you always leave a stain

I've made many bad decisions in my life (usually involving proper dental care), but the one I'm currently regretting most was choosing to include this bit of music hall fare repurposed as British Invasion pop...

Herman's Hermits - I'm Henry VIII, I Am (from The Very Best of Herman's Hermits, 2001)

...on a three-disc compilation of 50's and 60's tunes I assembled for Maura a few years back. I found the set up in the attic when I was looking for our copy of Total Coelo's greatest hits . Maura, who is going through an oldies phase at the moment, had gotten sick of Pandora's unusual definition of the genre (REO Speedwagon? Journey? Really?) brought the set into our shared office for workday listening.

It was fine for the first week. When I burned the discs, I slipped in some personal selections amidst Maura's requests, which meant regular doses of Eddie Cochran and other rockabilly artists to balance out the cheesier stuff. Even the shallow hippie twaddle of Friend & Lover's "Reach Out in the Darkness" becomes tolerable when followed up with "Twenty Flight Rock," but there is no mitigating the damage the trauma caused by repeated listenings of that Herman's Hermits track.

It is an earworm of the most insidious order, burrowing deep into the mnemonic pathways and lodging itself as firmly as a deer tick. It haunts both my waking hours and my dreams, its infectious refrain surfaces unbidden during moments of weakness.

Nothing in my archives has been able to exorcise this pop demon. The best I've been able to manage are brief periods of remission achieved through liberal doses of the most potent concoctions in my musical pharmacy -- songs like this incredible slice of New Orleans punk rock...

The Manic Depressives - Going Out With the In Crowd (from the 1980 Silence on the Radio EP)

It's a fleeting, bittersweet respite, but it will suffice for now.

Halloween Countdown: October 25 - comfort and joy

Given the present state of the world, it's only natural to feel a little depressed. That's why I've decided to brighten your day with some uplifting content taken from "The Day Happy Died," a heartwarming tale from The Witching Hour #47 (October 1974).

Little Rusty Boland is in a bit of a funk. His house has burned down, his parents have abandoned him, and most devastatingly, his faithful dog Happy has trotted off to Doggie Heaven.

Rusty perks up a bit when he spots what appears to be Happy's ghost wandering around the neighborhood. The poor kid follows the pooch into the local cemetary, where a (not entirely) shocking revelation awaits...

Wow! Who didn't see that coming?

Well, at least Happy is safe, right?

"That's right, kids! Not only will you die horribly and your spirit will walk the earth for all eternity, but your beloved pets will waste away and die from broken hearts! Sweet dreams, little ones!"

I know I'm feeling much happier now. How about you?

Danse Society - We're So Happy (from Gothic Rock, 1994) - It's a repost, yes, but of a very fine piece of 80's gothica that fits today's theme so perfectly that I couldn't resist.

just not enough

Mitchell's academic record was good, extremely good. Excellent. But the arc wasn't there. The arc was something Turner had learned to look for in the dossiers of research people, that certain signal curve of brilliance. He could spot the arc the way a master machinist could identify metals by observing the spark plume off a grinding wheel. And Mitchell hadn't had it. - William Gibson, Count Zero

Eh, whatever. I'm quite content with this comfortable little niche I've carved out for myself.

Dow Jones & The Industrials - Ain't Good Enough (from the Hoosier Hysteria split LP, 1980) - There ain't nothing inadequate about this slice of art-damaged Indiana punk rawk.

waiting for the flash

Look at that sunavabitch go! Doesn't it just give you a tingly sensation all over, especially in the thyroid and reproductive organs? Since today happens to be the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, I though it only proper to genuflect a little upon the event and its enduring legacy.

It was the ultimate product of the American "can do" spirit, the fireworks display that kicked off the beginning of the American Century (give or take a half-dozen decades). It showed the world that we had not only developed the means to end human civilization, but were also willing to use it if meant saving "a million lives" (or is that a billion now? Retroactive justifications are not immune to inflationary forces) or intimidating our uncomfortable Soviet allies with a display of overwhelming force upon a civilian target.


That last part worked so well that Joe Stalin's bunch of merry Bolsheviks wasted no time in acquiring some transuranic party poppers of their own, which wagered the future of the human race on a staring contest to end all staring contests. Fun times, indeed, especially for a kid whose global awareness was coming into sharp focus just as Ronnie Reagan decided to escalate the stakes in the name of God, country, and sweetheart defense contracts.

