The DNA Vibrator has completed the first chapter of a long story. It is now archived on this website. The DNA Vibrator would ask for you to take a few minutes and read it if you want some of that backstory. Go ahead, read. When you are done, navigate your way back here. The DNA Vibrator will wait. It has existed since the beginning of time, a few more moments won't matter. As the DNA Vibrator has indicated before, this blog page removes what others may consider certain expected blog features, but removing those extraneous bits makes the blog more conducive to reading through from start to end, like a book. It is stripped down to the essentials. The DNA Vibrator may provide links to other sites or information it references ONLY if it suits the purpose of The DNA Vibrator.
Best quote from the archive: "611 Pizza was like the bar, Cheers, except with a lot more tattoos, leather, black make-up, puking, pot smoking, and hardcore music."
Permanent Historical Record: 10/03/2006
The first bass The DNA Vibrator ever owned was a Fender Jazz bass. It was beautiful, a yellow ash, maple neck, played like a dream. It looked something like this.
The Fender Jazz was refinished by The DNA Vibrator in the basement of a dorm hall at Southern Illinois University. The tool of The DNA Vibrator spray painted it gold! This is akin to taking a statue of the Virgin Mary and spray painting a thong bikini on it. However, it still played beautifully. Along with the Fender Jazz, the tool also owned an Ampeg 410 all-in-one cabinet. Great tone, and it had wheels, which meant that in the dorm room it was easy to turn it into a TV tray, book shelf, subwoofer, or wheelbarrow.
The tool of The DNA Vibrator sold the bass and amp to Steve, the bass player for a band called Three Alarm Mustard, when the tool lost his academic scholarship to SIU. He was too embarrassed to tell his parents that the thousands of dollars that they had spent and the thousands of dollars his scholarship was worth had been wasted on booze and comic books. This shows you the true geek from within which The DNA Vibrator emerged. For a time, the tool considered never playing again. There was never a time, however, that The DNA Vibrator had considered leaving this vessel. The tool still had his function to perform. The tool met Tony, later to be known as AfroDJYak, in those dorms. Was this just chance? The DNA Vibrator knows there is no such thing as coincidence. For every door that opens, a new series of infinite doors open in front of it. Looking forward, the myriad of choices are of equivalent value, but looking back, it is obvious that only one choice for each door was inevitable. This means that the tool was destined to lose his Fender Jazz, destined to consider quitting music forever, and destined to spend an additional year in the dorms even though his friends did not, because that was the only way that his partnership with the entity AfroDJYak would have ever begun. Is The DNA Vibrator prescient? Were greater forces at work? Is there an Earth spirit which needed to coax The DNA Vibrator into existence? Leave those questions for the philosophers. Or if you are a philosopher, leave those questions to DEVO, and The DNA Vibrator, who have said, "Lay a million eggs, or give birth to one, avoid display, or wear bright colors, IT DOESN'T MATTER! The fittest shall survive, but the unfit my live."
You want to hear this message? Why else would you be here? The DNA Vibrator gives away what other whores charge many dollars for. Do not be afraid of the infection, it is part of the experience.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/04/2006
In the September 2006 archive, The DNA Vibrator mentions a comic book called "Flamin' Guitars." It was the product of one winter break in Carbondale, from about the second week of December to the second week of January. The tool sat in a recliner for several hours a day, and drew, and penciled, and scripted, and refined what little talent he possessed, until this comic was created. The first run was photocopied and folded by hand, distributed locally, and sold out. The second run did not perform so well. Now seems as good a time as any to resurrect it for a larger audience. It has been 15 years, and The DNA Vibrator has been waxing nostalgic since the additional purchase of space and bandwidth means that just about any piece of crap can be put on the website. Besides the obvious grisly murders, talking rabbits, and cameo by the Hulk, just about everything in the comic actually happened to the Coolies as they travelled around the country.
Here's a look at the first page. DNA will post the rest later.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/05/2006
In the comic book,The DNA Vibrator reports that in the "Shittiest Bar on Earth" the guys had to load their equipment up 20 flights of steps, only to be told that they could have used the service elevator, and that after hours of playing to a wall to wall crowd, they made $18.00. Well, the club wasn't in Tulsa, as the comic says,nor was it actually 20 flights of steps, but the meat of the story did happen. The DNA Vibrator will not let facts stand in the way of truth.
First, early on in their career, they began playing at Mabel's in Champaign, Illinois, a famous, but long gone, midwestern club (do a search on the internet for Mabel's Champaign, and you will be surprised at how many of the best musicians passed through its doors). As they prepared to load in for their first show at Mabel's, one of the bouncers approached the guys and said, "You in the band? Take your shit up the stairs." Nice. However, future stops in the club were met with more civility by other folks than the no-necked dickhead who greeted the Coolies the first time. That accounts for the "band takes the stairs" bit in the comic.
Later, in the dead of winter, the Coolies braved a horrible snow and ice storm to play a show at the Cubby Bear at Wrigleyville in Chicago, Illinois. At that time, there were no other locations, so they just knew it as the Cubby Bear. The club has ties to SIU. Apparently, the owner/manager was an SIU alumni. So, he was pretty liberal about giving SIU bands a chance to play in the Windy City.
By that time, the Coolies had played out enough that when they could, they attempted to get contracts with clubs in advance, with specific riders spelled out, and negotiated guarantees, etc. This bar contact person [hereafter referred to as slimy cocksucker] promised a guarantee over the phone and explained the ticket system they used. The bar would issue the Coolies tickets to deliver to a variety of outlets, to their friends, etc., and the Coolies would receive something like $4.00 for every ticket turned in. Remember, this was 15 years ago, and the Coolies figured that if they could round up 100 friends, strangers and people wanting to see a free show, then they would have made the trip worthwhile. Besides, slimy cocksucker guaranteed that the band would not make less than $300.00. The DNA Vibrator does not know if the archaic fucked up system of tickets is still what is in use at some clubs, but if so, it feels sorry for all of you youngsters currently getting buttfucked by slimy cocksuckers for the chance to grace their shitholes with your art. But, The DNA Vibrator digresses.
The tickets were supposed to arrive in Carbondale two weeks before the show. They did not. They arrived on the day the band was getting ready to drive up to Chicago. Slimy cocksucker told The DNA Vibrator that the band did not need to worry. They would get a guarantee. This ticket mix-up was all the club's fault. The tickets were given out to every band, and it was just a way for the club to gauge how many people came just for that band. The boys hesitantly bought the explanation, but not without experiencing the first sympathy pains of a royal assfucking to come later on.
The Coolies left early enough to be able to deliver tickets to a variety of music outlets, but on the road up, a terrible snow and ice storm set upon them. Their progress slowed to a crawl. They made it in town in enough time to get some food across the street from the club, and drop off a few tickets at some of the local establishments. The roads were so bad that even the busses weren't running for part of the night. As some of their friends braved the weather and came into the bar, the Cooolies handed them tickets. When slimy cocksucker saw this, he said that wasn't allowed, that the patrons had to get the tickets ahead of time. So, in shifts, different members of the band would stand in the freezing cold and hand tickets out to passers by. When slimy cocksucker realized this, he sent one of his steroid shooting bouncers, referred to from this point on as raisin nuts number 1, out to stop that from happening. So, the band resigned itself to a night of hard drinking. Slimy cocksucker brought the band anything they wanted to drink, which he said, "was the least he could do for SIU alums on such a shitty night." The Coolies were ambivalent. So far, they had been treated like shit, and although they weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, they didn't feel particularly comforted by slimy cocksucker's sudden attack of generosity.
They played a kick ass set, and ripped up the place for the few dozen hard core fans who actually came out to see the Coolies play. At the end of the night, The DNA Vibrator went to find slimy cocksucker. However, he was nowhere to be found. Raisin nuts number 1 and his pal, raisin nuts number 2, had the enjoyable duty to settle up with The DNA Vibrator. "Here you go," raisin nuts number 1 said with a smile. It was likely all he could do not to laugh. He handed The DNA Vibrator $18.00. In as polite a tone as the tool could muster, he said, "You have got to be fucking kidding me. I know there were 30 to 40 people here with tickets for the Nightsoil Coolies." "That may be true, said raisin-nuts number 2, "but then you got to subtract all the booze you guys drank from the total." "Hold the fuck on," said the tool, getting a little hot, feeling more than beer flush his cheeks, "[slimy cocksucker] said that was on the house. Where is he?" "Gone home, a long time ago, and he's the one who told me what to give you." "This is a bunch of fucking bullshit! We have a contract. [slimy cocksucker] said that we would get a $300.00 guarantee!" At this point, the raisin nuts boys had heard enough of a guy 1/2 their size getting indignant with them. "Whatever. Time to get the fuck out. Now."
The DNA Vibrator is by nature non-violent, because nature in the end is always violent enough to those less able to survive. The DNA Vibrator knew that time would take its toll on the raisin nuts boys. Over many years, The DNA Vibrator has wondered what sad lives or tragic ends the raisin nuts boys endured, or what horrors they inflicted on their punching bag girlfriends/wives, and what vengeance might be being pursued right now against them by their dysfunctional teenage children for the abuse that they, the pathetic soulless fucks that they are, inflicted on their progeny because of their complete inability to feel the way real human beings do...not that The DNA Vibrator dwells on it or anything.
The tool went back to the rest of the band, and told them about the situation. "$18 damn bucks!! Fuck!" said AfroDJYak. "What was the cover tonight, 2 cents? Fuck!"
The band loaded their stuff out, and sat, morally beaten,in the freezing, still night air. They were each realizing that not only did they not have enough money to split between them to get some decent food, but they did not have enough money to buy gas to get back home. Gone Brian Vaughan, as was his habit, hence his nickname, wandered off down the street, and in a few minutes, was barely visible in the distance talking to some guy he had met hanging out in an alley. Remember, this was at 2 am, on a deserted, frozen Chicago street. It was clear to AfroDJYak and The DNA Vibrator that something was going down between Gone and the man. Gone came back and said, "Guys, I was talking to this dude down there, and he said he would give me $50.00 for my driver's license. So I gave it to him. We got gas money!"
Somehow, it all made sense. This was a special moment for the band. They were in the presence of a higher power, and not for the last time. The night which had before seemed lonely, cold, and uninviting, now seemed full of possibilities. The stars twinkled with an intensity rarely seen through the haze of the city, and the Coolies were right there, right then, witnessing the unfolding of the moment. $18 bucks was a badge. They wore it like a Maori tattoo. They were indivisible. From that moment on, they were ready for whatever would come next.
