rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

 AUTHOR’S NOTE: The regularly scheduled episode of punk rock blues Girls Are Icky and So Are Boys, Kinda, Too: It Ain’t Easy Being Morrissey will not appear today because, well, I haven’t written it. Instead I’m presenting the following installment of my ongoing spiritual crisis because I’m basically a narcissistic old coot who thinks y’all give two hoots about my ongoing spiritual crisis. I’ll come up with a snappy and pretentious title for it later. Oh yeah, it’s gonna be a Lester type ‘dream sequence. Thanks. tb)

Snappy and Pretentious Title: Something Something With Good and Evil

    So I’m about 15 and higher than a nine-eyed bandicoot after wasting yet another summer Friday drinking Boone’s Farm and sniffing glue with Jeff the Drummer and Nazi O’Brien under the bridge just east of Shopper’s Paradise, walking the last 12 feet towards my dead father’s house in  upstate NY when I see there’s a light on in the kitchen. Steeling myself for another guilt fest  from my father, replete w/ statements along the lines of  “I’m glad yr mother’s not alive to see this”, I snap into my best Lou Reed and enter the house to see, sitting at the kitchen table, smoking cigarettes and passing a bottle of something called Old Frankenstein, both Batman and Jesus Christ.
    Taken aback, but only for a second ‘cause I’m cool like that, I pull up a chair like I’ve done this a hundred  times, pour myself a glass of Old Frank and say “What’s up?”, my voice sounding only a little like Henry Aldrich.
    Jesus looks me dead in the eye, blowing holy smoke through his nostrils and says “I was gonna come up with something snappy but my writers are weak, so I’m just gonna get to the point. What’s yr problem, kid? Why do you mess yourself up with drugs and alcohol?”
    “Hey,” I slurred, “You’re drinking the Old Frank and changed water into wine….”
    “This ain’t about me or Jeez, kid, it’s about you.” Batman snapped. He was big. Real big. And he needed a shave. And to be honest, he looked a little unhinged so I decided not to fuck with him.
    “I…. Uh…Ummm…I don’t know, I’m just partying….” I answered.
    “Partying!” Batman snorted, sounding suspiciously like my dead father, “For somebody who’s all blood and guts on the Christian Message Boards, all ‘I know better than God” and stuff, you ain’t got a hair on yr ass to speak up one on one with One or the One’s son or……” and at this Batman started giggling.
    “Yea, verily,” Jesus laughed, “And thou throwest like a girl……” At which point both of them collapsed into hysterics. Real shooting-milk-out-your-noise laughter.  Which pissed me off.
    “Hey!,” I shouted, “What is it with you guys in these dream sequences? Coming into MY fantasies and treating me like shit? YOU!,” I said, pointing an accusing  finger at Batman, “ You’re supposed to be a hero! The fictional embodiment of dark revenge for all of life’s injustice and you show up here, all fat and slobby, smelling like fish and putting me down. And you,” I said, turning on Jesus, “all high and might son of the God who killed my mother have the audacity to give ME shit about drinking when yr all buzzed out like a hoot owl and ……..”
    Batman slammed a leather gloved hand on the table and was about to hand me my lunch when Jesus held up his hand in that weird Boy Scout salute thing he does and said “Easy Bruce, the kid has a point. Every time he tries to figure stuff out with these dream sequence pieces his heroes come down and basically piss in his Wheaties. Now, as characters in this piece you know and I know that he’s the one putting the words in our mouths but apparently he doesn’t know that, or if he does know on some level, which he kinda HAS to, being that he’s not stupid and Dad don’t make no junk and all, he’s struggling with the reason why. I feel that it’s incumbent upon us, as vehicles of his self-discovery to allow him the latitude to figure out why he needs to project his self-loathing onto his spiritual archetypes like you and me.”
    “I think you ought to just let me kick his ass.”
    “To what end, Bruce?”
    “Teach the little shit some respect, for one thing.”
    “And for another….?”
    “OK,” Bats  said sheepishly, “It’d be fun. You never let me have any fun. Back in the 80’s you let me be psychotic. Now THAT  was fun.”
    “This ain’t about you, Bruce,” Jesus said, “Not right now. We’re here to help Tim in his time of spiritual crisis. And besides, I can’t remember who I had say it but ‘A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still’. That was a good one.”
    “Yeah,” Batman said, lighting another of the old man’s Parliaments, “But my favorite’s still ‘I will smite my enemies and smash his children against the rocks……’”
    “Bruce,” Jesus whispered, “Bruce, Bruce. Always with the violence and drama.”
    “Well, the cape and cowl kinda lends itself to …..”
    “WAIT A MINUTE, YOU TWO!” I yelled, “What about my self-discovery? Why am I stuck in my father’s kitchen listening to you guys babble drunkenly? And I think the ‘against his will’ quote is from Thomas Jefferson.”
    “Oh yeah, one of my better models.”
    “Stop changing the subject….” I was getting real riled now.
    “And what exactly IS the subject?” Batman said with a sudden British accent.
    “Uh,” I said authoritatively, “My spiritual crisis, I guess. I want to believe in God…”
    “What do you mean you WANT to believe in God?” Jesus said, “You either do or you don’t. It’s time to fish or cut bait, don’t you think? All this wishy-washy back and forth on the God question sounds like an attention getting scam to me. As long as you don’t commit one way or another you’ll have yr Christian friends trying to save you and yr heathen friends pulling you back in like that guy in the Godfather.”
    “Just when I think I can get away,” Batman began.
    “THEY KEEP PULLING ME BACK IN.” They said in chorus, clinking glasses of Old Frankenstein.
    “Now cut that out!” I said, exasperated with the both of them. “This is serious business. I’m trying to reconcile the teachings of my youth, that of a just and loving God who gave his only begotten son to die for my sins, thus ensuring me eternal life and salvation for my eternal soul with the harsh realities of a world filled with crime and death and moral ambiguities and Bible thumping hypocrites behind every burning bush and my own insecurities and doubts about the value of life itself and the fact that rock and roll’s been going to hell since Buddy Holly died and I‘m almost 50 years old and alone and working a high schooler’s job in a strange city AND I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE!”
    Batman and Jesus sat frozen in mid gesture, seemingly stunned by this outburst. My breath was coming in rasping gasps. The silence was broken by the sound of a toilet flushing. From out of the back bathroom, the one off the pantry towards the rear of the kitchen, the small one my Father always used came Lester Bangs, holding a folded copy of the New York Daily News and smoking a large cigar.
    “And you wonder why I never want to speak with you.” He said as he walked through the kitchen, down the front hall and out the door into the dark night of my soul.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 19:03 | link | comments (4)

Comments:

#1  17 March 2005 - 19:09

 

Perhaps the scariest thing of all is that I understood that perfectly.

love,
the bro you can't quite get rid of,
carl

Anonymous

#2  17 March 2005 - 23:50

 

Put me in the heathen column, with Lester. xoxoxoxoxoxo

Leigh

#3  18 March 2005 - 12:17

 

I have stumbled upon your blog through wandering aimlessly through all the other blogs and i must say...I like it! it is always so interesting to enter someone else's mind, however briefly through their words. i do hope you keep writing.

moonglow

moonglow

#4  18 March 2005 - 12:26

 

you're on a roll, tim. the best years are yet to come.

howard

Comments: