Fair In Fist Fights

We were hauling slabs of stone into the van it seemed like the way the pyramids were supposedly built as told by my fifth-grade teacher. However, these ancient materials were in fact made of metal and wood and other such materials. I just write the songs and words and know little to nothing about the rest of the processes. Unfamiliar of the way to properly handle the equipment that doesn’t revolve around an amplifier, pedals, a guitar, and six strings, I tend to handle with care. It’s freezing tonight as we make an eternal effort from the venue to the van to the venue to the van and so on until everything is accounted for except for one little piece you always leave behind as is accidental tradition. “Careful not to slip out there the ice is stealthy!” The venue owner shouts half wanting us to fall while in the throes of an all too cliché and cartoony cigar. Chicago’s many metal bands often treated us as if we were dirt in designer jeans when playing venues like this. The reality of the matter is these tight pants I wear were only thrifted and not picked out by the hands of Zeus to be worn with honor by his mighty hero Hercules. Instead, they were half-stoned chosen by a boy who thought they might give the impression his emotion drenched 4-minute confessions may be worth giving at least half an ear to. “Well?” I hear in a perhaps condescending tone as I’m broken out of a hollowed brooding artist like trance. “Oh, umm I’m sorry I was…Not really listening” I confessed shallow to my bandmate Dave Rice. “I said is that all? I mean I know I got all of my stuff and I think that’s all of yours and Micky says he’s got all of his shit, but I double checked cuz ya know Micky Moments but yeah I think we got everything but it always seems like we forget like at least ONE thing so I just wanted to make sure that you got everything you need, I have mine all accounted for and I think yours is too but I’m tryna make sure.”

“oh sure, um yeah….yeah that looks like all my stuff.” I said interrupting his increasingly scattered speech.

“Well looks like or is? Last time you yelled at me when we left your pedalboard at that one spot and had to go back.”

“I didn’t yell I was just saying I asked you to grab it and halfway home when I was trying to reassure myself you said you didn’t.” For whatever reason Dave always becomes sensitive with me and thinks I’m on the attack which is truthfully unfortunate because I love him dearly and wish he wasn’t so defensive and in preparation of an explosion which I saw as imminent on his face. I made an attempt to defuse the situation fast and followed up with something slight like “It’s whatever though it wasn’t a big deal, the venue owner gave me a pack for the trouble anyway so it kind of worked out anyway. Yeah that’s all my stuff we’re good.” Watching as the defensive fire slowly went out, he nodded and walked back into the venue to do whatever it is Dave does with the venue owners after we finish shows. I tend to stay out of that kind of bureaucratic crap, I know it must be done and I’m fortunate enough to have a partner like Dave who is a natural at it. In fact, he claims he hates to do it, yet I watch the high he gets when venue owners say, “So you’re the singer?” he loves the attention of appearing to be a front man as if it even mattered in the end. I think it’s good we work this way; he gets to express his talents for people and interaction and I’m able to just be myself and not have to strain to impress anyone too hard or put on a businesslike face. Micky on the other hand he’s just kind of here for the ride. Micky Rougepin is one of the most interesting people I have ever had the pleasure and wicked wonder to know. The world truthfully revolves around him, everything he lives and breathes is just for the thrill of it. If there’s nothing interesting about what the scenario is he WILL let you know and he WILL leave. A threat not to be taken lightly as Micky, much to his own chagrin, is typically the blood through the veins of any good party. I’ll tell you more of Dave and Micky as I continue along in this thorough explanation. However, on this night I didn’t see too much of Micky as before and after our show he was out with the drug crew doing whatever was on the menu that evening. Judging by Micky’s half-assed conversation on the way home, I would have to guess Ketamine was the special for this evening’s main course. I again began to think back on the owner and his little laughing comment at us, Dave is the kind of guy where if I brought it up he’d say I took his intention wrong and the guy genuinely liked us. Yet at the same time in moments of melodramatic despair Dave would be the first to bring to my already sensitive attention that “Every one of the venues thinks we’re a joke” hurting me eternally and passing though his mind never to be seen again as soon as I talk him down. I just couldn’t get it off my mind that particular night, thinking of how we’re perceived and how often times our music isn’t even heard through the massive haze of conception and visualized ideals. “I must write harder and louder” I whispered under my breath still standing in the freezing cold and as I unintentionally muttered those words and watched the breath turn to chilled smoke I snapped back to realize “What the hell am I doing?” And wandered back inside.

