We Yabba Dabba Doo All the Way to Shangri-La: A Thing About Self-Inflicted Burdens, and Also a Band Called Clutch

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

I decided to take a break from writing wedding vows to try to unpack some boxes from the corners of my brain. Speaking of boxes: for as long as I can remember, I’ve had boxes of stuff. All kinds of stuff, most of it garbage. Regular readers of my nonsense/knowers of me personally are no doubt already aware of this, but I’ve always been a nostalgia junkie/pack rat/sentimental fool, and throwing things away just does not come easily to me. The number of boxes has fluctuated over time, but I’ve always had at least a few, and I’ve often had a lot. They’ve gone with me every time I’ve moved, out of one closet and into the next, sometimes under the bed, sometimes in the basement, one time in a pyramid in the middle of my bedroom that I had to walk around to get from one side of the room to the other (that was a very sad year for me).

Nineteen years ago, while packing up to move back home from Texas, I chose five boxes at random, taped all of them shut without opening any of them, and threw them into the dumpster at the apartment complex where I’d been living with my soon-to-be ex-wife. This was the absolute peak/nadir of my box-having life. I left at least eight more boxes (probably closer to twelve) in the walk-in closet, also without opening any of them. My reasons for doing so were threefold:

  1. I simply didn’t have room to bring everything back with me. Some of the boxes would have to stay behind, full stop.
  2. If I’d started looking through all the boxes to decide which ones were most important before loading up the truck, I’d still be there today, living with a new family and internally debating whether I should continue to hold on to my fourth grade report card, or my birthday cards from 1993, or my official Mason Shoe salesman certification that I signed up for as a joke in when I was 12 years old.1
  3. A teeny tiny part of me wanted to be a petty bitch and make my ex have to deal with some of my collected detritus and ephemera.2

I know I left some good stuff behind, and every now and then I’ll remember something specific, and I’ll get a lil sad, but by and large, it was all garbage, and should’ve been disposed of much sooner. I currently have the smallest number of boxes that I’ve had since I first left home in 1996, and it’s a nice feeling. There’s still plenty of stuff in those boxes that I do not need to hold onto (I’m looking at you, SAT results from 1994 and cheap acrylic paints from 2007), but some of the stuff is quite essential. For example, I have a shoe box full of letters my dad wrote to my mom when he was deployed in Vietnam in 1965-66. She kept every letter he sent to her, and I have all of them, and that’s pretty awesome.

Speaking of non sequiturs, I’m gonna see Clutch live this weekend, and I’m incredibly stoked for that. It’ll be my 13th time, and my first in nearly two years, which is pretty long time for me to go without seeing Clutch live these days. They’re touring on the 30th anniversary of their massive self-titled second album, and that just happens to be one of my favorite Clutch albums. They were originally talking about playing the album in its entirety, which would’ve been extremely cool, but they apparently decided to not do that, and have instead been favoring songs from the album on their setlists, which is still fine by me.

I have plans for the future, guess they’re futuristic plans.

They’ve opened with “Animal Farm” a couple of times on this tour, and I can’t begin to imagine how I’ll survive an entire show if they pull that insanity with us.

Well I’ve been appointed to inform you your days are numbered.

One of the cool things about seeing Clutch live is that you legitimately never know what they’re gonna play next. The four members take turns writing the setlists, so every stop on a given tour gets a unique set. They have some standards they almost always play, and large stable of songs that they often pick from, but they’ll drop a legitimate deep cut into the set surprisingly often.

I didn’t get to see em play “Rats” until my twelfth time, and it’s not even really that deepa cut.

In the doorway is a cutaway of flesh and bone.

They’re playing some casinos on this tour, which I’m pretty sure is a first for them, and the casino nearest us, which happens to be one of their stops, also happens to be the casino we visit most often, which happens to be pretty fuckin rad.3 We don’t go there terribly often, but we go often enough to get free or discounted rooms, free slot play, and free food when we do go. I know it’s not really “free” if we’re spending money every time, but we’re basically breaking even, and we’re having fun without hurting anyone, so as far as I’m concerned, everyone’s a winner.

I gotta wrap this up. As far as I can discern, enchiladas haven’t figured out how to make themselves yet, which is too bad. There’s some AI I could get behind. Thanks for reading. Sorry if you were expecting a nice tidy conclusion. That’s not really my thing. Before you go, dig this screenshot from the Wikipedia entry for “Yabba Dabba Doo”. It made me snort-laugh.

Ah yes, Froyd Flintstone, husband to Walmon, father to Pubblers.

If you enjoyed this, it’d be cool if you told a friend and/or subscribed (for free!) to receive more content like it, and occasionally some content that I actually put a modicum of thought into. Okay, that’s all.

  1. Undoubtedly, I would eventually decided “yes” to all three, and when I finally made it back to Bloomington, I would have to use those boxes to build a shelter, because there’s no way I could afford to live in this city if I wasn’t already established here. ↩︎
  2. A few months after I moved back, I saw a post on her Myspace wall asking if anyone was interested in a loose box of football cards from the 1970s, so I was at least mildly successful. That’ll teach her to cheat on me. ↩︎
  3. That sentence could’ve been much clearer, but here we are. ↩︎

Oops! I Did It Again: Adventures in People-Pleasing

/ Rev. Joel / 1 Comment

I had a complicated, confusing relationship with religion growing up. That doesn’t make me special, but it’s a fact about me nonetheless. That’ll be discussed here someday, or maybe it won’t. What’s pertinent for now is that I started to consider myself agnostic in my early twenties, and since my mid-thirties, I’ve generally considered myself atheist, if only because I don’t believe in capital-g-God. I’ve experienced enough to know there’s more to the world than what we can perceive under normal circumstances, so I’m not averse to the idea that there’s something bigger than us, but to me, the fact that human suffering is a thing means that the capital-g-God of the Torah, Bible, and/or Quran cannot exist, or if they do exist, they’re the biggest prick to ever do so, and if that’s what’s real, then I have no interest in pursuing it beyond this realm.1

To that end, I became an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church in the summer of 2000, when I was 23 years old, as a larf. Cut to Spring 2007: my brother calls me up and asks me if I can “still do weddings”. I ask him what the hell he’s talkin about, and he says “I thought you were ordained, I’m gettin married and I wanted to see if you’d do the wedding”, and I say “oh shit, I guess I can still do weddings”, and I agree to do his wedding, and thus begins my brief foray into wedding-doing.

I went on to preside over a total of seven weddings, to the best of my recollection, the last one in (I think) 2015. My stats are kinda interesting/depressing. Five out of seven of those couples no longer exist today. Two out of seven were second marriages, and in both cases, I also presided over the first wedding. One of those two couples is also one of the two still-married couples.

I never turned anyone down flat when asked to officiate, because I’m a people pleaser, although I did politely decline when asked to perform a possible eighth in 2017, because I was given the opportunity to politely decline with no hard feelings. I’m thankful that Jamie gets me. See, the thing about me is that I r e a l l y hate talking in front of people. I know most people don’t like it, as such, but I truly, honestly, and sincerely, if given the option, would rather eat live hornets than ever again talk in front of more than five people, and even then I’ve gotta know at least four of those five people pretty fuckin well to even be kind of okay with it.

What I’m saying is: every single wedding ceremony I officiated was a waking nightmare for me. I was told by at least one guest at each wedding that they liked how “quick” my ceremony was. I was told by a lot of people at all of those weddings that they couldn’t really hear me. Every single time, I’m up there sweatin like Ted Striker tryna land Flight 209 at Gates 8-25…

I just want to tell you both good luck. We’re all counting on you.

…and I’m standin there tryin not to puke like Davie “Lardass” Hogan at the The Great Tri-County Bake Off and Pie Eat…

Like Charlie Hogan’s brother. If he had one.

