the worst thing i have ever done in my life
"get it off your chest...and forget about all the rest."
speaking of the fort worth cats, besides personifying the first stirring of the post-1976 punk development here in the fort (although a couple of 'em had participated in the late '60s version documented in the norton fort worth teen scene comp), they were also the centerpiece of _the worst thing i have ever done in my life_, the story of which was told in the middle of some other long-forgotten story on some prolly-defunct website a few yrs back, so i'll tell it again here (with a few embellishments).
one night in 1979, my roommate the famous penguin head and i were lounging around our sumptuous arlington heights pad (a vintage-1911 house at the corner of collinwood and sanguinet with hedges that were routinely trashed by friday-night drunks coming out of the showdown and which has since been condominiumized out of existence; i arrived on new years' eve 1978 and stayed for approximately nine months before decamping for austin, sleeping on the unheated porch with my rated-to-20-below down sleeping bag) contemplating our lack of funds. we were assistant managers at a record store on camp bowie who liked to do things like spending $9 a month on food and $60 a month on alcohol, but we were in between paydays and things looked grim.
"i'll bet i can get us drunk for free tonight," i said. the play was as follows: the aforementioned fort worth cats were playing at the hop on berry street that night. i would impersonate a writer from new york rocker (i was, after all, from noo yawk); the famous penguin head would impersonate my photographer (he did, after all, own a 35mm camera). in this manner, we would gain entrance to the hop and get shithammered on the band's generosity. we prudently deputized our friend, co-worker, and _king of crowley_ mr. dee-lite to serve as designated driver.
the ruse worked...up to a point. when the band was a couple of sets into the night and we were three (or four or six) sheets to the wind, someone in the cats' entourage had the presence of mind to ask if the "writer from new york rocker" wasn't going to interview the band. so, i sat out on the stoop in front of the hop with mike neal, making gurgling noises that were supposed to approximate interview questions. after a few moments of this, mike asked, "aren't you going to write anything down?" so i took a borrowed pen and proceeded to scrawl illegibly on a bar napkin. (this interview method, by the way, is one i employed with somewhat more success in later years while writing about collin herring, darth vato, the me-thinks, and countless other worthies for the local giveaway alt-weekly.) it didn't take long for mike to realize that he had been had, and even less time for the club management to give me, the famous penguin head, and mr. dee-lite the old bum's rush.
from there, it gets better...or actually, worse. a lot worse.
post-ejection from the hop, we noticed that there was an american flag hanging from every lamppost on berry street. the famous penguin head, being a dyed-in-the-wool _revolooshunary_ (read: a ridglea-bred rich kid with a beef against his old man), whipped out his trusty zippo and torched one. as if by magic, the hangers-out on the sidewalk in front of the hop evaporated. then we rode via mr. dee-lite's short to the apartment (on west normandale, back when there was fuck-all on west normandale) of a co-worker whom i'd once taken to the bluebird and, when he saw fit to observe, eyes darting furtively around the room, that "jeez, we're the only white ppl here," had responded, "who the fuck is _we_?" now we hammered on his door for long minutes (it was around 4am) demanding that he come out and drink with us. when he (probably wisely) refused, we responded by tearing up every shrub and bush that was planted around the foundation of his building, stacking them up in front of his door, and pissing on them.
the next morning, we rolled in to work and found our boss, the man who brought me here, reading the paper. the headline said something about flag desecration on berry street. it was -- you guessed it -- memorial day. "you guys didn't have anything to do with this, did you?" he asked. just then, the coworker whose front porch we'd vandalized walked in the door, glared at us, and stalked off in a huff.
my favorite part of the story takes place a couple of years later, in 1982, when i was in air force basic training and received a fairly condescending letter on the subject of my enlistment from the famous penguin head, then in san francisco, along the lines of "i'm sure you had your reasons." i haven't heard from him since then, but friends told me that he wound up working in the reagan state department. in a strange way, it made perfect sense.