Flipping through issues of Discover and coming across absurdly cheery infographics about the science of the neutron bomb. Sneaking a peek at some of my father's National Guard manuals dealing with post-event assessment and body disposal. Lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering if I'd be one of the dead or one of the living who envied them. (Knowing what I know now about the target-rich environment of Boston's suburban ring and the power-over-accuracy doctrine of Soviet warhead design, it's clear I'd have been in the dead category, as anything inside I-495 would have become part of Boston Harbor after a full-on nuclear exchange.)

At least it all worked out in the end, right? America won the Cold War, or so I'm told. (How did you spend your promised peace dividend?) History ended, and we now live in a peaceful neo-liberal hegemony overseen by the bestest nation ever. The specter of radioactive annihilation is a thing of the past, a completely justified phase that we've put entirely behind us.

Strongarm sales of ABM equipment designed to provoke the Russians? Official efforts to make the use of tactical nuclear weapons acceptable to the American public? The same conglomerates which are responsible for spiking energy costs attempting to exploit the situation in order to build more nuclear power plants? You must be thinking of some dark alternate universe, friend.


Synch up your Doomsday Clocks, cats and kittens! We're packing a musical MIRV primed and ready to deliver megatons of melodic enjoyment, and you're standing at ground zero! The party doesn't stop until the last payload drops.

Crass - They've Got a Bomb (from The Feeding of the 5000, 1978) - When you've got a massive stockpile of hammers, everything looks like a nail.

Dr. Strangelove & The Fallouts - Love That Bomb (from a 1964 single; collected on Atomic Platters, 2005) - This peppy little track (most likely a Laurie Johnson effort) was released to promote Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece of apocalyptic comedy. Go-go until you're gone-gone.

The Cure - A Strange Day (from Pornography, 1982) - A languid waltz to the shores of the abyss. The view from the edge is fantastic, I'm told.

The Epoxies - We're So Small (from The Epoxies, 2002) - Adieu, my fair synthpunkers! While I'm saddened to see you go, you've left a fine legacy of two outstanding albums, a handful of great b-sides and compilation cuts, and a not-so-good final EP.

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - I'm Gonna Dig Myself a Hole (from Gonna Be Some Changes: 1946-54, 2008) - A master bluesman goes underground, twenty-nine years before Paul Weller got the same idea.

Vacation 2008: Prologue - No real reason

My vacation has officially begun, so why am I not feeling the joy?

There has been a rushed and unreal quality about the summer of 2008 so far, and isn't due to any concrete concerns or preoccupations -- just a vague but unshakeable sensation of ennui.

The Circles - Summer Nights (from a 1979 single) - The Mod Ideal.

Sex Pistols - Holidays in the Sun (from Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, 1977) - The Punk Reality.

a champion of fools

A letter to the editor from the July 1983 issue of Blip ("The Video Games Magazine"):


A news item from the August 1983 issue of Blip:


Moebius - Video Soldier (from Video Soldier in a Radio War, 1982) - Martial chants for a digital age, an era when the battle lines were rendered in monochrome vectors set against featurless black voids and winning meant staving off inevitable oblivion for one more level.

(More on Moebius here.)

till that day love led them astray

"If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." - Alexis de Tocqueville

Eh, it's nothing a little exceptionalism and a massive military arsenal can't fix, right?

Fred Hughes - Don't Let This Happen to Us (from a 1971 single, collected on Let's Boogaloo, Vol. 3, 2006) - The pinnacle of soul perfection.

The Avengers - The American in Me (from a 1979 12"; collected on The Avengers, 1983) - I'm angry because I still care.

without feeling fine

It was around this time last year that a small, black and orange female long-haired cat began showing up each night to munch on any food left over by our usual gang of ferals.

I named her "Contessa" because she looked like a photo-negative of Princess, another of our frequent feline visitors. This was soon shortened to "Tessa," "Tess," and (my favorite pet name for her) "Tessie the Tortoise." She became a regular, showing up first by herself, then later in the company of an even smaller female calico (a sister, we think) we named "Pepi." Tess made a point of watching out for her companion. She stood guard over the driveway until her friend had her fill, then the pair would take off together to their hidden lair.

