Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. �Between Time and Timbuktu�
Occasionally, just to let others who don�t have accounts with this particular blogging service, you have to let others know how obsessive it can get. We have all these resources that let us know how many people visited our site, how they got there, how many pages they viewed, and where they visited from. I can tell when my sister has been reading. I know that if you type �Primate butt sex� or �Snorting THC� into a search engine, one of the sites suggested is this one. Another feature is that others who have blogs through this host can list you as their �buddy,� which will then give you an alert when I post.
I bring this up because apparently my referring to children as meatballs in that last entry was enough for one person to drop me from their buddy list. I�m not obsessive enough to know who it was as I haven�t memorized my fanbase, but I�m assuming they dropped me because they have children of their own and took offense to suggesting that they might be edible. Know this: If I figure out who it was, I�m coming over � and I�m bringing pasta.
Anyway, if you�re scratching your head, wondering why you haven�t heard of this particular Vonnegut book, don�t worry your misshapen little head about it, because he didn�t actually write this. What this book serves as is a collection of his stories squashed together to form a teleplay, mostly incorporating bits and pieces from Cat�s Cradle, Slaughterhouse-five and a few of the stories from Welcome to the Monkey House. The book is in script form (hence the length), and there are a ton of pictures from the production.
The result is one big fat mess.
That�s the problem with icon status � everybody wants to cash in. And I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but those who imitate might not have the vision, and probably don�t have the skill to do it properly. The result is, well, teleplays like this.
The initial statement on my MySpace page reads, �Punk Rock Icon � Washed Up Has Been � Same thing!� (Speaking of which, if I may be allowed a tangent: People, when you bog down your page with crappy wallpaper and strange translucent fonts with the mandatory uploading of an obscure cover song and a dozen animated pixies, all it serves to do is remind me to never look at your page again. Also, you do know that MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch of the Fox Corporation, yes? How much personal information do you really want to give to that guy, huh? Think about it.)
In any case, the punk rock icon statement serves as an old joke. I had the same devilock haircut for approximately a decade, so I was easily recognizable. Still, it struck me as weird that some people would remember me from a show my band played 12 years earlier. It was especially weird for me as I was the drummer AND I have poor posture, so I always thought I was hidden behind a mass of things to hit with sticks.
There have been more than a few times when somebody would come up to say hello, playing that annoying game where they carry on the conversation, making it clear that they knew everything about me trying to make me guess where I knew them from. I mean, look, I�m flattered that you remember drinking beer with me in some backyard in Modesto fifteen years ago, but I�ve had a lot of beer with a lot of people in a lot of backyards since then. It all starts to meld together after awhile.
Some of these reunions of sorts have led to people who were obviously hurt or disappointed when they realized I honestly didn�t remember them. Those moments always made me feel terrible, because it was obviously a good memory for them if they held onto it for so long. But my retention isn�t that specific. To give an example, the first punk show I ever went to was The Faction, Aggression, Ill Repute and The Drab. I don�t remember the date. Hell, I can�t even remember the name of the venue. I bet Brian, our old bass player, remembers both of those things.
Anyway, we were a bunch of little kids, and when the show was over we were milling around out front waiting for our ride when we noticed the members of Ill Repute were standing just to the right of us. After a few minutes of being starstruck, we sheepishly approached them to tell them we thought they were awesome. Despite none of us reaching either five feet or a hundred and twenty pounds at the time, these guys in the band simply talked to us like we were old friends and even offered to give us a ride and put us on their guest list for their next show in Santa Cruz.
Of course, we all had to go home to our mommies, so we declined (I also had a concussion that night from attempting my first stage dive). But think about that for a moment. The music industry always pushes artists as people to be worshipped and put on pedestals. They are supposed to be larger than life and better than you. The fact that this band treated us with the same amount of respect that we thought we owed to them is probably the single most important reason why I�ve continued on being involved in the punk genre to this very day, over 20 years later. We�re all players, and we�re all important.
Still, the iconography still occurs. Some people want to attach some sort of larger-than-life significance to a person. When my band went on tour, we spent the majority of our time in the southwest where nothing happens. More often than I would like to admit, people brought our record up to me with pen in hand asking me for a signature.