Hopping into the van we all settled ourselves in cozy-like for a good long drive through the midwestern winter night. I prefer to drive in nights like these where I’m full of fancy ideas and speculation of my own oh so important life. Kelly Carlile sat in the shotgun seat but was already fast asleep by the time her seatbelt clicked into place. She’s a good friend of ours and while I often wonder if she actually pays attention to the music we play, she tends to show up and bring friends and we do love her company dearly. In the back seat was Micky and Dave while way back sitting on a thrown of uncomfortable equipment and illegal sitting position was Bradley Vanhess. Bradley was always okay sitting in awkward positions like that, since the kid was always somewhere uncomfortable and mostly undesired. He was used to being high and surfing on every couch across the Midwest that he could quite literally sleep under a rock. I concluded that Ketamine was the drug of choice for the night as Bradley kept rambling on to pretty much no one about basically nothing in the back seat. Bradley was highly loved despite his continued effort to get everybody he ever encountered high on something other than just simply weed or booze. He never did this in a malicious way, he just assumed everyone loved drugs as much as him and he never wanted to do them alone. The reason we did love him so was because he did these things out of complete love and from the bottom of his hugely beating heart. Plus, it didn’t hurt that the kid often made us laugh halfway to hell every time he told a story. For about 45 minutes into the 3-hour drive, Micky and Bradley had intense high conversation about, well nothing, and Dave scrolled on his phone aimlessly occasionally answering the dings of cute girls inquiring his attention for about 20 minutes until he inevitably passed out as he always does on any drive more than 20 minutes. As mentioned, Kelly was already fast asleep and only solemnly would rearrange her position or make sleeping girl sounds. I was relieved when that first 45 minutes ended and high dizzy heads of my dearest friends finally succumb to the weight of their main course from this evening and drifted off into a cornucopia of interesting dreams and nightmares I couldn’t even begin to fathom. I took one look back to make sure they were asleep and changed the music from what was acceptable to the others to what I really wanted to hear. I live for these drives and the times where I’m the only conscious soul on the highway yet still in possession of the precious cargo of my favorite souls in the entire universe. It’s always these moments I turn on my favorite album for the mood American Blues by “The Star Killers”. When the first track “Dallas” kicks in my heart fills with memories of the right now and sense of urgent love and care. I live to carry these wayward souls to our next destination and live to be alone in the driver’s seat. From the center console I reach in and grab my joint I’ve been saving for exactly this moment and open the window just a crack to let in the cold air, I worry it might wake up my lovely passengers just do it as a necessary precaution against the bad guy hunters or cops. After a few drags, I feel the quite mellow of a lone high come and finish the joint with haste. I feel the empty cornfields surround me and watch as I flash by with only a moments interest. I’m just like the prairie coyote packs travelling and screeching howls into the night. However, unlike the mighty pack of coyotes, my pack is consolidated to one small van with piercing headlights that see deep into the black night and are much less equipped to surviving on their own due to their intoxicated state. The corn pays not much attention to either them or me. It just stands their breathing in the frigid nighttime air. In fact, they may even be dead. Even though I’ve been around corn my entire life, I’m not much a farmer myself and know pretty much nothing about what I’m looking at from that standpoint, but I appreciate its ultimate peace despite those flashes of ignorance. My eyes intake it all from a new perspective now as the long album rolls on and I feel at peace just like the fields surrounding. The show felt good and it’s even better to have people there who care to hear you, I’m still never entirely sure if they ultimately do but they at least like the reason to come out into the nightlife and spend an evening bobbing heads and talking between, and often during songs. I ponder this and hundred other passing things as I run along into February. .

It didn’t take long for my newly hazed mental to round my its back to the past and every single person I’ve ever came across and shared a good or bad moment with. I stop on one particular interaction that always seems to be at the forefront of these types of mental movies.

I was drunk at some college party, very far from my normal scene, I also gave off this impression as I hung by the speaker listening to the party music I would have never thrown on myself, yet still trying to understand it’s ultimate message and intent. Nursing a drink not out of anxiety like I’m known to do, but more due to the fact that I was already a slippery type of watch yourself drunk. Becoming board and awkward I tapped on some jean jacket shoulder and looked the chiseled face in their blue eyes and asked “Smokes? Where do I uh, outside or?” and despite my fumbling this social maven knew exactly what I was trying to toss across and interjected “Oh yeah, porch my guy. Actually, can I bum one? It’s alright if not I got like one or two left, but you know how it goes. They’re so damn expensive now.”