The wife and I have a pretty good track record when it comes to earning the trust of the local ferals (to the point where the wife refuses to call them such, preferring "outside" or "garage" cats), but Tess was a hard sell. She loved the idea of human companionship, but would retreat to a safe distance whenever an actual pat or scratch loomed. She did eventually come around, and in the past few weeks would do figure-eights around my legs as I stroked her fur. She never warmed to being picked up, though, and the one time I presumed to try, she tried to razor my face with her claws, then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to wash the stink of my touch from her fur.

Maura did managed to coax Tess and Pepi to take up residence in the garage for the winter. Beside the warmth and shelter the space provides, it was also supposed to give us an opportunity to keep tabs on the pair. The presence of the large, tough, and fiercely territorial neutered male Marmalade would keep away any would-be suitors until we got a chance to get the lasses seen to by the low-cost spay and neuter people. A reasonable plan, though it didn't stop Tess from getting knocked up by one of the oversexed toms who slipped through the population control net.

Tess, with Pepi in tow, left the garage's communal quarters for the privacy of their old hidden lair, though they still showed up at our house at mealtime. Once Tess gave birth to her litter, she and Pepi switched off between maternal duties, one keeping an eye on the kids while the other grabbed a bite to eat. (Poor Pepi got the shit end of the deal as Tess chose to linger and lounge on our patio for most of the day while Pepi was stuck babysitting.)

We'd been through a similar scenario with a mother cat and kits a few years previous. The ideal plan is to wait until the kittens have been weaned and start following the mother to the food station, then nab the lot of them. The mom gets spayed and released, and the kittens socialized for adoption. Based on information given to us by the local feral cat coalition person over the past couple weeks, Tess's kittens had started to wander and we'd begun to coordinate our plans accordingly.

Last night I got a call from the woman in charge of feral cat coalition. Some neighbors of ours had discovered a dead cat in their backyard and were too nervous about potential diseases to dispose of it, and she was wondering if we could take care of it for them. The corpse had dark fur and was located pretty close to where we figured that Tess and Pepi had their lair, which immediately had me imagining the worst. The last I'd seen Tess was Monday afternoon. She seemed well enough then, but she missed three mealtimes since.

It was late by the time Maura got home last night, so we had put off getting verification until this morning, hoping against hope that our fears would not be confirmed.

They were. In the mud of the neighbor's yard lay poor Tess's body. There weren't any signs of violence or other possible causes of death. Maura suspects she was poisoned (not intentionally) by something. I wonder if she wasn't clipped by a car (or knowing my neighborhood, some shithead speeding down the street in an SUV) and died trying to make it back to her hiding spot.

As rotten and unwelcome as the discovery was, at least we know what happened to her and aren't left to guess her whereabouts, and we were able to lay poor Tess to rest down by the back end of our yard.

A distressed and confused Pepi has since moved back into our garage, where hopefully she'll take up permanent residence. We've still got to round up Tess's litter, which will be trickier without having her around to vouch for us.

I knew on Monday that this was going to be one fuck of a week.

The Damned - I Just Can't Be Happy Today (from Machine Gun Etiquette, 1979) - No kidding.

the stars are brighter

A certain degree of flexibility is required to negotiate life's twists and turns. A stone obvious statement, yes, but one whose message isn't heeded nearly as often as it ought to be.

In my younger years, I knew a surprising number of people between the ages of 16 and 21 who were convinced that they had sorted out the rules of the game. I'm not talking about the standard adolescent delusions of grandeur ("I'm going walk into Paramount's offices and show them my alterna-soundtracked off-brand Catcher in the Rye and become an Oscar-winning screenwriter!") or the methodically plotted ambitions of the Type A set ("AP Biology, then an undergrad degree from Tufts, then med school, then a vacation home in Tahoe."). Nor am I talking about those enviable individuals (such as my college buddy Southie Dave or Kevin Church) with a knack for navigating life's various currents so as to best reach their stated objectives, large or small.

The folks I'm referring to are the ones who have codified their (inherently myopic) worldviews right down to most minute details. More often than not, they've given their creed a cute nickname ("Jessie's Theory" or "Jack's Manifesto") and make frequent use of jargonistic terms like "axiomatic" when expounding their philosophies to their peers. And expound they do, evangelizing with a zeal born of absolute certitude and casting a jaundiced eye upon those who aren't convinced by their obvious wisdom.

The details of the platform vary from person to person, but it tends to be a mix of received pop philosophy and pat assumptions made in the safety of a sheltered environment and lacking in real world empiricism. Favorite subjects include relationships and career aspirations, which provide opportunities to stress off-the-rack individualist views in opposition to the unenlightened lumpenmundane herd. Marriage and cubicle life can be problematic? The devil, you say!

