About the stories....

Dunno if NE1's intrested, but "On Tour With the Little Green Men" was written back in the mid-'90s when I lived in Wyoming, & got rejected 1/2adozen times Btween then & the early 2000's, which is 1 of the reasons I felt "safe" about posting it here -- nobody's gonna publish it & pay me, tho I think it's funny enuf & diffrent enuf that somebody coulda given it a home. I sent it 2 the most appropriate magazines I could find, back when the science-fiction/fantasy market 4 short stories was 2wice as big as it is now, & I got a coupla nice notes back from them, but....
The 1/2adozen rock&roll-novel sections I posted a month ago were mostly written from 2002 onward, much of it during a period when I was unemployed & wanted desperately 2 B doing SOMETHING productive -- much of it was written before sessions & during intermissions at the bingo hall where my girlfriend worked.
The novel "stars" the dozen closest friends I had during my 5-year "aimless" dead-end-job period Btween highschool & when the Air Force dragged me away -- a period I now look back on often as "The Good Olde Days." At least 4 of my old friends know I've written about them, & nobody has objected yet, tho I imagine they'd B a little suprised 2 find this stuff posted here.
Much of the detail included in the novel sections is based on stuff that actually happened -- tho I think some of it cuts pretty close 2 the bone....
Some of those people actually WERE musicians, the rest I just transformed in2 a rock band. My idea at the time was that at least if I knew the characters & the situation I wanted 2 start from, maybe a novel'd B EZer 2 write.... I got about 25 pgs in2 it when the story ran out. It didn't seem 2 go NEwhere.
1 problem is that 2 work a story needs conflict -- & I hate conflict. Will go FAR out of my way 2 avoid it -- ask NE of my friends. The only real-life conflicts in this bunch were romantic frustrations & breakups -- I couldn't C NE other conflicts, couldn't imagine NE. Was 2 much in love with those Olde Days 2 cast NE shadows over them. Which may B why mosta what the story Xpresses 2 me is nostalgia & regret. Not Xactly good-time rock&roll.
I'm also aware that the novel TELLS a lot (thru my eyes & opinion) without really SHOWING much. The characters don't get 2 B much Byond my opinion of them. If I ever continue it, that's something I'll havta work on.
I think "Little Green Men" in some ways tells the same kinda story in a lot less space, & it probly works better Bcos it's funnier. & it was written strictly 4 fun. Hope summa that came across.
I might post more fiction in the future. There's probly some other stuff that wouldn't Cm 2 out-of-place here. Let me know what U think.

Am currently re-reading 2 novels -- Thomas Harris's RED DRAGON (as brilliant & unsettling as ever, still in awe of how Harris grabs U by the throat on the 1st pg, & I haven't re-read the book in years), & George Orwell's 1984.
What suprises me about '84 is how gray & gritty it is. At least 4 the 1st 50+ pgs it could B a Philip K. Dick novel -- like THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH or MARTIAN TIME SLIP or MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE. The low-keyness of it, the focus on avg people going thru their avg days, the scarcity of the society evoked.... I was bored outta my mind when I read '84 around age 14, & was again when I re-read it as a class assignment later in highschool. MayB I can appreciate it more now, having done my own 20-year stint in The Ministry Of Truth.... We'll C if I can finish it. RED DRAGON I don't Xpect 2 have 2 much trouble with....
I'm probly gonna B on another horror kick here soon. I wanna B jolted, I wanna B shook-up -- from the safety of my own room, of course. U might wanna get ready 4 some more horror book reviews....

I'm sure some of U would like me 2 get back 2 writing about music, that's why most of U visit in the 1st place. But it might B the wrong time 4 me. I tried 2 play some completely-new-2-me stuff awhile back & it really left me cold. But I won't B giving up. Have bn playing Oldies & Album-Rock radio during work nites more&more often lately & that REALLY helps keep me moving when the coffee won't do the job NEmore.... Will naturally update ASAP if some music really knocks me over.
Hope everybody out there is well....

Little Green Men (conclusion)

For awhile after that, life with the guys was a breeze. Late in their following tour they played what was probably their greatest concert ever -- at Little America in Antarctica. It was transmitted "live" all around the globe. An estimated 4 billion zombies snuggled up to their Cyclopses and saw the concert. The pros said it couldn't be done, but as usual The Men showed them how to do it. And the result was something historic.
I still remember the searchlights sweeping the sky and the light motes bouncing off of the icebergs....
Temperatures at the concert site hovered around -20, not counting the wind chill -- the kind of temps that, when you step outside and take a breath, the hairs inside your nose instantly freeze and crackle ... or you just pass out. Fairly mild weather for Little America in February.
The Men were set to take the stage at 4 p.m., just as the "midnight sun" began to set. There was no audience, except for a few techs, camera ops, and me -- and the billions of zombies eagerly waiting in warmer climates. And a few scrawny-looking penguins who gathered around the site to see what all the fuss was about.
I remember standing there in my electric underwear as the bone-chilling breeze blew by me and ruffled the fur collar of my parka, and I realized this was either going to be one of the greatest concerts of all time ... or it would go down in history as the dumbest thing the band ever did.
And then I realized I couldn't feel my feet. I was frozen to the spot.
The band took the stage right at 4. The satellite Cyclops hookup to the 4 billion zombies watching at home went off without a hitch.
The Men opened with the mellow, artsy stuff that everyone wanted to hear -- "Welcome Home," "Sublime Feline," "Hey Jules," all the faves. Jon wrapped his reed-thin fingers, more precise than a violinist's, around the neck of his motar and pulled deep blue bass tones out of it ... and those blue motes of fiery light floated up into the sky above the wind-blasted tundra ... and then were blown in a rush into Kainan Bay, where they sizzled and spat and slowly sank out of sight.
Jeff rode out gorgeous riffs on his bank of keyboards, and the light-emitter belched out anguished orange balls of light -- anguished because Jeff's fingers were freezing and he couldn't hit the right keys.
We thought at first that something was wrong with the equipment, but it was much simpler than that: Jeff was the first to let on that the frigid temperatures might not lead to a truly sweaty, sizzlin' concert performance. Or even a mildly warmed-over one.
Jon started frosting-over around the edges -- a definite crust of white began creeping up his sides and was dutifully caught by the Cyclops cameras. He started shakin' all over.
After their third number, the band had a quick huddle. This situation called for an abrupt adjustment in activity.
That's when The Men did something completely unexpected and unrehearsed that I thought would permanently endear them to the Earthbound audience. They dug into their bag of tricks and started performing a scorching set of rock and roll oldies.
"Johnny B. Goode"! "Great Balls of Fire"! "Wild Thing"! "Louie, Louie"! "Tutti Frutti"! "Wooly Bully"! "Mony Mony"! "Roll Over, Beethoven"! And -- perfect in its appropriateness -- "Stray Cat Strut"!
Oh jeez, it was such a total gas, such a HOOT to see the freezin' guys jitterbugging and duck-walking their way across the stage in front of the cameras, simply trying to keep warm.
And meanwhile my teeth chattered and I was so cold and I was laughing so hard I thought I was gonna pee my pants....
Jon and Jim and Joe and Jack rolled and hopped and be-bopped and waddled back and forth across that stage and occasionally fell over because their stick-thin little legs just wouldn't work right in the cold ... and their hair whipped around in the wind and fell over their faces and got caught in their fingers as they sucked notes faster and faster out of the motars, sending cascades of freeze-dried motes of light spiralling up over the back of the stage and drifting off to sink in a frozen sea.
All Jeff could do to stay warm was keep pounding on his keyboards and try to keep up with the rest. Jules at least had his drum kit to bash away at, and his sheets of aluminum siding and those two huge gongs to beat on.
I think all the guys may have actually broken into a sweat during "Friday On My Mind" -- or maybe it was on "I Fought the Law." A pretty historic moment, anyway.
Even the penguins seemed to enjoy the performance.
That tour ended with the release of the reassuring and uplifting MEN FROM EARTH album -- the entire Antarctica concert on disc. Fans couldn't get a more positive message than that: The Men were back, and they were here to stay.
The disc was their biggest seller ever.