…and the whole time, I’m trying so goddamn hard to remember to enunciate, and speak up, and slow down, all of which I never do in day-to-day conversation, and every single time, I prayed to an empty sky that no one I cared about would ever again ask me to officiate their wedding, because I wasn’t sure I could go through that again.

Cut to the day before Easter, 2025: Sheila and I are visiting my father-in-law and his fiance. Both were married once before, and both lost their beloved spouses tragically within the past three years. They’d recently become engaged and had already moved into a new house together. The four of us are sitting on the back porch enjoying the spring weather and some cocktails, and the topic of their wedding comes up. Without even thinking, I offered to officiate. Time froze around me. I could see the words floating toward them, and I was powerless to stop them. I was already so fucking nervous.

They thanked me and said they’d keep it in mind. A couple days later, they set a date much nearer than any of us (including either of them) had expected, based solely on the fact that my brother-in-law would be in the states in early July. Sheila went to visit on Mother’s Day while I was working2, and they discussed details and made plans and much to my relief, they’d booked a venue where the proprietor was also an ordained minister and a DJ.

Tom and Jerry cartoons contain pretty much everything you could ever need.

Cut to, three days ago: Sheila gets a text and says “Dad wants to know if you’ll officiate the wedding”.

Me: What?! Why?! No! What?! I thought that was included! That guy’s gonna do it, right? I can’t!

Sheila: I think he just wants to include you, and probably make the ceremony a little more personal.

Me: What if they want me to mention God?! I don’t think I can do that! Oh God, Sheila, I can’t lead a prayer!

Sheila: I think you should just talk to him about it.

So I texted him and told him I’d be happy to do it, but that I wouldn’t feel comfortable performing any kind of religious ceremony or leading any prayers, and he said he wouldn’t dream of asking, and they just want simple ceremony. When I asked if they wanted anything specific, he asked me to “come up with something nice”, and said he had faith in me. When I asked how long they’d like it to be, he responded “not long – short but witty”, and here we are, less than 37 days away from me sweatin like Striker and tryin not to puke like Lardass while I talk in front of a group of people, all because I though it’d be funny to call myself “Rev. Joel” twenty-five years ago. I’m definitely retiring after this one. My shirts and my guts are both depending on it.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed it, why not tell a friend?

  1. The only church I’m interested in is Drug Church. ↩︎
  2. It’s not without its perks, but by and large, working in the hospitality industry is for the fuckin birds. And not the good birds, like goldfinches, but the shit birds, like European starlings. ↩︎

Even the Losers Get Lucky Sometimes

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

You know what I’d really like to sit in right now? My homeboy Jim’s old green-and-beige plaid swivel rocking chair, that’s what. That was a perfect chair. I don’t know where he got it from, but it was in his bedroom when we were kids (after his older brother moved out, and he took over the bigger room), and to this day it was the most comfortable chair I ever sat in. At some point he no longer had room for it, so he lent it to me, and I had it in my possession for approximately 4 years. Four of the most comfortable-sittin years of my life.

I gave it back to Jim before I moved to Texas, and I’ve missed it ever since. That chair would make our recently-cleaned study/vidja game room the bee’s knees. Right now it’s the cat’s pajamas. If it had that chair and a sweet rug to tie the room together? Duck’s sunglasses. I’m sure I could find a similar chair, but it wouldn’t be as comfortable. Nothing could ever be as comfortable as that chair. And look, I know nostalgia is coloring my opinion of the chair, but I also know comfort (and sitting), and I’ve sincerely never had a more comfortable sitting experience than in that chair. That includes our dope purple velour mid-century-style armchair from Joybird, which is probably the second most comfortable chair I’ve ever sat in.

I’ve got some great memories with Jim’s old chair. I watched Twin Peaks for the first time while sittin in that chair. I read On the Road for the first time while sittin in that chair. I fell in love with The Beatles while sittin in that chair. I completed Super Mario World with a 96* for the first (and so far only) time while sittin in that chair. Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol saved my life one night while I sat in that chair.

One time I got real stoned, ordered a pizza, and later fell asleep watchin Grosse Point Blank while sittin in that chair. When I woke up the next morning, I picked the pizza box up off the floor next to me and ate the rest of the pizza in the dark and silence while sittin in that chair. I suppose I wouldn’t call that a “great” memory, as such, but it’s a vivid one, to be sure. That was a weird time in my life. I plan on writing about my wilderness years at some point, but I wouldn’t get too pumped for it just yet, or maybe at all.

I texted Jim and told him I was thinkin about the chair. He responded “didn’t I give that to you?” followed by “WTH happened to that?” I guess the chair didn’t leave the same impression on Jim’s brain (his butt either, apparently). He’s always had a bad memory, though, and I’ve always been a slut for nostalgia, so it’s not terribly surprising that things turned out this way. Anyway, I hope the chair is up in heaven, being sat in by Harry Dean Stanton. He deserves a good sit.

Charles Montgomery Burns mediates on the pleasures of sitting.
You said it, ya weirdo.

Last time, I talked about high school reunions, and earlier today, I started reading through my unfinished high school reminiscence project. A quick correction: in my previous post, I indicated that the working title of said project was “Unfinished High School Reminiscence Project”, and when I found the file today, I was reminded that at some point I changed the working title to High School, or “My Obstacle“. Clockwise Circle Pit regrets the error.

As in: GET THE FUCK DOWN OFF OF MY OBSTACLE!

A lot of it is way outdated, on account of I started writing it during the first summer of Li’l Bush’s second term, and plenty of it is embarrassing, on account of I started writing it 20 fucking years ago. Some of it is less embarrassing, though, and today I’m gonna share one of those less embarrassing parts. This was on my mind when I was writing my high school reunion thing, and when I realized it also mentioned Jim,  from up yonder, I figured I was fated to share it here. It must be your lucky day. I corrected some grammar and gave it a general tidying up, because I’m a better writer now than I was when I was 28 years old. Here it is.

Average Joe(l)

My identity in high school was pretty low key.  I was the nice guy that a decent cross-section of people knew, and I made small talk with a wide variety of people and cliques, but I had a pretty small core of actual friends. The core changed and morphed throughout my high school career, but it always included Jim, as it always has since that fateful day of kindergarten registration, when I stood behind my mom, clutching her leg in horror as Jim peeked around the wall of his parents’ living room, each of us too shy to speak a word to the other. 

As the days, months, and years ticked by, Jim and I both changed, and we had our ups and downs (as true friends do), but we never lost sight of what was the foundation of our friendship – that we could always rely on each other, no matter what. Now, our lives have taken drastically different directions, but I know I can still call Jim, and we can still hold a conversation as if we haven’t been apart.

Perhaps nothing illustrates my social standing circa 1995 better than the final issue of our sub-mediocre school newspaper, The BNL Star. On an otherwise regular spring morning, just as first period was beginning, two intrepid reporters for the Star came into my classroom and spoke to the teacher. The teacher told me I needed to go with them, causing everyone in the room to turn and look at me, an event which haunts me to this day. On the way down the hall, they told me I’d won a senior survey category.

Not “Best Looking” or “Most Popular” or anything like that. What I won was “Most Average Person”, a category I don’t recall even noticing when I filled out my survey, though to be fair, I only voted for “Best Sense of Humor (Girl)” (my friend Liz) and “Best Sense of Humor (Boy)” (me). We arrived at my locker, and I stood sweating in my Jimmy Page & Robert Plant 1995 tour shirt while an ace photographer from the Star took my picture. A week or so later, I turned to the senior survey and located my picture way down in the bottom-right corner of page 7, way past the “Most Talkative” and total bullshit “Best Sense of Humor” categories, down below “Favorite Movie” (Forest (sic) Gump) and “Favorite Car” (Mustang), along with a caption: “‘Mr. Average Nice Guy’ – Joel Hearth”. How nice.

Just to the left of that was the official, less pleasant, designation, “Most Average Person”. The name beneath that illustrious title? My cousin Billy, with whom I share no physical resemblance. Turns out I was so average, they didn’t even know which Hearth I was.