Back then, the utter confidence of these people gave me pause, especially in light of my own adolescent lack of clarity, which was roundly criticized...

"Fine. Enroll at UMass Boston [I did], stay at your grandmother's house [again, yes], and live in Woburn for the rest of your life [my current plan] -- I'm going to join an artists' commune in Prague and reject the bourgeoisie lifestyle."

It might have stung at the time, but I eventually ran into this individual at the Burlington Mall a few years later. She was the assistant manager at a shoe store. There were no lofty speeches about French poetry or free love, only a litany of workplace gossip delivered to the tune of the Overpriced Shoe Company's employee handbook. "None of my co-workers appreciate the seriousness of our vocation," she told me, sans irony, at one point of the painful conversation.

I've seen the same scenario repeat itself over and over again in the time since. Last I heard, Little Miss Career and Relationship Advice was single and busing tables at an Olive Garden in Burbank. Our brief reunion via email ended abruptly when she asked if I was still dating Maura and I responded that we were married and had bought a house...in Woburn. The gay aspiring psychic ended up repudiating himself and joining the Catholic priesthood. The Queen of the Soapbox, who had made many public pronouncements against 9-to-5 work and marriage, engaged in all sorts of semantic contortions in order to explain her engagement and taking a white collar office job. A veritable feast of schadenfreude, if I was a more petty-minded soul.

No plan survives contact with the enemy. The problem with rigid systems, political or personal, is that they assume that vagaries of life can be definitively quantified when even the slightest empirical experience shows that chaos is an endemic aspect of day-to-day living. Water pumps fail, cavities rot through to the nerve, pink slips are handed out -- shit happens, in other words, and half-assed philosophies forged in the callowness of youth are a poor substitute for being able to think on one's feet and come to grips with the inevitable crises life is going to blindside you with.

This line of reasoning often gets lumped in with the "you'll understand when you're older" argument, but there are clear differences. It's not about defensive post-facto excuses or justifications (or begrudging the younger generation its idealism). It is possible to maintain one's core principles over a span of years, but creating, then attempting to adhere to a comprehensive worldview based on shallow assumptions with no basis in reality simply establishes the groundwork for an inevitable crisis of faith, in which hotswapping one self-serving ideology for another becomes a tempting solution.

The Auteurs - How Could I Be Wrong (from New Wave, 1993) - What you could have been listening to back in '93, but were too busy trying fool yourself into thinking that Stone Temple Pilots were a decent band. Do you feel ashamed now? You ought to.

no supper tonight

I've never been one for alarmist behavior. I can wallow in obsessive dread with the best of them, but that's more rooted in the frustration of events escaping my control, things like car repairs or dental work where I'm forced to operate on someone else's terms. Outright panic just seems pointless; few things ever turn out as badly as imagined, and even the few that do live up to the ultra-negative expectations are better handled with a clear head.

My undergraduate mentor, a cultural history professor, would frequently evoke the looming spectre of societal collapse, always clarifying his somber jeremiads with "I say when, not if." Back then, I considered his apocalyptic assuredness as the affection of a veteran leftist prone to seeing dark portents on every horizon. Despite my ingrained cynicism, his pronouncements seemed based upon the grim predictions of 70's science-fiction rather than upon empirical evidence. Nowadays, though, I'm not so sure.

I have been feeling troubled as of late. The sensation is not the familiar one of personal existential dread, but rather a gut feeling that events of consequence are unfolding and interlocking at a glacial but accelerating pace. Food riots are breaking out across the globe, as the neo-liberal promises regarding globalization have proven themselves to be not only empty, but outright malignant in terms of consequences. Energy costs are skyrocketing, causing rampant inflation. The edifice of debt-financed prosperity has effectively collapsed. The programs and policies created to check and mitigate the damage have been defanged, dissolved, or discredited.

When school systems are dropping milk from the lunch menu so they can bring in soft drink concession revenue, the problem is bigger than a simple economic downturn. When a basic staple of life such as flour or corn is priced beyond reach because of commodities speculators, it is clear that the system is broken.

The center has failed to hold, and few people want to connect the dots and awaken to the greater problem. (In this country, its a matter of denial, in that few will acknowledge the notion that fast-and-loose capitalism does not intrinsically favor America and will devour any victim with equal aplomb.)