On the fourth tour I started seeing something that bothered me a little.
Fans had started dressing up like the band, complete with potato bodies, long, stringy hair and longer, dangling arms.
This wasn't the first time that musicians had made a big impact on fashion -- Cyclops commentators noted how Elvis, The Beatles and Madonna had affected the styles of their day.
But the apparent level of acceptance for The Men among Earthpeople led Jon to make a statement that brought the group even more free publicity -- not all of it good.
"I have to admit that we seem bigger right now than The Beatles ever were," Jon told a group of newssheet reporters during a tour stop in NYC.
To hardcore zonk zombies this was blasphemy, even if it happened to be true.
And when the Cyclops and the scandalsheets got ahold of it....
"This isn't the first time that a band has had to face a backlash from the public due to some stupid, poorly-thought-out political statement," Carl told the Cyclops. "We'll survive it."
And we did. Most folks just let Jon's comments roll right off them. After his flop solo album and earlier statements about What Makes Great Music, Jon had become well-known as the group's resident crackpot.
But when The Alley Cat Revelations finally leaked-out to the public, well....

So there I was, road manager of one of the biggest, most popular performing acts in the planet's history, trolling the backstreets and alleys of SeaTac and Cheyenne, looking for Dinner ... or at least as many cats as the local Oriental restaurants hadn't already snatched up to serve to their customers disguised as sweet-and-sour chicken or pork-fried rice....
There I was on many nights, dressed basically in SCUBA gear covered by a set of worn-out old overalls, long hair dangling, crouched, hunched-over, slowly making my way down a deserted dark alley long after sunset, calling out gently in a gravelly voice like some character straight out of Charles Dickens:
"Here kitty, kitty, kitty...."
And when some unsuspecting, mangey old feline took me up on my offer for undiscriminating companionship and warmth (there was always at least one, eventually, and I got really good at waiting them out) -- I'd snatch him up by the tail and tuck his mewing head into my belly and carry him gently back to the hotel, where he would then be tossed into a vat of furiously bubbling oil....
A few minutes later I'd deliver the latest in a series of (what they told me were) scrumptious meals to the guys, my REAL employers, whose job mine was to keep happy, and again I'd have accomplished my main mission for the day.
And so the show went on.
And the most shameful part of it all, of course, was ... getting paid -- fairly well! -- for doing all that!

The band wasn't -- COULDN'T have been -- prepared for the backlash, the ugly fallout, once The Alley Cat Revelations slipped out to the public -- thanks to the same scummy newssheets that once printed Jon's vomit-inducing RAW pics.
Somehow, having a diet made up mainly of house- and alley cats just didn't go over well with vast numbers of the disc-buying and concert-attending public. Even hard-core zombies -- who supposedly didn't care about anything beyond getting their next fix from the Cyclops -- rejected the guys almost overnight.
I'd been almost certain that in light of the guys' great sense of humor, gorgeous music and utter uniqueness, the public could forgive them for almost anything. But....
The band couldn't imagine anything other than being loved by an audience. They weren't ready for the booing. For having rotten vegetables thrown at them during concerts -- even POTATOES....
The first time a rotten potato was thrown from the crowd and landed with a PLOP! near Jeff, I thought all his eyes were gonna pop right out of his head. He immediately ran to the side of the poor, dented, moldy vegetable, sobbing "You'll be OK! You'll be OK!"
Then the crowd started throwing tomatoes. Which didn't go PLOP at all. They went SPLAT instead.
All over the band.
It was all over.

But that's all over now. The Men are waiting somewhere in their giant cocoon, in suspended animation. Waiting 'til the vibrations are right and it's safe to come out again. Waiting for a time when they won't be booed. For a time when their music won't be judged based upon their appearance, their diet, and the reactions those things provoke in others.
Knowing us Earthmen, that could be a long, long wait.
The Men will know when the time is Right. They always did before.
But, hey ... I miss you guys.

Little Green Men (Part 2)

So they stank. They were ugly too. But their music was GORGEOUS. And popular. Great art comes from the strangest places sometimes....
Their first album was called OUT OF THIS WORLD. Pretty subtle, huh? It was a three-disc set. The Men recorded it in four days.
Basically, they walked into the studio, set up, switched on the recording console, and taped everything that came out for the next 96 hours.
And it was brilliant. Jon painted a gorgeous, swirling starfield cover for the discs, and we got the package out onto store shelves within a month.
Last we heard, it had sold more than 40 million copies worldwide....

Then The Men went on tour. They hardly needed any promotion or publicity -- which was one of the reasons Carl wanted them on White Knight Discs in the first place. They made their own publicity just by existing. Low overhead, high profit -- we couldn't lose. Carl liked to go for the Sure Things.
Newssheets and Cyclops reporters followed us everywhere. One of my primary responsibilities during those early days was keeping the reporters far enough away long enough for the band to perform a set. Or eat a meal.
At first it was just curiosity that attracted crowds. Then folks started coming back for the music.
I'd been hooked long before then.

At first The Men followed the basic tour circuit, all the big population centers and factory towns, as well as occasional stops at music-producing centers: LA, Frisco, Portland, SeaTac, Den, Dal, SanTonio, Austin, Houston, St. Louie, Indy, Chi, Det, Cleveland, Cinci, Pgh, Philly, Baltimore, DC, NY, Bos, Montreal, Toronto, Memphis, Nashville, Lanta, Miami, Jax -- you know the syndrome.
Then overseas: MexCit, London, Paree, Munich, Rome, Istanbul, Moscow, Calcutta, Beijing, HongKong, Tokyo.
The Men never took a day off. Day after day of performing, no breaks. This was much harder on me than on them. The only time they ever got in any trouble was when I'd passed out from exhaustion and the band was forced to entertain themselves.
After awhile they started doing shows in odd places they'd heard about and wanted to visit for whatever reason: Boise, Craters of the Moon, Vancouver, Cheyenne, Yellowstone, Ankara, Ayers Rock, Alaska's Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes....
Then there was the infamous "Hot Date Tour" of the American Southwest: Phx, the Grand Canyon, Zion, Tucson, Yuma, Albuquerque, SantaFe, Gila Bend, Death Valley -- they loved the heat. ...And the crowd loved them, though concertgoers kept sitting farther and farther away from the stage as the tour went on. Maybe folks couldn't take the smell, but they couldn't leave the music.
We couldn't always take the tube to get to those less-well-traveled locations -- there weren't always connections to the tube. Sometimes we had to charter a landbus, and it was usually during those times (with someone else driving -- none of the guys could ever grasp the basics of driving, too forceful for them to handle, not enough delicacy involved ... and now that I look back on it, it's probably a good thing: think of the wrecks they could have caused!) that I collapsed and got the only rest I'd ever get while the guys were on tour. Not that I minded so much....
I remember that public and critical reaction to the shows was at first VERY mixed. One early newssheet headline read: "Can a green man sing the blues?" But the response soon turned rapturous....

Whether it was during practice, while recording, or when playing in concert, the Little Green Men were mesmerizing. Their sheer alien-ness, combined with the timeless other-worldly beauty of the music they created, cast an almost-unbreakable spell over an audience.
Just seeing Jon wrap his impossibly long, delicate, tentacle-like fingers around the specially-elongated neck of his motar was enough to boggle some fans ... but when they heard the exquisite sounds he was able to coax out of that instrument, that ended any further reservations. Critics and hardcore zombies alike started throwing around names of famous motarists from zonk history to compare Jon's work to. Names like Hendrix and Clapton and Page kept popping up....
Because of their incredibly nimble, dexterous hands, The Men could perform music that literally no one else on Earth could play.
Take for instance their first hit, "Welcome Home," a moving, mellow zonk instrumental. In concert, through the wonders of motar technology, that track became a gorgeous raining firestorm of color, breathtaking in its beauty.
The band always thought recording was a step below playing "live." They needed an audience. They basked in the warm glow of an audience's wonder, approval and love. The only thing better than the feelings evoked inside them by the music they played was the feeling they got from an audience's applause.
The solution to this minor technical problem was a live concert album, which we finally got around to recording on the most historic of occasions....