That concludes the old part of this post. Here’s proof of concept.

I had to go back to class after this picture was taken. Everyone looked at me again and I hated it.

For the record, I would never say “rock the house”. Can you even imagine? This concludes the new part of this post. I hope you enjoyed both. Thanks for reading.

 

Close Your Eyes and Then It’s Past (An Exercise in Self-Indulgence)

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

“Life goes by so fast
You only wanna do what you think is right
Close your eyes and then it’s past
Story of my life”

Mike Ness wrote those words, and Social Distortion made that song. There’s a good chance you’ve heard it before. It’s been in lots of movies and TV shows, and it’s their most played song by a very wide margin on both YouTube Music and Spotify.

Their old songs are still great, but man, is Mike Ness ever corny.

I used to listen to them a lot, mostly in my early twenties, which is when I listened to punk rock and hardcore way more than I listened to metal. To be fair, a lot of the metal bands I was into at the time either broke up or went back underground, and back then, it was much harder to keep track of the underground, and I think I’ve been pretty clear over the years with regard to my personal laziness. I got consistent access to the internet in 1995, but it was far less omniscient than it is now, so it wasn’t until I started working in a music store in October 2000, with an employee discount and access to an order catalog, that I began to find out what those old favorites had been up to, much to the detriment of my pocketbook and my credit rating. But I’m not here to talk about that today.

I’m here today
Because I had an idea.
My thoughts don’t always
Work in paragraphs
Why not
Just write
In poetry form
Instead
When the need arises
Or the urge strikes?

I can already see it  coming off pretentious and/or pompous  – an exercise in self-indulgence, if you will – but I reckon that’s not my problem. And besides, publishing a blog is nothing if not an exercise in self-indulgence.

So fucking good, and quite fucking self-indulgent.

Quick side story: one hundred thousand years ago, I was watching Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage with my homeboy Sal, and there’s a part where Neil Peart (RIP) is talking about people accusing Rush of being pretentious. He says something like “to be pretentious means you’re pretending, and we’ve never been pretending”, and I turned to Sal and said “I’ve been using the wrong word this whole time – Neil Peart isn’t pretentious, he’s pompous“. No offense to Mr. Peart. The man was obviously a phenomenal drummer, and he could write a hell of a song. If he hadn’t replaced original drummer John Rutsey, Rush almost certainly wouldn’t have become the Rush we know and love/hate today. But it’s also a fact that his lyrics, his drumming, and his persona were sometimes a bit much.

L-R: Alex Lifeson, Neil Peart, Geddy Lee (not pictured: a shred of pomposity) (Just kidding.)

Anyhow
Why not
Write poetry
Whenever I
I feel like it
And prose
Whenever
I want?

I’ve been thinking about high school a lot lately. I know there’s nothing groundbreaking or special or even particularly notable about that, but it’s my blog, and that’s what I’m gonna talk about. If you don’t care to read it, that’s okay with me. You can watch this, instead.

You’re welcome.

This’ll be my thirtieth year out of high school, and that is causing me to have some feelings, friends! I remember my parents attending their 30th(s) when I was in the throes of high school. They had fun and spoke fondly of the event(s), but based on my count, they each had approximately 30 graduating classmates who all knew each other, and many of them were married to each other (including my parents).

Our fifth anniversary
Was advertised
In a tiny item
On Page 5
Of the local paper
And was later cancelled
Due to lack of interest

When my 10th came along, I was livin in Austin, Texas, some 1,000 miles from my high school. I genuinely wanted to attend, but I couldn’t afford to make the trip. I spent a lot of time writing a lot about high school in the days leading up to the reunion, and on the day of the event, I began working on what I have come to call “Unfinished High School Reminiscence Project”, which contains varying anecdotes of varying quality, and which has informed a significant chunk of my writing since. It’s also the source of “Speaking of Eric”, which my friend Chris turned into a silly comic, which led to further collaboration with Chris, which led, ultimately, to a self-published book containing three of my dumb stories/anecdotes from childhood, all made better and funnier with the help of Chris’s drawings. We still have some copies left, if you’re interested.

Fifteenth anniversary
An exercise in absurdity
Thirty-five dollars
To hang out with friends
I saw all the time
Surrounded by ghosts
And stereotypes
And caricatures

35 bucks
To eat
Picnic food
Off paper plates
And drink
Bud Light
And Miller Light
And chilled red
And Chilled white

Thirty-five
American smackers
To eat shit
And drink shit
And talk shit
With friends
Who I already saw
On a pretty damn
Consistent basis
While surrounded
By people
I hadn’t considered
In 15 years

Many of whom I never spoke to a single time in high school. I spoke to, at most, 20 people with any real regularity in my four years of high school, and probably 25% of those people had been classmates since elementary school. I’ll bet I had an actual conversation with no more than 50 individuals in those four years. Note that the population of my school was somewhere in the vicinity of 1,400 souls, 356 of which were in my graduating class alone.

And yet there I am in 2010, less than two months before my wedding, giving 70 bucks to some fund or another so my fiance and I could gain admission to a golf course country club in the middle of nowhere (the back entrance comes out less than 1/4 mile from my childhood home) and spend the evening with the attending members of my graduating class.

Part of it was morbid curiosity. I wanted to see who got fat (besides me), who went bald (besides me), and who floundered when set adrift in the real world (besides me). That’s not to say that I wasn’t happy at that point in my life; I absolutely was. But the fact is, I spent a significant amount of my early adulthood lost at sea. My time in Texas was very much informed by my choice of vessel during that journey. It’s hard to navigate in a rudderless boat. I’m using an awful lot of seafaring metaphors for a guy who is very uncomfortable with the idea of open water.

Anyway, my fifteenth anniversary was pretty dumb. My friend Chris (from the comic book) DJ’ed in exchange for admission, so the music was good at least. My buddy Jesse walked in the door, put on a name tag, and walked straight to my table, saying “you are the only person I care about talking to tonight”, which was obviously a very nice thing to hear. He was the sole exception that evening to my then-current circle. In fact, I’m pretty sure I only spoke to one person outside that circle the entire night, and that only happened because she walked up and inserted herself into a conversation in-progress with Jesse.

It was basically like an extended lunch period, circa 1995, but with worse food, and shit beer. Plus everyone was a little bit fatter and/or balder. The jocks and cheerleaders sat with each other, and the rest of us sat at random tables in small clusters. Whoever was responsible for “catering” the event bought deli platters and white bread and fried chicken and potato salad and coleslaw and potato chips and cookie trays from Wal-Mart.

At one point, Sheila went to the ladies room, where two of my former classmates approached her and asked, ever so tactfully, “who are you married to?” She responded that while we were not yet wed, she would be marrying me in a little over a month, and they both erupted in squeals and went on and on about what a great guy I was, and how they just loved me, and omigod they were so happy for her, and do you wanna wager a guess how many times either of them even acknowledged my presence that night?

I’m in love with my sadness.

My twentieth and twenty-fifth both fell on Sheila’s birthday weekend. Quite understandably, she had no interest in spending her birthday hanging out with a bunch of strangers. Only morbid curiosity made me sad to miss them.

The 30th though
That’s major
That’s big time
Morbid curiosity
Might get the best of me
But not if it falls
On my ol lady’s
Birthday

I have mountains more to say about high school and memories and time, and how they’re all pretty much nonsense, but for now, this exercise in self-indulgence is coming to an end. Thanks for reading, and keep on keepin on.

Here’s What I Learned Living Under My Rock: A Thing About Working, Writing, and Getting By

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

My friend Ryan gave me a book a couple of years ago called Several Short Sentences About Writing, by a dude named Verlyn Klinkenborg. I may’ve mentioned it on this blog before, but that was maybe on Facebook instead, or maybe it was just in my head. The book discusses the importance of the humble sentence. It aims to get the reader/writer to think about each sentence as almost an entity unto itself. No sentence is any more important than the other, because the sentence really is all there is. Without the sentence, there would be no paragraph. There would be no literature. It’s an interesting book, and it’s helped me become more confident in my writing. I remain a bit embarrassed about making it public, yet I persist in the practice.