I can't shake the feeling that that this is just the beginning, that these events collectively presage something huge and ugly with the capacity of permanently transforming the global quality of life.

The Clash - Armagideon Time (from the b-side of the 1979 "London Calling" single; collected on The Story of The Clash, Part 1, 1990)

bard boy in the space age

Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
-- William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 76"; with a side helping of Metal Men v1 #1 (by Kanigher, Andru, and Esposito)

Sing-Sing - Far Away from Love (from The Joy of Sing-Sing, 2001) - Some indie-pop wistfulness from Emma Anderson's post-Lush outfit.

Inspiral Carpets - This Is How It Feels (from Life, 1990) - It's good, but Carter USM's cover (from the 1993 "Lean on Me, I Won't Fall Over" single) is outstanding.

and in the middle of the celebration

Today marks the nineteenth anniversary of my mother's death. She was 37 -- two years older than I am now -- when she took a fatal tumble down the attic stairs.

Ordinarily this would be my official day for gloomy introspection, but I've got the infuriating drone of workplace chatter and office Christmas party planning to keep me distracted (and extremely irritable). There's a reason why I usually stay home on November 30th...

(It's just as well, I suppose. I don't think I could articulate my feelings about my mom and her passing better than I did last Mother's Day.)

The Beatles - Golden Slumbers\Carry That Weight (from Abbey Road, 1969) - I still have my mom's copy of Abbey Road in my record collection, making it one of the rare few artifacts that survived the chaos which followed her passing. It's not my favorite Fab Four LP -- I'm more of a Rubber Soul man -- but its sentimental value is such that I find myself giving it a bleary-eyed spin or two as this time of year approaches.

My mother was also a big fan of Prince. Thankfully, those records did not survive the Great Upheaval.

when the truth is found to be lies

I haven't done a political post in a while, choosing instead to slip, stumble, and fall into the role of comics blogger, a direction I honestly wanted to avoid. The truth is that it is far easier and less trying on the psyche to crack wise about Namor's swimtrunks or Steve Lombard than to sit down and try to articulate my current thoughts about the present state of events.

Not that there has been anything really worth writing about in the first place. The present cycle of history is caught in an accelerated loop where we've already gone though the fifth or sixth go round of the same shit -- first as a tragedy, then as a farce, then as a tragic farce, then as slapstick, then as snuff porn. When the road out is beyond most people's willingness to comprehend or stomach, it becomes preferable to keep spinning the wheels and get used to the smell of burning rubber...or books...or bodies.

Meanwhile the Democratic-controlled congress has continued to roll over and vacillate, the fourth estate has been preoccupied with Britney's adventures in moving violations, and Bush and Company's surge plan for Iraq is being labeled a success -- meaning the sawdust in the transmission will mask the grinding noises until the next administration drives it off the used pre-owned war lot.

It doesn't look like things are going to get any better in the near future. The frontloading of the 2008 presidential election season, as welcome an event as "Christmas in July" retail promotions, has only succeded in making me nauseous and convincing me that none of the candidates are qualified to lead the nation out of the wilderness.

The Republican contenders have chosen to define themselves through their ever-escalating attempts to out-fascist one another, with the exception of Ron Paul's mix of anti-interventionism (good) and extreme right-wing libertarianism (not good). I wish that those folks pinning all their hopes on Paul as an outsider white knight antiwar candidate would pay a little more attention to the rest of his political positions. (Even if I could ever bring myself to vote for a Republican, his anti-choice stance and support for this misleading bit of legislation puts him beyond the political pale.)

Then there's the Democratic crop of candidates, whose apparent plan for 2008 is to take a tremendously advantageous historical position and attempt to turn it into a loss. They're long on lofty platitudes, short on honest convictions (except Dennis Kucinich, who had to spoil things with his UFO talk), and have exhibited an overall willingness to piss all over the party's traditional base in order to pander to folks who aren't going to vote Democratic anyhow. The politics of principle have given way to the politics of point-scoring by any means necessary, even if it means crazy talk about nuclear weapons use or cozying up to anti-gay religious demagogues, and being "progressive" means "your vote is a given, so suck it up, baby."

In such circumstances, looking for silly or creepy subtext in old comics stories is a welcome relief.

Agent Orange - Somebody to Love (from the When You Least Expect It... EP, 1984) - I originally considered posting The Great Society's original version of this song (which Grace Slick brought with her to Jefferson Airplane when she jumped bands), but it was a little too mellow given my present mood. So an OC punk cover it is, then.

how the hell did you get here

It's been another busy Sunday, so I hope you'll forgive me if I keep this brief...


