the night opens with an amateurish barage of guitars playing "London Bridges Falling Down" and a chorus of gritty brit-punk voices shouting "MY FAIR LADY" at its conclusion; the Anti-Nowhere League kicks into their cover of "Streets of London." i am in the passenger seat of a black Dodge Neon. it is 10:30 at night. i have not slept more than two hours in a row in over seventy-two hours. there is a beautiful and terribly shy, dark-haired woman in the driver's seat. my lack of sleep is entirely her fault.
we are driving. we are not going anywhere. we are DRIVING. going for a DRIVE. fifty years ago people used to go through drives in the country side. now, people drive for the freedom of movement, no destination, no site seeing, just life in the moment. good tunes and a blast of wind, covering miles in endless circles, turning where intuition takes you.
the songs follow one after another with brief introductions and playful questioning. i'm doing everything i can to remember where the song "Right to Work" by the band Chelsea appears on this compilation, but i can't find it.
in short order, we hear: Sham 69, Stiff Little Fingers, Captain Sensible and the Newtown Neurotics. She thinks "Living With Unemployment" by the Neurotics would be one hell of a song to dance to. I think so too.
you know this one. it's a classic I tell her. she calls it. she calls it in seconds. "If The Kids Are United." a few moments later we pull into a Price Chopper in Marlborough, Massachusetts, she's turning off of the engine as Johnny Thunder's version of "Chinese Rock" comes to an end, the next track starts up and plays for all of two seconds, no music, just a gut-wrenching scream. She turns to me and tells me that its "Borstal Breakout." This girl knows her Sham 69.
she's walking into the store. I haven't seen a Price Chopper in ages, funny how a chain of supermarkets can carry you all the way back to home. Funny how Stop & Shop and Shaws are so distinctly Massachusetts and Price Chopper makes me feel like I'm stuck in Pennsylvania again.
she looks my way again, and asks if I can make a show of liking her; she says there is a man inside who used to stalk her/obsess over her when she used to shop here. i nod. i put my hand on her belly.
minutes later we're back in the car and screaming along towards Worcester for no apparent reason whatsoever. I play Vice Squad, 999, Red London, and an incredible song called "Warriors" by a little-known band called Blitz. i ask her if she'd like to hear a song that makes me want to cry. for the next few minutes the only sounds in the car are provided by the Stiff Little Fingers; "Listen" bangs to its abrupt and stunted end and I can tell she's affected.
i tell her that I think the world would change for the better in a matter of weeks if everyone listened to that song before bed.
she smiles and with a hint of mock-aggravation asks why she didn't meet me when she was a lonely nineteen year old in Rochester, New York, wishing she could find someone who felt the same way about the same bands. i tell her that I couldn't be there cuz I was about 12 years old and a much huger dork than I am right now.
we have a laugh.
the tunes keep coming. some of them I haven't heard in months or years, all of them affect me. these songs, these bands hit me in ways that no other sub-genre of music has ever managed. I keep switching the songs up, one forgotten band after another; Redskins, The Adverts, Chron Gen, Peter and the Test Tube Babies, the Adicts, the Angelic Upstarts, and a couple more jams by the Newtown Neurotics.
laugh if you want, but i believe in this music. it shaped the way i view the world. is it naive? if it is, i don't give a fuck. i don't give a fuck about the disenfranchised punks and the no-future kids. i care about about bands who shout their lyrics with cracking voices. because of these bands, i grew up thinking punk was about learning how to be yourself, taking care of others, and standing up to the status-quo.
i tell her all of this. she says she feels the same way. she says thats why she was so addicted to this music. she misses listening to music that matters. i can tell.
i tell her that I can't believe the song "No Respect" was written by a bunch of punk guys over twenty years ago. she tells me that she can't believe a guy would pick that as one of his favorite songs.
at this point, we're on the Mass Pike headed in towards Brighton and she asks me to pony up for the tolls. "Machine Gun Kelly" by the Angelic Upstarts is playing. At this point, we have been driving for over three hours.
she takes me home. i fall onto my futon, exhausted. i reach up, with one heavy arm and tug at her belt until she sits with me.
she's feeling confessional. she's so cute and fragile when she's shy. she makes me feel like all of the muscles in my arms exist to protect her.
she asks: "do you remember when i asked you to act like you liked me to the stalker guy at Price Chopper?"
"yeah." I say.
"i don't really have a stalker. i just wanted you to touch me."
***
I've been more guarded in this journal in the last few weeks than I ever have. Sorry. I've been spending time with someone who is not comfortable with others knowing things about her, and this is cool with me. I wouldn't feel right writing about her intimately or personally on the Internet.
I also lost a friend this week; in part due to some nonsense related to this website and in part to the sudden discovery of a very large difference in our personalities. I had no interest in creating a passive-agressive play of words and innuendo to argue with her through our journals. I think what happened between us was juvenile and I just couldn't play like that. I hope things go well for her and she knows I care; if not, then she never really got as close to me as I thought she did.
I'm gonna write a review of Alien vs Predator in a day or three. I've just been too tired. But, trust me, I will still be angry enough in a few days to do it properly.
Sorry the last week or two of journals have been lame. Hope this makes up for it.
I'm gonna get some sleep now; I want to work straight through the night.