I said earlier that the guys saw and felt things differently. Here's an example:
"Don't you see visions when you hear music?" Jeff asked me once during a recording session.
"Well, KIND of," I said, "but it depends on the KIND of music that's playing, and what kind of mood I'm in ... and if I've been drinking or taken any chemicals...."
"We ALWAYS see things," Jules said without hesitation. "We feel things too. Sounds cause deep emotions within us. The music flows through our bodies like water. It cleanses us, purifies us. Makes us feel whole again. Doesn't it do the same for you?"
"Well ... KIND of ... SOMEtimes ... SOME types of music, but...."
Jon must have seen my confusion, my stumbling over the almost-metaphysical concepts his bandmates were juggling so easily. He looked at me with what seemed like pity.
"You must all lead very difficult lives, Earthman...."

Their second album was called MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. It sold almost twice as many copies as the first one, possibly because it was only a two-disc set....

The Men's addiction to cats had been a closely guarded secret among the road crew from the very beginning. And since I was most of the road crew while on tour with the guys, I did most of the cat-catching, cat-preparing and cat-cooking. Sometimes I hired help. It took A LOT of cats to keep up with the guys' appetites.
At first they liked their cats sauteed and served up with a thick, cheesy yellow sauce ... or soup ... or broth ... or whatever.
Then that proved to be not-quite-greasy-enough, and the guys went in a big way for deep-fried cat.
Considering their senses of humor, their wonderful music, and what a total GAS it was just to be zinging around the planet with them, I could have lived with all this.
But I had to be careful. Bribes in all the right places: To get people to catch breakfast, lunch or dinner for the guys when I was too worn-out to do it myself or tried to catch a couple hours' sleep -- and then to keep my helpers quiet about having done it.
We all probably could have gone on like this indefinitely. But I think the trail of missing cats took its toll. A large number of cats disappeared whenever the guys came to town, and eventually the law-enforcement agencies and the local Humane Societies started to notice. We tried to stick to just stray cats, but when those ran short we had to start buying them by the truckloads from the local animal shelters ... or even combing through people's back yards....
Meanwhile the guys had become just a little too bold about the whole thing. Placing ads in newssheets across the country volunteering to give unwanted cats a loving home was one thing -- but I thought the guys tipped their hands a bit too far when they called the closing track on their second album "Sublime Feline." That was just rubbing fans' faces in it.
And folks did eventually notice. I thought people would forgive them, but....

There were, obviously, some rocks in the road along the way. In fact, there were some very BIG ones. But nothing altogether THAT different from the kinds of troubles other successful zonk groups face all the time....
In the lull that followed the Hot Date Tour, Jon did a series of newssheet interviews about The Meaning Of Music -- focusing on the idea that he should have more control of group affairs, because after all he wrote most of the music and designed the album covers besides.
Jon had a point. He was pretty accurate about his contributions to the band, and maybe he was feeling a little bummed that his work didn't make him stand out more.
But the public took the Little Green Men as a package deal -- six pretty unique individuals, rather than one genius and the rest of the guys along for the ride.
Jon did what he could to try to change that.
In the last interview of the series, Jon posed nude for a newssheet photographer, exposing the many large brown eyes all over his massively-wrinkled body -- and in the interview he bragged about his 20-20-20-20-20 vision....
The other Green Men seemed to find this flaunting of traditional human values brave and daring. "Ooooh!" I remember Jules exclaiming when he first saw the photo.
It raised some eyebrows. But not as many as when Jon's solo album came out shortly after the interview -- and used that same photo for the cover.
The album was called RAW. Some stores sold it in a brown paper bag. Some cities banned it.
Most humans didn't know whether to laugh or throw up.
It was a huge sales failure, even though there was some pretty good music on it. But Jon's solo work lacked the tight ensemble feeling he had with the other guys, and he seemed to realize this.
The stress got to him pretty fast. He started turning red around the edges -- wherever those were. It was such an obvious condition that if the rash continued, soon humans would start mistaking him for a big alien tomato. They'd have to change the name of the band! If there still WAS a band....
Jon tearfully made-up with the rest of the guys, and they agreed to forgive his ego trip. They all got back together again, and it really did turn out to be better than before. At least for awhile. The breakup that newssheet columnists gleefully predicted would kill the band ... lasted about six months.
But this wasn't the last of Jon's public pronouncements....

(To be concluded....)

On tour with the Little Green Men (Part 1 of 3)

What was it like?
Everybody asks.
Touring with the Little Green Men was GREAT -- easily the best time I've ever had in this business. Certainly everything I've done since has been a drag. I've never seen ANY zonk band try some of the stunts the Men did. And I've been around the disc biz for a LONG time.
It's all over now, of course. The guys are all in hibernation, wrapped in their snug cocoons, nuzzled occasionally by warm ultrasonics. And as near as the medics can tell, it may be years before the guys come back out. There's no point waiting for them -- it could take decades. We might just as well get on with our lives and not wait up.
But I'll tell ya -- if they want to put ME in a cocoon and hold me in suspended animation 'til the guys wake up, I won't mind. I'm available, and they won't need to pay me any extra money to do it, either. I don't know anybody else who was willing to handle the guys, even when they were on top, and I'm ready for another go 'round.
Because let me tell ya -- there was nothing more fun than hanging out with the guys during the three years they had this planet on its knees. They were always relaxed, always having fun, always cracking jokes -- usually at my expense. Everything was so NEW to them. They looked at life's most boring everyday happenings in a totally new way.
And as a result, they helped me look at things in a new way too. Maybe they helped you do the same.
They weren't in it for the money -- I'm not even sure they HAVE money on Archernar 4. They did it for the music and the applause. They knew they were great at what they did. They wanted to be loved. And they were -- for awhile....
Sure you miss the music, so do I. But we've got the discs they left behind to take care of that.
I miss the guys themselves.
You do, too? Yeah, sure. Everybody says that....

When the friendly aliens from Archernar 4 landed on Earth, it was merely the biggest event in all of human history.
But we smart humans got past all of that.
When six of the aliens decided they wanted to form a zonk band, cut a disc and go on tour, that was something else.
It was the biggest shock the disc and entertainment biz had seen since The Beatles.
Jeff, Jack, Jim, Joe, Jules and Jon (without the "h" -- all names are rough translations of the original, and all beings' names start with "J" Back Home) signed with White Knight Discs because -- they said -- they liked us. Other companies offered them LOTS more money, lots more sales muscle, and better promotion, distribution and connections. We offered "a home-y atmosphere," they said. They liked our vibrations. They were always talking like that....
My boss Carl Davison assigned me to take charge of the group's initial recording and first tour. He said at the time it was because of my "hippie"-like background and because everybody knew I hadn't taken a bath or cut my hair since the 1990's. His view was pretty accurate back then, but I didn't see why that was a point in my favor. Carl just shook his head and told me to trust him -- the band and I were going to get along just fine. And he was right.
And soon enough I found out what he meant....

