...on the goat

"hey bastard, how's it going?"

"not bad wes, how's the wife and kids?"

"never mind that, i have to ask you something. do you like to rock?"

"why yes wes, the bastard does in fact like to rock"

"ok, well do you like cold beers?"

"well wes come to think of it, i do find that i do infact like beer and usually cold"

"that's great to know. what are you doing on saturday the 12th of august?"

so wes houston calls me up a week or so ago to tell me he got the band back together. wes promised that a cast of characters will be there and knowing wes, i know he'll deliver most of them. i arrive at the local spot in which if i was here the night before i could have seen the exumed corpses of the ramones but, i always seem to be a little behind the bell curve and you figure, how good could the living dead be anyway?

cool dave sings for the band. cool dave owns a 1969 gto, which car buffs call the goat. strangely enough, dave kinda looks like a goat. perhaps, it's one of those you start to look like your pets things only he looks more like his car. actually since wes' dad was playing that night (yes, it's a fucking family affair, cool dave's brother's band was the third act), the king of wing showed up and he kind of looks like a goat. only he knows an awful lot about painting which is why the bastard talks to him all of the time. not tonight though, he's been twice divorced and i've had just about all of my fill of post marital advice for one month. i just want to drink some cold beers and hear some rockin' music.

now, the bastard comes down to these events for only one reason,because wes asked me to. now, granted i love meeting up with all of my oldest friends in my old neighborhood. it's kind of like opening a door to the past. the problem is, i get my whole past in one evening. and while my oldest friends come to see wes play, some of the people who didn't like me so much growing up come to see him play. also, some of the folks that come down and are part of the people we all hung around together but, i was never really well liked by them. it's the trappings of being an art major. you're too wordy to sound appealing so instead you sound weird. and since you're not into the mets or dance music, you appear weird and people are frightened by people they find weird. so i didn't bother speaking with them. i find that if you can't shake off the innocuous shit you suspected about people when you were growing up with them, and can't accept that they have changed for the better, then fuck em. the funny thing for me is that while the bastard doesn't make a crapload of money, his soul is satisfied with what he's doing and the people in question never aimed higher than what they aimed for and look unhappy for it. now granted, one of them became a lawyer and probably makes soem fat loot but, she never learned social skills. poor girl, she still looks so unhappy. too bad. so sad.

—the bastard

P.S. what's behind door number two: larry lah calls up the bastard to come over to his place which the top half of it is now owned by his brother. lah's sister was having a birthday party for her kid and the bastard could use some burgers. anyway, since it was a family party so his family was there and the vibe was very family like. lah's brother in law looked more like the firestarter than he did when he had all of his hair and his wife, lah's sister, looked tired. with last night's trip down memory lane still in mind i finish my evening speaking with with lee underbluff another from the cast of thousands i grew up with. he's a cop now. he has 4 kids. he's gotten big. really fucking big. while discussing various topics, mostly scouting, i ask him where he lives these days.

"i live right around the corner from my parents. right around the corner from the chapel".

now, while i think the notion of having your baby sitters close by, i wonder if he set the bar too low in life. the nice lady had made some sense moving out west to spend some time living away from where she grew up. i know that lee is happy, he's fat like a man who's happy but i wonder if he's not just taking up space. then again, he's a good guy and probably a good parent. oh well

—b