Thank You, Mr Jackson

Michael Jackson, the known and respected beer authority, has died. I've just cracked open a Middle Ages Beast Bitter in his honor (and I wasn't going to drink tonight). Here's a link regarding this sad event as well as a last column from the Great Man:

http://www.allaboutbeer.com/

I once met him, not at the Blue Tusk as one might expect, but rather at the martini bar across the alley. I don't recall what brought him to town, but I think I had stopped in alone to the Tusk, and Mike Yorton came in and said "Uncle Drunk" (the kids used to call me Uncle Drunk in those days) "you have to come over to Bistro and meet Michael Jackson". When Mike introduced me, Michael Jackson said "So this is Mr Tom Waits". I guess Mike had told him about me and had mentioned that I liked Tom Waits, and Jackson, not surprisingly, did as well. I felt a little guilty because I knew that my roommate Woody liked Tom Waits more than I did, that I was late to the game and really only knew "Bone Machine" and maybe "Rain Dogs" and "Swordfishtrombones". But I was there and Woodrow wasn't, and I was still honored to be associated with Tom Waits in the mind of a first class beer authority like Michael Jackson. And I'd find out years later that Woody only really liked the earlier Asylum label Tom Waits and not the mad, Brechtian Island stuff that I find far superior, so in retrospect, I don't lose any sleep over it. Anyhow, the meeting was brief, and he seemed much like he did in the TV show (which we had watched a number of times in the Tusk, after hours). After he left, I believe I had the first martini of my life, a dirty one, at the Bistro. I'd have to guess that this was 1996, maybe 1997.

So I didn't know him and I don't own any of his books, but I am sorry to see him go and I thank him for what he has done for beer these many years. Cheers to you, sir.

Todd Mattraw

Stepping Out

Last summer, as I walked back from the coffee shop on Pearl Street, some big guy with a shaved head, out on the sidewalk, said something to me about my glasses and Elvis Costello. He then made some connection with Joe Jackson, saying that he'd once met him at the Blue Tusk (I'd never heard anything about Joe being there). The guy engaged me in conversation for a few minutes, walking along with me: at least that's how I remember it now.

This past Tuesday morning, I drove around the corner from my apartment, from Willow to Pearl Street, as I was late and didn't have time to walk to the coffee shop --- I'd have to drive instead. Right near the corner, I saw a man with his back turned to the busy road, a bag beside him, and he gave every indication that he was in the process of taking a leak. It was 11.40 AM.

I shook my head and drove down the street, parking in the first available spot, a good many spaces back from the coffee shop. Grabbing my mondo dark roast (black), I headed by foot back to my car, espying the late-peeing bum on his way towards me. Like a good many fine people in this fair town, he had a "SYRACUSE" sweatshirt on, the proud orange logo of our esteemed university emblazoned across his chest. The car was 15 seconds away from me; I hoped for the best.

As he pulled even with me, he looked me dead in the face and said "hey, remember me" and thrust his arm full out, palm upward, in anticipation of a hardy handshake. I remembered him alright --- the Joe Jackson guy; the guy who had just taken a piss down the street. In broad daylight, at lunchtime, in "SYRACUSE". Waiting for me to shake his hand.

Thinking quickly, I decided to react as if I thought he was panhandling, and so I just shook my head and said "no, no, I'm in a hurry" and made my way without hesitation to my car.

Once safe in my Saturn, I was left saying to myself "these things only happen to me", while smirking and shaking my head and thinking that I couldn't wait to tell my story to Jack, and to Shawn, and to Bryan. And so there it is.

But I'm forced to admit that it's not me at all, it's the glasses, and to wonder that if Buddy Holly had worn a different set of frames, would he be alive today?

Get Happy!!

I remember, as a boy, the joy of riding home on my bike with a new LP hanging from my handle bars in a yellow Fay's Drugs bag. The new Queen album, "A Day at the Races" or perhaps "News of the World". I'd rush home, the excitement building, wondering what wonderful sounds I would hear emanating from the vinyl platter. I would know the single already, from endless airings on the local radio station (the one that 25 years later seems to play the same songs that they did then), but as for the rest, it was unknown territory --- what would Freddie and the boys have for me this year?

And it was a yearly ritual; back then an artist released an album a year. This would be Queen's statement for 1976 or 1977. They'd support the LP with a tour and then, lo and behold, the following November, another 12" inch platter of delight. Would they use another Marx Brothers title? Would they put the bands picture on the front? How would they top the last LP?

When my sister, two years my senior, got her license, the ritual changed a little - we had access to a car and so access to real record stores: Gerber Music and Record Town in the malls; Discount Records and Record Theatre and Spectrum, best of all, on the hill near Syracuse University. No longer limited to the minor selection at Fay's and Grant's, this confluence of access and age (we were in our teens) saw our musical horizons expand.

It was summer 1978, the first Cars album came along and opened my eyes. Sure, it was Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker behind the board, and the songs were beyond radio friendly; even in Syracuse they were played on the air, but they had enough New Wave edginess to show me a different direction, further vistas. They were my gateway drug, from them I would expand out into a harsher and heavier musical world, and in the process they would further mold my personality into the outsider-type that I remain today.