Carl led me into a darkened studio where the band was rehearsing. This was The Big First Meeting -- a chance for the band to meet their new road manager, and for me to size them up.
When we walked in, a barely-visible, gnarled-looking Utterly Alien Figure was busy playing some kind of horn with a huge bell on its front into a mike that stood out under a lone spotlight.
Behind this bulbous, wrinkled figure, further back in the shadows, another barely-seen figure hit a few mournful notes on a synth. The combination of the keyboard and the warm tones from whatever-kind-of-horn-it-was created a wistful, longing mood of loneliness and nostalgia.
This lovely, sad, faint, low-key melody played out to a brief silence. I'd been in the room for about 15 seconds and already my mouth had fallen open.
And then there was a rush of high-pitched chattering all around Carl and I. Little bodies began darting out of the blackness to surround the two figures who had been performing. Then the lights came up and we were surrounded by the aliens.
Of course they weren't the Little Green Men, then. Not with the capital letters. They were just six little aliens who wanted to pull-off something unheard-of. And our little company was set to help them do it.
Only a couple of problems: I already knew from Cyclops newscasts about the aliens that the band were never going to be teenybopper heartthrobs. Video and hypno-poster possibilities seemed just about non-existent.
They each stood about 3 feet tall and looked like big green, wrinkly, mushy ... potatoes. With big eyes. And skinny legs. And hair. Long, stringy, crinkly, scraggly brown hair.
They each had three or four long, scraggly strands of hair growing out of the tops of their heads ... wherever those were. They looked like they were basically All Head. They reminded me of those toys kids used to play with back in the Olde Days -- Mr. Potato Head.
They had LONG arms that dragged on the floor when they walked ... or waddled, actually. Their elbows were way down past where their knees would have been ... if they'd had knees.
They had high, whiny, keening speaking voices that issued from God-knew-where, and I couldn't tell one of them from another. Never could, really, even after all the time we spent together on the road. Still can't. I'd identify them by what instruments they played -- they always kept their instruments close by, and you never knew when any gathering might turn into a jam session. Some of their differences came out in their attitudes, but more about that later....
I already knew (as did you and billions of other humans) that -- though friendly -- the aliens were ... kind of ugly. But I hadn't heard about the SMELL....
Ever worked at an egg plant? Ever shoveled-out hog pens on a hot, humid summer day? Ever been sprayed by a skunk? Imagine a mix of all three, only 10 times worse. And I'm still not doing the smell justice....
I gagged. The smell brought tears to my eyes. It seemed to come in waves. It almost knocked me over. My first few minutes in the presence of the "band," our newest can't-miss moneymakers ... and I was already looking frantically for a window to open. Or jump out of. Anything to get away from that ... REEK. The tears poured from my eyes. My face turned blue. I saw immediately what one of my biggest public-relations challenges was going to be.
"Hey guys," I gasped, trying to be friendly.
"Greetings, Earthman," they responded in perfect, almost mechanical unison. And then they giggled among themselves. At least I THINK they were giggling. They were always doing that.
That's how I met the most popular recording act in the history of the universe.

Carl, almost immediately, officially named them the Little Green Men. He always liked to go for the obvious.

The "Earthman" tag they used with me during our first meeting stuck. Usually the guys just called me Terry, but when they were joking around or were having trouble understanding any particularly frustrating human trait, they'd go back to calling me "Earthman." I think it was intended as a kind of joke. I didn't mind it so much. And it came out at the strangest times....
One night during the band's dinner -- broiled alley cat -- in response to my gagging and retching, Jon looked up from his meal, jowls dripping with hot grease and cat parts, and said "Your primitive tastes are obviously not equipped to appreciate the culinary delights contained in even the smallest morsel of this sublime feline, EARTHMAN...."
And then he went back to slurping and munching while the rest of the band giggled.
That's what I mean.

I got a personal introduction to the band because they were about to become my full-time job.
For most humans, their first official intro to the band came through the liner notes on the Men's first disc:
The Little Green Men are....
Jon -- Lead motar, vocals, songwriting, album-cover art.
Jeff -- Keyboards, vocals, music.
Jack -- Bass motar, sunglasses, vocals, lyrics.
Jim -- Sax, flute, woodwinds, brass, percussion, vocals, songwriting.
Joe -- Rhythm motar, percussion, vocals, lyrics.
Jules -- Drums, percussion, syndrums, gongs, shakers, rattles, breakables, aluminum siding, hats, backing vocals.

(To be continued....)

Vacation, had to get away....

Hey y'all. Took the past week off from work, hung out with the old girlfriend, ended up camping for a few days out on western Washington's Olympic Peninsula, next to the Dosewallips River. Nice little campsite, quiet, not too many people. Mostly just laid around a lot & enjoyed the quiet, tried not to think too much. Just sat on a big log at the edge of the river & let the sun bake me for awhile, happy with not having to worry about BEING anywhere anytime soon.
Also got to eat some fresh crab & fresh clams like I haven't had since I was around 6 years old. Also went out in the boat onto Hood Canal when they pulled the crab pots. That was ... intresting. I hadn't been in a boat since I was 12 years old. They tell me that when the boat picked up speed & started bouncing across the waves, I yelled & my eyes got huge & I tried to stand up and jump out of the boat. I don't actually remember that part, I must've blocked it out. But once I got settled I was OK, & it was beautiful out on the water with the mountains all around....
Work hadn't been that terrible, not like last year, I hadn't started yelling at people yet -- but it had been a year since I had any time off & I was due. Glad I did it. Wish I didn't havta go back 2 work 2morrow, I'd love 2 have another week. But....

When I came home, the roommate was shitfaced & the 1st thing out of his mouth was "So, what are YOU cooking for dinner?" I swear, I think he was jealous that I took a week off & went somewhere WITHOUT him.
So then he pushed my buttons 4 a coupla more hours & then stumbled off 2 the bar 4 6 hours with a friend of his. I didn't care: I did my laundry & mowed the lawn & settled back in -- it felt kinda good 2 sleep in my own bed after a week away. & on Monday my roommate spent the whole day lying on the couch moaning, holding his head in his hands & wondering why his stomach wasn't working right. This is becoming an every-weekend thing 4 him: Get shitfaced every Sunday & spend Monday moaning & puking. 1 of the reasons I left was 2 get AWAY from this shit.
I swear I could write a horror novel based on this, call it ROOMMATES! -- He drinks until the inner monster BREAKS LOOSE, & then he can't be held accountable 4 ANYTHING he sez or does....
Look, I'm sure I ain't that EZ 2 live with either, I got my moods -- but I always pay my rent on time, I split the utilities, I buy 1/2 the food, I do dishes & mow the lawn & take out the trash, I'm quiet -- I'm a good roommate. So if you need a good roommate, drop me a line. I'll go anywhere where there's JOBS.... (You can all start laffing now....)

...Not much new 4 me musically, tho I did learn during my vacation that the soaring, haunting R&B ballad I heard awhile back is actually sung by Kelly Clarkson ("I'm Already Gone"), making 2 great songs she's done as far as I'm concerned (the other 1 was "Walk Away"). But some of you out there R probly already throwing up, so enuf of that....

I have been reading a bit now & then, of course. Still absorbing Stephen Jones & Kim Newman's HORROR: 100 BEST BOOKS and ANOTHER 100 BEST BOOKS, but if you're a fan of spooky stuff I recommend them, & if nothing else they'll give you lots of ideas 4 more great spooky stuff 2 track down. Each book includes essays by 100 horror writers (from King, Straub & Barker on down) on their favorite horror books ever. There's great stuff like John Clute on Tim Powers' THE ANUBIS GATES, Caitlin Kiernan on Kathe Koja's SKIN, write-ups on lotsa Stephen King novels, coverage of lotsa olde classics in the field -- stuff I've never read or always wondered about -- & plenty more.
Read 2 books by rock critic Greil Marcus: WHEN THAT ROUGH GOD GOES RIDING (2010) is all about Van Morrison & continues Marcus's Xploration of "the yaaargh" at the center of Morrison's best work. The book's a fast read -- just over 100 pgs -- & it's obvious Marcus hadda lotta fun with it: 1 "chapter" is only 3 lines long, some of the music reviewed is only available on bootlegs or thru live performances or radio-station sessions, & Marcus dismisses some 20 years of Morrison's career as "aimless." But if you're a fan of Van (or Marcus) you'll probly like it. I did. But I woulda bn happier if it was 2wice as long....
Marcus's IN THE FASCIST BATHROOM is a fat collection of columns from ROLLING STONE, THE VILLAGE VOICE & other places, focusing on Punk Rock & the Punk Attitude in rock&roll. It's pretty solid, tho summa the same artists keep popping up thruout: Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello, The Clash, X, The Mekons, Kleenex/Lilliput, X-Ray Spex, Buzzcocks, Wire, Lora Logic, etc. Worth tracking down, tho I woulda bn happier if Marcus had ranged a little wider....
Have started re-reading Marcus's STRANDED, a classic collection of rock critics' picks 4 which album they'd want if stranded on a desert island. Lester Bangs' writeup on Van Morrison's ASTRAL WEEKS is amazing, but 4 me the best part of the book has always been Marcus's lengthy LIBRARY of desert-island albums listed at the end of the book....
Charles Schaar Murray's SHOTS FROM THE HIP is a big collection of pieces he wrote 4 the British music papers from the '70s thru the '90s: Some of these can get a little silly, but it's addictive: I think I read the whole tiny-print book in about 2 days. I'll havta go back & pick out the really good bits....
John Clute's STROKES, SCORES and LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE are collections of science-fiction book reviews & critical pieces from the '70s through the early '00s -- I loved them, but I've become addicted 2 his work. Some folks say he's kinda snooty or doesn't always communicate clearly (he often seems 2 MAKE UP words, especially in his more-recent Net-published reviews), but he has lotsa good insights & he's funny -- especially when he really hates something. I learned a lot.
Lester Bangs' BLONDIE bio (about the only thing by Lester I hadn't read yet) wasn't overly nice 2 the band, but the best part of the book is available in Bangs' collection MAINLINES, BLOOD FEASTS AND BAD TASTE ... along with a lot of other Good Stuff....
Am trying 2 get in2 Ellen Willis's OUT OF THE VINYL DEEPS, but it seems kinda thin 2 me. Likewise Carl Belz's THE STORY OF ROCK, which I LOVED as a 10th-grader (I was especially thrilled 2 read back then that he thot The Beatles' WHITE ALBUM was rock's Ultimate Statement Ever) -- but which now also seems Xtremely thin....
Also got a copy of The Beatles' ANTHOLOGY, which I've just barely sniffed at -- it's freaking HUGE. Would B a nice suprise if there's something NEW in this story, this time told by the Fab 4 themselves....

I'll be back soon ... with more....

Great Scary Stuff

OK, it's a new month. I'm giving the fiction a break -- tho it may return -- but instead of writing fiction here I'm going 2 write ABOUT fiction, as a way Back To Reality after 2 weeks of serializing that unfinished rock-group novel. I might even get back 2 reviewing some new-2-me music, possibly as early as 2morrow. But 1st....
I've only just started sniffing at Stephen Jones & Kim Newman's HORROR: THE 100 BEST BOOKS, in which 100 horror writers (Stephen King, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, etc.) choose their all-time favorite horror novels or short stories -- but it got me thinking....
Back in the '90s, horror fiction was about all I read. Science fiction had pretty-much worn out for me, whereas horror not only offered fresh thrills, it also sort-of at-times addressed things that were going on in the Real World. The best Xample of this I have is that I'd just finished reading Thomas Harris's THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS when the Jeffrey Dahmer case broke....
I think I really caught the disease as early as 1984, when I read something like 7 Stephen King novels in a row -- THE SHINING, THE DEAD ZONE, SALEM'S LOT, CHRISTINE, FIRESTARTER, CUJO & CARRIE, then later threw-in DIFFERENT SEASONS (a story collection), PET SEMATARY (yuck), DANSE MACABRE (a non-fiction history/overview of horror), MISERY, TOMMYKNOCKERS, etc., etc., ... & only MUCH later got around to IT & THE STAND.
This OD'ing on 1 writer (which I do A LOT) really worked -- I haven't been able 2 finish anything of King's since NEEDFUL THINGS & THE DARK HALF. More & more over the last 20 years I think King's needed an editor. Started GERALD'S GAME, DELORES CLAIBORNE, ROSE MADDER, couldn't finish. Started INSOMNIA -- it put me 2 sleep. Even THE GREEN MILE -- great movie, couldn't get into the book.
4 much of the '90s I was hooked on Dell's Abyss paperback horror line -- beautifully packaged books that weren't always that great 2 read. But they included lotsa work by my hero Kathe Koja, the writer who ruined my attn span & who has never let me down. Everything she's ever written has been worth it 4 me, even the young-adult novels she's bn writing 4 the last 10 years.
But the Abyss line also had lotsa work I couldn't get thru (by Poppy Z. Brite, Melanie Tem, Nancy Holder, Tanith Lee), or writers that didn't seem worth the trip -- Robert Deveraux, Ron Dee, Daniel Gower, Mary Hanner.... But when they got hold of something good -- WOW. In the past decade I was a subscriber 2 Leisure Books' horror line (mainly 4 Jack Ketchum), but there were some disappointments there 2....
I still feel this way about most horror -- a lot of what's out there is sludge I can't get thru, but the good stuff goes on the permanent shelf. Here's a list of summa the best stuff I can remember....
* Kathe Koja: SKIN, THE CIPHER, BAD BRAINS, STRANGE ANGELS, KINK, THE BLUE MIRROR, EXTREMITIES -- Koja wastes no time. Her abrupt, direct, sometimes brutal writing will plunge you in2 her stories & guarantee that when her characters hurt you will 2. SKIN is my favorite novel ever & includes a sorta performance-art/punk-rock/gothic atmosphere that it whirls around. It's amazing. THE CIPHER's no slouch, either....
* Jack Ketchum: HIDE AND SEEK, SHE WAKES, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, OFF SEASON, JOYRIDE, THE LOST.... Speaking of brutal.... Ketchum's books R usually short & Xtremely direct. HIDE AND SEEK is my choice 4 the best -- a twisted love story, the last 1/2 of it's like being repeatedly punched in the face ... in a good way. SHE WAKES features the rebirth of an ugly, hungry Greek goddess & a brutal finale. The Greek atmosphere is perfect. GIRL NEXT DOOR has a reputation as the most Xtreme horror novel ever -- it's not; some parts could be even more brutal, but it's still pretty tough 2 read Xcept 4 1 almost Bradbury-like moment early in the book ... before the bad things happen.... The others R pretty great 2....
* Thomas Harris: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, RED DRAGON. You've read these, of course. LAMBS locks you in by Page 10. RED DRAGON grabs you by the throat on the FIRST PAGE. (Wish I could figure out how he did that....) The later HANNIBAL is almost a great novel until the stupid throwaway ending that made me wanna throw it across the room. Haven't gotten 2 HANNIBAL RISING yet....
* Peter Straub: IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW, KOKO, THE THROAT. KOKO's the best Vietnam War novel ever. THE THROAT is a stunning epic, worth the 600 pgs. IF YOU COULD is a strange 1 -- I reread it every 10 years & each time it seems like a different story, or I pick up more or get more out of it. Straub's short stories "The Juniper Tree" & "Blue Rose" R pretty great 2. & the horrifying "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff"....
* Stephen King: IT and THE STAND R amazing epics, worth the 3 months it'll take you 2 read them. The TV miniseries' of these in no way do them justice.... King's got some amazing short stories 2, all seemingly with "The" in the title: "The Body," "The Reach," "The Mist," "The Raft," "The Jaunt," "The Mangler"....
* James Ellroy: THE BLACK DAHLIA, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, THE BIG NOWHERE. You probly think these R police-procedural novels, but horrifying out-of-control nightmarish stuff happens in each of them....
* Michael Blumlein: XY, THE BRAINS OF RATS. XY is a brutal nightmare with no exit. BRAINS OF RATS includes some amazing, scary, outrageous short stories -- the title story, "Tissue Ablation," "Bestseller," "The Wet Suit," "Shed His Grace" ... & the quiet & moving "The Thing Itself."
* K.W. Jeter: MANTIS. An unreliable narrator leads you in2 a creepy, dark LA world where a (possibly imaginary?) femme fatale leads him 2 kill.... 1 of a kind.
* Edward Lee: COVEN. Can horror also B funny? This is. Brutal, gloppy, slimy, like a really bad B-movie you hate yourself 4 liking. So over-the-top you can't take it seriously. & I mean WAY over the top....
* Dan Simmons: SONG OF KALI. The Calcutta setting rings true, & the thuggees who follow Kali R scary enuf. But the brutal ending is what will stay with you years later....
* Clive Barker: I can't read his novels. But some of the stories in his BOOKS OF BLOOD were pretty direct & pretty great, especially "In the Hills, the Cities," "Dread," "Revelations," "The Age of Desire"....
* David J. Schow: Also very direct & vivid. Any short-story collection will do, but especially check out "Not From Around Here," "Red Light," "Lonesome Coyote Blues," "Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You," "Pulpmeister"....
* Michael Shea: "The Autopsy."
* Martin Cruz Smith: NIGHTWING. Much more than just another vampire-bats-attack-people novel....
* Melanie Tem: WILDING has 1 beautifully-written chapter in the center of the book when her werewolf heroine runs thru the streets of Denver; the rest of the story's about average. DESMODUS had possibilities but I couldn't take the man-bashing. REVENANT has a beautiful framing device: a ghost town narrates the stories of the souls that "live" there; but the stories themselves were so sad I couldn't finish the book.
* George R.R. Martin: FEVRE DREAM puts vampires on a Mississippi riverboat. Definitely something diffrent. THE ARMAGEDDON RAG had possibilities, but the '60s nostalgia is buried by an evil cloak&dagger plot 2 destroy the world....
* Daniel Gower: THE ORPHEUS PROCESS. Frankenstein moved 2 today, grim & creepy & sad & not really worth it.
* Mary Hanner: RAPID GROWTH. Women in California's Silicon Valley start giving birth 2 giant tumors. Eeeuuuu....
...& of course the 3 scariest non-fiction books I can think of:
* Richard Preston: THE HOT ZONE, THE DEMON IN THE FREEZER. HOT ZONE's about ebola, DEMON's about smallpox; both R fascinating & neither R a picnic....
* Tim Cahill: BURIED DREAMS. The terrifying true story of infamous Chicago serial-killer John Wayne Gacy, who buried the bodies of 33 young men under his house. 4 chapters near the end R like being hit over&over by a sledgehammer. Amazing reporting, if you can take it....
And your favorite scary stuff is...?