“Oh, uh, yeah man that’s totally cool I got ya.” And he led me onto the porch. Despite the fact that this college party was way bigger than any city school party I had been to me and this man were the only two people on the porch. Quickly he introduced himself before the door was even closed “Mark Casey, nice to mee you man. Thanks for the smoke I appreciate it. It isn’t menthol is it?”

“Nah hell no not menthol” I whispered with a quite chuckle and he sighed with relief saying “Oh good I don’t know if I could even do that right now I’m so hammered. Menthol just fucks with my head ya know?”

“Yeah…I do”

“Anyway I’m Mark Casey what’s your name? What do you do man I like your vibe right now you gotta an interesting style where’d you get that coat? Its super sick, that isn’t real fur is it?”

“Uh no I can’t imagine it is…I mean I hope it’s not. I got it at some thrift store in Wicker park.”

“Oh shit I think I know exactly what you’re talking about it was RedRags wasn’t it?”

“Well im not really sure actually.”

“Oh you know it could also be Cattle Company they also get good shit was that it?”

“I really don’t know man, I just saw it while I was hanging with a bud who lived around Wicker.”

“So? Your name? Your life? Who are ya man?”

“Oh shit yeah sorry my bad my name is Chevy Cagney. I play in a band called Pretty Her” As I heard myself say it I winced a little bit at the way it’s always so pronounced when I say it. I get too eager to assure I do my job that I don’t allow the name to sound cool enough or whatever normal people in bands do when they declare the name of their pirate crew. “You know what man? That’s a pretty sick name what is it? Like metal or punk or whatever?” Mark’s honest excitement always remained in my head and made me feel genuine like I wasn’t just some imposter posing as a band dude or whatever I’m supposed to be when in this position. “Well hmm I don’t really know it’s hard to describe we’re something like punk maybe? Well actually I don’t know we have a lot of folk in our sound and some rock too? I don’t really know it’s kind of got pop in it? But not like POP pop, I…I don’t really know something like that.” Mark hardly knew me, actually he didn’t at all, yet he hung on every word like the fate of his own life depended on me and my band working out. “Listen up buddy, can I give you some honest advice?”

“uh yeah, I mean sure.”

“You gotta find what it is and do it. You gotta do one sound my man! You can’t really play all the fields. You need to find an archetype and fill it. People want something they can easily grasp onto and understand. You don’t want the audience sitting there working to get you. You gotta follow a lane and a path so they can find your nuance in it later. That make sense?”

“yeah…I mean I guess. It sort of does actually.”

“When you make it just remember I told you that.” He gleefully said while patting me on the back like some old friend. I’m not sure why he made so much sense to me that night but I never forgot it. Sometimes I think its because Mark really embodied the casual man of my generation. He had solid features, a little scruff, but not too much where he looked unprofessional just enough to prove he was not a child but no full blown adult yet either. His hair had an indescribable wave of normal to it and I found that to be comforting as I am to understand women gravitated to him for that reason as well. His outfit seemed like it was chosen right out of causal magazine and he just looked like someone you could talk to and trust. Mark looked like someone you wanted to impress even if you never got why and even felt stupid for feeling such a way. His look was just one scowl away from being a bully and rigid stance away from being a square. He rode the median well.

I remember on that drive home from the show that night I felt I finally cracked the code and more or less blew my own mind upon discovering he had nailed his archetype. That’s what he was trying to get across to me. The reason he surfed the webs of different friends with such ease was the fact that he filled out exactly what you wanted to be, yet when he spoke you uncovered the nuance to who he was without feeling forced to get it or search for it. His personality and conversation were effortless.

In that realization I felt a sudden and ferocious stoned panic set in and involuntarily yelled out in my soft voice “SHIT I forgot it!” Right on cue Dave woke up and said “WHAT!?” in a matched panic as if he was gonna get in trouble for my forgetful mind, again furthering my never understood role in his life as some authority villian blaming him for everything. Also from my outburst Kelly who was nearest to me woke up with a freight twice the volume of my own. The two sets of sleepy eyes looked at the ships captain in fear of what cargo was left ashore until I broke the tension and announced “My cigarettes I left them on the side of the damn stage.”