Before I go on, I gotta get this outta the way: Verlyn Klinkenborg! Whatta name! I recommend shouting “Klinkenbooooooooorg!” as you shake your fist angrily at a cold, empty, uncaring sky. It’s fun.

Homer Simpson shakes his fists at a cold, empty, uncaring sky above the Box Factory and shouts "Klinkenbooooooooorg!" while Bart Simpson's lucky red hat sits on top of a double-corrugated, eight-fold, fourteen-gauge box.
Like this. Frinkiac, you’ve done it again.

So anyway, I was showering earlier, listening to Drug Church and shaving my head, as I often do after work, and I started thinking about the fact that I practically never sit down and write, even though I love to write, and even though I know that writing makes me feel better. Writing has always made me feel better, so why don’t I do it more often? Like for real?

When tired is the entire sum, that shit just makes you tiresome.

But I was talking about Several Short Sentences About Writing, by Verlyn Klinkenborg. I noticed the book on the shelf while I was getting dressed after my shower, and I was reminded of the humble sentence, and I crammed that memory together with my shower quandary and made a regular ol Frankenstein’s monster of a realization that I should sit down and write a few sentences, and see where it goes.

So far, right here.

I’ve been working in foodservice for almost 32 years now. (For the record, that’s 66.6% of my life so far spent preparing and/or delivering food to people. That’s both metal as fuck and a stone cold bummer.) For almost the entirety of my history as an employed human being, I’ve been keeping a journal in some form or another. I am in possession of dozens of my journals from as far back as late high school/early college. Sometimes I look through them. The reasons vary. One time I’ll be moved by nostalgia, one of my greatest enemies. The next, I’ll be in search of something hilarious I remember writing down, or the date of a concert. Maybe I can’t figure out what to write about, and I need some inspiration. It’s happened before.

Sometimes I’ll find a cool doodle I made, complete with song lyrics. I’m not sure what’s goin on here, other than a self-portrait of sorts, but I like it.

In this case, the song is “Disbelieve” by Drag the River.
Goddamn, whatta band!

A common subject in so very many of those journal entries is the fact that I don’t write often enough, and that I don’t wanna be working in foodservice when I’m 50. It’s recently come to my attention that I’m almost fifty years old. The way I figure it, in today’s economy, and going off the premise that we have at least two years left as a civilization, I’ve got maybe three options for not working in foodservice when I’m fifty goddamn years old. Here they are forthwith, in no particular order:

  1. Become dead.
  2. Become rich (preferably as fuck).
  3. Get into management (likely still foodservice, less standing, more meetings).

Thing is, as much as I dislike the foodservice industry, I’ve disliked every other industry I’ve worked in more. Retail, construction…I guess that’s pretty much it. I did some screen printing work for about a month in my early twenties. I enjoyed it, and my boss was cool, but I quit, on account of I didn’t like having to drive 30 minutes each way to work a second part-time job when my primary part-time job was driving around delivering pizza all night. What I’m saying is that where employment is involved, my current situation could be worse. It has been worse, even in the last couple of years.

So the new life plan I came up with in the shower is to keep workin for The Man and payin the bills until I can figure out how to get rich as fuck, and meanwhile to stop thinkin and talkin about writing, and sit the fuck down and write as much as I can, every chance I get, whether I show it to anyone else or not, just like I used to do all the time. Because I’m a writer, goddamnit, and I always have been. At best, I’ll write something I can feel comfortable sharing. At worst, I’ll feel better afterward.

“Remember, a writer writes, always.” – Larry Donner

That’s all I got for now. Thanks for reading. Tell your friends. And listen to Drag the River. You’re welcome.

Variations on a Theme, Nothing Works: A Thing About a Band Called Drug Church, a Sitcom Called Corner Gas, and Baked Potatoes

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

I’ve mentioned this many times over the past few months, both on this “esteemed” blog and out loud, with my mouth, but I am currently in the throes of a full-bodied, months-long obsession with a band called Drug Church. I’m gonna mention it again right now. As of this moment, I’m also planning to write a little bit about a TV show called Corner Gas, which I’ve also mentioned here and IRL before, but not nearly as much as I’ve mentioned Drug Church. I also wanna maybe talk about the bizarre nature of existence, but I might not be ready for that yet. Anyway, here’s a Drug Church song.

Take advice from a pro: nothing works.

I’m gonna start here: the way I make a living is, I help run a pretty large operation in my field of expertise. It is far from the worst job I’ve ever had. The benefits are practically unmatched in my industry, and the pay, while absolutely not as much as it should be, is decent for this town. Several days a year, I don’t have to work very hard at all, and I get a shitload of PTO. I work with several friends (including two of my best ones), and many of my workplace proximity associates are fun and/or pleasant to be around for 4-10 hours a day, 4-5 days a week. Jobwise, it’s about the best I can hope for at this point in my life.

The Problem is this: several of my workplace proximity associates are significantly less fun and/or more unpleasant to be around for even 4-10 minutes a day, yet I continue to find myself having to be around them for 4-10 hours a day, 4-5 days a week. I’m talking fuckwits of the highest order. Complete baked potatoes when it comes to personality and/or work ethic and/or basic intelligence and/or the ability to carry on a conversation without complaining about some goddamn thing or another.

No offense to baked potatoes. If I am one thing, it’s a man who loves baked potatoes. About once a week we’ll have baked potatoes (aka Big Ol Taters) for dinner, and they’re fuckin delicious. What you do, see, is you get one Big Ol Tater per person (approximately 1 pound each)(to be clear, the potatoes should be approximately 1 pound each, not the people). Scrub em up real nice and either pat em dry or let em air dry for a bit. Approximately one hour before dinner time, preheat your oven to 425°, then rub each potato with some cooking oil, then rub some kosher salt and cracked black pepper on each one. Pop em directly on the middle rack of your very hot oven and bake for 1 hour. I put a small baking pan lined with parchment paper and aluminum foil directly under the potatoes to catch the dripping oil. After an hour, check for doneness by jabbing a toothpick into the fattest part of each potato. If the toothpick goes all the way in with minimal resistance, your delicious baked potato is ready to spruce up. I like to top mine with butter, more cracked black pepper, shredded cheddar cheese, steamed broccoli, more shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, and salsa, but really your imagination is the only limit when it comes to toppings. You could plop some chili on there, or some cheese sauce, or pretty much anything you can think of. It’s a hearty, satisfying, super-easy meal, and it’s cheap as hell to boot.

But I was talking about my shitty co-workers. I know that shitty co-workers aren’t a new thing. If I am one thing, other than a man who loves baked potatoes, it’s a man who has had his fair share of jobs.1 As such, I’ve also had had my fair share of un-fun/unpleasant co-workers, but here’s the thing about my current “un-” situation (situat-un?): this is by far the largest place I’ve ever worked, both in terms of size of the company, and in terms of sheer number of coworkers. I’m no mathematician, and I admittedly have always had difficulty understanding fractions and decimals, but I know enough to know that that’s gonna result in the largest percentage of coworkers being absolute chucklefucks that I’ve ever experienced before, and friends, I’m here to tell you that it is dumb.

The company being as big as it is means, among other things, that getting rid of incompetent and/or inept and/or entitled and/or lazy and/or combative dickheads can be a months-to-years long process which requires an endless stream of “Conversations” and “Coaching Sessions” and written documentation, even when every single person around them can see that those incompetent and/or inept and/or entitled and/or lazy and/or combative dickheads should never have even made it past their probationary employment, let alone still be employed some 5, 10, 15, or more years later, constantly crying victim when their incompetence and/or ineptitude and/or entitlement and/or laziness and/or combativeness is called to task.