Not that I wasn't predisposed to be an outsider --- any boy that spends his time reading DC comics and "The Lord of the Rings", growing Venus Flytraps and rearing Sea Monkeys, sea horses and starfish, and who owns an Uncle Milton's ant farm (all dead, I'm afraid), had best give up his dreams of prom king and football hero glory.

But I digress...

Spectrum was the student run record store on University Avenue. It was in an old residential house, since torn down for either a parking lot or a hotel. It was a joy to behold. Cramped spaces, racks and racks of strange record albums, each marked with a colored dot to signify the price. We'd only get up there once every 3 or 4 months, so the new release wall was one of the great wonders of the record world --- look at all those cool, new albums. Most were 5.99 each, a good one or two dollars below list. The place had such atmosphere - lighted incense; pretty college girls shopping for Velvet Underground LP's (probably James Taylor albums); the clerks, so cool and hip, friendly but utterly alien ("when I grow up, I wanna work in a place just like this..."). Ah, sweet youth. When a record store in Syracuse was really a Record Store.

And 5 minutes away, there was the Marshall Street Record Theatre, no slouch itself (where I bought "Double Fantasy" in November 1980 and the first B-52's album in 1979, and the "Sid Sings" LP, I'd almost forgotten about that) . And Discount Records just down the street (where I got Devo's "Freedom of Choice" in May 1980, a month before I graduated from Liverpool High School). I'm starting to sound like Scrooge --- "why, there's old Fezziwig..."

Well, to quote Stan Francis, "They're all gone, Rudolph".

And with them went a lot of the joy of music. I know, nostalgia colors my memories and maybe the 80's stores weren't that bad; hell, I worked for 2.5 years in one of those stores, and that was really the experience that changed my life and finds me working, at the age of 44, in an online record store. But the personality began to vanish with the end of the 70's, the stores had less and less leeway to present themselves as unique. And I'd take an 80's Cavage's now, over what we have, but I suppose nothing can save modern music, not even dressing it up like the old record stores, giving it some head shop ambiance --- it's not the stores now, it's the society, stupid!

Anyhow, I was scanning pictures of some old Elvis LP's yesterday (you know, the real Elvis, the one with the glasses), and I took an extra long look at a French copy of "Get Happy!!", and remembered bringing that 20 song platter home and sitting down in the cellar, where the stereo was, and just leaning back and saying to myself "what's he got this time?" And I remembered that on my copy, on the back of the jacket, where The Attractions were pictured, that the ink in Pete's picture had smeared, and created a kind of cool effect, and that for years, I didn't know if that was the way the LP was supposed to look (maybe Pete had died and been replaced by a lookalike named William Campbell). Being young, I just never thought about turning another copy over in the record store to see if it was the same. But with so many other LP's to look at ("holy cow, look at these strange import albums! I didn't know the Fabulous Poodles had an album with this title!"), why bother?

TM

Where Have All The Good Times Gone?

Life isn't a lot of fun anymore. It's not that there aren't moments of fun, scattered here and there, throughout the days and weeks, but rather that sustained fun, you know, the old kind of fun, the fun of being young, seems lost (or purchased at a premium). Middle age creeps up on you, and whether it's simple physical aging, something that can't be controlled, or the many cheap draught beers, quarter a cup, full tray for 2 bucks, that has caused the most damage, I do not know. But I can't spell anymore, and I don't have any energy (a serious problem for a guy who has always been lazy anyway), and my sense of humor seems headed in the direction of a tired Catskills comic; a repetitive Bobby Bittman-type, one of those old guys from the Sullivan show who would show up on the Dean Martin roasts during the mid-70's slurring the old funny lines that had once worked so well but which they now willed through slipping dentures out into the great TV land audience.

Oh hell, maybe it's not that bad. But you get the point. Latch onto a funny line, a genuinely funny line, and forget which of the friends has already heard it. So some of them hear it a few times. Big deal. Need some new material --- give Norman Panama a late night call.

We can't help but be prepared to age, seeing as how much it's dealt with in popular culture, how many cliches we've all seen on the network TV. But like so many things, like ALL things, it feels a lot different when it actually happens to YOU. When YOUR hair falls out, when YOUR teeth get loose, when YOUR boner plays the Mr. Softy theme ---- well, it's a different story altogether. Yeah, it's still funny, if you have any sense of humor, but it's grim as well.

Yet it's that brain thing that bothers me the most, losing that sharpness, that energy, that sense of self, of what made me feel worthwhile. Other people may notice the receding hairline, but I notice the receding brain behind it --- and I don't like what I see (so to speak). Is this how it goes: to fade away, losing tiny pieces of my personality down the drain, growing dull and banal?

Well, no matter, enough navel gazing for one night (that reminds me, I need to lose 20 pounds too, especially around that navel). But one last thought --- we prefer our leaders older and experienced, over 40 in most cases during this modern age --- is that wise? Do you feel sharper in your 40's or 50's or 60's? I was sharp as a tack in my 20's, and now, at 44, I'm about as sharp as the same exact tack, stuck in the floor countless times in 20 years, stepped on, with beers dumped on it, rusting and dull and bent --- should I be President of the United States?

T.M.