[225] Screed City

[225]

01/22/2023 Sunday. Kitchen Microwave. Tuna Haus. 67 Av, Ridgewood, Queens? Brooklyn? New York.

The big day is approaching! Thursday. The book launch to end all book launches. Because you know, this is the one, the big pay dirt, the big kahuna, the big splash. The one book to rule them all. I mean, joking aside, it has been almost exactly one year since I sent the thing to Teresa for editing reasons. A lot has changed in those 12 months, including my feelings about the book. I mean, when I wrote it is was supposed to be a modern take on Hunger [Italics] by the Nazi sympathizer Knut Hamsun, but I don't really write like that, and who can really compete with that book? But still, I had some ambitions, but slowly over the year my confidence has eroded and now I am as ashamed as Disher, the main character is, I mean, I don't know if that is a self-fulfilling maneuver, as the bridesmaids say, but still, I mean, I do have a lot of shame, and because of that it is not surprising that I would feel this way, however, I will be happy to get it out into the world, even if it crushes my delicate ego.

But the party is going to be great! Come on down if you are in town! Ticklers, bands, books, merch. If only I made a poster for it? Just kidding, I did:

[Insert Book Launch Poster]

I mean, I made it in the style of the old DISHWASHERS post cards, leaflets? I used to print out when we had a show. I mean, it was a pain in the ass to do that back then, spending hours down in that basement studio on 5th street in the East Village, I mean, I even had a paper cutter, and the tricky part was getting the Paint program to behave, to get the printing settings right, I mean, I had a list of instructions that made sense when I wrote them out, but made no sense when I tried to enact them, so it never got easier and was a huge pain every single time, and not only that, but whenever you handed them out, people would just throw them away, and since it was before social media, getting people to come to your shit was like pulling teeth ATBMS. Not to mention everybody had their own band and their own gigs, so half the time if someone came to your stuff you were legally obligated to go to their stuff, and because everyone was also poor as shit, it was an impossible world. And god forbid you had a show in Brooklyn, you might as well have had it in Jersey, because nobody was coming to it. Funny how things change.

Butwhatever. I have exactly zero nostalgia for those days. I mean, I remember having fun and making interesting art, but mother fucking hell was it hard and confusing and frustrating and relentless and no matter how hard you worked, nothing ever came of anything, and I mean, had I been in the mental place I am in now back then, I probably would have made some different choices, or at the very least, felt better about the things I was doing, but as far as having such crazy ambitions and endless energy to do the shit, only for it to not succeed, I mean, much like the Great Recession, I still feel it today. I mean, I don't even know what I expected to get, but I know I did not get it, and it is the same old thing about anything; If you were not 100% certain the thing you are doing is going to succeed 100% then you wouldn't do it. Art takes arrogance. Blinders. Self-absorption. Ego. Narcissism. And mostly, art takes a dumb and over-sized belief in yourself, something different than arrogance, something that is not just succeeding, it has to be brilliant, transcendent, timeless, and back then, everything I did had those markings, but when I look back on it now, I mean, it's not so much that it was all in my head, which it mostly was, but a very simple and easy way of making progress would have been to simply slow down and take tiny little baby steps toward the future instead of broad, swiping swaths of zero sum, warfare-style blitzes where everything that you were doing was the most important thing in the world and if it didn't work out, you would collapse into the abyss of mediocrity that everyone who had sold out had already fallen into, which, I mean, my point is; You can have an art career, but it is probably best to not think it has to be Basquiat-style or nothing, I mean, the Ramones worked their asses off, the amount of touring they did, the hours and hours and hours of dedication to playing their bone-headed punk rock, I mean, it's a little like athletes, just because it looks easy doesn't mean it is easy, and of course you need a couple breaks along the way, as well as some talent, but just putting your head down and running into the brick wall, I mean, there is only one Kool-Aid Man, and I got news for you, it aint you or me.

I mean, I guess all I am trying to say is that, yes, DISHWASHER [Italics] is coming out, and I am proud of that, I won't say it was a lot of work, I mean, I wrote the thing over a few weeks last Winter, and then Teresa cleaned it up real good and I spent some time designing the cover art work and Michael did the layout for the cover and the Publisher did the interior, I mean, as far as projects are concerned it probably adds up to about a month of work that has finally come to fruition, but still, it's a piece of art that is going to be out in the world, which is cool, and as long as I keep taking baby steps, I will get there one day, where THERE is, I don't know, but maybe it is a place where I am not filled with shame because I have put everything I own out on display and then have to look at it glaring right back at me. Art is an abyss. It takes guts to stare it down. I mean, maybe that is a good thing? Maybe what I am feeling is a positive thing? I mean, shame is worse than guilt, with guilt you can ask forgiveness, not shame, shame lasts forever.

