Brad & Stacy get married, Matty Luv dies, Aaron Probe - not the brightest crayon in the box. Lydia talks to me for the first time.
The reason I haven't added anything to this web site in a long time is because my brain has atrophied and I'm dumb as bricks. It's not like there hasn't been plenty of things to talk about and photos to post. I did scan in some photos of our lake barbecue about three months ago, but I couldn't get them to link to the page I created. Then much more important stuff happened, great stories of love and death, but I wasn't there to report on them. Craig has explained to me numerous times how to update my own web site and I always pick it up very quickly - then I just as quickly forget everything within hours. I'm starting to think that maybe I've developed some sort of latent learning disability. When it comes to computers no one has ever accused me of being brilliant, but I'm starting to think that whatever few technically inclined brain cells I used to have withered away from disuse some time during the mid to late nineties. Anyway, this is one reason why my idea of channeling all of my aspirations from The Probe into this web site are not going as planned. I still have the idea of digging up old Probe articles that were never published and sticking them here (some of them were pretty good, but I didn't have any graphics or photos to go with them so they were the first to get cut.) It looks like the Reina Aveja CD will finally be coming out! Pete also told me to hurry up with a written contribution to the Hickey tribute and Live CD because those are about to be pressed too! If you are checking out the Probe Records web site right now because you heard about the death of Matty Luv I suggest going to www.mattyluv.com Todd has done a great job putting that together. I'm glad someone did.
I never did make an entry for Brad and Stacey's New Orleans cruise ship wedding, but congratulations to Brad and Stacey. Also thanks to Gavin and Alison for picking me up and accepting me into their house for a night. Thanks to Carl for driving over to drink with me and to the thousands of gay men who traveled to New Orleans that same weekend for the Big Gay Festival or whatever they called it. I didn't see any women flashing their breasts on Bourbon Street, but there were literally hundreds of shirtless gay men, Thank God.
I'm going to write for an online magazine called The Dictator. I don't have any information on that yet, but Todd Morgan, the editor, is a literary scholar, baseball fan, and intellectual with lofty ambitions. All I have to do is write and he does the rest so that shouldn't be something I screw up. However, since I have precious few interesting things to write about I will not be posting them here, but saving them for my column.
Instead, I'm going to tell you my life story, starting with my 2nd year at Amador Valley High School. Sophomore year, my favorite outfit was a pair of light blue cords (no, they weren't in style then either) and a light blue T-shirt that had a picture of a four armed sweater that said Artesian University on it. If you didn't see those Olympia beer commercials back in '82 then you don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway, for some reason I thought that was a funny shirt. I had never drunk beer, I just liked the commercials. I thought the shirt went well with the pants because they were the same color. I had two other favorite shirts. One of them said, "Faith: I ran because I saw others run." The other said, "If all else fails lower your standards." Both of them were my dads, but I used to wear his clothes about half the time I went to school. His room was right next to mine and everything was organized and on hangers so I'd usually grab one of his shirts. For some reason I hated taking a shower so on most days I'd do my best with water and a comb to get rid of my bed head. I was unsuccessfully trying to grow long hair and it was big mess, especially because I would rock in my sleep. I'd always wake up with a matted patch of hair stuck to one side of my head. My dad actually thought I dressed and groomed poorly on purpose. Then again, he used to suggest I get "a good pair of slacks for school" and he bought me a brown tweed suit jacket that I never wore once. My biggest problem though was acne. I always had it and some times it would get pretty bad. I tried Oxy 10 and some other stuff, but it didn't work. The only thing that worked was sun, so I looked okay during the summer, but usually felt ugly the rest of the year. At the start of my sophomore year I made an honest commitment to get good grades. My freshman year I had mostly F's, D's and maybe a few C minuses, but I thought I could turn it around. I tried very hard to get good grades. I managed to bring my GPA up to 1.8, but it was hopeless. I was horrible with schoolwork and always managed to do it wrong somehow. I actually got a D- in Ceramics and I had TRIED to do well. I ended up flunking Algebra 1.2 four straight times. School days were agonizingly slow. I hated every minute of it. I was just as bad socially as I was academically. I ate lunch at the head of the nerd table over by the pine tree away from the quad. Depending on how hungry I was I used to buy 15 to 20 large chocolate chip cookies and two or three chocolate milks from the cafeteria. I remember that even the cafeteria ladies used to frown at my eating habits, but when you're young you can get away with stuff like that. I never even got a tummy ache. On days that I had a bag lunch I enjoyed eating by myself in an empty classroom. Quite frequently I would cut school all together and I'd rock back in forth in bed listening to Judas Priest, Def Leppard, ACDC, Iron Maiden, The Scorpions, and Led Zeppelin for hours at a time. At night when my dad was home and I couldn't play loud music I wrote letters to over 40 different pen pals. I made a booklet of all of them and mailed them out so they could all get in contact with each other. I wrote heavy metal poetry too, but Donny Whitaker's mom found it and threw it away because a lot of my poems were about hell and killing. It scared her and she called my mom. The thing was I was just imitating heavy metal lyrics and didn't actually feel that way. Despite how pathetic I