The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Chaz Matthews, �Lost in the Supermarket�

Started October 26, - Finished November 2, 2005; 96 pages. Posted 15 February 2006

This was another one of those books given to me by MaximumRockNRoll for review, and I still actually owe them a review for it, now running about three months late. I�ve been busy. Sorta.

Well, fine, I haven�t been all that busy, considering I�m still finding time to write these entries, but this book has me at a loss of what to say. Not that I don�t have anything to say about it. I could start with the simple fact that it�s awful. The copyright page states that some selections were reprinted from Hit List Magazine and Live Journal.

It didn�t take long to figure out that what we have here is a guy with a blog who had a lot of people on his buddy list who probably said something along the lines of �You funny. You should make this a book!� And he went with that advice.

Personally, I think it�s another example about how if the masses like it, then it�s probably not very good; along the lines of how for nearly a decade Home Alone was in the top ten highest-grossing movies of all time. Or perhaps the unexplainable popularity of Larry the Cable Guy.

I still plan on writing that review for the magazine so I�m not really going to go into it here, but I can certainly use it as a segue into my own life. See, the premise behind the book is a �fictionalized� account of a punk rock guy dealing with his discontent of working shitty jobs and the people who frequent his place of employment. In this case, it�s a supermarket. Hey Chaz? Kevin Smith�s lawyer is on line one.

Meanwhile, there�s me, writing this stuff for free for all of you, because you won�t buy the damn book I already put out. And me, being the disgruntled punk rock guy, now has a job at an �alternative� night club. Being a place that allows 17 and up, there are a lot of kids there who have nothing else to do. And they�re good kids, for the most part, just a little silly. A large factor of them took pseudonyms instead utilizing their given names. Some of our regulars include Angel, Cloud, Kat, Twister, and Byrd. I have to card these kids, so I know their real names. I�m considering introducing myself as �Bitter� just to fit in.

But I kid the kids. the fact is, they�ve been incredibly nice to me, and the first night that I did the Punk Rock DJ thing, they were the ones who came to support it. Of course, seeing as they�re all under 21 and can�t drink, the bar owner didn�t care about the sign of solidarity, because the till wasn�t making any money.

I�ve now finished six weeks of this punk rock night with the cheap(er) beers and bad music, and I still can�t figure out what needs to happen. The first night would have been a total disaster, except for a few kids who happened to walk past and went upstairs to see what the noise was. They couldn�t drink, but they utilized the dance floor to run in circles and smash into each other, reminding me of when I was 15 and listening to the Descendents in my friend�s backyard. We also ran around and smashed into each other. In any case, they seemed like they had a great time and I expected them to show up again the next week.

They didn�t. But other people ambled in. At first I was frustrated, because we would get Hot Topic aficionados who would ask me to play bands like Slipknot and My Chemical Romance, prompting me to make a sign that said �If Hot Topic sells it, I don�t play it.�

Then I had a group of punks who apparently spend all their free time getting tattoos and piercings who were actually of drinking age, who sat at the bar sucking down PBR�s and nodding their heads appreciatively at what I played. I overheard the guy with tribal tattoo covering his entire face talking rather eloquently to his friend about the importance of MDC when I played the song �Dead Cops.� Meanwhile, the girl who accompanied them would occasionally come to talk to me, thanking me for my playlist, and, I suspect, hitting on me, though she started this with �I just got out of jail.�

Yeah. Probably not marriage material. In any case, I thought I was building a fan base.

They didn�t show up again either.

I was sure my night was going to get cancelled, and was ready to pull the plug myself, when I decided to set a goal of having a hundred dollars worth of booze sold at the bar. That night, we made a hundred and three dollars.

Finally, last week, one person who I had met though the bar had a going away party. We were friendly to each other, and on New Years Eve at midnight, he clinked drinks with me and said �Happy New Year, my friend.� I was pretty sure he said it simply because he couldn�t remember my name, but it was the first time anybody had referred to me as such since I got here, and I appreciated it. Then, out of the blue, he told me he was moving back to San Diego. For his final night in town, he invited all his friends to the club on my night. The bar revenue for that night beat out the Wednesday goth night, which is a three year institution.

And everybody loved it. It was hard for me to keep queuing up songs, as people kept coming behind the DJ booth to look at my collection. I thought I had new fans who would come out again. It�s not a dance night kind of thing, but it works well as an avenue to drink to the background of good music.

So I got to the club on Tuesday, Valentine�s Day, and set up. It took two hours before one person walked in.

Punks are unreliable.

Part of the problem is that the owner is so self-assured of his niche market, that he doesn�t do anything to expand. There�s no advertising, no Web site, no fliers except for the ones I made and distributed myself. Meanwhile, there�s the totally obnoxious fratboy dance club down the road called The Wave Waikiki.

This place is packed on any given day. Instead of promoting whatever kind of theme they have, they hire strippers to dance on the sides of the stage. I�ve been here twice, and was thoroughly annoyed within 15 minutes of setting foot in the joint. It�s not my kind of crowd, so I can�t be jealous of their success. Sure, their bartenders probably make a shitload more than I do, but I don�t have to deal with nearly as much near-date rape scenarios.

They do their thing, catering toward the popular and the obvious, and we do ours. Fine. So imagine how pissed off I was when I saw this:

So now they�re going to muscle in on my genre, and this is how they want to do it? Fine. I�ve been diving back into the bar/club reviews, so I�m going to this. And I�m going to take advantage of their �free punk makeover� just to see what happens.

And for whatever reason, I think some of you are going to be awaiting the next update even more eagerly than when my club had the Fetish Night.

---

There�s still the matter of my car, which got ran into at the parking lot of the same club I�ve been talking about. It�s fine, thank you for the concern. The drunk guy who hit it doesn�t have any insurance, which I bet most of you expected, but the damage isn�t bad. He knocked the back bumper off the track, and the screwholes to keep it in place are shattered, but my roommate drove a screw through the plastic to keep it from flying off. Now my car looks a little more beat up than it used to, but at least it isn�t held together by duct tape. It�s still driveable, and I still use it regularly. In fact, I used it just yesterday, when I went out to find a new place to review for the weekly paper.

When I got home, somebody was in my usual parking space. I drove up a half-block to the next street and parked. Tonight, when I was getting ready to go to work, I walked up the road to collect my car, drove it back to the house and parked, loaded up all the records, and then started off to the club. I reached down into the drink well, where my portable CD player lay to start up some music for the journey.

The CD player wasn�t there. I stopped the car and saw the connector cord leading out the passenger side door. It became obvious that my car had been broken into. I continued to my workplace, wondering all the while how they had broken into the car. When I do pick up my father, I know he�s bad about locking the passenger door, so I thought perhaps I had just neglected to lock it up.

When I parked, I went to check the passenger door. Some resourceful little soul used a screwdriver to jimmy open the keyhole on the passenger side. I say resourceful, because it worked � and not only did they take my portable CD player, but they also got away with my reporter micro-cassette recorder. I say screwdriver, because they left it in the car, next to the seat. One would think I could at least take comfort in the fact that I scored a screwdriver, but no � the cops took it as evidence.

When the car got hit last week, the Reverend Klugarsh left a comment saying, �Are you there, God? It�s me, Klugarsh. I was wondering if maybe you could Cut Dean A Fucking Break?�

I�m gonna take that as a �no.�


Rating: Worthless.

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