Our best stuff? (A biased view)

Our best stuff? As I've said before, I think I'm too close to be the best judge of our best work -- in most cases I just see what doesn't quite work as well as we wanted it to, for whatever reason, or I just remember the circumstances a piece was recorded under. But here's what I remember best after almost 30 years....
OUT OF THE MIST -- It would be tough to forget your first album, but what I notice most here now is Melissa's haunted voice and gorgeous piano -- and half the songs here were hers. She was especially good on "Everywhere You Go," "Songbird," the brokenhearted melancholy of "In the Winter," "Blue Eyes," "Always Make Me Cry," "Everyday," "Midnight" and "Wish You Were Here." Also great guitar by Jim (with the classic opening meltdown of "Errr....") and Jeff (positively explosive on "Chained"), solid keyboards from Don (with a great hook on "It Wasn't Me," which Richard sang the hell out of), and luminous backing vocals from EVERYBODY.
THE BLACK ALBUM -- This is the loudest and most extreme we ever got, sort of the flipside of OUT OF THE MIST, all the way to the other end of the spectrum. Great crashing, explosive guitars from Jim and Jeff, superb drumming and weird percussion from Miles, demented violin and viola from Thom and Al, and Don's usual solid keyboards. If Melissa dominated our first album, Don and I took over on this one -- in fact, M doesn't have a single lead vocal here. But Richard's vocals are pretty amazing in places -- must have been tough for him to growl through all that noise. Best tracks: "Wreckage," "Drum Talk," "Nightmares," "Fractured," "Deceiver."
CHECKMATE -- Backing away from the extremes of THE BLACK ALBUM, I think this is our most charming work -- we sound so cute, like a wind-up-toy band ... that just happens to have some great tunes. Don wrote most of the songs here, and anchors them with great keyboard work, but all the heaviness from THE BLACK ALBUM is gone. Al lightens up the mood with spritely flute, recorder and krumhorn, and her old boyfriend Paul keeps things earthy with sax and bassoon. And Lee's occasional lead vocals keep this sounding like a fantasy-land album. LORD OF THE RINGS music. Best: The title track -- my choice for our best song ever -- Don's epic suite "Mushrooms," "Ploughboy's Dream," "Unrealion," "Raindance," "Curse the Cat," "A Little Hellraising," "Summer Song," "Leaf Fall," "Minor Disaster."
TAKING IT IN -- Trying to find a compromise between BLACK ALBUM and CHECKMATE, this mixes it up pretty well with solid vocals from Lee and Richard, solid keyboards from Don and Melissa, and occasional soaring guitar from Jim. Picks: "Memory Lane," "Surprise," "Be Alright," "Verging on the Ridiculous," "Place of Your Own," "Out on the Ranch," "Here We Are," "Heart of the Storm," "Heart's Desire," and Don's haunting "Spirit on the Water."

(COMING SOON: "In Concert," brand new.)
((ALSO COMING SOON: New music & books, Great Scary Stuff, & more as I try 2 get Back To Reality....))

Those were the days....

"We used to say
That come the day
We'd all be making songs
Or finding better words
These ideas never lasted long...."
-- Richard Thompson for Fairport Convention, "Meet on the Ledge"

