you need anything call. Love, R.” He stuck it to the fridge. He then went into bed room and took Ellen’s keys from her night stand. He patted her head and she snored. He walked out of the apartment, locked the door and drove to Elliot’s.
View: Part 2
