America isn’t a country, it’s an anthology. A great gaggle of stories that desperately needs editing, but the writer-editor ratio is heavily skewed against. The reader is forced to pick out subtle changes from a lot of droning repetition and find frequencies of information salting the curdles of difference that grow in pockets in the topography of our culture. The needle passes over a scroll, like those wax cylinders from the early days of audio recording, but this cylinder is a gift shop miniature of the Tower of Babel and, in true American form, it’s a flawed reproduction. Because the language and stories etched across it are all consonant and legible, it’s the meaning that is incoherent. Some larger hand, divine or otherwise, has crafted a big book of tall tales in the tongue of our shared language, the meaning of which is completely incomprehensible, or packed with bespoke messages for every unique listener that rhyme and clash. I’m not sure, but I suspect that we are born to be nemeses to some of our neighbors and strangers alike, only because we are guilty of hearing another meaning in the same words surrounding us all.
You’ve probably heard the one about how five blind men can all touch separate parts of an elephant and each describe a different animal. Well, five Americans can all watch the same show and yet discover a different story with different endings, lessons, heroes and villains. Always we are obsessed with narrative meaning and characters with unambiguous moral alignments. So much so that we have replaced nuance with the loose cannons of righteous certainty. We don’t have a national myth, we are a nation of mythical creatures, obscuring ourselves in the camouflage and numbing intoxication of zealotry. The American Dream is a crisis ward full of hallucinating dreamers, some of us comatose, some of us rolling in fitful slumber, while a small, terrifying few are maniacally somnambulant, possessed sleepwalkers loping like drooling werewolves, tearing bloody chunks out of the sheep the other inmates are counting for comfort. Dreaming or not, everyone eats around here, even if some people eat shit, while others simply eat other people. Even in such a disordered place, there are some congruencies.
You hear a lot of the same stories in this collection, over and over, but occasionally you find a real horror show tucked away in the monotony of syndicated reruns, popping off like bullets tossed into a campfire.
There are even some funny ones. Quite a few, actually — filled with dry quips of high-brow cleverness and idiotic bursts of rioting flatulence. Some of these gags are too young, or even stillborn, while the older zingers echo with a sea of laughter from a once-live studio audience that is now canned in the dusty archives of the grave. Each year our anthology grows, while simultaneously going out of print in sections. The cacophony of our great unknown story is filled with the howling laughter of ghosts, reverbs of antique joy guffawing at jokes long passed and only truly funny now to the dead. You just had to be there, I guess.
On that note, not yet in the past tense and hopefully far away from it, I’m taking off for a week, to be out there myself and see what’s going on. Meanwhile, enjoy yourselves.
Thursday
We were excited for the phoenix-like rebirth of Siren’s Song Tavern and accompanying Hermit Crab and Death Doula gig tonight, but confirmed just before press time the show has been canceled as the venue awaits permits.
Friday
Here’s a good one for all you headbangers and boppers out there. Tonight’s 7 p.m. show at Moss Oak Commons features Portland’s bubbly doom and pop act Fox Medicine, along with local heroes Image Pit (hiya Dylan, it was nice meeting you the other week), Brain Dead Rejects, and the ever-heavy Psyop Victim. Roll through after 7 p.m. with $5-$20 for the sliding scale door charge. Viva.
Saturday
Local beach-pop vibe merchants and purveyors of tunes retooled from the age of eight-track stereos in shag carpeted boogie vans, The California Poppies are finally ready to present their concert film The Holy Rainbow at the Minor Theatre, its place of conception two years ago. The Poppies will be joined by director Griffin Loch for this special premier showing at 9 p.m. I expect some of the folks from the film’s cast of support characters in the musical supergroup The Mighty Superbloom will likely be in attendance as well. Get your $15 tickets as soon as possible so you don’t miss this special event which the magic 8 ball on the gear shift in the cosmic shaggin’ wagon suggests will sell out.
Monday
Fresh of the success of last week’s 24-hour telethon, Savage Henry Comedy Club still has the lights on and is putting on the good stuff for the all-ages crowds who just want something fucking loud and heavy in their lives. I’m talking about another installment of Metal Monday. This Week’s lineup is an international affair, with Tijuana, Mexico’s Violencia joining forces with Failure from Northern Italy. The local support has some of our brightest gems in the form of Kolonizer and Brain Dead Rejects. The fun starts at 7 p.m., and a sliding scale door charge of $5-$20 will get you in the door.
Speaking of all-ages, if you want something a little less high-powered, consider checking things out an hour later across the bay, where the Outer Space will be hosting San Pedro’s Jason Paul & the Know It Alls, along with local rockers Litter. No one will be denied entry due to a lack of funds, so I don’t feel bad being ignorant of the official cover price.
Tuesday
Once more at Savage Henry, this time for an actual comedy show called Joke Survivor, where at 9 p.m. nine comics will compete through a series of scenarios to be the last one standing to win the fat victory purse of $5, which also happens to be the price of admission. Handy, that.
Wednesday
It’s another free blues jam hosted by the Mojo Rockers at the Wave Room in Blue Lake Casino at 7 p.m. Bring your instrument and your skills, and remember to present the former to security or coat check for inspection before rolling in because this is a casino after all, and no one wants a local edition of Ocean’s 11.
Collin Yeo (he/him) tries to write about the future, read about the past and live in the moment. Two out of three ain’t bad.
This article appears in ‘Come Back Young Again’.