Just some all-around contemptible people.

I also work with the largest quantity of Loud Talkers per capita to be found in the entirety of my employment history. And if I am one thing, other than a man who loves baked potatoes and has had his fair share of jobs, it’s a man with sensory issues who has a real hard time with loud talking, especially when it involves more than two people at a time, which it almost always does when I’m at work.

The lazy asshole thing combined with the loud talking thing means that, among other things, I lose a little bit more of my already fragile mind every single day I work. I don’t like losing my mind. It’s the second healthiest thing about me, after my beard.

Here’s what I’m getting at: Drug Church helps me deal with all that shit. I listen to them on the way to work, and I listen to them in my mind while I’m at work, and I listen to them on the way home from work, and most days I listen to them at home after work, too, except when I’m watching Corner Gas, but sometimes during commercials, and so very many of their songs speak to the way I feel  90% of the time.

They are one of five things keeping me sane right now, the other four being my amazing wife, my amazing friends, Corner Gas, and Ginger, the groundhog who hangs out in our backyard and eats clover. Here’s another one of their songs.

I hear your story, those bitter thoughts invading.

Corner Gas is a Canadian sitcom that originally aired from 2004-2009 on CTV. It takes place in the fictional town of Dog River, Saskatchewan, where Brent (played by comedian Brent Butt2, who also created the series) is the proprietor of Corner Gas, which sits at the intersection of two roads in the middle of the prairie. Lacey runs The Ruby, a cafe/diner that shares a wall with Corner Gas. Hilarity ensues. All the people in town are either kinda dumb in an endearing way, or too smart for their own good (also in an endearing way). It’s very cleverly written, the cast is great, and the show is just hilarious. You can watch the whole series for free with ads on YouTube. You might be able to stream the whole thing without commercials somewhere as well, but not on any of my services.

Oscar is a strong contender for my favorite character. He reminds me of my dear, departed dad, if my dear, departed dad had been an idiot.

I got tickets yesterday to see Drug Church live in May. It’s a headlining show, and I’m not sure I could possibly be more excited. Well, if they were playing here so I wouldn’t have to drive to Indianapolis, I would be more excited, but I’m still so fucking pumped. It’s a newer venue called Turntable in the Broad Ripple neighborhood, located in the space where Cracker’s Comedy Club used to be. My friend Lori saw a show there a while back and said it was a cool space, and I trust her judgement.

This is gonna be one for the history books.

Here’s another one of their songs.

One man per crucifix, form a line, your turn is coming, just give it time.

I gotta wrap this up for now. Don’t worry, I still have plenty more to write about Drug Church. Probably about Corner Gas, too. Heck, I have almost three full seasons to go still, plus there’s a feature-length follow-up film (Corner Gas: The Movie) and an animated series (Corner Gas Animated)! I still wanna talk about the bizarre nature of existence at some point too, but I guess I’m not quite ready for that, other than to say that the nature of existence is completely fucking bizarre.

Here’s one final Drug Church song for this outing. It’s the first one I ever heard, and it’s still one of my very favorites. There’s a 92% chance that the opening guitar lick is in my head at any given moment.

Ever been to a county fair
Where all the games are scams
Now apply what you know
To all the things you don’t
Politics and business
Most love many friendships
Throw until your tendons tear
But those bottles stay weighted

Goodwill then hard stops
Slow learner gets taught
My teachers tried, my teachers lost
(There were principals involved)

Mishandled, and robbed
They rubbed my feelings raw
But now I’ve put my glasses on

Brings it all into focus
Slow to hear, late to notice
But now I’m on a constant watch
Cynical not bitterness
Love my girl and friendships
I forgive all of life’s hassles
Flat tires to thieving bosses
Overdrafts to cheating exes

But don’t make me remember
If I don’t have to

Goodwill then hard stops
Slow learner gets taught
My teachers tried, my teachers lost
(There were principles involved)

Mishandled, and robbed
They rubbed my feelings raw
But now I’ve put my glasses on

Apologies
Are a wedding night fling
Sometimes it’s best to exit quietly

Apologies
Doesn’t quite wash it clean
Sorry is a sad and sorry thing

Thanks for reading. It means a lot.

  1. A quick count indicates I’m currently on my 21st job, with a strong possibility that I’m forgetting at least one. In addition to Drug Church and Corner Gas, I’ve also talked a lot hither and thither about my absolute disdain for the entire concept “working for a living”, especially when the purpose of that work is to make more money for someone who already has more money than me. That’s a topic for another post(s), though. ↩︎
  2. If that’s not a name destined for a life in comedy, then I don’t even know what’s real. ↩︎

Something Often Lost, Life is Process Not Product: A Thing About Life, and a Thing About a Band Called Drug Church

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

Coffee poured, water refreshed, bladder emptied, I was seconds away from putting on my Drug Church playlist and opening up my laptop to see what came out of me. Business as usual many a solo day off. And then I noticed the birds. And I don’t mean in a “look at those fat ol’ mourning doves!” kind of way, I notice birds all the time, I fucking love birds. To use the parlance of our times, I fw birds hard.

Frfr.

When I say I noticed the birds, what I mean is I noticed the birds, like in a profound way. I was absolutely enraptured by the tweets and twits and coos and chirps. I even started picking out specific conversations between some birds. I can’t understand exactly what they’re saying, of course, but I assure you, they’re all very horny right now.

What I’m saying is that for the first time in a while, I am fully listening to the sounds coming from outside my windows. Also, I can’t remember the last time I wrote without music.

The thing is that most days when I open the house up, I’ve already got music playing, so I don’t notice the sounds from outside as much. And up until recently, I haven’t much felt like getting outside. I like what cold weather does for my allergies, but I don’t care so much for the seasonal depression. I might choose both over summer, though. If I am one thing, I am a sweaty man. I come from a long line of sweaters, and I’ve come to accept it, but I refuse to like it. Going outside during the dog days is a waking nightmare for me.

I digress. For now, I’m sitting and writing, as I often do on my solo day off, and as usual, I’m not sure where this is gonna end up. The possibility of me not finishing it will persist until I’ve finished it. Who knows whether I’ll share it.

As I said, my writing routine was broken because I noticed nature for the first time in a while, which in turn was brought about by me not playing music, which is a rarity for me. I wasn’t playing music because I’d just finished an episode of Corner Gas, which is a very funny Canadian sitcom that you can watch for free with extremely loud commercials on YouTube.

Seriously, I remain anxious throughout every episode, because the commercials are jarringly loud. The show is totally worth it though.

That’s like 7,000 metric.

Anyway, I was opening the windows, and was starting to consider what I might write about. I figured I’d probably watch another episode of Corner Gas before I got down to the actual writing, but then I got a text from a friend, asking if I had time to talk, which meant talking on the phone, which is even more of a rarity for me than not playing music in the house, but…

When a friend asks for help, you help em.

We talked about grief and depression and anger and fear and anxiety, and we laughed, and we cried, I needed it just as much as she did. When we finished talking was just before I started my writing ritual, which you may recall from the beginning of this thing is when I noticed the sexy avian drama going on outside my house, which led to my decision to sit down and write without music for the first time in over 20 years. Because the sounds of nature are the music, man!

Sounds like somebody’s livin for his car!

I don’t know what I’m hoping to accomplish here, but I do know I’ve also heard two light rain showers start and stop since I started writing, and that’s been pretty cool. The light of the overcast day is perfect in my house right now, and even the gigantic roll-off dumpster parked across the cul-de-sac in front of the Trash Neighbors’ yard can’t ruin my day. At least it’s blocking the view of their shitty wooden fence. God I hope this means they’re moving out. I’m meandering all over the place here. Focus!