Their resolve would be tested the very next day as they drove home. But, that is another story.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/09/2006
Fuck. Fuck, fuck and ratFUCK. The DNA Vibrator just learned another valuable internet lesson. Machinery is beautiful, because it absolutely does not care if The DNA Vibrator had just written the most intense, personal, and revealing, the most earth-shattering, philosophically affirming, immediately accessible and understandable blog post ever. It doesn't care if it would have changed the world, or at least you, RIGHT NOW, if you had read it. It only cares if The DNA Vibrator saved the motherfucker, which The DNA Vibrator didn't. In a seemingly random blink of the computer monitor, an inspirational message, which you needed, is forever gone. Could The DNA Vibrator recreate it? Possibly, but why? The spontaneity is lost. The power came from its unpredictability. The DNA Vibrator does not care. It tosses revolutions of human thought away everyday like so much leftover salad.
The DNA Vibrator is excited to see that many, many people have visited this website. Many hundreds of megs of songs have been downloaded. The message of The DNA Vibrator has and is seeping into the consciousness of the world, imperceptibly, and soon will influence everyone from power brokers to pot smokers, and before anyone will even be able to understand what has happened, everyone will be different. This is already happening. This is not The DNA Vibrator being megalomaniacal. This is the sound of quantum probability fields collapsing simultaneously across the universe, as one set of highly improbable events has occurred, leading to the next set of events. Once enacted, the events have always been, and always will be. Don't believe The DNA Vibrator? Pick up the book, The Fabric of the Cosmos. Then, lost sheep, come back and bask in The glow of The DNA Vibrator.
Because so many of you have come unbidden to look at The DNA Vibrator, The DNA Vibrator has come to realize that some of you may need The DNA Vibrator, the way punk needs bitch. This has led to two other basic realizations:
ONE: If many people visit, and many people download, then many people have lurked around here without making your presence known. The DNA Vibrator has felt you lurkers lurking. Do not be afraid to touch The DNA Vibrator. The DNA Vibrator proves by it existence that nothing is sacred (so everything is), that nothing matters (you get the concept), and that time is an illusion. Don't buy it? That is okay. The DNA Vibrator has forever. But, if you do not email, or post a comment, then this blog will not be a conversation, it will be a manifesto. Both functions, however, suit the purpose of The DNA Vibrator; it has all the time in the world to indoctrinate the masses; until then, come out and play.
TWO: As more people have learned of The DNA Vibrator, one can now find The DNA Vibrator through the ubiquitous search engines. Not only will typing "The DNA Vibrator" net you the opportunity to view sites on genetic mutation with specialized vibrator genes, and also wonderful adult novelties, it nets you a front row seat to the arena in which the universe will be changed. You're welcome.
Many people are downloading the music of The DNA Vibrator; in the course of trying to determine, if/which songs were being dowloaded the most, The DNA Vibrator discovered an unnerving problem: The song title, "DEVO Was Right," returned many hits. Too many. This phrase has already become part of the colloquial lexicon of the cool, well before The DNA Vibrator had posted this song on the website for download. Could it be that the message of The DNA Vibrator was corrupt, a rehash of someone else's better idea?
No.
The DNA Vibrator was flattered that others had adopted its phrase, but it politely and respectfully claims full ownership of the phrase and all it stands for. All of you geek squad-tragically-hip-subbaculture motherfuckers can back the fuck up off it NOW. Before you get too pissed off because you assume you somehow came up with that phrase all by yourself, know this: The DNA Vibrator wrote the song and the words "DEVO Was Right" back in 1994. Published it in 1995, after which the song found its way onto a nationally syndicated radio show. Before then, the exact phrase "DEVO Was Right" had NEVER BEEN UTTERED BEFORE. EVER. So, the tables have turned, because if you are one of those too-detached-to-be-touched-by-the-mundane, you have already been co-opted by The DNA Vibrator without even knowing it. This is how The DNA Vibrator operates: Creating the impression that its uninspired idea was really your own. The DNA Vibrator is a termite eating away at the floor joists of the house of your consciousness. Collapse may come at any time. Like the Blob, The DNA Vibrator grows with each 60 hertz cycle of power consumption in your home. Only this time, Steve McQueen is dead, baby.
The DNA Vibrator does not seek recognition nor dominion. In fact, now that the world knows the true subversion it is capable of, The DNA Vibrator gives the phrase "DEVO Was Right," to all of the world to use. It is now yours. Use it or not: The function of The DNA Vibrator has already been served by this phrase. It was just another lettuce leaf, scraped off of the plate of The DNA Vibrator's discontent.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/10/2006
It was the summer of 1993. The tool of The DNA Vibrator was on his way to Chicago to watch his friend AfroDJYak get married. He and Annie had a beautiful ceremony in the back yard of Annie's parent's house in Oak Park. He wore shorts, Annie wore a pretty dress, and everybody got to take pictures of the happy couple. We spent the night eating lasagna and pizza, and getting shit-faced drunk. Sometimes weddings are fun.
However, The DNA Vibrator had another, more pragmatic purpose for coming along. It was in the process of creating its new musical vehicle, and it needed a name. The search for a name had been fruitless up to that point, but as The DNA Vibrator quietly polled the wedding guests, one word, which seemed to have it all, sprang forth: "Crank." It had a sexual reference, a mechanical reference, a musical/loudness reference, and a drug reference. Very few words meet the criteria of the perfect rock and roll band name. This was awfully close. The DNA Vibrator developed a list of about a dozen potential names. Crank didn't impress anyone, but it felt right. Think about it. If you saw the band CRANK on a marquis, you would know these boys were not easy listening. So despite other good suggestions, like the Eyelobes, Brainmilk, and the Komodo Drag Queens, Crank became it. After a weekend of mayhem, the tool drove back home, and sprang the name on the other unsuspecting band mates. The guys actually thought it was probably too "rock and roll" to have not been taken already. But, they searched the trade magazines, talked with as many industry people as they knew, and realized that at least in the midwest, no one was named Crank.
A summer later, as they braved the elements to roadtrip across the country to record with indie rock producer Kramer, (yes, THE Kramer, who has worked with the likes of GWAR, Bongwater, White Zombie, Urge Overkill, etc., etc.,)at the infamous Noise New Jersey studios, they nearly crossed paths with an East coast Crank. Later still, a West coast Crank was heard from. Three things each band shared: a good name; great recordings; somewhat less than national appeal.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/11/2006
The Energy and Entropy of an Underground Music Scene: One Simple Rule.
Warning: This blog post is supposed to mean something. If you prefer not to have meaning with your blog reading, skip this entry. You'll be glad you did.
The first law of thermodynamics states that energy is neither created nor destroyed; it merely changes form. The second law of thermodynamics states that the potential energy in a system is always less then the initial energy in a system. According to The DNA Vibrator's friends at Physical Geography dot net "Heat does not spontaneously move from a colder body to a hotter body. Natural processes that involve energy transfer must have one direction, and all natural processes are irreversible. This law also predicts that the entropy of an isolated system always increases with time. Entropy is the measure of the disorder or randomness of energy and matter in a system."
Understanding entropy is important when understanding any system, whether it is a planetary system, an environmental system, or a cultural system. All of the systems mentioned require a constant supply of energy from an outside source to continue to function at the artificially high level of order which is maintained by complex systems. Some systems are self-organizing, and maintain many complex features over time, but even these require regular infusions of energy. The ultimate outside source of energy is the sun. This is why earth has a complex biosphere. The sun supplies the fuel to all systems which organize in seeming contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics.
A music scene is one of these complex, organized systems; a social structure which can only exist in a culture once all of the basic energy needs of a people are met. You will never hear how an ancient culture didn't figure out how to provide food for its people, but man, they sure developed kick-ass tribal music, didn't they? Interestingly, as cultures rise and fall, and a music scene does arise as enough excess energy is available during the culture's heyday for those creative types to express themselves, sometimes it is the music created then which will be preserved long after the culture fails. In this respect, music is like an entropy sink, a way for the creative potential of a culture to be stored even as the usable energy of that culture diminishes. Today is no different. An underground music scene is so far down on the cultural needs list, that it only happens when enough people with enough excess creative energy are willing to spend their energy capital on the scene. And if you wanted to break it down, the ability and freedom to pursue subversive music, the framework within a society which allows members of that society to express anti-establishment sentiment to the point where the expression itself unifies those expressing those views as an organized community, all of that excess energy, sound and fury signifying nothing, has as its source, the sun. We all do. Even The DNA Vibrator depends on an outside source of energy, though, over time, as the second law states, the level of entropy has grown and continues to grow within it. Its system is as old as the universe, and no longer functions as well as it once did.
The best part of this little philosophy lesson is that it should make you laugh the next time you see some goth chick pretending to be a vampire. She couldn't do what she does without that little blob of hydrogen and helium 93 million miles away. "I hate this world!" the disenfranchised punk wench shouts, middle finger thrust defiantly at authority. "This world" of course does not include the cool microphone she is singing through, the amp her daddy bought for her through which her Les Paul shrieks, and well, the electricity that allows her tin-thin voice to be heard above the sound of the droning air conditioning, which of course, if that wasn't working, means you wouldn't catch her out in this fucking heat. In other words, most "underground" artists, audiences, and people in any "scene," really, are only afforded the luxury of being able to participate because the juggernaut of this culture continues to mow down every motherfucker which gets in its path. We have excess energy. If we didn't, do you think The DNA Vibrator would have the leisure to philosophize on the computer? Fuck no. The DNA Vibrator would be watching mutely as he was grabbing a shotgun from the wall, keeping another band of marauding bastards from stealing what little food the tool and his family were able to eke out of the forest by which they live. The DNA Vibrator believes that this culture is one bad weekend away from wholesale cannibalism. Don't believe it? Read Jared Diamond's books, "Guns, Germs, And Steel," and "Collapse." We exist on borrowed energy resources. Not that The DNA Vibrator is the Lorax, for fuck's sake. At the most basic level, The DNA Vibrator is very interested in seeing the chaos which will ensue as the end result of the world's current state of affairs. It's just that The DNA Vibrator has grown attached to this particular vehicle for it, and doesn't want the tool to have to eat his neighbors or be eaten, as The DNA Vibrator's friends Cypress Hill once said, "when the shit goes down."
"When I was 20, hardcore music meant something. It wasn't this corporate gutless crap that you dumbasses think is cool and subversive today." Next time you hear some old farts looking back through the prism of entropy and waxing philosophic about the good old days, do both you and them a favor, and punch them right in their mouths. After all, they wasted all of your fucking energy. No wonder your music sucks. You have had to recycle all of their old crap. Who cares if you wouldn't be here without them? That was yesterday's problem.
Sometimes, a band, or a music scene, will take off, and will exist off of a seemingly endless supply of energy given to it by devoted fans. How else can you explain how Dylan or The Rolling Stones, once cultural compasses, now corporate shills, still pack stadiums? Sometimes, through exponential feedback, a band will rise meteorically. The spectacle of it is worth watching as a cultural phenomenon. It has happened before, with the Beatles, for example. Also, with bands like Metallica. These bands, at one time, were humming with so much extra energy, that catastrophic chain reactions occurred, in which they were consumed from within. Their collapses were fascinating, and governed by the same forces which described the fall of the Roman Empire and the fall of a drop of water from a blade of grass. The point The DNA Vibrator is making, it hopes, is that cultural phenomenons, like bands, music scenes, etc., follow the same laws of thermodynamics that any environmental system follows. If this is the case, then the simplest rule can be derived from which you can predict whether your band or music scene will thrive or fail. The DNA Vibrator knows what this simple rule is. Perhaps you can guess it. If you can, post a comment about it to The DNA Vibrator.