Apart from the music, we in The Zoo used to have great ARGUMENTS -- staying up all night drinking coffee in any coffee shop that would let us lock up a booth or two for hours on end, facing off against each other, starting off with The Purpose Of Music And Art and then seeing where our discussions would take us, everybody talking at once, talking over the top of each other, trying to force a word in edgewise that would make everybody else laugh or maybe shut us all up for a second.
Good luck getting ANY of us to shut up. We were young and energetic and full of ourselves, and had that confidence young people have when they think they know everything that's necessary, even though they haven't really been through all that much.
I always used to believe back in those days that music at its very best was a powerful and mystical force that should be allowed to do whatever it wants. Don, Thom and Allison tended to agree -- they all felt that music was Art first, and who cared if it was "popular" as long as it was Good. Allison and Thom were busy crashing up against the tough works of avant-garde classical composers in the university's orchestra, and their listening tended to follow that direction. Don tended to go as far out as he could when listening to music for pleasure -- the weirder it was, the more he liked it.
As for me, while I agreed with experimentation for our group and for music in general, actually LISTENING to experimental work I often found disappointing. I was dismayed to learn that I needed a melody I could hum or whistle along with and clever lyrics I could sing along with and think about. Comedy was always a plus. All such stuff appealed to me unless I was really angry or REALLY depressed -- then whatever loud, obnoxious noise was handy would usually Do The Job. It took me YEARS to figure all this stuff out, though....
There were others in the band who felt our music had to at least TRY to be popular, appeal to the widest possible audience, otherwise who'd care what we were doing and we'd all end up starving to death really quick. Melissa, Jim, Richard, Miles, Lee and Robyn all pushed for keeping communication as direct and open as possible.
Those positions are where most of us stayed, musically. Don and Thom would often play Devil's Advocate, switching from side to side to keep the argument going, Thom making fun of the whole thing by throwing in some off-the-wall lyric routine from Frank Zappa that none of the rest of us had ever heard, cleverly making his point while the rest of us fell on the floor laughing.
I found over the years that the best music for me is the kind that juggles a strong melody, lyrics I can sing along with and think over, strong group vocals and instrumentation, and occasional musical freakouts -- all at the same time. The artists I followed closest and seemed to get the most from were all like this: Caravan, Camel, Providence, Nick Drake, Euphoria, the Moody Blues, Renaissance (when they weren't being too prissy and stuck-up), King Crimson, early Yes, Gentle Giant, Boston, early Journey, Kansas, middle-period Genesis, later Fleetwood Mac.
The Zoo's music perhaps ended up a combination of all of these, since Don, Melissa and myself wrote the vast majority of our pieces. We went from Melissa's singer-songwriterish confessions at the piano to Don's multi-keyboard freakouts to my insistence on snappy tunes with catchy choruses, to Jim's molten guitar-feedback cascades (as on "Errr...." and "Afraid" on our LIVE album), to Miles's fondness for using every kind of oddball percussion instrument known to man, from woodblocks and cowbells to aluminum siding....
Not to mention Allison and Thom's battling violins and violas, Allison and Bob's massed-chorale backing-vocals.... And Jeff was always somewhere nearby, just in case we needed even MORE heavy guitar....
But back in the early days, all these late nights out were just strategizing, trying to figure out how much of the music we heard in our heads we could fit into one reasonable-lengthed song, or one album. We were all ambitious and energetic back then -- we all burned with what we wanted to do.
Half the guys in the band were in love with Melissa, though only Thom had been her lover at that point. Jim wouldn't fall for her until a few months down the road, and the two of them would break Don's heart in the process.
It was tough not to at least ADMIRE Melissa -- she could paint, draw, play piano and guitar, write poetry, design jewelry, keep multi-media writing/drawing/painting journals that made me and Don's eyes bug out. Melissa and Allison were best friends at that point, though there was some jealousy there too -- Al could play guitar, piano, flute, violin and viola, plus draw, paint and act. But she looked down her nose at most people and heaped contempt on Melissa when M would treat Thom or Don badly.
Don pretty openly lusted after Melissa, though he met Robyn shortly after the band formed and would marry her a couple of years later. In the group's earliest days I was slowly getting over Allison, my highschool sweetheart who'd broken my heart just before Christmas to take up with Richard -- but I had yet to meet Don's old girlfriend Tina, and was four years away from meeting Cyndi, who I'd later marry and spend 17 years with. Tina would later marry Miles.
Thom would leave the band after his bitter breakup with Melissa, and Allison would leave in 1982, after breaking up with Richard. The rest of us hung in there and added more members, complicating the picture even more.
All these romantic entanglements became subtext for songs on our albums. If you want to know what we were all doing and thinking between late 1977 and 1982, the music explains it all.
But I can still clearly see us the way we were back then, back when all the guys still had hair: Thom with his long, precise violinist's fingers and his long, flowing brown hair, looking like a young Niccolo Paganini and having some of the same demons inside him, no doubt.
Miles with his long, curly black hair and his always-grimy glasses, always worried about something, always having to smoke a bowl to decompress -- why he married Tina to double or triple his anxieties I'll never be able to figure out.
During those long nights out, sooner or later Miles would slip into his monologue about "Leveling" -- his theory that modern American society was structured to make sure everybody who experienced public education graduated from high school or college as "basically the same," with the same narrow range of experiences and interests.
This monologue meshed amazingly well with Jeff's hour-long routine about "The Machine" -- how modern American society was structured to grind everyone down into unthinking gray oblivion....
For comedy relief, at this point Thom would slip into reciting something from Frank Zappa -- "Billy the Mountain," or maybe a chorus of "Cheap Thrills" or "Montana" or "Dinah Moe Humm"....
There were also, as always, various sexual intrigues going on. Most of these centered around bearded, mysterious Richard, who it sometimes seemed had slept with every woman on the planet. Allison and Tina both fell for his dark good looks and deep voice, but Melissa thought he was a fraud and a dork -- which made Don and I CHEER! Melissa used to have HUGE arguments with Richard over the offhand way he'd sing the lyrics she used to slave over.
Then there was lecherous Lee, who used to pant over any woman who had a pulse, who wanted Tina badly, but never got her -- unless nobody ever got around to telling me about it....
Tina -- cheery and composed and always happy on the surface, but underneath a dangerously impulsive psychotic. Always with a hidden agenda.
Allison -- bitchy and pushy and overbearing and stuck-up on the surface, but underneath a scared child, dying to be liked and pushing away almost everyone before they decided they didn't like her.
Don -- who tried to stay aloof from all these entanglements when they got their ugliest, but who would just laugh ruefully about it the rest of the time -- nothing The Zoo could do could ever surprise him. He was my best friend, but he didn't hold back: When I once suggested that maybe Tina and I should get married, he looked right at me and said "You're FUCKED!"
...As for me, I'm a little too close to be able to decribe me the way I was back then. I'm pretty sure I was hell to put up with. Don said once that I ALWAYS thought things were worse than they really were, and I'm sure that hasn't changed much.
So maybe things weren't as strained and chaotic as I remember. Our hottest, most creative period together totaled about five years, and it all flew by in a messy, complicated blur.
One thing's for sure: Whether in a coffee shop, in a studio or on stage, the seven to 10 or a dozen members of The Zoo (depending on who showed up) were magic together. There was nobody else I wanted to spend my time with more. And that's what I remember most.

The cost

When I try to listen now to the music we made, it's still too close to me, even though some of it was recorded over 30 years ago. I can't separate it from the things we did, the places we went, the arguments and laughs and good times we had. Too much of my life is wrapped up in it. It's too tough for me to judge what our best work was, or even if any of it was any good. I didn't just play it, I lived it. I have my favorites of course, but too often our songs are too connected to the memories I have around them.
With other performers I don't have that problem. So much music from the '70s and early '80s and even into the '90s sounds so DATED to me now, even if it doesn't really seem like it was that long ago. It's hard to believe that so many people were listening to THAT, and even enjoying it. But I wonder if other musicians feel the same way: Hey, this is what we DID. This took WORK. This was part of our LIVES.
God knows we could all have wasted our lives in dead-end jobs. Far better to work on something we could all get obsessive about, something that not only earned us money but built-up a body of work that we could all point to with pride and say "See, I really DID do something with my life!"
But as with all jobs there were hidden costs. So many years seemed to go by in a blur. Most of the '80s and '90s are just GONE for me. I can usually tell you where I was and what projects I was working on at a given time, but I may not be able to tell you what ELSE I was doing.
To be so wrapped-up in your work that the rest of your life comes in a distant second -- for YEARS -- could be considered a tragedy, or at least a waste. I've certainly come to see it that way. I got so wrapped up in my "job" -- making music, providing an income -- that I lost my marriage, lost my kids, nearly lost my health. It started out as fun. It was supposed to BE fun. I never thought I was a workaholic. But I might have been wrong.
I'm sure Frank Zappa would disagree about my outlook. In one of his last interviews he said "As long as you're obsessed with SOMETHING creative in your life, what else is there to miss?" But then Frank thought he was an excellent husband and father. I definitely was NOT -- at least not while I was obsessed with work.
I have two grown children, a son and a daughter. My son is 23 and is out somewhere driving semi-trucks across the country. I hear from him every few months if I'm lucky. I like to think we're still close, but I still think I failed him in a lot of ways. My daughter is about to turn 20 and just finished her second year of college. I see her once a year if I'm lucky. I think she's a lot like me.
But thanks in part to my work, I lost both of them over 10 years ago when my marriage finally fell apart. It had been crumbling for years by then, and my kids likely took all of the anger and frustration I was feeling back then. I regret the 10 years that I never had with them, and the fact that I'm just barely in their lives now.
And of course all of this, along with everything else, went back into the music.
All of us in The Zoo have grown up, we've all suffered, we've all grown apart. Don has two children and was about to become a grandfather, last I heard. In the last couple of years he's fallen completely off the map. Melissa has two kids. Her autistic son graduated from high school a year ago. Allison has a son. Tina had at least two boys, last I heard. Jeff finally got married in his late 40s. No children, though.
Life just kept moving on with all of us, no matter what else we were doing at the time, no matter how deep into it we were -- and for those of us in the core group, The Zoo was our lives 24-hours-a-day for almost 20 years. I'm still amazed we were able to hold it together that long. But.
Only Melissa has managed to keep her marriage together. Allison's marriage turned into a joke pretty early -- and she'd agree with that assessment. Don's marriage collapsed after 15 years. Mine lasted 17 years -- somehow. Tina's life has been unstable since she was 10 years old. The rest of us have all been divorced at least once, and sometimes gone through other unsuccessful long-term relationships as well.
Many of the friendships haven't lasted either. I lost touch with Thom, Richard, Lee, Miles, Tina, Bob, Robyn and Jim YEARS ago. Don has been stone silent for the last three years. I have no idea how to reach him. It's like he's vanished. I talked to Jeff on the phone a few months back and exchanged letters with him for awhile -- but somehow I think I scared him off.
Thanks to the music, at least we've all got SOMETHING to show for our frustrations, neuroses, broken marriages, long-distance families, and children-juggling inter-relationships.
I just wonder if it's ENOUGH.
Was it worth it? To be so obsessed? To be so SELFISH?