After the phone call, I sat down with the intention of writing a thing about grief and depression and anger and fear and anxiety (which would hopefully make you laugh, and maybe even cry), and then I was gonna use some kind of as-yet discovered writerly skill to deftly weave that together with a thing I’ve had brewing for awhile about a band called Drug Church, but I’ve clearly let the whole thing get away from me, and I haven’t even started talking about Drug Church yet. I’ve gone off the rails on my crazy train of thought, if you will, and as a result, I plumb forgot every single remotely humorous thing I’ve ever had to say about grief, depression, anger, fear, and anxiety. Whatever it was, I like to think it was profound. I’m certain it would’ve been long-winded as hell.

I guess I’ll talk about Drug Church, then. I’ve mentioned them on this blog before, and I’m not gonna get into the band’s backstory today, because this chair is starting to become uncomfortable, and I’ve already spent a pretty stupid amount of time not saying anything, but here are some facts about Drug Church:

  • They’ve been a band for approximately 15 years now, and they’ve released 5 full-length albums, three EPs, a demo, some singles, and a really fun cover of “Someday I Suppose” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones.
  • They have a shitload of live performances available on YouTube, and they range from amazing to incredible.
  • Their live set from Louder Than Life 2024 was an all-timer for me. I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of bands live over the past 30-odd years, and I’ve forgotten way more bands than I remember, but that Drug Church set was one of the very best.

There is plenty of precedent for me becoming completely enamored with a band, album, and/or song to the point of annoyance. A less polite person might call it an obsession. I certainly would. Drug Church has grabbed me and held on like few others before them. The sounds they make are so unique, the lyrics are really excellent, and I simply cannot get enough of it. Every member of the band is doing what they do perfectly.

With most of my prior obsessions, I managed to start balancing my listening out with other bands, albums, and songs after a month or so, but I’ve been listening to Drug Church almost exclusively for like nine or ten months now. I try to listen to other things, and I have succeeded for up to two days in a couple of instances, but those other bands, albums, and songs are just visitors. Drug Church is currently the sole occupant of my musical bandwidth. To quote the t-shirt I wish someone would make for me…

Looks like a Gildan.

I’ve said it before (even somewhere on this blog once, I think), but they’re the very best nineties hardcore/post-hardcore band that never existed in the nineties, and if I am one thing (other than a sweaty man), I am a man who loves nineties hardcore and post-hardcore bands. “Unlicensed Guidance Counselor”, from their superlative 2018 album Cheer, is an excellent example of why Drug Church, to paraphrase a t-shirt that currently exists, is already number one, and why you shouldn’t bother to try harder:

A petty grievance pushed you to violence
Tough break and now you’re facing some charges

If you live long enough
you’ll do something wrong enough
that you feel shame enough
to say enough’s enough

Push your sister’s boyfriend down the stairs
Steal forty dollars from the till
There’s a learning process here

Something often lost: life is process not product
Gotta break some bones to have them set proper
Small money fight so you set a fire
Space was occupied so man dies there

If you live long enough
you’ll do something wrong enough
that you feel shame enough
to say enough’s enough

Push yourself down the stairs
Steal tens of thousands from your band
God he’s indifferent and nobody cares

Here’s your life advice

The shirt makes an excellent point.

Here’s a live performance of the song, so you can get an idea how entertaining their live shows are. Don’t worry, I queued the video up so you don’t have to. You really should just watch the whole thing, though, and you undoubtedly should catch them live in person if you get the chance.

Everybody looks fuckin stupid doin a stupid thing.

I gotta wrap this up. Sheila just pulled in the garage, which made me realize I forgot to take a shower. I’ll write more about Drug Church again soon. I might even share it here. Thanks for reading.

Wayback Wednesday: An Old Thing I Wrote About TV Theme Songs

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

Note: I wrote this on June 17, 2013, and originally posted it on an old music-related blog that I kept with my homeboy Travis (from back in the day). Neither of us posted anything else on that blog after this, for whatever reason. Probably because we knew there was no way we could top this brilliant piece of music commentary (ha!).

On January 11, 2014, I started my heavy music-themed blog Stay Heavy, and on August 8, 2016, in a severe fit of misguided ambition, I decided to start another blog called TV Party Tonight, wherein I was gonna write exclusively about TV theme songs. I edited this thing and posted it there, and then never even started to write anything else for that blog. Probably because I knew there was no way I could top this brilliant piece of music commentary (ha!).

Last night I remembered that it exists, and I decided to plop it up here as well. It has been, once again, slightly edited for coherence, grammar, and style. Without further ado…

It is my belief that television theme songs are a vastly under-appreciated genre of music.  The very best TV theme songs set the tone for the program you’re about to watch, and often they set up the basic premise of the show. Several of my all-time favorite songs are actually TV theme songs, and I thought I’d take a moment to lay out my All-Time Top Ten Television Theme Songs (Sitcom Edition), for your perusal.  Now, without further ado:

10. “As Long As We Got Each Other” (Growing Pains – 1985-1992) – This is a fine example of a theme song being superior to its show.  If I never saw Growing Pains again, I’d be fine with that, but I sincerely love the sappy sentimentality of this theme, sung by pop singers B.J. “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” Thomas and Jennifer “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” Warnes.

The best is ready to begin.

9. “Without Us” (Family Ties – 1982-1989) – I kind of enjoyed Family Ties when I was a kid, mostly because I thought Nick was funny, and because I thought Mallory was foxy, but it was a little bit over my head with the political and social themes.  My sisters watched it pretty often (I suspect they were at least a little bit interested in watching that dreamboat Michael J. Fox). The theme song , sung by Johnny  Mathis and Deniece “Let’s Hear It For the Boy” Williams, has resonated with me since the first time I heard it, and it has a sappiness similar to the Growing Pains theme, but it also feels more sincere than the Growing Pains theme.

Sha-la-la-laaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

8. “Night Court” (Night Court – 1984-1992) This instantly recognizable instrumental is pretty much always on repeat somewhere in my brain. I still find the show to be immensely enjoyable too, though it is a bit dated (existing from 1984 to 1992 will do that to you, I suppose). I love that the first 8 seconds kinda make you think you might be about to watch a gritty cop drama, then the title screen appears, and the song takes off, and by the end, you’re ready for some laughs, by golly.

Man, whatta show!

7. “Yo! Home to Bel-Air” (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – 1990-1996) – This show is something of an anomaly in my life, because it was one of only two TV shows starring a rapper that my dad and I enjoyed together (the other one was Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, obviously). We didn’t have cable television when I was growing up, so our programming choices were more limited than many families’ at the time, but I really think my dad would’ve watched this show even if we’d had cable, just because he thought it was funny. He didn’t laugh often, but when he did, it was genuine. This lesser-known, longer version of the theme song was used in the first three episodes, and is a good bit more awesome. The song was co-written by Will Smith and Quincy Jones. Spoiler alert: this is not Mr. Jones’ only appearance on this list.

On the playground is where I spent most of my days.

6. “WKRP in Cincinnati” (WKRP in Cincinatti – 1978-1982) – I think this show is funny, but as it went off the air when I was five years old, I’ve only ever really seen it in syndication.  My cousin Jason, who is two years older than me, had a major thing for Loni Anderson when we were kids, so I watched it with him occasionally, and it’s one of the first TV theme songs that I can remember loving.  It’s very much a product of its time.

Just maybe think of me once in a while.

4. “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now” (Perfect Strangers – 1986-1993) – This is another show that my cousin liked more than I did, and another example of a theme song being better than its source program.  I certainly enjoy Perfect Strangers much more than I enjoy Growing Pains, but I still can’t watch more than a couple of episodes without getting bored.  The theme song, however, is uplifting and inspiring, and it’s a lot of fun to sing along with.

It’s my life and my dream.

4. “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” (Cheers – 1981-1993) – There’s very little I can say about this song or the show.  Both are absolutely classic, and if you disagree, well I hope you enjoy being wrong.  It was co-written (with Judy Hart Angelo) and sung by Gary Portnoy, who also co-wrote the theme from Mr. Belvedere (“According to Our New Arrival”) and the theme from Punky Brewster (“Every Time I Turn Around”), both of which are in my All-Time Top Twenty-Five Television Theme Songs (Sitcom Edition).