...or rather, "briefs." It's from the cornucopia of licensed crap dangled in front of impressionable tykes within the pages of Nintendo Power's 1988 holiday gift guide. As someone who spent the second half of his childhood in the mythical era known as the Eighties, the concept of merchandising extending its slimy tendrils into the realm of fine washables doesn't surprise me, though the sly conspiratorial tone of the ad copy did give me pause. "What happens beneath your acidwash jeans is between you and King Bowser, kid."

Even worse, my mind keeps trying to contextualize the ad in terms of this...



...resulting in crippling bouts of nausea and an utter lack of faith in a just universe. (I get the same feeling whenever I see an article or news clip dealing with Victoria Beckham.)

Please Agent #015, can you or your magic mullet tell me how one can escape from this existential crisis?

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start? Of course! Why didn't I think of that?

Pulp - Underwear (from Different Class, 1995)

The Go-Go's - Skidmarks on My Heart (from Beauty and the Beat, 1981)

Vacation II – Day 2 – Dream of the perfect life

“The problem of leisure,” sang Gang of Four in 1979, is “what to do for pleasure.” Putting aside postpunk dissections of alienated labor and how the theory applies to everyday life, I find myself currently in a similar predicament. I’ve never been one for formally structured vacations, where the end result means coming away even more exhausted and deeper in debt than one was going into the adventure. Better to stay at home, relax, and indulge in some low stress, low cost pursuits, or perhaps, motivation willing, get some oft delayed project around the home taken care of.

While they are presently plenty of things that need doing, however, I’m having a difficult time coming up with things which I’d like or want to do during this break from work. My fear is that based on today’s experience, where I spent the bulk of my free time filling monster hunt quotas in Rogue Galaxy, that this vacation might devolve into an extended long weekend, with all the soul deadening emptiness such a thing entails.

Gang of Four – Natural’s Not in It (from Entertainment!, 1979)

is it safe?

Zero hour is rapidly approaching. Tomorrow at noon I have a long-postponed meeting with my dentist, and it’s even money whether a root canal or a very deep filling along the base of the bottom rightmost molar is an order – a real win-win situation.

The prospect of either has cast a dark pall over what should have been a pretty groovy long weekend, and I couldn’t even maintain my enthusiasm for a viewing of the modern cinematic masterpiece known as Convoy, Sam Peckinpah’s most personal and heartfelt directorial effort, on one of the Encore niche channels. The prospect of seeing an oily, shirtless Kris Kristofferson use C.B. lingo to taunt Ernest Borgnine while romancing a pan-fried and equally oily Ali MacGraw did nothing to dispel the dark clouds of dread hanging over me, which just shows how bleak my frame of mind is at the moment.

The sad thing is that all this could have been prevented if I hadn’t cancelled my previous appointment sixteen months ago. The tooth would have been filled before it reached the critical stage, and right now I’d be singing along with the dulcet tones of C.W. McCall without a care in the world.

There were relatively valid reasons at the time for my procrastination. I was sick of the hassle involved in getting to the dentist’s office due to the MBTA’s the poorly implemented switch from tokens to an electronic method payment. (The station where I got on the subway used the former and the one for the dentist used the latter, and none of the T personnel on either end had a clue about how to deal with cross-generational fare transactions.) There was also the fact that having had two to three fillings done per month during the year previous, my body had started to develop a resistance to Novocaine. (Edit: Fuck you, MS Word spellchecker.) It would take four shots of the stuff, minimum, to numb my mouth into a state where the drilling was only slightly bearable. (Hopefully that’s no longer the case.)

Hindsight can be so cruel. Whither be the oil of cloves that can soothe the taunts of mocking memory?

Specimen – Sharp Teeth, Pretty Teeth (from a 1985 single; collected on Wet Warm Cling-Film Red Velvet Crush, 1997) – ASF, Danse Society, March Violets, and now Specimen…I seem to have subconsciously fallen into goth mode these past weeks. I used to have a Specimen sticker on the back of my punk jacket until it cracked and peeled off and I replaced it with a Sex Pistols one.

C.W. McCall – Convoy (from a 1975 single; collected on Spy Magazine Presents: White Men Can’t Wrap, 1994) – Populism via Peterbuilt – only in the 1970’s.