Jazz

I find it alarming that I can quite easily shoplift a ripe grapefruit by casually slipping it into my pants. No one seems to notice my grotesque misshaping and I can nonchalantly walk out of the front door of any grocery store.

What is wrong with society today, when no one notices an egregious bulge in some man’s pants?? When something like that happens I say we’ve become more animal the human, more savage then gentile. Is this a society that I want to live in? One where political correctness has gone so far that no one comments on the size of particular deformity. No I say, this is not my America! Where are the days when laughter and ridicule would be the result of such a malformation? Why, the only word I heard spoken in my direction came from the mouth of a small boy asking his mother innocently, “Good God, is that my future? Those balls are huge and I want to grow up and wear tight pants!” The mother quickly admonishing him for drawing attention to my "handicap."

No longer, I say. From now on I am speaking my mind regardless of offense. If you’re overweight I may call you “Chubbadub”, or if you’re missing a limb perhaps I will dub thee, “Ol’ One Eye” regardless of the nonexistent appendage! And of course if you’re Guatemalan well then you get the moniker, “Lazy!” just like all the other lazy Guatemalans. It’s truth telling time America and I need fifty cents to buy a cookie in the vending machine.

Floyd!

He’s dumb he’s scared
He’s thinking impaired
He’s always scratching an itch
He’s clumsy and shy
A really nice guy
Your favorite son of a bitch

He’s sweet and a punk
He fits in your trunk
And needs a punch in the face
He sleeps on your bed
Sheds on your head
To every owner’s disgrace

Floyd-o, Floyd-o
Makes me so annoyed-o
Floyd-o Floyd-o
No one knows he’s gay

Nobody knows he’s gay
He hopes to keep it this way
His secret is that he’s gay
You’ll love him anyway

Floyd-o!
New, from The Pound.

KSUK

Growing up I always wondered where I would get stuck. My older co-workers and friends blast hair bands like Poison and Motley Crew. My sister trains her daughter on a strict diet of Bon Jovi, while her husband feeds them Rush. My dad is still in Mexico listening to Mambo, Danson, and Trios. Once on a date I asked a girl if she had heard to the new Weezer album, she asked me, “What’s a Weezer?” She was stuck in the early nineties, the bad part of the early nineties. But me, I never want to get stuck anywhere in any time. It’s becoming increasingly impossible. I live in Los Angeles and the radio stations are unbearable.

Indie 103 burned out instead of fading away. It was really a bummer when we lost that station to yet another Latin music hodge-podge. The same fate met my beloved 107.1 and before that Groove 103. I love my people, but seriously how many radio stations do we need? For new and in the know music I listen to KCRW but they’re quickly becoming too bourgeois, and are risking being classified as a world music station in my book. Where’s my God damned rock and roll!

By far the biggest disappointment in my radio life is KROQ. What the hell happened? Back in the day they were the first and the best station. Barely legal and broadcasting out of what felt like some dude’s living room, you heard first, the Smiths, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, the Clash, The Cure, and on and on and on! Hell I can remember a day when I felt I wasn’t even smart enough to listen to KROQ. Nowadays it’s a steady diet of Red Hot Chili Peppers, and it's dangerously close to being a classic rock station when it routinely plays Nirvana, the Smashing Pumpkins and Sublime. Don’t get me wrong, they were something back in the days before the internet when I wore flannel in the summer. I think I heard them patting their own backs for playing "Paper Planes" by M.I.A. a full year and a half after her album came out and months after I saw the Slumdog Millionaire, still they touted it as “new music.”

At the risk of sounding like an old man who hates it when the neighborhood kids step on his lawn, what the hell are these kids listening too?? I don’t know, I just feel like music meant more when I was younger. Where is today’s Bowie, Queen or even Devo? I know they exist, they must! Musicians with something to say and talent to say it, so why are no radio stations in the biggest city on the west coast playing it? The city, instead of breeding rebellious malcontented teenagers who are pissed off at the world, is creating bland, Abercrombie and Fitch, homogenized middle America. I boo this. Makes me wonder: as a senior citizen will I be afraid of America’s youth or will they be afraid of me. I may be an old timer, but at least I’m cooler than they are.