Wouldn’t you like to get away?

3. “It Takes Diff’rent Strokes” (Diff’rent Strokes – 1978-1986) – Before Thicke of the Night and Growing Pains, TV’s Alan Thicke co-wrote TV theme songs. I really enjoy singing this one in the shower, and sometimes the missus and I will spontaneously break out in a stirring duet. This show is probably one of my earliest comedic influences; I thought Arnold Jackson was the absolute height of comedy when I was 5 years old.

Everybody’s got a special kind of story.

2. “The Simpsons Main Title Theme” (The Simpsons – 1989 – ∞) – “I gave [Danny] Elfman what I called a ‘flavors’ tape, featuring the kind of sound I wanted for The Simpsons theme. The tape included The Jetsons theme, selections from Nino Rota’s Juliet of the Spirits, a Remington electric shaver jingle by Frank Zappa, some easy-listening music by Esquivel, and a teach-your-parrot-to-talk record. Elfman gave it a listen and said ‘I know exactly what you’re looking for.’ A month later we were recording the now-famous Simpsons theme on the 20th Century Fox lot with a huge orchestra.” – Matt Groening [from the liner notes to The Simpsons: Songs in the Key of Springfield (1997)]

You can really hear the teach-your-parrot-to-talk record in the bones of this song.

1. “The Streetbeater” (Sanford and Son – 1972-1977) – If Quincy Jones had never written another song in his life, he would still be one of the greatest songwriters of all time, because he wrote the theme from Sanford and Son.  This show went off the air just under one month before I was born, but my older brother watched it all time in late-night syndication, and I watched it with him, at first because I thought he was cool, and I wanted to do whatever he was doing, but eventually I realized how fucking hilarious the show is, and it became an all-timer.  I instantly loved the theme song, and I still love both the song and the show just as much as I ever did.  This is, without a doubt, one of my All-Time Top Twenty Favorite Songs (Any Genre), and I could listen to it for days.  My super-awesome wife and I were introduced at our wedding reception to this song.

Almost certainly the most perfect 50 seconds you’ll ever experience.

And here’s the full-length version, because you can literally never hear “The Streetbeater” enough times, even if you lived to be 382 years old.

Certainly among the most perfect 3 minutes and 5 seconds you’ll ever experience.

So that’s it – my personal  All-Time Top Ten Television Theme Songs (Sitcom Edition).  The themes from Barney Miller, Fish (both of which were co-written by Jack Elliot, who also wrote the theme from Night Court), The Jeffersons, Good Times, Three’s Company, and M*A*S*H all fought valiantly for a slot in the Top Ten, but were ultimately bested by the rock-solid lineup you see above. I’d be interested to know your thoughts on my picks, and on TV theme songs in general. Leave a comment, why don’t you?

This brings us to the end of the original piece. Thanks for reading. For the record, I’m still interested in your favorite TV theme songs.

Sometimes I Catch Your Scent in the Breeze, But It’s a Little Bit Salty: A Thing About a Band Called Boxer

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

NOTE: I started writing this on my old heavy-music-themed blog, Stay Heavy, back in 2018. I abandoned it for reasons unknown, and today I was reminded of its existence. I sat down to tackle Volume 5 of my “Old-Ass Mix Tape” series, but I wasn’t feeling it, so I poked around a few folders marked “Drafts” in search of some “inspiration” when I happened upon this. I copied and pasted it here as I left it, and then I added an ending of sorts, and made a few slight revisions (more specifically, I fixed some links and cleaned up some questionable stylistic choices).

Speaking of questionable stylistic choices.

_______________________________

Regular readers of this blog may be familiar with a few of the things that, in the words of the late Laura Palmer, really light my F-I-R-E when it comes to heavy music. Those things, in no particular order, are:

  • Riffs – It doesn’t have to be metal to be heavy, but the heavier it is, the more I love it. Fat-bottomed riffs, you my rockin’ world go ’round.
  • Unconventional vocals – This one isn’t as easy to define, but I know it when I hear it. Sean Killian of legendary Bay Area thrash metal band Vio-Lence is perhaps my most often cited example of a completely unique vocalist with a weirdo style that I just can’t goddamn get enough of.
  • Emotion – I’m a sucker for a band (metal or otherwise) that isn’t afraid to wear its collective heart on its figurative sleeve. If showing emotion is metal enough for Ronnie James Dio (RIP), it’s metal enough for me.
[horrifying shrieking intensifies]

Regular readers may also know that I’m a fan of punk rock and hardcore (especially 1990’s hardcore), and very careful readers may even know that I dipped my toes into the emo waters of the mid-to-late 1990’s. I don’t swing in the direction of the latter quite so much anymore, but sometimes nothing will soothe my restless brain or my jangled nerves quite like The Promise Ring.

All of this jibber-jabber leads me to the focus of today’s post: a melodic hardcore-ish/pop-punk-ish/emo-ish band called Boxer. They released a single full-length album 27 years ago and broke up one year later. Practically no one has ever heard of them, but they left an indelible mark on the heart and mind of this guy right here, and I’m here to talk about them.

Available information regarding the band is scant at best (they don’t even have a Wikipedia page), but here are the facts that I was able to cobble together via some internet research:

  • Boxer formed in Boston in October 1995. The original line-up consisted of David Vicini on vocals, William Kerr on bass, Jeremy McDowell on guitar, and Chris Pennie on drums.
  • McDowell and Pennie met while enrolled at the Berklee College of Music, and both of them dropped out of school in order to commit 100% to Boxer.
  • Boxer were the first band signed to then-new punk label Vagrant Records, and their sole recorded output, 1998’s The Hurt Process, was the first full-length album released by Vagrant. According to an interview with Vicini, the band “wanted to sign to a punk label and not a hardcore label, because hardcore kids don’t seem to listen to punk rock, but punk rock kids’ll listen to hardcore.”
  • Pennie soon began playing drums with The Dillinger Escape Plan, and left Boxer after the release of The Hurt Process. He was replaced by Nathan Shay, who previously played with emo legends The Get-Up Kids.
  • The band also added a second guitarist (I was unable to find a name), went on tour, worked on some new songs, and had plans for a second album, but then everything seemingly went to shit for some reason.

I suppose you’re wondering about the album itself. If you’re familiar with the defunct New Jersey melodic hardcore band Lifetime (and you should be), you’re headed in the right direction, especially with regard to Vicini’s vocals. However, Boxer is very much its own animal.

The band is tight as hell, and they sound like they’ve been playing together for a lifetime (no pun intended).  The riffs are big and metallic, at times cascading over each other like there’s just not enough room for all of them in the song, or even in the world. The bass is  bouncy and urgent and will (seemingly) randomly explode above the bedlam like some sort of crazy-ass 1952 jazz trumpet solo. As for the drumming, I’m out of adjectives, but the drumming is fucking outstanding. Musically, this is very much what would happen if a hardcore band played punk rock songs.

But what about the vocals?

I’m gettin to it, settle down. Vicini’s vocals are borderline insane, and insanely inventive. To quote a blog entry I found on a site called Theme Park Experience “the wavering vocals sounded like frontman Dave Vicini was having a panic-fueled freakout”. That’s a pretty perfect way to describe it (although I would put it in the present tense, since they still sound like that).

Example: the song “By the Way…” finishes with Vicini stretching the word “crazy” out into no less than seven goddamn syllables. I’m not saying no one else has ever done that, but if they have, I’ve never heard it. Plus I don’t think anyone else has ever done that.

The lyrics are what got this band labelled as “emo”, back when they were still a band. Vicini’s heart is shamelessly splattered open on his sleeve for everyone to examine, and like many of the band’s contemporaries, that’s what initially drew me to them. Short tales of love both lost and found, sprinkled with some inspirational lines (personal inspiration, not the religious type) and a bit of wistful nostalgia.