If you didn't skip this blog, well, here we are, at the end, together. Don't you wish you would have listened to The DNA Vibrator? It won't steer you wrong.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/15/2006
What The DNA Vibrator Likes About fundamentalists�
Recently, tool of The DNA Vibrator had to take a trip to the east coast for his real job. He had to fly a major airline. The tool must have a nice face, or he looks like he knows what he is doing, because people always come up to him and ask him for the time, where the snack bar is, or if he saw that story on the news.
As the tool sat down at the gate in the terminal, he read the latest Scientific American, (always good for a laugh) and ate some snacks in the terminal. A few seats away, an older woman, obviously not a seasoned flyer, was chatting to a young man with a phone jacked into his ear. The gist of the conversation, one which we have all heard in these situations, was about how if it was your time to go, it was your time to go, but if you were committed to the Lord and saved by Jesus Christ, then your place was assured in heaven. The man agreed in a noncommittal way. She proceeded to ask if he was saved, and was overjoyed when he said that he was. Praise God! However, he found a way to distance himself quickly from the conversation.
The DNA Vibrator was impressed by her strength. She was able convince that man to testify in front of strangers to the "fact" that he was saved in Christ, when his actions convinced The DNA Vibrator he was not. She wielded a power over him. No disrespect to her, but the power she wielded didn't seem very holy; she knew how to prey upon the unassigned guilt we accumulate by tapping into our shared cultural heritage. We're supposed to believe in God; we're supposed to go to church. We are one JC Penny suit away from the bear skins and cave-dwelling days, because deep down, we are afraid of offending a personal deity with which we have never really had any direct personal contact. Why else do we still put stock in phrases like "In God We Trust," "May God strike me dead" or "It's in God's hands now?"
It takes strength, courage, faith, and HUGE brass balls to simply walk up to a stranger and bet that you can tap their unassigned guilt, or to find a someone who will respond to your suggestions. The DNA Vibrator's hat was off to her. Until The DNA Vibrator was seated right next to her on the plane.
What The DNA Vibrator dislikes about fundamentalists�
As the tool was making his way to his seat, he found her already seated IN HIS SEAT. The DNA Vibrator always flies window seat, just in case the plane goes down (so it has the best view of the spectacle). As the tool looked at his ticket, seat 34 A, and looked at her, she said, "Oh I'm sorry. Do you want the window seat? I can get up if you like." To which the tool responded, "No, that's fine. I'll sit here (in her seat, 34 B)." Everything The DNA Vibrator dislikes about fundamentalists is encapsulated in this exchange. Of course, from there it got worse, but not without provocation from The DNA Vibrator.
You see, some people have a way of making you feel like you are imposing on them, or are somehow at fault for some mistake, when you insist on asking for what you deserve, what you worked for, or what you paid for. This is the case with almost every fundamentalist The DNA Vibrator has ever met. They have mastered the deceptive and cruel trick of making you feel bad for their imposition. She was in The DNA Vibrator's seat. It was the seat The DNA Vibrator chose specifically. The DNA Vibrator was able to do this because The DNA Vibrator planned ahead and bought the ticket enough in advance to choose the seat it wanted. She manipulated the situation so if The DNA Vibrator would have insisted on sitting in the assigned seat, and made her move to the seat she paid for, anyone listening would have thought, "Wow. What a complete dick." Fundamentalists are so good at doing this, it worked on the tool, too. He thought that it would be easier to simply acquiesce to her demand, than to himself demand what was RIGHT. This is what The DNA Vibrator dislikes about fundamentalists. They have the power to use Guilt, but rarely choose to use it for Good. They use it selfishly. They have the ability to expose our own moral failings; but not in the way you might think.
You see, if The DNA Vibrator had been true to itself, it would have said, "Convenience be damned. If this person wants to discuss theology, then let's discuss theology," but instead, and this causes The DNA Vibrator shame even now, The DNA Vibrator failed morally, and knuckled under to preserve the fallacy that we all share a common God, and it would be improper, or even sacrilegious, to be rude to someone trying to talk about God. Isn't what The DNA Vibrator believes just as valid, or more valid? But, we are seduced, and this is the evil that fundamentalists propagate, we are seduced by the easy social path. In the end, we say to ourselves, "Does it really matter that we didn't stand up for what we thought was right on that plane to that person attempting to exert her will over our little sphere?" And because it is a small battle, an hour at best of our time, we rationalize the event to ourselves and say, "No, it doesn't really matter." But it does. Each time we do not rail against this moral superiority complex, especially in the presence of others, it gives strength to the concept that the fundamentalist's way is THE way, and tells others simply to shut up and if you don't cause waves, you won't be picked next. The DNA Vibrator implores YOU, the next time someone puts you in that uncomfortable position, YOU be the fundamentalist, and make them feel like they need to follow your path to salvation. Or, tell them to fucking mind their own business, at least.
What The DNA Vibrator hoped to learn from the fundamentalist�
When she asked the tool if he knew that Jesus was his personal Lord and Savior, and He had died for his sins, the tool said, "Yup." When she asked if he'd been baptized in the blood of the lamb and had been saved, the tool did say, "Yup." So, The DNA Vibrator is not without fault in their interaction. You can see how obviously The DNA Vibrator encouraged her. In truth, The DNA Vibrator did actually want to see what she would say, knowing what he believed likely would not reconcile well with what she believed. If nothing else, The DNA Vibrator understands scientific method. How could The DNA Vibrator test its hypothesis regarding fundamentalists, if The DNA Vibrator didn't test fundamentalists? For example, to end the conversation, The DNA Vibrator could have said, "Jesus told me not to talk to you." At which point, she might have said something like, "The Lord does not bear you taking his name is vain," or "I will pray for your blasphemous soul," to which The DNA Vibrator would have said, "He told me you'd say that. He said that I should pray for you." Although fun, this would not have allowed The DNA Vibrator to see if all of the classic moves of the fundamentalist would be attempted in this experiment. They were. Here's the first.
Fundamentalists protect themselves from rationality by proclaiming that the Holy Spirit has moved them, or God commanded such and such, but really, all they are doing is passing the responsibility buck up the existential ladder.
Second, if The DNA Vibrator were to question the fundamentalist seat stealer next to it about the authenticity of her Bible, she would say that the Lord protects His Holy Word, and does not allow the will of Satan or of men to be worked into it. In other words, we can not deviate from the path she has been chosen to reveal, nor can we question the authenticity to the manual she is using to spread her message. Any deviation leads to eternal destruction. Even questioning its applicability, or her authority (although she would say that she is merely a vessel for the Lord) leads to unending torment. Hmmm. Perhaps The DNA Vibrator is jealous. Surely you have noticed that The DNA Vibrator refers to itself in the godlike third person as well.
Here's the third. Fundamentalists want to pray for you. She sure wanted to pray for the tool, to be a stronger father, leader, etc., which of course sounds pretty good, and on the off chance that she out of billions of people has got it right, then what the hell, right?
And, the fourth. She wasn't very tolerant. The DNA Vibrator has often thought that the fact that so many Christians don't act very much like the Christ did as described in the Bible should be the first indicator that maybe they have things fucked up a bit. It just so happened that the folks seated in front and behind us were either going to attend or had recently attended a seminar on Taoism. There was contempt on her face as they briefly mentioned if so and so had the literature from the conference. Jesus was pretty clear on the "let you who are without sin cast the first stone," but most fundamentalists do not hesitate to condemn people to hell for their behaviors and beliefs.
So, as far as experiments go, it was a success. The DNA Vibrator's hypothesis, that fundamentalists really should just be called mentalists, was supported by the data. Looking at the copy of the Scientific American in the tool's hands, she told him that, "the holy spirit is telling me that you are a good man, but you have put your faith in the concrete things, the provable things of this world." Is that the same Holy Spirit telling John Edwards what "the other side" is like? Isn't it much more likely that from the magazine the tool was holding, she inferred that the tool must be one of those "rational people," who like to "think" and "understand" the processes which define the universe?
The DNA Vibrator prefers to think that she used her powers of observation, her understanding of psychology, and her mastery of exerting cultural guilt to her own benefit. Frankly, this thought is much more frightening than if she were actually having direct access to the holy spirit of God. In this respect, there is no greater threat to the forces of democracy which shaped this country than her. If The DNA Vibrator were an overtly religious entity, it would say that its will was tested by Satan on that flight.
To make matters worse, she was confident that the Holy Spirit commanded her to buy a nice Bible in the gift shop of the airport, because the Holy Spirit wanted her to give it to the tool. The tool told her that no, he didn't need a Bible, he had a wonderful Bible at home, a gift which had been given to him by his mother from her mother. She went on to say, that the holy spirit was telling her that the tool needed this Bible, because the Bible is a living word, and that the tool thinks of the family Bible as only an heirloom, not as a guide for his life today. What were the tool's choices? Be a total dick, and refuse the Bible (which for the record, he did, and she wouldn't accept)? Or take the Bible? How many levels of hell do you go to if you insist on refusing a Bible? What more evidence would she need that the tool was possessed by a demon (close) and needed to be healed? What would have happened had she laid hands on the vessel of The DNA Vibrator? Would The DNA Vibrator have rebuked her? Would whatever god she invested her faith in have come and removed The DNA Vibrator from the tool? The DNA Vibrator didn't think so.
The tool took the Bible. He wondered, since she was so convinced that the Holy Spirit commanded her to give the tool the Bible, did she know that The DNA Vibrator left it in the hotel he next stayed in? Does this make The DNA Vibrator a bad guy? If indeed her faith was well-placed, it was destined that her gift of the Bible was supposed to be left in the hotel. The DNA Vibrator felt compelled to leave it. The DNA Vibrator did share one belief with the fundamentalist. One of the first things she said was that she did not believe in chance, that God always brings people together for a reason. The DNA Vibrator certainly believes that each moment unfolds with infinite possibility but there is only one path which will ultimately and obviously be the only path the future can take. Call it what you will. Einstein said that "God does not play dice." This has left The DNA Vibrator to allow for the possibility that some fundamentalists (note that throughout this post, The DNA Vibrator has never lumped all of the fundamentalists together) might actually be speaking to God, or with the Holy Spirit. With all of her failings, perhaps the fundamentalist the tool sat next to really was a tool of the Holy Spirit. From one tool to another, The DNA Vibrator wonders what events were put in motion as it left that Bible on the table next to the fridge in the hotel. Did she know? The DNA Vibrator doubts it.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/27/2006
MUSIC=MAGIC
First, The DNA Vibrator has been gone for some time. It doesn't feel the necessity to explain its whereabouts, and certainly judging by web traffic, nobody really cared anyway. Does this deter the course of The DNA Vibrator? No more than recycling deters the eventual depletion of earth's natural resources, and the eventual Malthusian destruction of mankind. But, when you recycle, like when The DNA Vibrator speaks, it makes you feel better, at least for today. And isn't the current NOW all we really have, anyway?
