'Frankenstein' by The Edgar Winter Group

To Build The Perfect Love

Well, first he had to build the Lab
Which was trickier than it looked

Suspending the chains from the ceiling alone
Took a whole afternoon

Then to find the pieces
To Build The Perfect Love
He took the eyes of the saddest girl that he knew
And the hands of the cagiest
The legs of the most graceful
The breasts of the most motherly
The brain of the funniest
And heart of the darkest
And arranged them in a perfect order
Not a stitch was shown
The skin was perfect, uninterrupted
Or maybe just good make up

And raised her to the storm
Coils flashed and beakers bubbled
Thunder and Lightning tore the night sky
To Build The Perfect Love

He lowered her to the floor
Kissed her (like in fairy tales)
she awoke, she arose
And asked one word 'How?'

He told her she was created out of desire
Birthed of electricity
But born of his heart
She kissed him deeply

And crushed the life from him
To go about the business of collecting his heart
Having her own desires
To Build The Perfect Love

"#1 Crush" - Garbage

It was a Tuesday afternoon in December. She had just gotten out of work and her phone rang. She looked at her cell and saw that, sure enough, it was him. It always was.

What started as a whirlwind romance in October was quickly turning into a shit storm. Declarations of love and being transparent, peppered with grandiose plans both near and far into the future that never seemed to come to fruition were starting to wear on her. Any free time she had was being spent with him. It was all too much, too fast. The last time they were together he gave her the key to his house. She said she had no use for it. He insisted she take it. He asked for her key in return, as he always seemed to be forgetting things at her place. She was reluctant, but thought, “Well, what could it hurt?”

“Hello.” She answered the phone. Thankfully he had his children that evening so she knew he wouldn’t be asking to see her. She spoke to him plainly. Mentioned her feelings that things were moving too quick. She needed breathing space. She and her roommate had recently begun writing together again, and now they were singing together too. This excited her to no end. She wanted time to devote to her craft. She was feeling especially creative again. Could they just move a little slower? When she hung up the phone, she felt great. He understood where she was coming from. “No worries.” He said.
Her roommate and she had decided to practice that evening at 8pm. She looked at the clock. It was 4pm. She had four hours to herself. Her children were at their father’s for the night. It was cold and she was tired. She decided a hot soak in the tub, a deep conditioning hair treatment, followed by a nap would be the perfect relaxing interlude before practice. She set her alarm, turned off her phone, got under her flannel sheets and quickly fell asleep.

She awoke to the sound of her name being called. The room was dark. She was groggy, confused. Did she sleep past 8pm? Was it her roommate in her bedroom? He had never stepped foot in her bedroom. They were both very respectful of each other’s privacy. She was confused. No. It was her boyfriend, standing in her darkened house, her dark bedroom, over her bed.

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be home with your kids. Why are you in my house? You’re not supposed to be here.”

He saw the look of horror on her face.

“I’m sorry. The kids wanted to go to their mom’s. I thought we could hang out. I tried calling but your phone went straight to voicemail.” He was spitting out excuses.

“I turned my phone off. I was taking a nap. We had just spoken.” She said this as he was backing his way out of her bedroom. “I’m sorry.” He kept muttering. And he left.

Well, she was awake now and distinctly uncomfortable. She headed downstairs to the kitchen, turning all the lights on as she made her way. All the lights were off. Her car was parked in the garage. For all intents and purposes, it didn’t even look like she was home. And he just came in, crept through her home and up into her bedroom. It sent shivers down her spine.

She received a text then. He wanted to come back and explain. No, please don’t. She responded. Yes, he was turning his car around. She told him in no uncertain terms was he to return to her house now. She found herself staying out of sight of any of the windows of her house. She was thankful her roommate was home. He came upstairs from his basement apartment. She explained what had just occurred; and then a loud knock on her kitchen door. She felt anger then.

She opened the door but did not invite him in, told him to leave. He wanted to explain.

“Please, you need to give me time to digest this.” She said. “You don’t want to hear what I’m thinking right now.”

“Yes. Tell me what you’re thinking.” He answered.

And she did.

