beta enjoys friday night lights

last night spurs me on. after wiling away the day, sitting in the park, hunched over a notebook in the late afternoon sun, so late in even getting 'started' and i'm recasting events from ten years ago, replaying a fake high school in my mind, my fake high school, my real one, populated by faces i knew once, and i'm just trying to scratch them out on the page, start sketching whatever i see through my blurry vision. it's such work to focus. i can see gym class, dressing out, old friends still young and thin in the limbs, not quite fleshed out. i remember the grooves you get in your exposed thighs as you sit on the bleachers, and that sensation of running your fingers over the new grooved skin. how easily you get impressed. and i only get a little bit down but it feels right. but now it's time to meet up with Yancey and venture to Pete's Candy Store.
it's writing up at Moistworks about intangibles like blood brothers, amorphous voices, and limp shrimp that gets me excited about trying a blog again. but it could also stem from Yancey's excitement about slugging percentages and non-twenty game conspiracy theories. "it's the most fun i've had writing in my life," he tells me. i talk about going to see the MC5/DKT3 show at summerstage with Sun Ra's Arkestra and the dreaded dj spooky. we talk about seeing dj spooky, and Yancey recalls him djing hendrix's "star spangled banner" that lasted like fifteen minutes. "Well, i was stoned," he says, so we re-think that timetable and figure he only dj'd it for three seconds in reality.
either way, we're at pete's to meet up with the other folks at moistworks, though the actual banner event of the night is some poetry reading by fellow moist worker Brian Howe. as we walk in and grab our Stellas, we try to parse the three people reading aloud inside. neither one of us is sure which one is Brian. Yancey puts his money on a guy in collared shirt and linen pants reading a poem about a bear parallel parking. i secretly pray that Brian is the guy pulling a Will Oldham: half unbuttoned, wide-eyed and bare-chested, bearded, barefoot and perched like a flamingo on top of his sandals. neither one of us can take the lines though, and we slink back out to make plans for books, basketball, and uh...blog posts. i totally see a column by tim duncan called "groundhog's day" that'd be the most bland and polite postings ever. Yancey is obsessed with AC Green having an advice column.
finally we meet Alex and Joanna . Joanna yells at me for writing about Randy Newman, eats my chips. Alex has apparently cut all his hair off and has a really firm handshake. Uncle-esque, i'd reckon. once outside, Joanna brings over Brian Howe, and it turns out Yancey and i were both wrong. Brian is a well-groomed young man with a blonde moustache. he somehow thinks i'm Mike McGonigal which is flattering, though i hope to have my health stay lucky (get well soon, Mike).
before it can turn into a blog clusterfuck, i go into the city to catch Oneida, who i have written about more times than seen. along the way, i run into my old MN City Pages editor, Melissa outside the Magician. within minutes, i'm accompanying two more girls from Minnesota to see Oneida. one girl has a handshake as firm as Alex's, and i'm a bit disconcerted as to how i can remember two strong handshakes in the course of a night of foamy beer.
i completely miss Those Peabodys, who i fondly recall from my nights in Austin. i do wonder if they're still pissed about this though. i would be, as it was some poor writing on my part, which in some cosmic way emulates their own poor writing. either way, Oneida blister, but play for too short. they do take my favorite jam, "$50 Tea" and expand all the seams. even the pretty Wedding tracks sound fierce when blaring out of Hanoi Jane's furry amp, with Fat Bobby's sweet Acetone tone and Kid's subliminal huffing on the head mic acting as counter-rhythm to the interlocking spiral of their glorious, righteous factory clamor. returning to the Magician with a bit more fog.