On one the long flights The DNA Vibrator had to take recently The DNA Vibrator came to understand why primitive cultures (this one, for example) feel that Music is Magic. Not magical, in a Lawrence Welk, gay way, but in a matter of fact, as people understand magic, way. Don't buy it? Let's determine how people understand magic, then. Define magic: According to Wikipedia, "Magic refers to the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical or paranormal means. The terms can also refer to the practices employed by a person to wield this influence, and to beliefs that explain various events and phenomena in such terms." If magic is an ability of a person to wield a force which can affect another person, physically and mentally, through no apparent medium, then one can see how music, or more generally, sound, qualifies as magic. What other force immediately available to those with skill to create it stirs emotion in others, or causes others to feel sad, angry, even sick (there are said to be certain tones which affect the mental health and stability of a listener, as well as those tones which can have negative physical effects on a person, too). It affects things at a distance, and in focused, powerful wavelengths, can blow holes through steel and concrete. With enough volume, it can destroy human hearing, and in the right pitch, can break fine crystal through resonance waves. It can be used to image hidden objects (ultrasound and sonar) and in powerful bursts, it can destroy kidney stones in a person's body without harming the surrounding tissue. Again, it seems easy to understand how less civilized societies might consider sound magic. But, as The DNA Vibrator has said many times, we are only separated from our superstitious forebearers by polyester and Walmart. We view music the same way.
As a culture, we are only a couple of hundred years out from understanding that air is comprised of a mixture of gases, so it is no surprise that sound still contains a mystical quality for us. It will take many, many generations to bury 10,000 years of cultural training. Science, as a whole, has really only ever been an attempt to try to understand how actions happen at distances. Every major advancement in the physical sciences has grown from an attempt of some scientist to prove that action A was the result of force B acting through medium C. Sound seems to produce action at a distance through no medium. Action happens here, and a person hears it over there. The DNA Vibrator postulates that this is the underlying reason that satanic shit, magic and witchcraft have long been associated with rock and roll. The music contains power, literally, delivered at previous-to-the-rock-and-roll-era unapproachable sound pressure levels. The really sick sounding shit incorporates tri-tones, described in classical times as the "devil's interval" in music, because it sounds so creepy. So, people into magic feel that music contains a similar force. Many people not into magic believe it too, or we wouldn't have so many people blaming musicians for their uncontrollable urges. Music has always been part of rituals, again, not just because God digs music, but because people who wield power recognize the force music exerts over people, and of course, they are attracted to that---any force they can use to manipulate people....
The DNA Vibrator is no fan of the band U2, at least not their newer stuff. But to test its theory, listen to "In the Name of Love," forgive Bono his ultra gay half whispered lines, and you will FEEL the power he wields as he belts out the chorus. You are right there with him when he says, "Early morning, April 4. Shot rings out, in the Memphis sky."
The witchcraft of music is also why pop music stars are our culture's sexual icons, anti-establishment figures, teachers, prophets, and entertainers. They wield magic, and we are all still awed by their power.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/29/2006
On the Anniversary of the Death of My Father
No tool...no DNA Vibrator...just me. Five years ago, on October 28th, my Dad died. He was strong, and really, my siblings and I had convinced ourselves that nothing could kill Him. He would go when he was damn good and ready, on his own terms. At 76, he still had a strong heart, and a sound mind. We thought that Dad was going to be like one of those old Indian chiefs you romanticize about as a kid, who lives and leads his people well into his old age, and in the time and place of his own choosing, is allowed to die gracefully, becoming one with nature. Or, like Beowulf, he completes one last great task, and lives forever in song because of his deeds.
But, this was not the case with my Dad. Early in the last year of his life, he began to act erratically. He was taken by fits of anger, and found that little bits of memory were slipping away from him. At times, he appeared to have small seizures. After these symptoms became more noticeable, he finally went to the doctor. It was early June when he was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. A biopsy revealed that it was malignant. It was also large and spreading. Given his age, doctors recommended against surgery as an option. So, specialized chemotherapy and radiation were used. Although the treatments succeeded in shrinking the tumor, too much damage had already been done to the brain, and in the end, they didn't stop the tumor. It is possible the therapies had some positive effects, but it was difficult to tell, because the person who was there at the end was certainly not the same as the one who was there in June.
I could go into all kinds of detail about how hard it was to watch my Dad disintegrate before me, and I mean "dis-integrate," as in "no longer integrated," but that wouldn't really get you to feel what I am talking about. There are a couple of stories I could tell, however, from one of the last times that I saw him alive.
It was September 11th, 2001. I had taken several days off from work so that I could help my brother and sister take care of my Dad, who had grown irrational and more belligerent than ever. As I watched the replay of the World Trade Center towers falling all day, I couldn't help but think that a terrorist attack, or even an all out war against the United States, would be a welcome distraction; I could wrap my mind around an external threat so much better than I could the one that sat inside his head. I found myself thinking that if the world were ending now, that at least Dad wasn't going to be here to see it. Or if he were still here in the weeks and months to come, he wouldn't know or care what was going on, anyway.
What else happened that day? Well, the local gas station immediately tripled the price of the gas it was selling, the bastards, exemplifying all that is wrong with a culture that puts individual "liberty" above everything else. When things go bad in our country, individual freedom equals a fuck everyone else free-for-all mentality. What was the gas station owner actually thinking? If the world were going to hell, so much so that people would pay any price to get gas for their cars, just what would money be good for? To spend by the thousands to buy an equally price-inflated head of lettuce or can of fucking dog food? When people do not share a sense of civic responsibility, nobody cares if the gouging they do today hurts your grandmother tomorrow. Fuck her, she should have planned ahead.
So, I was glad Dad didn't have to deal with that. In that respect, cancer was a reprieve for him from all of the external stress that was exerted on us as a nation starting on that day. So while the towers repeatedly collapsed, Dad and I took a walk outside. It was a beautiful day. A warm, Indian summer breeze gently shook free the colors of fall, and because all flights were grounded, and few people were doing anything except watching TV, it was preternaturally quiet, a fitting stage for the unreal events which would occur.
We walked slowly around the house, my arm in his arm. As the tumor progressed, it affected his gait somewhat, and he needed an extra hand sometimes for balance. We talked, about nothing in particular, when he stopped short, and became upset. We had just turned the corner and were walking behind the house, when he pointed to the rose of sharon bushes which were in a long row, the dividing line between his property and his neighbor's. "Those shouldn't be blooming." He pointed an accusatory finger at the nearest bush. "It's not spring. It's the fall." He clearly was in this moment, now, and was afraid that an element of what he considered reality was shaken. I imagine it would be similar to waking up tomorrow and seeing two moons in the sky, and wondering why no one else seemed upset by the obvious incongruity with what you know should exist. He turned to me, insistent, almost pleading, "This can't be happening. These don't bloom in the fall. Why are they blooming?" I had no answer, and I actually knew so little about rose of sharon bushes that I couldn't dispute his observation. What if we had some bizarre mutant variety? What if the weird warm spell had confused the plant so that it bloomed a second time? Weirder shit had happened. It was only later that I took the time to read that, of course, the rose of sharon is a late summer, early fall bloomer. It was doing everything it was supposed to, in its own time. However, at the time, I still desperately wanted to believe that it was the world, and not my Dad, that was falling apart.
"I don't know, Dad. Are you sure they are not supposed to bloom now?" "What is wrong with you," he snapped. "Of course I know when the hell they are supposed to bloom. Here," he motioned to something to his right, "Call them up and ask what is wrong."
"Excuse me," I said to Dad. "Call them up? Call who...with....what?" We were in our backyard. The nearest phone was in the house. Again, he looked crossly at me. "With the god-damned phone!" He gestured to the same spot, the point at which for him, a phone existed. It was at this moment, that I fully realized that my Dad was going or was already gone, even though his semblance was still walking among us. I can only imagine that from his point of view, the world must have stopped making sense a long time ago, and that little warps in reality were part of his everyday existence. How frightening that must have been, when he could remember it. Sometimes the warps were very disturbing, such as a plant blooming out of season, but sometimes they fit perfectly into his world, such as when a phone would appear out of nowhere when he need to call the powers that be to confirm a question.
Although I understood this, it was still hard to "play" along. At any time, any word I may say, or any thing he might think he has seen or heard, could trigger any kind of response. That really made me uncomfortable. What if facilitating his delusion made his perception spiral into an even more disturbing reality for him? So, I confirmed what he wanted me to do. "You want me to call them and ask them why the plant is blooming?" "Yes," he said confidently, "Call them up." So, I pretended, the way I would have pretended with my toddler-aged son, Carl (named after my Dad) to pick up and dial the phone. I waited for what seemed to be the appropriate time for them to pick up. "Hello, I am calling for Carl XXXX. He was wondering why the bushes in his back yard were blooming. They shouldn't be blooming now." Then, I nodded my head a few times, said, "Oh," or "I see," and finally, "Well, thank you very much. Good bye." Then, I hung the phone up and put it back down. He looked expectantly at me. "Well, what did they say?" he demanded. "Dad, they don't know either. But they said not to worry about it. It probably has to do with the weather."
That solved the problem. At least for Dad. I was unsettled for the rest of the day. It was easy to think about Dad being a changed person, when I was far away, but it was another thing entirely to have to play a part in the delusion of a man whose grip on reality was being loosened by a brain tumor. Did I do right when I "humored" his misperception, or if I would have insisted that there was no phone, would he have been forced somehow to "see" there was indeed no phone there? Did either stance matter, because it was unlikely that he would remember what we said or did later that hour, anyway? I think what I did was easier,but I don't know if emotional expediency is the best course of action in times like that.