“You were unable to reach me by phone and you drove to my house. You didn’t see my car in the driveway. The house was dark. And you thought it was okay to just come on in. You were not invited! You walked through my house. You came up into my bedroom and what? What did you think you were going to find? It’s fucking creepy! Get out of here.”

And he did.

Later that evening, practice commenced on time. They had decided earlier in the week to do a cover song, their first. Her roommate hit the four-track recorder and started strumming his guitar. Her cell phone, on mute, glowed insistently the entire time. She started to sing:

I would die for you. I would die for you.
I’ve been dying just to feel you by my side.
To know that you’re mine.

"Supernaut" - Black Sabbath

I spent my 13th year alone, in seclusion. I blew off my few friends, stopped talking to my family (they didn’t notice...), stopped showering, ate too much; my skin a minefield of bad teen living. I did think about girls...but being an utter mess and fairly self aware of it, I figured that would be some other decade.
 
It was a conscious decision. I didn’t need friends or sunlight any more. I didn’t need vitamins or conversation or kissing or any of that low rent crap. I discovered Black Sabbath's 'Volume 4'.

It was a match made in teen heaven. Me, being a curious, dark and fat lil monster, albeit a bright one, I read obsessively, usually dark fat lil books about the Paranormal, ESP, UFO, as well as some classic Anglo (The Black Arrow, Beowulf and Ivanhoe come to mind). My mind was a jock, nimble, quick, good for short distances and long. My body, on the other hand, was a wreck.
 
Which didn’t matter anymore. I discovered Black Sabbath. That year made me what I am....
 
That's the thing the 'cool kids' don't get about metal; It’s a flag, it’s a place. Zeppelin's Valhalla, Deep Purple's Montreux, Black Sabbaths' Candle Lit Graveyard. It’s all a place to us, it’s a place of salvation, sanctuary. It’s where the geeks are muscle-bound and scoring chicks by the yardarm. Where a girl a little too big, in a dress a little too small, can be hooted at and wolf whistled at from the top rows of the New Haven Coliseum (RIP). It’s where you could scream things you never could say, and be joined in unison from the rabble around you.
 
It’s the biggest gang on the f*****g earth.
 
Punk is for college. Indie is for magazine writers. Rock is dead.

Metal perseveres, because there are always gonna be 13 year old boys. In seclusion, and a bit too bright for their own good

'If I Ever Lose Myself In You' - Sting

I went to the party. I went alone. He didn’t want to attend…again. He didn’t like my friends. I don’t think he particularly cared for me either, but we were married and he made do.

There were lots of people there. Shelly had outdone herself; hired a piano player and a bartender to entertain and lighten the load. I got there. I’d forgotten who everyone was. I busied myself lighting the tea lights that covered every spare inch of counter top, table and sill. People began arriving, piano and ice tinkled in the background. Appetizers were pulled from the oven and refrigerator; the night began in earnest. Shelly checked in and asked if I was having a good time. “Absolutely”, I replied and made a beeline towards the restroom. There was a line. I smoothed back my hair which was pulled back in a high pony tail. Me, in my black, velvet jacket and dark leggings suddenly felt garish and out of place amid the tall, lithe women with their short skirts and shiny straight hair. The bar was set up by the loo. I asked for a drink. “Sure. What’ll you have?” The young and striking bartender asked. “I’m not sure.” I answered. “What’s good?” He offered to make me a margarita. I accepted. The line inched along and he and I started to talk. How did he know Shelly, I asked. And he told me they had met in school. He was handsome, a bit younger than me. The line to the bathroom got shorter. I thanked him for the drink and excused myself.

The night progressed. The piano player packed his things and left. Someone turned on the stereo, cued up some CDs. Sting was in the mix, Ten Summoner’s Tales. I had wound my way back in and out of conversations with the guests, back to the bar. How was the margarita, how was the party, he wanted to know. And I started talking to him. Conversation turned to music and he told me about his studies in music, about his side jobs as a roadie, including being on the Road with Sting himself. I got lost in the conversation; forgot that I was unsure and awkward to be at a party by myself, babies sleeping at home, a husband who didn’t want to be there. I smiled and laughed, excused myself to check on the guests.

