More Festifying

I was mistaken; Florida apparently still allows smoking in bars, but whether or not it does, the punks are doing plenty of it. Apparently the first show I attended on Friday had a very low jerk quotient, because I didn't see (or smell) a single person smoking, but such was not the case today. In fact I ended up missing one of my favorite bands because the prospect of hanging out for a several hours in a truly vile atmosphere (lack thereof, actually, if we're taking "atmosphere" to imply "breathable air") was just too much to bear.

So why didn't I simply step outside and wait there until it was time for the band to go on? Well, it's not that simple. Some of the Fest venues were so crowded that you had to wait in line for an hour or more before enough people left and you could be allowed in. And in the case of the popular bands, nobody was leaving and you just weren't getting in. About a hundred of us listened to Dear Landlord from outside on the street, despite having waited nearly an hour to get in. I missed my friend Justin's band the Ringers because the line to get into Common Grounds was held up by painfully slow ID checks. And although we got into the Market Street Tavern in plenty of time to see the Copyrights, the prospect of three hours of not breathing prompted me to give up and leave, which I kind of regret, as I expect it was a completely awesome show. But my lungs are still thanking me.

I actually like both Gainesville and Florida, but there are a few backward aspects, the smoking policy being one of them, that are more than a bit maddening. So too is the way the town is laid out, in old-fashioned drive-everywhere-wasting-massive-amounts-of-gas fashion. Naturally traffic is a massive clusterfuck for several hours every morning and evening; despite Gainesville being a sleepy little college town of fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, I've seen gridlock to rival that of New York City.

Another exciting adventure: looking for a supermarket that sold actual food fit for human consumption. Okay, this wasn't the hardest thing in the world; it simply required joining the masses of carbound lemmings and driving several miles out from the city center (there's no supermarket within walking distance) into Walmart land. In fact, I visited an actual Walmart, under the mistaken impression that in addition to cheap TVs, tires, geegaws and doodads, that great American institution also sold food. In fact, I'd swear the one my cousin dragged me to in Northern Michigan had a large grocery department.

Not the one in Gainesville, however. Well, they did have something vaguely resembling a grocery department, but edible food? Of the non-packaged and processed, non-empty calories and non-carcinogenic variety? Absolutely zero. I was looking specifically for fresh produce, i.e., fruits and vegetables. Not too much to ask for in a grocery store, you'd think? In Walmart, it apparently is. They don't even have a produce section. It's a wonder the entire town hasn't come down with scurvy.

Eventually, after another hour or so of destroying the atmosphere and driving a few more species to extinction, I did find another supermarket with a fresh food section, and really, it's time I stopped complaining about Gainesville now, because for the most part I'm still happy to be here at the Fest, and even happier to have spent most of the day at the best venue by far, a bike co-op called the Kickstand, well away, but still walking distance from downtown, where there were no ID checks, smokers were exiled to the outdoors where they belonged, and nearly every band was good to great.

Some highlights: Delay, The Max Levine Ensemble, Tin Armor, Andrew Jackson Jihad, Brook Pridemore and Two Funerals, but seriously, there was almost nothing there that wasn't worth watching. And although the place was clearly crawling with vegans and bike punks, none of the didacticism and bombast sometimes associated with those groups was in evidence. Just a nice comfortable scene on a nice sunny day. Ryan Delay said, "There's really no reason to leave here," and I wish I hadn't.

There was meant to be a 2 am house show featuring Spoonboy, Andrew Jackson Jihad, and Wingnut Dishwasher Union (I met the alleged brains behind the latter operation, and he seemed pleasant enough, though I see from his Myspace that he believes "Any good punk is at least part hippie," and we might have had to have a little discussion about that idea), but when I arrived at the appointed reference there were three police cars with lights a-flashing, hundreds of punk rockers milling around in the residential backstreets, and little if any evidence of music going on. Perhaps I should have stuck around and possibly got arrested, something I haven't done in quite a while now, but seeing one other Fester being led off in handcuffs reminded me that I had never particularly enjoyed it back in the days when getting arrested was a fairly regular activity of mine. Might have made for a more interesting blog post, though.

Anyway, it's now nearly 4 am, and that's including the extra hour gained by the end of Daylight Savings Time. A busy day awaits tomorrow, including the Used Kids, the Monikers, the Unlovables, the Ergs, and a bunch of country punk bands, all of which will probably be subject to unpredictable revision. On the other hand, maybe I'll just stay in and watch 12 more hours of MSNBC, CNN and Fox coverage of the next-to-last day of the election campaign. Well, probably not, but I seem to have developed an unhealthy fascination with their round-the-clock natterings. I mean, it's not like I still need any help deciding who I'm going to vote for, and it's even less likely that any of the candidates will be calling on me for my expertise, so what exactly do I hope to learn by watching this stuff, other than that I really, really don't want to spend the next four or eight years listening to John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Oh, one last Festly tale: apparently my criticisms of Dillinger 4's unfunny comedy act have reached the ears of Paddy, who followed up his normal "I love cocaine" rant with some version of "Fuck Larry Livermore" which may or may not have enlivened proceedings; I don't know because of course I wasn't there, having several more interesting things to attend to. But having just been told about it by someone who was, I was standing in line outside another venue when Paddy himself came up and got into a long and mostly incoherent conversation with the guy standing in front of me.

I actually didn't know who it was, having mistaken him for a particularly unfortunate street tramp, and I have no idea if he recognized me. But some kid rolling a joint up the street did, after a fashion: "Yo, dude, you're Shawn Stern, aren't you? Don't lie, I know you are, you own BYO Records! I love that label, can I shake your hand?" And that, my friends (I told you I'd been seeing too much of Liar McCain!) was when I called a wrap on Day Two of The Fest.