Our OTHER guitarist's audition....

Jim was a good ENOUGH guitarist for The Zoo, even if he wasn't always "inspired." And of course we had Jeff available if Jim was unable to deliver the required "heavyness."
Jim was tuneful, was happy to play in support, could handle electric or acoustic, could write songs, and seldom showed-off or tried to call undue attention to himself -- in our bunch that was practically a GUARANTEE of being overlooked.
We never found anyone more reliable or consistent, and God knows we tried. Partly because of that, it probably took Jim awhile before he felt completely comfortable in the band. For a lot of reasons.
One was his involvement with Melissa after her and Thom's rather violent break-up. Though Thom's feelings were hurt (not to mention Don's), Jim and Melissa seemed well suited to each other. And though they seemed to get along better than Melissa and Thom did, that doesn't mean there were never any fireworks. There WERE -- Jim and Melissa just kept them hidden better....
The best, most passionate playing we ever got out of Jim was on a night when he'd just had an argument with Melissa. We'd been working on a vaguely Middle-Eastern-sounding instrumental Don and I had come up with called "Errr...." I'd already laid down a simple rhythm line with Miles, and there wasn't much keyboard stuff left for Don to do, so he was in the booth with me when it was time to add Jim's guitar.
We had Jim hooked-up and ready in the studio, with Miles lined up to add some additional fills and punctuation. Thom was on hand to screech his violin a little and add some dementia to the whole thing, and Jeff was standing by to add his patented "heavy guitar." I figured two or three heavy explosions at the end would top things right off.
Turned out we didn't need Jeff after all....
Don and I were a little cautious about having Thom and Jim in the studio at the same time, and apparently we had good reasons to be concerned. On the way into the studio, Thom had said something mild to Jim -- probably just "Hey" or "How 'ya doin'?" and certainly not "So what's it like sleeping with The Love Of My Life?" Thom needed bad feelings firing at him first before he'd come out with something harsh. Anyway, Jim cut him off sharply, and through the control room window Don and I saw Thom raise his eyebrows at us as if to say "What's up this guy's ass?"
"Guys, are we ready to do this?" I asked over the intercom.
"Fuck off," Jim snapped. "Let's get this fuckin' thing over with."
Don rolled the tape. Thom and Jim came in about a third of the way through the piece, Jim following Don's insistent main melody and Thom adding wistful little counterpoints in a higher register. But it didn't stay that way for long.
Jim took off, pounding the main theme directly out at us, then lifting above it in a screech, his fingers flying across the strings and around the neck of the guitar.
The music just seemed to boil up out of Jim like an explosion. And once he started burning, we couldn't stop him. We didn't want to.
He leapt with a scream of frustration onto the chord that started his solo, leading away from the main melody line. I remember Don and I laughing because it was JUST LIKE something Jeff would have done, and did. But we weren't laughing for long.....
Not with Jim's fingers flashing in a blur across the strings, feeding back in screams, conjuring up images of flames in his frustration, Miles smashing and bashing along with him at first, then being left behind as Jim's fingers seemed to get caught in the strings, then recovered to explode with huge smears and blurs of clogged sound as his fingers slammed and flew across the strings and up and down the neck of the guitar.
He started duetting with his own feedback, reaching up the neck while his right hand blurred across the strings below. The guitar screamed.
The tune LEANED hard, first one way and then another, queasy with seasickness -- or rage. I thought Jim was going to strangle his guitar. He choked another scream out of it....
That's when I noticed that Jim was playing all alone, wrenching the guitar seemingly in half, bouncing it off his knee so it reverberated and rang: BOM-ba-ba-ba-ba-BOM, bop-bop-ba-dop-BOM, and his rocketing fingers took the theme up into the stratosphere again.
Thunder growled and exploded in the studio. Lightning strikes came down right in front of the control booth. I jumped, and Don laughed.
And Jim kept playing. He kept soaring. I had visions of the monitor speakers melting, the control board erupting in flames, the tape frying, and us losing this one-of-a-kind take. But it didn't happen.
And Jim just kept going. Thom had stepped back from his mic in awe, just dazed. The thrashing, crashing drums Miles had added to the track earlier had gone silent -- now he just sat on the drum stool, watching, hands and sticks folded across his chest, his trademark cigarette dangling forgotten from his lips and a huge smile lighting up his face below his usual dinner-plate-sized eyes. He was nodding along in time with Jim's solo.
And it went on. Jim burned. He screamed and stomped, his face scrunching up in anger and frustration as he pulled impossible squeals and cries of pain out of his guitar. Don and I laughed some more at this, and that just made Jim play louder and angrier. He leaped from a rumble to a scream, expressing whatever anger and frustration was in him, exorcising whatever it was that HAD to get out.
There was a smear -- a blur of sound as Jim's fingers slammed and flew. A flash -- a rumble and a detonation. A splash of acid in the face and a scream of anguish.
Don and I looked at each other, dazzled, stunned. Thom just shrugged his shoulders -- there was nothing he could add. And Miles just followed along, grinning, his huge eyes missing nothing behind his glasses.
As the song wound up, Jim came down out of the stratosphere and landed precisely on the final phrases of the melody, just as practiced, punching in a few last notes before the tune vanished.
There was probably a 10-second feedback-filled gap between the time Jim finally touched down and when Don finally drew a breath and exclaimed "Wow!" And that's the way we left it on the disc when it was finally released -- along with the round of applause we all gave Jim right after that. Thom shook his hand.
Talking it over afterward, Don and I agreed that Jim's solo had pulled the song right up out of itself. We'd looked at the piece originally as almost a space-filler, something that maybe somebody would bash-up some lyrics for eventually and then we'd figure out what to do with it. Instead, Jim's solo forced us to lead off THE BLACK ALBUM with it. And then we did the only other thing we could do -- gave Jim a composing credit. There wouldn't have been a tune without him.
It wasn't until MUCH later that we learned why Jim had been so angry that night. Just before he came to the studio, Melissa told him that she was going to get an abortion.
Melissa said much later that God got even with her for that decision. A dozen years later her son was born with autism.