The party was winding down. People started to clear out. I hung out, stayed around until the end to help Shelly with the clean up. I don’t even know how it happened. I barely can remember. The bartender was packing up his wares, cleaning off the bar. We talked all the while. Laughed, shared jokes. He was leaving, did I want to join him. “Oh, no thank you” I said. “My husband’s at home.”

“A hug then. It was really nice talking to you”

He wrapped his arms around me. God, I can still remember how he smelled, how he felt. I was so starved for affection, for conversation, for anything from a man. He tried to kiss me. I pulled away. I was married.

If I ever could lose myself though…

'Dazed And Confused' by Led Zeppelin

It's the only time I ever was in a VW van, freshman year in high school, the spring of 1982. He had graduated two years before. He played the drums in a local rock band. And he was so cool. I couldn't even fathom talking to him, never mind actually sitting in his van. But Conchetta was a sophomore and ran with the cool kids. For some reason, she had taken a liking to me. So there I sat at 6:45 in the morning, getting ready to smoke a bowl. I'd tried pot for the first time over the summer. This would probably be my fourth time smoking. Of course, I didn't want to look naïve.

I sat in the back seat. Mr. Cool and Conchetta were up front. They made out for a while. I kept tugging at my navy blue uniform skirt pretending not to look. When they were done, Mr. Cool pulled out a plastic baggy filled with big, fat green buds. He had a small silver bowl. I watched as he broke down the buds, carefully separating the weeds from the seeds. And then there was a problem. He didn't have a screen for his bowl. Shit! We couldn't smoke it without a screen. I spoke up from the backseat.
“Your lunch bag.” I said.
“What?” Mr. Cool looked at me with near disgust.
“I see you have a lunch bag there.” I motioned to the space between the two front seats where a brown paper bag was jammed next to a stack of cassettes.
“What about it?” he asked.
“Well, is your sandwich wrapped in tinfoil?” The smile that broke out on his face told me he was now comprehending.
“Yeah, it is. You're pretty smart.”

I sat there glowing that this nearly 20 year old guy not only spoke to me but actually thought I was smart. Mr. Cool pulled out his aluminum foil wrapped sandwich. It was ham, I think. He tore off a piece of the foil and fashioned a screen.

“Do either of you have a safety pin?” He wanted to know.
“No.” Conchetta and I answered simultaneously.
“We need to make holes in the foil.” We all looked around the van for something small enough to do the job. He had a Led Zeppelin lapel pin stuck in his sun visor.
“Oh, look.” I pointed, thrilled that it was me again who solved the dilemma“Now you're thinking!” was my praise. Mr. Cool finished packing the bowl and lit up.

The smoke curled and emitted a pungent smell. Before it was even passed to me, I was flying high.

'Photograph' by Def Leppard

Moon roof open, and the sun rides on our shoulders, a presence as physical as a particularly wise parrot, whispering suggestions in our ear, recalling stories of the last bikini you saw, the last time you were completely submerged in water, the last time you felt the sun burn your skin to red.

And we race to the shore. By we, I mean all of us, the suburbs have emptied and everyone heads south for the shore. It’s like The Great Expansion…if the settlers had fast Japanese cars. We pass people on the highway and they pass us again. Its like go carts, except everyone also keeps their eyes on the medians, the crossover strips, eyeing state cops, as they settle in for their particular brand of holiday cheer.

And the music is loud, it pours out of the open car windows, flows from the moon roof. It’s Def Leppard playing (her choice)…and it’s perfect. It brings me back to when I first heard these songs (for completists and time chasers, its ‘Pyromania’), when I was 18, when I wouldn’t be seen on a beach without a black heavy metal t-shirt and ripped flannel. It was an open challenge to the season, and we always won. Because the summer didn’t know it was playing. .

But that was years ago. And the landscape has certainly changed for the boy. Now, as we fly to the shore, I cast my eye to the passenger seat, and there sits the perfect summer girl. Long dirty blonde hair, makeup that gives a glimmer (gold, of course) to the flash of her blue/green eyes, a two piece bikini (hushed silver metallic), her hand hangs lazily out the passenger window…I allow my eye to follow her gold ringed fingers up her tanned arm, I watch how the wind blows her lace cover all around, a flash of skin, with a maddening repetition; the bikini top revealed, in time with every 10th white line we pass. In time with the kick drum, too.