What are you listening to? Help a brother out and leave a comment.

Death Clock

Recently I filled in one of those death clock questionnaires on the internet and it said I would be dying at the ripe young age of 72. That's 2045 for those of you keeping score at home. While 72 is not as good as 82, it's sure a hell of a lot better then 54 so I can't complain. Having said that, a month ago I turned 36, meaning, I’m half way done.

I’m half way done!!!

A midlife crisis seems to me the perfect time to look back and so here are some of the things I’ve done in those 36 years:

• Successfully completed potty training.
• First communion.
• Bench pressed 170 lbs.
• Kissed a girl.
• Learned to walk.
• Graduated high school.
• Worked on several major motion pictures.
• Made a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich
• Traveled to two different continents, bringing my total to three.
• Had two photos hanging in a gallery.

But what would a reflection upon my life be without stating what I have yet left to accomplish with the second half of what is so far (as I’m sure you’ll agree) my amazing life. What I have planned for the next 36 years:

• Kiss My Girl some more.
• Hang some more photos in a gallery.
• Play some baseball.
• Bench press 170 lbs.
• Make some good ice cream.
• Graduate college.
• Discover life on another planet.
• Create life on another planet.
• Destroy life on another planet.
• Travel to another three continents, not saying which.
• Make some major motion pictures.
• Learn to do the Soulja boy.
• Die.

I have a busy schedule for the next 3.6 decades.

The Grapes of Macgrath (A Duckfirth Story)

Wine and me go together like whipped cream and lime pickle. Make mine whiskey, so big it’s whiskey double. But, wine is what brought me here and so wine is what I’ve got, mostly because the flask in my coat just went dry, and so did my mouth. I roll into one of those wine bars with a quaint, rustic sounding name like Oxtail, or Smokewood lounge. The girl behind the bar is more like a lady in upscale clothes that don’t fit right, she’s no peach but circumstances being what they are I start with the chit chat.

“One wine please.”

“And what kind of wine would you like sir?”

She’s feisty, “Strongest one you’ve got.”

“Well this is our Shiraz, it’s a blend of three different kinds of grape aged in a..”

“I don’t care about the schematics sweet heart, I’m just looking for a drink.” She looks offended, “and an ear, if you got one.”

“I’ve got two.”

“Well then you’ll do just fine gorgeous.” It’s obvious that no one’s called her that in a long while. She likes it.

“What’s your name stranger?”

“Duckfirth.”


“Well Mr. Much-mirth, what brings you to this neck of the vineyards?" She says in long drawn out words, relaxed, flirty. I think I like it. "Is there a jacket and tie convention in town?” Her phony coat comes off and she doesn’t look half bad in the t-shirt she had on underneath. Maybe I was wrong about her, maybe she’s a dame in snobs clothing.

“A case.”

“A case?”

“Yeah I’m a private dick. Someone went missing up here a couple of days ago and they want me to find him.”

“Oh you must mean the Macgrath boy.”

“Boy huh? From what I understand there wasn’t too much boyish about him.”
She liked that one, she laughed, “Yeah. He had one way with trouble I guess.”

“Yeah, a freeway, with no speed limit.”

As she made her way from around the bar I learned that she was a slinker. She sat next to me and I could tell her innocence was just a play in three acts. I didn’t mind, in fact I kinda liked it. I drank the wine. “Not bad. If you like drinking rose petals. What do you call this thing?”

“Boring. Why not let’s you and me go out and get a real drink? I know just the place. It’s cozy and they serve something right up your alley.”

“Oh yeah? What’s this place called and what do they serve?”

“It’s called my place, and they serve me.”

She planted a kiss on me that was both soft and merciless at the same time. I thought about struggling but then a voice entered my head saying, “Aw what the hell?” I like that voice, it always tells me what I want to hear. I kissed back and that was the last good feeling I would have all night, because the next thing I know, something blunt and made of metal made it’s acquaintance with my skull and everything went all blurry like. The last thing I remember was hoping that I turned off the stove in my apartment because it was going to be a long time before I ever got back there again.