speaking of the fort worth cats, besides personifying the first stirring of the post-1976 punk development here in the fort (although a couple of 'em had participated in the late '60s version documented in the norton fort worth teen scene comp), they were also the centerpiece of _the worst thing i have ever done in my life_, the story of which was told in the middle of some other long-forgotten story on some prolly-defunct website a few yrs back, so i'll tell it again here (with a few embellishments).
one night in 1979, my roommate the famous penguin head and i were lounging around our sumptuous arlington heights pad (a vintage-1911 house at the corner of collinwood and sanguinet with hedges that were routinely trashed by friday-night drunks coming out of the showdown and which has since been condominiumized out of existence; i arrived on new years' eve 1978 and stayed for approximately nine months before decamping for austin, sleeping on the unheated porch with my rated-to-20-below down sleeping bag) contemplating our lack of funds. we were assistant managers at a record store on camp bowie who liked to do things like spending $9 a month on food and $60 a month on alcohol, but we were in between paydays and things looked grim.
"i'll bet i can get us drunk for free tonight," i said. the play was as follows: the aforementioned fort worth cats were playing at the hop on berry street that night. i would impersonate a writer from new york rocker (i was, after all, from noo yawk); the famous penguin head would impersonate my photographer (he did, after all, own a 35mm camera). in this manner, we would gain entrance to the hop and get shithammered on the band's generosity. we prudently deputized our friend, co-worker, and _king of crowley_ mr. dee-lite to serve as designated driver.
the ruse worked...up to a point. when the band was a couple of sets into the night and we were three (or four or six) sheets to the wind, someone in the cats' entourage had the presence of mind to ask if the "writer from new york rocker" wasn't going to interview the band. so, i sat out on the stoop in front of the hop with mike neal, making gurgling noises that were supposed to approximate interview questions. after a few moments of this, mike asked, "aren't you going to write anything down?" so i took a borrowed pen and proceeded to scrawl illegibly on a bar napkin. (this interview method, by the way, is one i employed with somewhat more success in later years while writing about collin herring, darth vato, the me-thinks, and countless other worthies for the local giveaway alt-weekly.) it didn't take long for mike to realize that he had been had, and even less time for the club management to give me, the famous penguin head, and mr. dee-lite the old bum's rush.
from there, it gets better...or actually, worse. a lot worse.
post-ejection from the hop, we noticed that there was an american flag hanging from every lamppost on berry street. the famous penguin head, being a dyed-in-the-wool _revolooshunary_ (read: a ridglea-bred rich kid with a beef against his old man), whipped out his trusty zippo and torched one. as if by magic, the hangers-out on the sidewalk in front of the hop evaporated. then we rode via mr. dee-lite's short to the apartment (on west normandale, back when there was fuck-all on west normandale) of a co-worker whom i'd once taken to the bluebird and, when he saw fit to observe, eyes darting furtively around the room, that "jeez, we're the only white ppl here," had responded, "who the fuck is _we_?" now we hammered on his door for long minutes (it was around 4am) demanding that he come out and drink with us. when he (probably wisely) refused, we responded by tearing up every shrub and bush that was planted around the foundation of his building, stacking them up in front of his door, and pissing on them.
the next morning, we rolled in to work and found our boss, the man who brought me here, reading the paper. the headline said something about flag desecration on berry street. it was -- you guessed it -- memorial day. "you guys didn't have anything to do with this, did you?" he asked. just then, the coworker whose front porch we'd vandalized walked in the door, glared at us, and stalked off in a huff.
my favorite part of the story takes place a couple of years later, in 1982, when i was in air force basic training and received a fairly condescending letter on the subject of my enlistment from the famous penguin head, then in san francisco, along the lines of "i'm sure you had your reasons." i haven't heard from him since then, but friends told me that he wound up working in the reagan state department. in a strange way, it made perfect sense.
posted by stashdauber at 6:21 PM
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