The music, the clearly 80’s vibe of excess and a certain misogyny, big beats, processed guitars, too many vocals on the choruses, which made every song sound like a keg party you’re bored of. All irrelevant, as the boys from Brighton knew what they were talking about when it came to girls; I watch her sing along to every word, completely unaware that that is something she should be embarrassed of. Except the utter pretentiousness of this thought embarrasses me.

She is singing along, and now I am too…because I know every word also. They are part of me, much better remembered than the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lords Prayer and my mom’s birthday combined. We head to the beach, me and my summer girl, and we smile at each other a lot and kiss at the stoplights.

The question: Do your fantasies at 18, going to the place you never imagined with the company you never expected to have access to, maintain into your fortieth year?

The answer: Damn Fucking Straight.

'Two Princes' by The Spin Doctors

The language, every language I think (though only know the one...this one,...the one I'm speaking) is a living thing. It gains things that will ultimately be lost, replaced by easier takes on the same subject (thus 'conversate'). It loses words that The Future has no need for any longer (like 'blind date' which due to the access we all have into each other, would require real blind people). We gain weight and shed hair. We get more informed and less involved. We come across words in books we need to define online.

'Cassettes' is one of those lost words, and in 15 years won't even show up on Spell check. The unforgettable plastic on plastic sound that came from shuffling through tape suitcases, the lost art of magnetic tape repair (glue or tape or tape then glue) and mix tapes made from vinyl records, all gone.

Cassettes will never have the cache of the Vinyl LP, nor ease of the CD or MP3. And fact is cassettes sound thin, replaceable. Not permanent. The reason the Bass Boost has become one of those lost words too. It is not a loss to the ages.

But you learn the form from the function, and when I consider The Spin Doctors 'Two Princes', this is how I hear it, in tape cassette fidelity. Not that it wasn't played a lot that year. It was. A lot. Video too. A lot. But when I think on it, I hear it playing a bit warble-y (another lost word, though maybe not a word) out of a 'boom box' (look it up, kids) in the empty corridors of a post workday corporate building, bouncing off the brown glass lobby doors and polished brass accents. Dodging the cleaning crew.

I was in love with a girl (I'm always in love with something or someone, usually me) and we we're both married and she was a genuine beauty and I was her weird friend. When I say genuine beauty, I don't mean that in any deep sense, I mean the girl looked like the girls painted on the sides of B52 bombers, dressed in flags and implied nipples. Blond hair and perfect make up. She drove me crazy every day for years in the same Corporate office. I didn't have a chance. Ever.

But she needed help. She wanted to do some video (video cassette) for an upcoming Valentine Day Gift for her perfect man awaiting her at home. And this video would require an elevator (dancing to 'Love In An Elevator') and pool (with authentic Mermaid costume that we ultimately found out shouldn't be submerged in pool), boom box and slight nudity. She had me at nudity.

And among the songs this perfect pin up o' mine danced to (and she could dance), 'Two Princes' was there, the imploring, demanding 'Well, Go Ahead Now!' in the closed elevator built for two. It played as we drove from one location to the next. 'Go Ahead Now!'. It played, it compelled, it repeated like only a pop songs will "Go Ahead Now! Go Ahead Now'". All with her moving to it, the upbeat beat bouncing and causing her to bounce along.

And I considered. Was there a message here? Was this an invitation? Was this the moment I awaited years for?

It started as a notion and grew into a flurry of pride versus sense, lust versus the visible wedding ring. I did as she asked (and would have done anything that night for her) and videotaped and ran from security and hid from cleaning crews and snorted lines in her Hyundai. And my considering got faster.

'Go Ahead Now!!! GO AHEAD NOW!!!'

Which I didn't. The night ended with a hug and her appreciation. And mention I may see the video some day. Which left open I also may not. She left our job soon after.

And when I hear this...or when I think of her...I always wind my way around to the simplicity of it. The song was 'Two Princes' and I wasn't the one she chose.

The Grimm Generation (definition)

The Grimm Generation (definition):
a. a generation of disenchanted stunted adults
b. online and starting over
c. Primal boy/girl acoustic rock. Folk Noir.