But let's get back to the laughs! Anti-nostalgia and shame is no topic to screed about, let's talk about progress! I mean, I just drove down to the City, and boy are my tires pot-holed. I mean, one of these days I am going to get launched out of Junior Mint like some ejector seat maneuver. That, or the springs on the car will just collapse and I'll have to limp my way to Brooklyn, drag the car to the side of the road, politely remove the license plates off, take my bag out, put the plates in the bag, unscrew the gas tank lid and politely drop a lit match inside. I mean, poor Junior Mint, I took him into to JD to get the muffler fixed, I mean, I left the car there for the week while me and Scott flitted around UpState New York, like a couple modern day pirates, and when we got back the work was not done. He said he was waiting for parts. So I took the car back and made a appointment for a few weeks from now, but one thing I had asked him to do was to access the rust underneath the thing, and he gave me some great news, things were just fine down there. I mean, suddenly there are huge holes on the outside of the car, rust holes, salty wet New England roads in the Winter rust holes, things that don't look so good, not that I really care about the looks, it is more about the salt eating away the car from underneath. So I was glad to hear it. I mean, why don't they make cars that don't rust? I mean, of course the shorter life span of anything in capitalistic America the better. And I am answering my own question, but still, I just can't stand it, I just don't like this nervousness, this idea that a very important tool that I use will suddenly disintegrate underneath me without warning and I will be left stranded on the side of the road with no phone service in the middle of Winter and then what? I mean, in the City they got trains and busses and things. Taxi boats. Ferries. I mean, nobody needs a car in the City, not even Richard Maxwell, who I am told has been driving around some huge ass white Ford truck. In Manhattan nonetheless. I mean, it is funny because it is him, like Liz LaCompte telling someone that her missing tooth, because Liz lost a front tooth, that her missing tooth makes it easier to drink wine, I mean, I may not be nostalgic for the past, but I do miss these kinds of characters, and Vermont can kind of suck one.

I mean, I don't really know where I am going with this, aside from being nervous about owning a car and then driving down to the City and suddenly there is a completely different problem to worry about, I mean, to go from worrying about rust to now worrying about my shocks and stuff, my tires, I mean, if Vermont wasn't so good to me in the amount of writing I get done, I don't think I could do it anymore, I mean, however, driving down was fucked up, I mean, Vermont after a huge snow fall? It is something else, almost ineffable. The snow on the trees, the vistas, the beauty, I mean, like a very loud and annoying hot girlfriend that yells at you all the time and you can't go out in public with, I mean, I can't quit her.

But then me and Scott had a new fun time with Vermont just yesterday. The water pump at the Compound had gone out, had busted. And the Publisher had been coming over to Beaver Haus to take showers and sniff around in my underwear drawer, to take a peak at my secret writing notes and to suck down a few glasses of Ticklers. I mean, they had almost no water for a couple weeks, which, I mean, Vermont is tough, but Vermont without water, that is not good. I mean, I now have 25 gallons of water stored in the basement for when the power goes out. Just in case. I mean, it's not even drinking water you need to worry about, it's things like a toilet full of turds that won't go away, dishes in the sink that are gummed up with grease, I mean, you will always have gas, so melting snow is not a problem, but when you can't flush the toilet, I mean, I mean, I mean.

But the job of replacing the pump was quite interesting. We had to pull out nearly 500 feet of piping before we got to the thing. And there was thing called a pitless adaptor which is basically a hose connection without a screwed manifold. If that makes sense. I mean, basically there is a giant one foot hole that goes down into the ground for 500 feet and then it gets connected to another hose that goes into the DoubleWide Manor. And along with those 500 feet of hose there is 500 feet of wire to power the pump. So we had to remove the pitless adaptor from the DoubleWide Manor hose and disconnect the wiring and pull the hose out until we could switch the pump out. I mean, we used a tractor to do this and Scott jerry-rigged a propane tank to relieve stress from the removal, and we had walkie talkies and everything and it was beautiful but cold as hell, colder than a well-diggers ass, as the bridesmaids would say, I mean, the job took quite a bit of time, but it was very satisfying, I mean, we got the job done, and only had to go into Roach Town once to get a flashlight, which was hilarious because the woman at the hardware store who helped us kept saying things like; This one has 1,000 lumens, but this one has 800 lumens, and this one has 1,200 lumens, but this one has 400 lumens. And it was all nonsense, and then her co-worker decided to chime in with his assessment of lumens, and there were all sorts of different lumens and what kind of lumens did we need? And this flashlight had 800 lumens. It was something wild, something that I wished Professor Curly was there for, because she would have absorbed all the lumens talk in a way that I cannot do, but there was a lot of lumens discussed, and in the end we got all the lumens, and the flashlight worked out great because it had a lot of lumens.

But after that we had to go to Mac's to get some Ticklers for the Publisher and the check-out gal really gave us the business of the business, I mean, it is a long story, but I have been watching this very boring operation happening for a couple years now, this grocery store is kind of fucked up, the employees hate it there, and they rebel sometimes, but there are only so many people in town that can work there, and the wages suck and the place is a chain place, and this gal just asked for a raise and she didn't get it, so she complained to us, the customers about her bosses, which was wild, I mean, I kind of egged her on, but still, complaining to customers that you don't know about your bosses at a grocery store about a raise you didn't get, I mean, yikes. So, we will see, I mean there was that one guy drinking a Truly that one time I went there, in the afternoon, while working, I mean, they have a very quick turnover rate, with not such a large employee pool, so who knows? Maybe Mac's is not long for the world? I mean, they are the only game in town, so who knows? And Tina is the only rudder for that sinking ship, I mean, not my Professor Curly, but the very odd manager that works there, I mean, at some point they are going to have to ship people in to do the check out work, I guess, or maybe start paying people better, but as it is now, I mean, it's not really funny because it is sad capitalism bullshit, but it is sure messy as hell, and I won't lie, I have been writing about it, so I am living for the drama, ATBMS.

Anyway, here is the well photos:

[Insert Well Photos]

See you on Thursday!

Get pumped!

[Insert DISHWASHERS Video]