I stayed and helped the family for several days. As I was leaving, Dad was sitting comfortably in his easy chair, generally in a much calmer state of mind. I had seen him through some good and some bad spells. Frankly, the good spells were the hardest to take, because it was during those brief moments of lucidity that Dad knew there was something fundamentally wrong with him, and he knew he did not have the capacities, mentally and physically, that he once had. In these moments, that strong man would weep, not for what he had become, but for what he could no longer be for his family. Of course, he still was everything and even more than he could have ever imagined for us in those moments, but in those moments of clarity, he only judged himself as a shadow of his former being. How could he see that the courage, and fear, and sadness, and purity, and beauty and frailty that he displayed during those times made us love him even more than we ever had before, so much so that even as his consciousness faded just a few short weeks later, even then, he knew he was loved. He may not have known by whom, but he knew he was loved. Well, that day, as I said good bye to him, for the last time in my life when he could still understand what I was saying to him, he gripped my arm after I hugged him, and as tears were streaming down his face, he said, "You will take care of her, won't you?" 'Her' was my Mom, his wife of 45 years. "Of course," I whispered back to him, because a whisper was all that would come out of my constricted throat. "You don't have to worry about Mom, Dad. Everything is okay. We planned everything out ahead of time. You have taken care of her already." Here was a moment of clarity, punching me right in the gut. And it would have brought me down to my knees, if Dad hadn't then added, "You get the plans. They are in the garage. You promise me you will get the plans, and everything will be alright." The knot in my throat subsided. His tumor induced paranoia altered reality again. I nodded my head to appease that demon, smiled and told him that the plans were safe, and that he didn't need to worry about them. Again, at that time, I so wanted to believe that Dad wasn't being psychotic, that I later asked Mom to confirm for me that there weren't some plans for some car engine or carbeurator (Dad was very mechanically inclined) that Dad had drawn up. Mom almost looked at me with derision, as if I had to be joking, but then her look softened simply to sadness. "Of course there are no plans, Roger. Of course not."
But there were. At least for a moment, there were. When Dad asked me, somewhere, in the world he lived in, he had the plans, and he needed me to make sure they were used to help his wife and family live well. Whatever it was that he created and drew up in those plans, it was enough to save us all. Maybe I helped save him a little, for that moment, when he looked at me, looked in my eyes, and saw that I was still willing to believe every word he had just said to me, like I was his son, and he was my Dad.
I love you, Dad, and miss you every day.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/31/2006
Halloween in Carbondale
Scroll down the page...and leave the serious shit behind. If you know anything about universities, you may know that at one time, SIU earned its reputation as a party school, and at one time, arguably the best street party outside of Mardi Gras was Carbondale's Halloween Weekend. Tens of thousands of people would jam onto the small streets of this otherwise unremarkable southern Illinois town, from all corners of the USA, to wear garish costumes, revel in the street from dusk until the sun rose, stay up drinking all day, and then do it again the next night. There were great bands that played all day and night long in dozens of venues, some the size of bus station lockers, others seating thousands, including the arena and the Old Main mall on campus, an open air venue, at which bands played on the steps of Shryock Auditorium. The DNA Vibrator remembers fondly when Fishbone played in the Old Main mall, and Fish body surfed out to the middle of the lawn and climbed up to the top of the statue of Delyte Morris, one of the past university presidents who really built SIU into the modern university it had become,and sang "Everyday Sunshine."
The first Carbondale Halloween that The DNA Vibrator experienced was in 1984. At the time, The DNA Vibrator had yet to emerge, and it didn't mind if the tool simply sat in his dorm room, read The Lord of the Rings for the seventh time, and dreamed about gathering up enough courage to talk to a girl. Awkward with women would be an understatement; bordering on the "I'm uncomfortable hanging around you for any length of time" if you were female would more accurately describe it. However, not to worry, gentle reader. The DNA Vibrator cured the tool of his problems. If you are like the tool was, then believe it or not, the answer to solve your worries with women is easy and simple. To understand the thing you want the most, to remove the pressure of any preconceptions of what should occur, remove the desire for the thing from you. Treat the thing you value the most like something you do not value at all. This is the old "treat a queen like a whore and a whore like a queen" school of thought, and to an extent, it works. The tool learned that a woman does not want to be placed on a pedestal, because that makes her a static object, and makes you a slave to keeping her on her perch. Women want many things, almost any thing, but that. Now grasshopper, lesson is over. Stick dick in hot coals and walk over here without tearing rice paper on floor, and you will have passed test.
Content as the tool was to let life slide on by, that evening, a Friday night, there was a noise that bothered him, even over the hum of the heating unit in his dormitory. Most everybody had already left to go to the Strip, the stretch of road in the center of town lined with nightclubs, bars, and food joints, and Winston, the Bagel Man. So, the dorm was pretty much deserted. The noise sounded like a TV which had been turned up too loud to a sporting event. Then the tool realized, the noise was coming from outside. It was coming from the Strip (between 1 to 2 miles away). The tool came from a small midwestern town, and didn't really understand how people could make that kind of noise. The largest assembly of people he had seen up to that time would have been at the state fair.
Down the hall, Rich, the tool's friend, popped out of his room. "Dude, you still here?" "Yeah." "C'mon, man it's time to go. I was waiting for Lisa from Bowyer Hall, but she either forgot or ditched me. Bitch," he said with a smile, so smoothly that if she were here, she wouldn't have minded hearing a bit. Rich talked the tool into going out. On the way, they met up with a couple of girls Rich knew, and without even realizing it, the tool was heading down to the Strip, with a chick, and was sharing a hip flask of Jack Daniels with them.
What can one say, but the Noise, the glorious Noise! Deafening, maddening, liberating, it coursed through you like a drug, emboldened and disguised you, condoned your bad behavior and looked the other way when you pissed on the bushes. Police officers 2o feet away watched as revelers drank themselves silly, and helped those who exceeded their limits. However, things weren't out of control. In fact, everything felt right. Many people were in costume, there were families out and about, and there were many local vendors selling everything from tie dyed shirts to pizza by the slice. Grand Avenue held the family festivities, but the Strip, the Strip was something else again. It was a writhing snake of people, as far up the road as you could see, pulsing with the movements of thousands either up or down the avenue. It reminded the tool of an ant colony, with thousands of ants in motion, all with apparently some part in the grand ball, but no individual knowing more than the next few steps ahead of it. There was some random destruction, but in all, being there was like being one of 30,000 corks all bobbing on the same sea of booze: not necessarily life changing, but worth seeing, at least once. Strangest costume: A kung-foo fighting duo of Jesus and Moses. Strangest thing that happened to the tool: After getting a slice of pizza from Pagliai's walk up window, some random, cute girl walked up to him, and while he was taking a bite of pizza, she took a bite right next to his. For a moment, he could feel her breath on his lips, and smell her candy perfume. Certainly a look passed between them. Had he only already learned his life lesson with women, that would not have been the strangest thing to have happened to him that night. But, as it was, there was a bite, a smile, and then a surge of people as they each continued to move in opposite directions.
From that night on, the tool loosened up quite a bit, drank a lot more, would hit TJ's and Airwaves for nickle beer nights as often as possible. "Hey it's Tuesday," someone in the dorm would say. "Let's get shitfaced!" Good enough reason for most.
Skip to the next Halloween, and the next, and so on. Slowly, the climate around the street party changed. There were fewer families, fewer costumes, fewer vendors, less university support, and more and more people there to get as fucked up as possible and to fuck up as many things as possible. These events became more pronounced as the university withdrew official support and refused to let alcohol vendors participate in the event. Police were there in greater numbers, and more and more often, were busting people randomly, arresting and handcuffing them right on the spot, securing them with plastic ties to the nearest lamppost, to be picked up later by large police vans. The last year the tool went up the Strip on Halloween was marked by a trip to the hospital when one of his friends was hit in the face by a Miller King Can which had been flung up in the air as high and hard as possible by a random fuckhead hanging from the retaining wall of one of the beer gardens on the Strip. It sliced open a vicious cut above his right eye, which bled profusely. They retired to more controlled and frankly, much more fun, house parties from that night on. Once The DNA Vibrator emerged, however,its music would be the soundtrack to this violence.
For the next few years, The Nightsoil Coolies, and then later, Monster Truck, and still later, Crank, played Halloween shows at the Hangar. As mayhem ruled the streets, and thousands of people paraded by, people crowded inside the club and the different iterations of The DNA Vibrator sang to all of those poor lost little fuckers. In the front row, there was someone just like the tool, overwhelmed by the sound, with a grin plastered to his face.
If memory serves, 1994 or so was the last official Halloween Weekend in Carbondale. After that, SIU took aggressive measures to dismantle the party. It took approximately six years and a variety of strategies before people were no longer arriving by the thousands to "take back the Strip" on Halloween. What a ridiculous fucking mantra that became. Take back the Strip. From whom? The CIA? Mexico? Dumbfucks. The Strip was never theirs to begin with. Like the girl who shared the tool's pizza, what the Strip had to offer was freely given, never taken. Now, the holiday passes with no more or less fanfare than what passes for Halloween in your town.
Old folks lament how only the fuckwads at SIU could have taken a nationally recognized street celebration like Carbnodale Halloween and mismanaged it into a liability and then a lodestone around the city's neck. There were several points at which the history, tradition and fun could have been restored, without compromising the integrity of the community or the institution, but instead of taking the bold, and frankly, tough steps to bring back the "glory days," the festival was abolished. The DNA Vibrator doesn't really mind. Giving up several blocks of a town one weekend each year for "controlled anarchy" is a lot like jerking off to an accounting lecture. Sure, you come, but eventually you train yourself to only get hard-ons at tax time. If the powers that be could not or would not make the event a positive part of the experience of Carbondale and SIU, then it should have been removed. Now, real anarchy, lawlessness, blood flowing in the streets, naked chicks and graven images in twister-esque poses printed on lunch boxes with the words "wish you were here---Carbondale Halloween" issuing forth from the G-stringed hips of the girls, now that kind of anarchy would be worth it. But the watered down, roided up, testosterone circle jerk that the street party had become was proof to The DNA Vibrator that as an institution, the Halloween party had become a parody of itself.
Speaking of parody, as a gentle reminder to any adults getting ready to go to an adult Halloween party: Don't. You're not a fucking kid anymore, you won't recapture some part of your youth, and you won't bang any hot chicks in sexy costumes. You'll see the same overweight and underappreciated chicks who work in the cubicle next to you that you always see. So stop dreaming. Dreaming is for children. Let them have their dreams. You just drink your martini and wonder where your dreams went. They sure aren't in a fucking costume party.
Happy Halloween!
Best quote from the archive: "611 Pizza was like the bar, Cheers, except with a lot more tattoos, leather, black make-up, puking, pot smoking, and hardcore music."
Permanent Historical Record: 10/03/2006
The first bass The DNA Vibrator ever owned was a Fender Jazz bass. It was beautiful, a yellow ash, maple neck, played like a dream. It looked something like this.