Does Bret Michaels Wear Hair Extensions?

I finally figured out that I shouldn't go to the gym at night. Not only is it way more crowded, but that's when the TV is always showing the Bret Michaels Rock Of Love show that I complained about a few days ago.

It's not so much that I find the show THAT offensive, apart from the frequent close-ups of fat-ass old Bret slobbering over every woman that comes near him, and come to think of it, is it part of their contract that all the contestants have to kiss him whenever he or the script require it? Because unless they're all doing it voluntarily, wouldn't that be creeping (appropriate word, no?) into the realm of prostitution?

To be honest, I just don't know the answer to that one, and therein lies the crux of my problem with Rock Of Love. Despite JoeIII aka Futon Revolution's enlightening explanation appended to my original post on this subject, I still have far too many questions about just what the hell is going on, why these women are so willing to debase themselves, and why a multi-millionaire like Bret Michaels would allow them in his house in the first place when it would presumably be far more efficient and far less time-consuming to phone an escort service.

As I noted earlier, I've only ever seen the show at the gym, with the sound turned off, so little mysteries keep presenting themselves, like, for example, Bret Michaels' hair. It's unusual but not unheard of for a man his age to have a thick luxuriant head of hair, but assuming this is the case, why is he always pictured wearing some sort of swami-ass do rag that covers the top of his head? I note that some of his henchmen or members of his posse wear similar head coverings, presumably so Bret won't look so weird, but where, I ask you, apart from prison, do you see so many grown heterosexual men with rags on their heads?

Tonight there was one brief shot of Bret in a cowboy hat, but once again we never see the top of his head, and middle-aged guy always wearing hat usually = balding. But then we see those (no doubt completely natural) blond tresses cascading down the sides and back of his head and the mystery deepens? Are they the genuine article, or were they attached to his do-rag/cowboy hat by the upscale Hollywood version of the Hair Club For Men?

This way lies madness, I know, which is why I have resolved to stay out of the gym from now on when Rock Of Love is showing. Oh, and one more thing about that swami do-rag that has an approximation of a third eye just over the top of his forehead (well, we don't actually know where the top of his forehead is for sure, but where it would be if everything is on the up-and-up). Tonight, just when I was thinking, "Is he actually trying to portray himself as some sort of sage or mystic?" an actual Indian swami came sidling into the room and squatted down at the table with Bret and his latest victim for some sort of seance. Or so it appeared from the cheesy hippie prints and 10,000 candles adorning the room.

I left the gym completely befuddled and moseyed on over to Greenpoint in vain hopes of seeing Tin Armor, who I'd meant to see the night before until Mr. Cometbus showed up at my house and we spent the evening looking at old pictures of Gilman and Spy Rock and Detroit (and why, pray tell, does everything and everybody look more fun and beautiful in the past when I can remember perfectly clearly that it and they were not nearly so fun and beautiful when they were actually happening and there?).

But of course I wasn't going to see them tonight either, and things were, as per usual, operating on drunken hipster Brooklyn bar time, meaning that Tin Armor are probably taking the "stage" right about now, whereas I've been safely tucked up at home for a couple hours now because I'm going away in the morning and have to be up early to catch my flight.

And what really outrages me is that JoeIII was there and I totally forgot to put my newest Rock Of Love questions to him. Instead I tried to get him to join me in my ire at what the opening act, a young lady calling herself Hopalong, had done to Del Shannon's "Runaway," one of the greatest songs of all time and perhaps the single most defining anthem of my pubescence.

It's not that I begrudge artists the right to rework the melodies and intonations of the classics, though certain songs - "Runaway" very likely being one of them - are so absolutely perfect that any attempt to alter them is like the proverbial mustache on the Mona Lisa. But if you're going to do it anyway, at least LEARN THE FUCKING WORDS. I mean, it's not like there are so many of them or that they are so deep and profound that a mere mortal couldn't be expected to encompass them in a normal human brain. Jim "Jersey Beat" Testa didn't help matters any by referring to "Runaway" as being by "Dion DiMuci." Hell's bells, Dion didn't even start using his surname until 1964 or something, years after "Runaway," and although Dion is also one of the greats (with a lot more hits than Del Shannon), to confuse the two singers is like mistaking Minor Threat for Fugazi. Well, no, more like the Methadones for the Copyrights, but I told Testa he was too young to have an opinion on the matter, considering that he was no more than eight years old when it was topping the charts in April of 1961.

What a great song, though. If I weren't such a considerate neighbor, I'd slip into the other room right now, 2 am or no 2 am, and bust out a version of it on the piano. It was a good year for music, 1961, almost as though the radio were providing a personalized soundtrack for my budding teenage life. "Runaway" was playing the day I wandered off and hooked up with my first gang, and we'd just changed our name from the Vandals to the Rebels when the Crystals' "He's A Rebel" hit the airwaves.

I take that back. I just did a quick check and discovered that "He's A Rebel" didn't come out till 1962 (and speaking of defiling the classics, check out this cheesy synth version of it, which try as it might still can't obscure the soul-stirring greatness of that melodic line). But the point is, I have vivid memories of trying to shuffle down the street like the hero described in the song, and in my mind they will always be fixed firmly in June of 1961. There's a whole year gone missing, and ain't it funny, as Willie Nelson might be wont to say... And with that I'm off to bed, and in the morning, off to Florida to moulder away with my fellow old folks. If they've got wi-fi on the beach, I'll be in touch.