was I think I was actually happy in sort of a reserved way. There were some bright spots too. I had spent most of my youth playing sports so I was a good athlete. I was one of two in our class to get the presidential physical fitness award. I did 100 push-ups and could power clean 180 pounds, Coach Dufour told me that was more than anybody on the varsity offensive line. I did something like 72 sit-ups in a minute. The aforementioned football coach recruited me and convinced me to join the team that year, but I was quickly cut for grades. I wasn't spectacular in the 100 yard dash, but I did the 440 in 56 seconds, which was like 40 yards ahead of the guy in second place. I also had the longest broad jump at the school, but I don't remember how many inches. I was 5' 9" and could stand under any regulation basketball hoop and jump up and grab the rim. (My wife DID NOT believe that when I told her since these days I have trouble getting off the couch.) My favorite sport was baseball. They pegged me for a starting pitcher the first day of try-outs, but I had a habit of showing up for practice in jeans and regular tennis shoes so the coach said I had an attitude problem. I was just too stupid to understand why I should "dress out". I got cut for grades pretty quickly anyway. OH YEAH, this is supposed to be the "bright spots" not more about what a fuck up I was. Anyway, it was also my sophomore year when I first discovered that despite the fact that I was complete moron, if you put a scantron in front of me I became a "genious". (I won't let spell check correct that. That's how I spelled genius. See, I'm a fucking moron!) Kids at school used to say I must be a genius. The first time was in Mr. Geib's history class. He had a multiple-choice midterm and, of his three classes, 90 students, I got the third highest score. Not only that, but he announced it to the class so I didn't have to brag. Only three kids got above 70 and I got an 85. I was the class goofball. He used to kick me out of class and yell at me for not doing my homework. I didn't understand how I did well on that test anymore than anyone else did. I still flunked the class because 50% of the grade was for homework and I didn't turn any in. The same thing happened in biology. I got the highest score in the class on the big final exam because I studied for it in Saturday detention. I still ended up flunking the class by three points out of 1000 possible. I think the only class, other than PE, that I ever got higher than a C in was Russian History with Mr. Underwood. I appreciated the fact that he was an easy teacher so I didn't goof off in his class. His homework was always these simple worksheets and most of the time this really cute, nice rocker chick named Becky Mayne, who sat in front of me, would finish them before class and let me copy them. I developed a crush on Becky so one day in class I unbuttoned this shirt she was wearing. It buttoned down the back. She didn't know what to do, but she seemed more nervous than angry. The whole class was watching. I didn't have a game plan, but I did manage to unbutton it all the way up and down, tugged on the bra strap once or twice and then buttoned her back up. That was as close to sex as I got in my three years of high school.
However, everything changed during my junior year. I went on this diet where I didn't eat any sugar, wheat, or milk products for an entire year. I lived mostly on rice cakes and apples. I never cheated except once when I had some toast during a trip to Michigan. I went on the diet because my mom's friend was a holistic doctor. She did this test where she poked the tips of my fingers with this metal rod connected to this machine. She told me that I was allergic to sugar, wheat, and milk products. A positive side effect of the diet was that my acne cleared up completely. The year before my acne was so bad that I had scars across my back and on my face. Couple my clear complexion with the fact that I was the life of the biggest party of the school year and I was suddenly accepted among the ranks of the popular. I also had finally grown out my hair into a beautiful long and wavy mullet. I ate lunch in the quad with all of the guys who had the cutest girlfriends in the school. For some reason though I was the only member of our group without a girlfriend. It was still fun though because we'd always do stuff together like go to the beach on weekends and I didn't walk home alone anymore. I got a ride. That was my last year in high school though and I never really hung out with that group again. I saw some of them during my second year at Junior College, but since I had flunked out of high school a year early I was a year ahead of them in college and we didn't have any of the same classes. I also started going to church and the kids in the youth group became my friends. I put this bumper sticker on my truck that said Jesus is My Best Friend. My old friends at school thought that was hilarious. I went to church every single Sunday and Wednesday for an entire year and then dropped that about the same time that I got a personalized license plate that said AXLROSE. I also managed to get 3.5 GPA during my two years at Junior College. All of the tests were scantron and there was no homework. I went to Cal Poly and had the best summer of my entire life. Girls liked me. There was one class everybody in the dorms had to take that Summer and I had the highest score on the first two midterms so all the girls thought I was a genius; a mullet growing genious who liked to party every night! They'd even find ways to walk around in their underwear around me. I was too stuck in nerd mode to capitalize on my great fortune though. My roommate had to explain to me that certain girls were hitting on me because I was oblivious. "Dude, we held hands and talked until 4 Am! Yeah, she only had on underwear under her T-shirt! No, I didn't kiss her. I don't think it was like that!" I just didn't understand the ways of the world yet. That all changed when I started reading Charles Bukowski and patterning my life after his writing. The next couple of years weren't so easy though. I had to torturously pull a rabbit out of my ass on several final exams, but luckily never had to re-take a class. Thursday was beer