The Fender Jazz was refinished by The DNA Vibrator in the basement of a dorm hall at Southern Illinois University. The tool of The DNA Vibrator spray painted it gold! This is akin to taking a statue of the Virgin Mary and spray painting a thong bikini on it. However, it still played beautifully. Along with the Fender Jazz, the tool also owned an Ampeg 410 all-in-one cabinet. Great tone, and it had wheels, which meant that in the dorm room it was easy to turn it into a TV tray, book shelf, subwoofer, or wheelbarrow.The tool of The DNA Vibrator sold the bass and amp to Steve, the bass player for a band called Three Alarm Mustard, when the tool lost his academic scholarship to SIU. He was too embarrassed to tell his parents that the thousands of dollars that they had spent and the thousands of dollars his scholarship was worth had been wasted on booze and comic books. This shows you the true geek from within which The DNA Vibrator emerged. For a time, the tool considered never playing again. There was never a time, however, that The DNA Vibrator had considered leaving this vessel. The tool still had his function to perform. The tool met Tony, later to be known as AfroDJYak, in those dorms. Was this just chance? The DNA Vibrator knows there is no such thing as coincidence. For every door that opens, a new series of infinite doors open in front of it. Looking forward, the myriad of choices are of equivalent value, but looking back, it is obvious that only one choice for each door was inevitable. This means that the tool was destined to lose his Fender Jazz, destined to consider quitting music forever, and destined to spend an additional year in the dorms even though his friends did not, because that was the only way that his partnership with the entity AfroDJYak would have ever begun. Is The DNA Vibrator prescient? Were greater forces at work? Is there an Earth spirit which needed to coax The DNA Vibrator into existence? Leave those questions for the philosophers. Or if you are a philosopher, leave those questions to DEVO, and The DNA Vibrator, who have said, "Lay a million eggs, or give birth to one, avoid display, or wear bright colors, IT DOESN'T MATTER! The fittest shall survive, but the unfit my live."
You want to hear this message? Why else would you be here? The DNA Vibrator gives away what other whores charge many dollars for. Do not be afraid of the infection, it is part of the experience.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/04/2006
In the September 2006 archive, The DNA Vibrator mentions a comic book called "Flamin' Guitars." It was the product of one winter break in Carbondale, from about the second week of December to the second week of January. The tool sat in a recliner for several hours a day, and drew, and penciled, and scripted, and refined what little talent he possessed, until this comic was created. The first run was photocopied and folded by hand, distributed locally, and sold out. The second run did not perform so well. Now seems as good a time as any to resurrect it for a larger audience. It has been 15 years, and The DNA Vibrator has been waxing nostalgic since the additional purchase of space and bandwidth means that just about any piece of crap can be put on the website. Besides the obvious grisly murders, talking rabbits, and cameo by the Hulk, just about everything in the comic actually happened to the Coolies as they travelled around the country.
Here's a look at the first page. DNA will post the rest later.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/05/2006
In the comic book,The DNA Vibrator reports that in the "Shittiest Bar on Earth" the guys had to load their equipment up 20 flights of steps, only to be told that they could have used the service elevator, and that after hours of playing to a wall to wall crowd, they made $18.00. Well, the club wasn't in Tulsa, as the comic says,nor was it actually 20 flights of steps, but the meat of the story did happen. The DNA Vibrator will not let facts stand in the way of truth.
First, early on in their career, they began playing at Mabel's in Champaign, Illinois, a famous, but long gone, midwestern club (do a search on the internet for Mabel's Champaign, and you will be surprised at how many of the best musicians passed through its doors). As they prepared to load in for their first show at Mabel's, one of the bouncers approached the guys and said, "You in the band? Take your shit up the stairs." Nice. However, future stops in the club were met with more civility by other folks than the no-necked dickhead who greeted the Coolies the first time. That accounts for the "band takes the stairs" bit in the comic.
Later, in the dead of winter, the Coolies braved a horrible snow and ice storm to play a show at the Cubby Bear at Wrigleyville in Chicago, Illinois. At that time, there were no other locations, so they just knew it as the Cubby Bear. The club has ties to SIU. Apparently, the owner/manager was an SIU alumni. So, he was pretty liberal about giving SIU bands a chance to play in the Windy City.
By that time, the Coolies had played out enough that when they could, they attempted to get contracts with clubs in advance, with specific riders spelled out, and negotiated guarantees, etc. This bar contact person [hereafter referred to as slimy cocksucker] promised a guarantee over the phone and explained the ticket system they used. The bar would issue the Coolies tickets to deliver to a variety of outlets, to their friends, etc., and the Coolies would receive something like $4.00 for every ticket turned in. Remember, this was 15 years ago, and the Coolies figured that if they could round up 100 friends, strangers and people wanting to see a free show, then they would have made the trip worthwhile. Besides, slimy cocksucker guaranteed that the band would not make less than $300.00. The DNA Vibrator does not know if the archaic fucked up system of tickets is still what is in use at some clubs, but if so, it feels sorry for all of you youngsters currently getting buttfucked by slimy cocksuckers for the chance to grace their shitholes with your art. But, The DNA Vibrator digresses.
The tickets were supposed to arrive in Carbondale two weeks before the show. They did not. They arrived on the day the band was getting ready to drive up to Chicago. Slimy cocksucker told The DNA Vibrator that the band did not need to worry. They would get a guarantee. This ticket mix-up was all the club's fault. The tickets were given out to every band, and it was just a way for the club to gauge how many people came just for that band. The boys hesitantly bought the explanation, but not without experiencing the first sympathy pains of a royal assfucking to come later on.
The Coolies left early enough to be able to deliver tickets to a variety of music outlets, but on the road up, a terrible snow and ice storm set upon them. Their progress slowed to a crawl. They made it in town in enough time to get some food across the street from the club, and drop off a few tickets at some of the local establishments. The roads were so bad that even the busses weren't running for part of the night. As some of their friends braved the weather and came into the bar, the Cooolies handed them tickets. When slimy cocksucker saw this, he said that wasn't allowed, that the patrons had to get the tickets ahead of time. So, in shifts, different members of the band would stand in the freezing cold and hand tickets out to passers by. When slimy cocksucker realized this, he sent one of his steroid shooting bouncers, referred to from this point on as raisin nuts number 1, out to stop that from happening. So, the band resigned itself to a night of hard drinking. Slimy cocksucker brought the band anything they wanted to drink, which he said, "was the least he could do for SIU alums on such a shitty night." The Coolies were ambivalent. So far, they had been treated like shit, and although they weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, they didn't feel particularly comforted by slimy cocksucker's sudden attack of generosity.
They played a kick ass set, and ripped up the place for the few dozen hard core fans who actually came out to see the Coolies play. At the end of the night, The DNA Vibrator went to find slimy cocksucker. However, he was nowhere to be found. Raisin nuts number 1 and his pal, raisin nuts number 2, had the enjoyable duty to settle up with The DNA Vibrator. "Here you go," raisin nuts number 1 said with a smile. It was likely all he could do not to laugh. He handed The DNA Vibrator $18.00. In as polite a tone as the tool could muster, he said, "You have got to be fucking kidding me. I know there were 30 to 40 people here with tickets for the Nightsoil Coolies." "That may be true, said raisin-nuts number 2, "but then you got to subtract all the booze you guys drank from the total." "Hold the fuck on," said the tool, getting a little hot, feeling more than beer flush his cheeks, "[slimy cocksucker] said that was on the house. Where is he?" "Gone home, a long time ago, and he's the one who told me what to give you." "This is a bunch of fucking bullshit! We have a contract. [slimy cocksucker] said that we would get a $300.00 guarantee!" At this point, the raisin nuts boys had heard enough of a guy 1/2 their size getting indignant with them. "Whatever. Time to get the fuck out. Now."
The DNA Vibrator is by nature non-violent, because nature in the end is always violent enough to those less able to survive. The DNA Vibrator knew that time would take its toll on the raisin nuts boys. Over many years, The DNA Vibrator has wondered what sad lives or tragic ends the raisin nuts boys endured, or what horrors they inflicted on their punching bag girlfriends/wives, and what vengeance might be being pursued right now against them by their dysfunctional teenage children for the abuse that they, the pathetic soulless fucks that they are, inflicted on their progeny because of their complete inability to feel the way real human beings do...not that The DNA Vibrator dwells on it or anything.
The tool went back to the rest of the band, and told them about the situation. "$18 damn bucks!! Fuck!" said AfroDJYak. "What was the cover tonight, 2 cents? Fuck!"
The band loaded their stuff out, and sat, morally beaten,in the freezing, still night air. They were each realizing that not only did they not have enough money to split between them to get some decent food, but they did not have enough money to buy gas to get back home. Gone Brian Vaughan, as was his habit, hence his nickname, wandered off down the street, and in a few minutes, was barely visible in the distance talking to some guy he had met hanging out in an alley. Remember, this was at 2 am, on a deserted, frozen Chicago street. It was clear to AfroDJYak and The DNA Vibrator that something was going down between Gone and the man. Gone came back and said, "Guys, I was talking to this dude down there, and he said he would give me $50.00 for my driver's license. So I gave it to him. We got gas money!"
Somehow, it all made sense. This was a special moment for the band. They were in the presence of a higher power, and not for the last time. The night which had before seemed lonely, cold, and uninviting, now seemed full of possibilities. The stars twinkled with an intensity rarely seen through the haze of the city, and the Coolies were right there, right then, witnessing the unfolding of the moment. $18 bucks was a badge. They wore it like a Maori tattoo. They were indivisible. From that moment on, they were ready for whatever would come next.
Their resolve would be tested the very next day as they drove home. But, that is another story.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/09/2006
Fuck. Fuck, fuck and ratFUCK. The DNA Vibrator just learned another valuable internet lesson. Machinery is beautiful, because it absolutely does not care if The DNA Vibrator had just written the most intense, personal, and revealing, the most earth-shattering, philosophically affirming, immediately accessible and understandable blog post ever. It doesn't care if it would have changed the world, or at least you, RIGHT NOW, if you had read it. It only cares if The DNA Vibrator saved the motherfucker, which The DNA Vibrator didn't. In a seemingly random blink of the computer monitor, an inspirational message, which you needed, is forever gone. Could The DNA Vibrator recreate it? Possibly, but why? The spontaneity is lost. The power came from its unpredictability. The DNA Vibrator does not care. It tosses revolutions of human thought away everyday like so much leftover salad.
The DNA Vibrator is excited to see that many, many people have visited this website. Many hundreds of megs of songs have been downloaded. The message of The DNA Vibrator has and is seeping into the consciousness of the world, imperceptibly, and soon will influence everyone from power brokers to pot smokers, and before anyone will even be able to understand what has happened, everyone will be different. This is already happening. This is not The DNA Vibrator being megalomaniacal. This is the sound of quantum probability fields collapsing simultaneously across the universe, as one set of highly improbable events has occurred, leading to the next set of events. Once enacted, the events have always been, and always will be. Don't believe The DNA Vibrator? Pick up the book, The Fabric of the Cosmos. Then, lost sheep, come back and bask in The glow of The DNA Vibrator.