I hated that. �Look,� I�d say, �you having me sign something implies that I�m of some sort of stature above you, and I�m not. I�m just a regular guy.�
And still they wanted the signature. I�d continue the argument. I�d give them my home address on a scrap of paper, telling them to write me, promising that I�d write back. �That way you�ll have a personal connection,� I�d try to reason, �instead of some scribble that you can�t read from somebody that none of your friends know. Besides, I like letters.�
The end result usually led to me reluctantly signing the record. And out of all those conversations, I only received one letter.
But wow, that was one hell of a tangent. What I was trying to get to was that I finally left San Jose, as well as my status of San Jose Punk Rock Icon. Except that it�s slowly creeping back. Last week I stopped into the dive bar next to the nightclub I work at and took a seat. The people next to me were making jokes about Surgeon General warnings and I made a quick comment, which got a laugh. The guy next to me made another statement then looked straight at me and said, �So Dean, you don�t remember me, so you?�
I didn�t. He made lots of references and hints, and I still had no idea who the hell he was, though it was obvious that he had known me for a long time. �Yeah, as soon as I saw you walk in with your purple hair and Propagandhi shirt, I was like, holy shit, that�s Dean.� He was obviously annoyed that I couldn�t place him.
In addition, the last five columns in the Honolulu Weekly featured my columns (including one last week, which I forgot to link, so here it is). People are recognizing my name in connection with my writings. People have been introduced, rounds have been purchased for my benefit and other bartenders and managers are giving me their cards, encouraging me to visit their establishments.
I�m also getting recognized as �The cute bartender from Pink�s,� which also gets me free drinks. I�m certainly not complaining, and I try to return the favor when I see them. Now, however, we�re working back into that territory where somebody is going to get their feelings hurt, simply because my memory isn�t as good as others.
That�s the problem with my icon status. (And hopefully, that statement doesn�t make me out to be a total prick.) I�m just not as clear on faces and names and events. For instance, Ill Repute is actually playing here in Hawaii this week, in just a couple of days. I can�t go, as they�re playing different venues on days that I work. But if I did go, I wouldn�t corner the band with tests to see if they remember inviting my friends and me to join their tour.
Besides, I think it might be kind of depressing for them to meet somebody who saw their first punk show over 20 years ago, and yet they�re still playing tiny dive bars.
Then again, I recently saw that D.I. was coming to the island but hadn�t booked a specific venue. Somewhere around 1990 I interviewed that band for the local alternative �zine, and they ended up staying at my house. More than a decade later, they happened to walk into my bookstore simply because they were playing that night down the street. I approached Casey, the singer, and said, �Hey you probably have no reason to remember this, but you guys stayed at my apartment a long time back...�
Casey looked at me for a second, pointed and said, �you had the pool table... Dean, right?�
I was thunderstruck. I mean, yeah, I strike an impression, but c�mon! They ended up putting me on their guest list for the night.
So anyway, I saw they were coming and approached the promoter. �You have to have them play here,� I told him. �I know the owner is a bit of a tightass, but I�ll help convince him that it�s in his best interest to make concessions.�
The promoter looked at me with a bit of wariness. �What do you want out of this?� he asked.
�Nothing. Having them play means I get to see them. And besides, I know it will be a good show, and I�ll be bartending. I�ll make my reward from tips alone. Besides, they�re great fucking guys.�
�You know them?� he said cautiously.
�Well, I wouldn�t expect them to remember me, but we�ve had a history. Look, just tell Casey this...� I took a pen and jotted a few words down on a piece of paper: Dean � apartment in San Jose, California with the pool table. Worked at the book store. �Tell them I work here now, and I�d really like them to play at my club.�
They�re playing two nights and as far as I can tell, we have their exclusive engagement.
So the icon status is growing again, and this time it�s not simply for being �that guy who played in that one band.� But the real test of iconography is when something is named after you.
Well...
There�s a drink that�s quite popular right now called a Red-Headed Slut (Jagermeister, Peach Schnapps, with a splash of cranberry juice). I noticed that if you added a splash of blue caraco, the drink took on a purple hue.
A Purple-Headed Slut. On our drink special board, it�s listed as a �Slutty Dean.� And it only costs $7.00.
�Cause I�m a cheap fuck.