night. Friday night I would get obliterated with Night Train and on Saturday we would drink Southern Comfort. Sundays were spent trying to remember what we had done Friday and Saturday. I had a full time job in the neighboring town (1-7pm six days a week) which I needed since I spent all my money on CDs and alcohol. I was burnt on school. I barely made it though the last quarter and finished with a 3.014 GPA. I listened to Nirvana's Bleach LP about 300 times during my senior year. I drove down to Long Beech to see them and talked to Kurt Cobain after the show. I asked him "How much for a poster?" He gave me one for free and then rolled his eyes at me and charged me a buck when I made him walk back and get one for my roommate too. A year and a half later he was a mega-star, but at that point I didn't care because I had moved on to other bands already. I only listened to their big hit album about 20 times or so. I spent many nights with a six pack of Lowenbrau Dark scouring through Maximum Rock n' Roll and Flipside, ordering records. One record I bought was Rock n' Roll Problem by a band called the Fuckboyz, the members of which would eventually become my new rock n' roll heroes. When I decided to start my own fanzine I was so into it that the first year I never watched a movie or saw more than 20 minutes of TV. Instead I went to shows three nights a week and spent the rest of the time writing or reading punk zines. I lead a charmed life for the next five years. Everything went my way. Then things started to crumble around me, but I remember thinking "As long as I have beer I can never be unhappy; No matter what happens!" I didn't know at the time that I would start getting real hangovers soon. I tried to live in the city, but that was mistake. I think I actually lost my mind for a while. Things got a little better when I moved back to the suburbs. I was making $900 a week driving and unloading trucks for Color Spot. It was six days a week 9-13 hours a day, but that didn't bother me at all. It was easy! The gut wrenching part was coming home and trying to work on Probe #7. It was a nightmare. I'd hire people to help since I had the money, but they were actually more trouble than help (except for Gavin and Brad). Then things would happen like I'd be home at 8pm getting work done. Then some drugged out dude in the city would tell me the job he was doing for me was finished. I said, "If it is I'm driving out there right now! Are you sure it's done because I don't have time to come out there and watch you work on it again. I have to be at work at 3am. Are you sure it's done??" "Yeah, yeah, I have it right here." So I'd drive out there and he'd have NOTHING for me. I'm not just talking about one person, one time either. Shit like that happened all the time. I started to hate anybody who did drugs. I can't explain how difficult and time consuming, not too mention how expensive it was to put out Probe #7. When it finally came off the press the printing quality was shit and I just wasn't too happy with it. I didn't get to the light at the end of the tunnel. I just had a thousand pounds of weight to get to the post office, another huge job. Why did I do it? What was my reward? Top that with $1200 a month in minimum payments on my credit cards and the Color Spot job moving to Richmond. There wasn't any money coming back none too quickly from The Probe. I was in hole, a financial hole, a black hole, a money pit. Then everything changed for me in one plane ride to Vegas. I sat next to a girl who told me. "Declare bankruptcy, you don't have anything to worry about. I deal with people at work who are millions of dollars in debt and they just walk away from it. They aren't going to come after you for $70,000 and they can't take away The Probe." Anyway, she was right, a gigantic weight was lifted from my shoulders that day. I was so happy that I bought her a double whiskey sour and married her. Although there was about a four year delay between the whiskey sour and getting married. We have a daughter now named Lydia. She is eight months old and just beginning to learn to talk. The first time was a week ago. I was dropping her off at daycare and I was saying "BYE BYE" as I backed out through the door. I remember our daycare lady said, "It's almost like she's trying to say Bye back to you." Then when I came home that night Keri told me that Lydia was saying "Bye" to the office ladies at work. They were all crowded around her saying "Bye" as Lydia was being carried away and she started making the b sound very softly and after a little bit of a struggle she put the b and the long I sound together. The next day Craig told me that he got Lydia to say "Bye Bye Bye" to him and it sounded to him like the Insinc song which for some reason he found humorous. I told Craig that I didn't think Bye actually counted as her first word because she was just mimicking and probably didn't know what it meant. However, a few days later Lydia really did talk to me. Lydia usually stays up an hour later than Keri. Then Lydia will get hungry and I'll bring her in to Keri where she'll eat herself to sleep. However, this night Lydia didn't make her usual hungry cry. Which is quick breaths and a heh heh heh sound. Instead, she suddenly stopped playing and went over to Keri's end of the couch, looked over at me, puckered he face and very quietly said "mmmmm mmmmm mommommommommommommom" She looked like she was really struggling to say it. I said, "Oh my god you're actually asking for mom aren't you!?" So I brought her into Keri and she did the super happy, hand clapping with the smile so wide her eyes shut and lunged at Keri, or actually she lunged at her chest. So I guess MOM was her first word because I think she actually knew what she was saying. Keri and I were teaching her how to say mommy and daddy earlier that day and she did say mmmmommmm once or twice, but I thought she was just mimicking. I was teaching her by saying "mmmmommmm mmmmommm" I exaggerated the m sound while she watched my mouth. I guess it worked. When she tried to say daddy it just came out as the d sound. I'm hoping she's smarter than her dad and she'll still be able to remember this stuff two days from now. Maybe in a couple of years she can keep this web site updated for me.