Because so many of you have come unbidden to look at The DNA Vibrator, The DNA Vibrator has come to realize that some of you may need The DNA Vibrator, the way punk needs bitch. This has led to two other basic realizations:
ONE: If many people visit, and many people download, then many people have lurked around here without making your presence known. The DNA Vibrator has felt you lurkers lurking. Do not be afraid to touch The DNA Vibrator. The DNA Vibrator proves by it existence that nothing is sacred (so everything is), that nothing matters (you get the concept), and that time is an illusion. Don't buy it? That is okay. The DNA Vibrator has forever. But, if you do not email, or post a comment, then this blog will not be a conversation, it will be a manifesto. Both functions, however, suit the purpose of The DNA Vibrator; it has all the time in the world to indoctrinate the masses; until then, come out and play.
TWO: As more people have learned of The DNA Vibrator, one can now find The DNA Vibrator through the ubiquitous search engines. Not only will typing "The DNA Vibrator" net you the opportunity to view sites on genetic mutation with specialized vibrator genes, and also wonderful adult novelties, it nets you a front row seat to the arena in which the universe will be changed. You're welcome.
Many people are downloading the music of The DNA Vibrator; in the course of trying to determine, if/which songs were being dowloaded the most, The DNA Vibrator discovered an unnerving problem: The song title, "DEVO Was Right," returned many hits. Too many. This phrase has already become part of the colloquial lexicon of the cool, well before The DNA Vibrator had posted this song on the website for download. Could it be that the message of The DNA Vibrator was corrupt, a rehash of someone else's better idea?
No.
The DNA Vibrator was flattered that others had adopted its phrase, but it politely and respectfully claims full ownership of the phrase and all it stands for. All of you geek squad-tragically-hip-subbaculture motherfuckers can back the fuck up off it NOW. Before you get too pissed off because you assume you somehow came up with that phrase all by yourself, know this: The DNA Vibrator wrote the song and the words "DEVO Was Right" back in 1994. Published it in 1995, after which the song found its way onto a nationally syndicated radio show. Before then, the exact phrase "DEVO Was Right" had NEVER BEEN UTTERED BEFORE. EVER. So, the tables have turned, because if you are one of those too-detached-to-be-touched-by-the-mundane, you have already been co-opted by The DNA Vibrator without even knowing it. This is how The DNA Vibrator operates: Creating the impression that its uninspired idea was really your own. The DNA Vibrator is a termite eating away at the floor joists of the house of your consciousness. Collapse may come at any time. Like the Blob, The DNA Vibrator grows with each 60 hertz cycle of power consumption in your home. Only this time, Steve McQueen is dead, baby.
The DNA Vibrator does not seek recognition nor dominion. In fact, now that the world knows the true subversion it is capable of, The DNA Vibrator gives the phrase "DEVO Was Right," to all of the world to use. It is now yours. Use it or not: The function of The DNA Vibrator has already been served by this phrase. It was just another lettuce leaf, scraped off of the plate of The DNA Vibrator's discontent.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/10/2006
It was the summer of 1993. The tool of The DNA Vibrator was on his way to Chicago to watch his friend AfroDJYak get married. He and Annie had a beautiful ceremony in the back yard of Annie's parent's house in Oak Park. He wore shorts, Annie wore a pretty dress, and everybody got to take pictures of the happy couple. We spent the night eating lasagna and pizza, and getting shit-faced drunk. Sometimes weddings are fun.
However, The DNA Vibrator had another, more pragmatic purpose for coming along. It was in the process of creating its new musical vehicle, and it needed a name. The search for a name had been fruitless up to that point, but as The DNA Vibrator quietly polled the wedding guests, one word, which seemed to have it all, sprang forth: "Crank." It had a sexual reference, a mechanical reference, a musical/loudness reference, and a drug reference. Very few words meet the criteria of the perfect rock and roll band name. This was awfully close. The DNA Vibrator developed a list of about a dozen potential names. Crank didn't impress anyone, but it felt right. Think about it. If you saw the band CRANK on a marquis, you would know these boys were not easy listening. So despite other good suggestions, like the Eyelobes, Brainmilk, and the Komodo Drag Queens, Crank became it. After a weekend of mayhem, the tool drove back home, and sprang the name on the other unsuspecting band mates. The guys actually thought it was probably too "rock and roll" to have not been taken already. But, they searched the trade magazines, talked with as many industry people as they knew, and realized that at least in the midwest, no one was named Crank.
A summer later, as they braved the elements to roadtrip across the country to record with indie rock producer Kramer, (yes, THE Kramer, who has worked with the likes of GWAR, Bongwater, White Zombie, Urge Overkill, etc., etc.,)at the infamous Noise New Jersey studios, they nearly crossed paths with an East coast Crank. Later still, a West coast Crank was heard from. Three things each band shared: a good name; great recordings; somewhat less than national appeal.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/11/2006
The Energy and Entropy of an Underground Music Scene: One Simple Rule.
Warning: This blog post is supposed to mean something. If you prefer not to have meaning with your blog reading, skip this entry. You'll be glad you did.
The first law of thermodynamics states that energy is neither created nor destroyed; it merely changes form. The second law of thermodynamics states that the potential energy in a system is always less then the initial energy in a system. According to The DNA Vibrator's friends at Physical Geography dot net "Heat does not spontaneously move from a colder body to a hotter body. Natural processes that involve energy transfer must have one direction, and all natural processes are irreversible. This law also predicts that the entropy of an isolated system always increases with time. Entropy is the measure of the disorder or randomness of energy and matter in a system."
Understanding entropy is important when understanding any system, whether it is a planetary system, an environmental system, or a cultural system. All of the systems mentioned require a constant supply of energy from an outside source to continue to function at the artificially high level of order which is maintained by complex systems. Some systems are self-organizing, and maintain many complex features over time, but even these require regular infusions of energy. The ultimate outside source of energy is the sun. This is why earth has a complex biosphere. The sun supplies the fuel to all systems which organize in seeming contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics.
A music scene is one of these complex, organized systems; a social structure which can only exist in a culture once all of the basic energy needs of a people are met. You will never hear how an ancient culture didn't figure out how to provide food for its people, but man, they sure developed kick-ass tribal music, didn't they? Interestingly, as cultures rise and fall, and a music scene does arise as enough excess energy is available during the culture's heyday for those creative types to express themselves, sometimes it is the music created then which will be preserved long after the culture fails. In this respect, music is like an entropy sink, a way for the creative potential of a culture to be stored even as the usable energy of that culture diminishes. Today is no different. An underground music scene is so far down on the cultural needs list, that it only happens when enough people with enough excess creative energy are willing to spend their energy capital on the scene. And if you wanted to break it down, the ability and freedom to pursue subversive music, the framework within a society which allows members of that society to express anti-establishment sentiment to the point where the expression itself unifies those expressing those views as an organized community, all of that excess energy, sound and fury signifying nothing, has as its source, the sun. We all do. Even The DNA Vibrator depends on an outside source of energy, though, over time, as the second law states, the level of entropy has grown and continues to grow within it. Its system is as old as the universe, and no longer functions as well as it once did.
The best part of this little philosophy lesson is that it should make you laugh the next time you see some goth chick pretending to be a vampire. She couldn't do what she does without that little blob of hydrogen and helium 93 million miles away. "I hate this world!" the disenfranchised punk wench shouts, middle finger thrust defiantly at authority. "This world" of course does not include the cool microphone she is singing through, the amp her daddy bought for her through which her Les Paul shrieks, and well, the electricity that allows her tin-thin voice to be heard above the sound of the droning air conditioning, which of course, if that wasn't working, means you wouldn't catch her out in this fucking heat. In other words, most "underground" artists, audiences, and people in any "scene," really, are only afforded the luxury of being able to participate because the juggernaut of this culture continues to mow down every motherfucker which gets in its path. We have excess energy. If we didn't, do you think The DNA Vibrator would have the leisure to philosophize on the computer? Fuck no. The DNA Vibrator would be watching mutely as he was grabbing a shotgun from the wall, keeping another band of marauding bastards from stealing what little food the tool and his family were able to eke out of the forest by which they live. The DNA Vibrator believes that this culture is one bad weekend away from wholesale cannibalism. Don't believe it? Read Jared Diamond's books, "Guns, Germs, And Steel," and "Collapse." We exist on borrowed energy resources. Not that The DNA Vibrator is the Lorax, for fuck's sake. At the most basic level, The DNA Vibrator is very interested in seeing the chaos which will ensue as the end result of the world's current state of affairs. It's just that The DNA Vibrator has grown attached to this particular vehicle for it, and doesn't want the tool to have to eat his neighbors or be eaten, as The DNA Vibrator's friends Cypress Hill once said, "when the shit goes down."
"When I was 20, hardcore music meant something. It wasn't this corporate gutless crap that you dumbasses think is cool and subversive today." Next time you hear some old farts looking back through the prism of entropy and waxing philosophic about the good old days, do both you and them a favor, and punch them right in their mouths. After all, they wasted all of your fucking energy. No wonder your music sucks. You have had to recycle all of their old crap. Who cares if you wouldn't be here without them? That was yesterday's problem.
Sometimes, a band, or a music scene, will take off, and will exist off of a seemingly endless supply of energy given to it by devoted fans. How else can you explain how Dylan or The Rolling Stones, once cultural compasses, now corporate shills, still pack stadiums? Sometimes, through exponential feedback, a band will rise meteorically. The spectacle of it is worth watching as a cultural phenomenon. It has happened before, with the Beatles, for example. Also, with bands like Metallica. These bands, at one time, were humming with so much extra energy, that catastrophic chain reactions occurred, in which they were consumed from within. Their collapses were fascinating, and governed by the same forces which described the fall of the Roman Empire and the fall of a drop of water from a blade of grass. The point The DNA Vibrator is making, it hopes, is that cultural phenomenons, like bands, music scenes, etc., follow the same laws of thermodynamics that any environmental system follows. If this is the case, then the simplest rule can be derived from which you can predict whether your band or music scene will thrive or fail. The DNA Vibrator knows what this simple rule is. Perhaps you can guess it. If you can, post a comment about it to The DNA Vibrator.
If you didn't skip this blog, well, here we are, at the end, together. Don't you wish you would have listened to The DNA Vibrator? It won't steer you wrong.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/15/2006
What The DNA Vibrator Likes About fundamentalists�
Recently, tool of The DNA Vibrator had to take a trip to the east coast for his real job. He had to fly a major airline. The tool must have a nice face, or he looks like he knows what he is doing, because people always come up to him and ask him for the time, where the snack bar is, or if he saw that story on the news.
As the tool sat down at the gate in the terminal, he read the latest Scientific American, (always good for a laugh) and ate some snacks in the terminal. A few seats away, an older woman, obviously not a seasoned flyer, was chatting to a young man with a phone jacked into his ear. The gist of the conversation, one which we have all heard in these situations, was about how if it was your time to go, it was your time to go, but if you were committed to the Lord and saved by Jesus Christ, then your place was assured in heaven. The man agreed in a noncommittal way. She proceeded to ask if he was saved, and was overjoyed when he said that he was. Praise God! However, he found a way to distance himself quickly from the conversation.