My personal favorite song on the album is also the longest song on the album. “Georgia” manages to kind of fit three separate songs into its almost 4 minute runtime.

And there’s been too many nights I’ve talked and tried, so many nights I’ve sat and cried.

I’m a big fan of penultimate track “Do the Math”, as well.

The cracks in the concrete just remind me that no matter how strong you are, you’ll just fall apart anyway.

Album opener “We Don’t Like Them Girls” is a heartfelt, uptempo breakup song that happens to be the perfect song to kick things off.

I’m laughing on the outside, but I’m dying on the inside.

It leads directly into another favorite of mine, “Blame it On the Weather”. Parts of this one still feel like they were written specifically for me (“Sitting in my ditch of self-loathing, and of course my mind is roaming, thinking things are always worse than they appear to be, just because I’m sick of talking doesn’t mean I’m not happy…”).

But tonight I’m really not, tonight nothing has changed.

Album closer “You and Me” finishes things off on an uplifting and defiant note (“I can’t be living my life for them, I’m living my life for me, and you can never see it coming and we won’t stop for anything”), and contains a chorus that’ll live in your head forever after one listen.

It was always just you and me saying “fuck you” to everybody.

If you like loud, agressive music and melodic, agressive hollering, you can’t go wrong with any of the songs on one of the finest post-hardcore albums of the 1990’s, The Hurt Process by Boxer.
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That concludes the original section. Can you believe I waited seven years to give that thing an ending, and that‘s the best I could come up with?

Anyway, I can still clearly remember when I stopped listening to Boxer, circa autumn 2002. I was delivering pizza, cruising down Moffett Lane, and I was blasting my dubbed cassette that had The Hurt Process on one side and FYULABA by Canadian hardcore punk weirdos SNFU on the other. I was halfway through the song “Child Labor Laws”, and for some reason, I just wasn’t feeling it anymore. It was a weird feeling, and I didn’t like it, but I was in no position to argue. I hit eject, popped in Side A of my AVAIL double-feature (Over the James b/w One Wrench), and started hollerin along with “Scuffle Town”. Before the Big Move to Austin, Texas in May 2003, I sold a bunch of CDs and books and whatnot, and The Hurt Process was one of those CDs.

Fast-forward to 2017. I’m sitting in the old townhouse on Adams, reading something or other, and out of nowhere the line “sometimes I catch your scent in the breeze, but it’s a little bit salty” popped in my head. I knew it was from Boxer, but that’s all I could remember. After finally figuring out the proper way to search (“boxer band hurt process”), I was able to discern that the line came from the song “Shorepoints”, which is every bit as perfectly suited for the Side Two, Track One slot as “We Don’t Like Them Girls” is for the Side One, Track One slot. If only the album had been released on vinyl or cassette.

The wind that hits you now hits me a day later.

I went to the local Half Price Books Outlet a few days later, and there was a copy on CD for the low, low price of 2 American dollars. I snatched it up quick, and I haven’t looked back. I picked up right where I left off in 2002, listening to the album several times in a row, and doing that several times a year. Some of the lyrics come off a bit angsty and childish to my 47-year-old ears, but the sincerity of them makes them feel timeless.

That’s all I’ve got for today. You should listen to The Hurt Process. It just might make you feel young again. Thanks for reading.

Extract My Brain and Just Flush It

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

I think pretty often about the two times in elementary school when I allegedly peed my pants. Here’s more information about those incidents.

I went out for the basketball team in fifth grade, and (spoiler alert) I failed extra fuckin hard. Here are the facts about that night:

  1. We barely even played basketball. The majority of the tryout was drill exercises. I was a pretty decent shooter, but I never cared much for running. I was out of breath and sweatin my nards off within minutes. I’ve always been a sweater. I don’t like it, but I’ve learned to live with it.
  2. My sweatpants were completely wet in the entire area where a whole lot of pee would also fit, if I were to pee myself.
  3. I have no recollection of peeing my pants that night, nor did I ever have any awareness of peeing my pants that night. I am 100% percent sure I didn’t pee my pants that night. Like, how could I not know, y’know? I was very sweaty, and gray sweatpants are, by their very nature, an extremely high-contrast article of clothing, and I believe that combination led my chums to believe that I peed my pants that night. In hindsight, I can see how they might think that. After all, I did poop my pants when I was in kindergarten.
  4. I was sad when Mom and Dad picked me up. My dad played basketball in elementary school and high school, and my brother and both sisters played basketball in elementary school, plus I grew up in southern Indiana. I didn’t make the team that night, and pretty much all the other boys in my class thought I’d peed myself, so you can maybe imagine why I was sad when Mom and Dad picked me up.
  5. Mom (and possibly, but certainly to lesser extent, Dad) felt bad for me, and they took me to Big Lots to pick out Something for Myself, and we maybe went out for supper, too, possibly even to Rax Roast Beef, but all I remember from that night other than a big ol’ pee-shaped wet spot on my crotch is my Big Lots score: a motherfuckin Hillbilly Jim bendy.
  6. In the back seat of the car, on the way home from “town”, I realized I’d chosen a dud of an action figure. I mean, I fuckin loved Hillbilly Jim, but just look at that big ol’ beefer! There’s no way he’s gonna bend worth a shit.
Fuckin Hillbilly Jim, he’s the coolest!

I’ve always been a collector/pack rat, and most of the stuff I own is sentimental and useless and irrelevant, but there are a few things that I’m very glad I still own, and this WW(F)® Wrestling Superstars™ Bendies™ Hillbilly Jim™ “action” figure is one of them. It lifted my spirits on what was probably one of the saddest, most embarrassing days of my life up to that point.

Don’t go messin with a country boy.

That’s the most my Hillbilly Jim ever bent, and coincidentally, it’s about as much as I’ve ever bent as well. I’ll tell you about the time I got stuck in the upstairs hallway trying to stretch out my hamstrings some other time.

The other alleged pee-pants incident came in sixth grade. Here are the things I remember most about that day:

  1. We were in the library watching a movie, and we were seated on both sides of two large tables. The teacher and/or the librarian eventually called on me during the post-film discussion, and I stood to answer. I noticed some snickering coming from the shitheads on the other side of the table as I spoke, and I didn’t much care for it.
  2. When I sat back down, one of the assbutts from across the table whispered “[you] peed your pants” and I looked down, and sure enough, there was a wetness that appeared to have been made by urine in my pants.
  3. I am 100% sure I did not pee my pants that day. How would I not fuckin know, y’know?

I’ve long since assumed someone shot my crotchal area with a squirt gun while we were watching the movie. You have to understand, baggy pants were coming into style (we were less than one year away from MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice), so it’s likely that my pants weren’t actually touching my sensitive areas, meaning I probably wouldn’t have noticed being shot in the junk with a water gun, and besides, my attention was elsewhere. I just know I was into the movie, and I didn’t feel anything hit my pants, but I also didn’t feel myself pee my pants, so I have to lean toward Squirtgate for a suitable explanation. Their diabolical plan to humiliate me failed on account of no one else could see it, on account of the lights being dimmed due to movie-watching. Checkmate, assholes.

The weird thing is that it never became a “thing”. Like, no one ever even tried to make fun of me outside of either incident, and that seems weird to me, given the nature of 11-year-old boys, at least back when I was one. All I know for sure is that I am totally confident that I did not pee my pants on school property between the ages of 10 and 12, and it very much looked like I did on two separate occasions, and I think about both occasions often.

Thanks for reading. I have a new blog thing over on Substack, too. It’d be cool if you checked that out, but it’s also cool if you don’t. I’m still figuring out what that space is for, but for the foreseeable future, I’ll be posting here sometimes, and there sometimes, and sometimes the twain shall meet. This is one of the latter times.

I care an unhealthy amount about the things I can’t at all help,