Jordan/BuckyKatt666
we are driving. we are not going anywhere. we are DRIVING. going for a DRIVE. fifty years ago people used to go through drives in the country side. now, people drive for the freedom of movement, no destination, no site seeing, just life in the moment. good tunes and a blast of wind, covering miles in endless circles, turning where intuition takes you.
the songs follow one after another with brief introductions and playful questioning. i'm doing everything i can to remember where the song "Right to Work" by the band Chelsea appears on this compilation, but i can't find it.
in short order, we hear: Sham 69, Stiff Little Fingers, Captain Sensible and the Newtown Neurotics. She thinks "Living With Unemployment" by the Neurotics would be one hell of a song to dance to. I think so too.
you know this one. it's a classic I tell her. she calls it. she calls it in seconds. "If The Kids Are United." a few moments later we pull into a Price Chopper in Marlborough, Massachusetts, she's turning off of the engine as Johnny Thunder's version of "Chinese Rock" comes to an end, the next track starts up and plays for all of two seconds, no music, just a gut-wrenching scream. She turns to me and tells me that its "Borstal Breakout." This girl knows her Sham 69.
she's walking into the store. I haven't seen a Price Chopper in ages, funny how a chain of supermarkets can carry you all the way back to home. Funny how Stop & Shop and Shaws are so distinctly Massachusetts and Price Chopper makes me feel like I'm stuck in Pennsylvania again.
she looks my way again, and asks if I can make a show of liking her; she says there is a man inside who used to stalk her/obsess over her when she used to shop here. i nod. i put my hand on her belly.
minutes later we're back in the car and screaming along towards Worcester for no apparent reason whatsoever. I play Vice Squad, 999, Red London, and an incredible song called "Warriors" by a little-known band called Blitz. i ask her if she'd like to hear a song that makes me want to cry. for the next few minutes the only sounds in the car are provided by the Stiff Little Fingers; "Listen" bangs to its abrupt and stunted end and I can tell she's affected.
i tell her that I think the world would change for the better in a matter of weeks if everyone listened to that song before bed.
she smiles and with a hint of mock-aggravation asks why she didn't meet me when she was a lonely nineteen year old in Rochester, New York, wishing she could find someone who felt the same way about the same bands. i tell her that I couldn't be there cuz I was about 12 years old and a much huger dork than I am right now.
we have a laugh.
the tunes keep coming. some of them I haven't heard in months or years, all of them affect me. these songs, these bands hit me in ways that no other sub-genre of music has ever managed. I keep switching the songs up, one forgotten band after another; Redskins, The Adverts, Chron Gen, Peter and the Test Tube Babies, the Adicts, the Angelic Upstarts, and a couple more jams by the Newtown Neurotics.
laugh if you want, but i believe in this music. it shaped the way i view the world. is it naive? if it is, i don't give a fuck. i don't give a fuck about the disenfranchised punks and the no-future kids. i care about about bands who shout their lyrics with cracking voices. because of these bands, i grew up thinking punk was about learning how to be yourself, taking care of others, and standing up to the status-quo.
i tell her all of this. she says she feels the same way. she says thats why she was so addicted to this music. she misses listening to music that matters. i can tell.
i tell her that I can't believe the song "No Respect" was written by a bunch of punk guys over twenty years ago. she tells me that she can't believe a guy would pick that as one of his favorite songs.
at this point, we're on the Mass Pike headed in towards Brighton and she asks me to pony up for the tolls. "Machine Gun Kelly" by the Angelic Upstarts is playing. At this point, we have been driving for over three hours.
she takes me home. i fall onto my futon, exhausted. i reach up, with one heavy arm and tug at her belt until she sits with me.
she's feeling confessional. she's so cute and fragile when she's shy. she makes me feel like all of the muscles in my arms exist to protect her.
she asks: "do you remember when i asked you to act like you liked me to the stalker guy at Price Chopper?"
"yeah." I say.
"i don't really have a stalker. i just wanted you to touch me."
***
I've been more guarded in this journal in the last few weeks than I ever have. Sorry. I've been spending time with someone who is not comfortable with others knowing things about her, and this is cool with me. I wouldn't feel right writing about her intimately or personally on the Internet.
I also lost a friend this week; in part due to some nonsense related to this website and in part to the sudden discovery of a very large difference in our personalities. I had no interest in creating a passive-agressive play of words and innuendo to argue with her through our journals. I think what happened between us was juvenile and I just couldn't play like that. I hope things go well for her and she knows I care; if not, then she never really got as close to me as I thought she did.
I'm gonna write a review of Alien vs Predator in a day or three. I've just been too tired. But, trust me, I will still be angry enough in a few days to do it properly.
Sorry the last week or two of journals have been lame. Hope this makes up for it.
I'm gonna get some sleep now; I want to work straight through the night.
Jordan/BuckyKatt666
VIEW 25 of 30 COMMENTS
misstyrios:
I'm really glad things are going well for you. And thank you for the nice words. I actually do first turn to John Cusack movies to renew my hope in life. Thankfully, though, things seemed to have worked out. He even admitted that if I hadn't returned his grovelling phone call that he was going to stand outside my apartment with a boombox and play "In Your Eyes." I can't resist giving a boy like that another chance.
seantastic:
You sir are a golden god. You sure know how to make people jealous. 