The DNA Vibrator was impressed by her strength. She was able convince that man to testify in front of strangers to the "fact" that he was saved in Christ, when his actions convinced The DNA Vibrator he was not. She wielded a power over him. No disrespect to her, but the power she wielded didn't seem very holy; she knew how to prey upon the unassigned guilt we accumulate by tapping into our shared cultural heritage. We're supposed to believe in God; we're supposed to go to church. We are one JC Penny suit away from the bear skins and cave-dwelling days, because deep down, we are afraid of offending a personal deity with which we have never really had any direct personal contact. Why else do we still put stock in phrases like "In God We Trust," "May God strike me dead" or "It's in God's hands now?"
It takes strength, courage, faith, and HUGE brass balls to simply walk up to a stranger and bet that you can tap their unassigned guilt, or to find a someone who will respond to your suggestions. The DNA Vibrator's hat was off to her. Until The DNA Vibrator was seated right next to her on the plane.
What The DNA Vibrator dislikes about fundamentalists�
As the tool was making his way to his seat, he found her already seated IN HIS SEAT. The DNA Vibrator always flies window seat, just in case the plane goes down (so it has the best view of the spectacle). As the tool looked at his ticket, seat 34 A, and looked at her, she said, "Oh I'm sorry. Do you want the window seat? I can get up if you like." To which the tool responded, "No, that's fine. I'll sit here (in her seat, 34 B)." Everything The DNA Vibrator dislikes about fundamentalists is encapsulated in this exchange. Of course, from there it got worse, but not without provocation from The DNA Vibrator.
You see, some people have a way of making you feel like you are imposing on them, or are somehow at fault for some mistake, when you insist on asking for what you deserve, what you worked for, or what you paid for. This is the case with almost every fundamentalist The DNA Vibrator has ever met. They have mastered the deceptive and cruel trick of making you feel bad for their imposition. She was in The DNA Vibrator's seat. It was the seat The DNA Vibrator chose specifically. The DNA Vibrator was able to do this because The DNA Vibrator planned ahead and bought the ticket enough in advance to choose the seat it wanted. She manipulated the situation so if The DNA Vibrator would have insisted on sitting in the assigned seat, and made her move to the seat she paid for, anyone listening would have thought, "Wow. What a complete dick." Fundamentalists are so good at doing this, it worked on the tool, too. He thought that it would be easier to simply acquiesce to her demand, than to himself demand what was RIGHT. This is what The DNA Vibrator dislikes about fundamentalists. They have the power to use Guilt, but rarely choose to use it for Good. They use it selfishly. They have the ability to expose our own moral failings; but not in the way you might think.
You see, if The DNA Vibrator had been true to itself, it would have said, "Convenience be damned. If this person wants to discuss theology, then let's discuss theology," but instead, and this causes The DNA Vibrator shame even now, The DNA Vibrator failed morally, and knuckled under to preserve the fallacy that we all share a common God, and it would be improper, or even sacrilegious, to be rude to someone trying to talk about God. Isn't what The DNA Vibrator believes just as valid, or more valid? But, we are seduced, and this is the evil that fundamentalists propagate, we are seduced by the easy social path. In the end, we say to ourselves, "Does it really matter that we didn't stand up for what we thought was right on that plane to that person attempting to exert her will over our little sphere?" And because it is a small battle, an hour at best of our time, we rationalize the event to ourselves and say, "No, it doesn't really matter." But it does. Each time we do not rail against this moral superiority complex, especially in the presence of others, it gives strength to the concept that the fundamentalist's way is THE way, and tells others simply to shut up and if you don't cause waves, you won't be picked next. The DNA Vibrator implores YOU, the next time someone puts you in that uncomfortable position, YOU be the fundamentalist, and make them feel like they need to follow your path to salvation. Or, tell them to fucking mind their own business, at least.
What The DNA Vibrator hoped to learn from the fundamentalist�
When she asked the tool if he knew that Jesus was his personal Lord and Savior, and He had died for his sins, the tool said, "Yup." When she asked if he'd been baptized in the blood of the lamb and had been saved, the tool did say, "Yup." So, The DNA Vibrator is not without fault in their interaction. You can see how obviously The DNA Vibrator encouraged her. In truth, The DNA Vibrator did actually want to see what she would say, knowing what he believed likely would not reconcile well with what she believed. If nothing else, The DNA Vibrator understands scientific method. How could The DNA Vibrator test its hypothesis regarding fundamentalists, if The DNA Vibrator didn't test fundamentalists? For example, to end the conversation, The DNA Vibrator could have said, "Jesus told me not to talk to you." At which point, she might have said something like, "The Lord does not bear you taking his name is vain," or "I will pray for your blasphemous soul," to which The DNA Vibrator would have said, "He told me you'd say that. He said that I should pray for you." Although fun, this would not have allowed The DNA Vibrator to see if all of the classic moves of the fundamentalist would be attempted in this experiment. They were. Here's the first.
Fundamentalists protect themselves from rationality by proclaiming that the Holy Spirit has moved them, or God commanded such and such, but really, all they are doing is passing the responsibility buck up the existential ladder.
Second, if The DNA Vibrator were to question the fundamentalist seat stealer next to it about the authenticity of her Bible, she would say that the Lord protects His Holy Word, and does not allow the will of Satan or of men to be worked into it. In other words, we can not deviate from the path she has been chosen to reveal, nor can we question the authenticity to the manual she is using to spread her message. Any deviation leads to eternal destruction. Even questioning its applicability, or her authority (although she would say that she is merely a vessel for the Lord) leads to unending torment. Hmmm. Perhaps The DNA Vibrator is jealous. Surely you have noticed that The DNA Vibrator refers to itself in the godlike third person as well.
Here's the third. Fundamentalists want to pray for you. She sure wanted to pray for the tool, to be a stronger father, leader, etc., which of course sounds pretty good, and on the off chance that she out of billions of people has got it right, then what the hell, right?
And, the fourth. She wasn't very tolerant. The DNA Vibrator has often thought that the fact that so many Christians don't act very much like the Christ did as described in the Bible should be the first indicator that maybe they have things fucked up a bit. It just so happened that the folks seated in front and behind us were either going to attend or had recently attended a seminar on Taoism. There was contempt on her face as they briefly mentioned if so and so had the literature from the conference. Jesus was pretty clear on the "let you who are without sin cast the first stone," but most fundamentalists do not hesitate to condemn people to hell for their behaviors and beliefs.
So, as far as experiments go, it was a success. The DNA Vibrator's hypothesis, that fundamentalists really should just be called mentalists, was supported by the data. Looking at the copy of the Scientific American in the tool's hands, she told him that, "the holy spirit is telling me that you are a good man, but you have put your faith in the concrete things, the provable things of this world." Is that the same Holy Spirit telling John Edwards what "the other side" is like? Isn't it much more likely that from the magazine the tool was holding, she inferred that the tool must be one of those "rational people," who like to "think" and "understand" the processes which define the universe?
The DNA Vibrator prefers to think that she used her powers of observation, her understanding of psychology, and her mastery of exerting cultural guilt to her own benefit. Frankly, this thought is much more frightening than if she were actually having direct access to the holy spirit of God. In this respect, there is no greater threat to the forces of democracy which shaped this country than her. If The DNA Vibrator were an overtly religious entity, it would say that its will was tested by Satan on that flight.
To make matters worse, she was confident that the Holy Spirit commanded her to buy a nice Bible in the gift shop of the airport, because the Holy Spirit wanted her to give it to the tool. The tool told her that no, he didn't need a Bible, he had a wonderful Bible at home, a gift which had been given to him by his mother from her mother. She went on to say, that the holy spirit was telling her that the tool needed this Bible, because the Bible is a living word, and that the tool thinks of the family Bible as only an heirloom, not as a guide for his life today. What were the tool's choices? Be a total dick, and refuse the Bible (which for the record, he did, and she wouldn't accept)? Or take the Bible? How many levels of hell do you go to if you insist on refusing a Bible? What more evidence would she need that the tool was possessed by a demon (close) and needed to be healed? What would have happened had she laid hands on the vessel of The DNA Vibrator? Would The DNA Vibrator have rebuked her? Would whatever god she invested her faith in have come and removed The DNA Vibrator from the tool? The DNA Vibrator didn't think so.
The tool took the Bible. He wondered, since she was so convinced that the Holy Spirit commanded her to give the tool the Bible, did she know that The DNA Vibrator left it in the hotel he next stayed in? Does this make The DNA Vibrator a bad guy? If indeed her faith was well-placed, it was destined that her gift of the Bible was supposed to be left in the hotel. The DNA Vibrator felt compelled to leave it. The DNA Vibrator did share one belief with the fundamentalist. One of the first things she said was that she did not believe in chance, that God always brings people together for a reason. The DNA Vibrator certainly believes that each moment unfolds with infinite possibility but there is only one path which will ultimately and obviously be the only path the future can take. Call it what you will. Einstein said that "God does not play dice." This has left The DNA Vibrator to allow for the possibility that some fundamentalists (note that throughout this post, The DNA Vibrator has never lumped all of the fundamentalists together) might actually be speaking to God, or with the Holy Spirit. With all of her failings, perhaps the fundamentalist the tool sat next to really was a tool of the Holy Spirit. From one tool to another, The DNA Vibrator wonders what events were put in motion as it left that Bible on the table next to the fridge in the hotel. Did she know? The DNA Vibrator doubts it.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/27/2006
MUSIC=MAGIC
First, The DNA Vibrator has been gone for some time. It doesn't feel the necessity to explain its whereabouts, and certainly judging by web traffic, nobody really cared anyway. Does this deter the course of The DNA Vibrator? No more than recycling deters the eventual depletion of earth's natural resources, and the eventual Malthusian destruction of mankind. But, when you recycle, like when The DNA Vibrator speaks, it makes you feel better, at least for today. And isn't the current NOW all we really have, anyway?
On one the long flights The DNA Vibrator had to take recently The DNA Vibrator came to understand why primitive cultures (this one, for example) feel that Music is Magic. Not magical, in a Lawrence Welk, gay way, but in a matter of fact, as people understand magic, way. Don't buy it? Let's determine how people understand magic, then. Define magic: According to Wikipedia, "Magic refers to the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical or paranormal means. The terms can also refer to the practices employed by a person to wield this influence, and to beliefs that explain various events and phenomena in such terms." If magic is an ability of a person to wield a force which can affect another person, physically and mentally, through no apparent medium, then one can see how music, or more generally, sound, qualifies as magic. What other force immediately available to those with skill to create it stirs emotion in others, or causes others to feel sad, angry, even sick (there are said to be certain tones which affect the mental health and stability of a listener, as well as those tones which can have negative physical effects on a person, too). It affects things at a distance, and in focused, powerful wavelengths, can blow holes through steel and concrete. With enough volume, it can destroy human hearing, and in the right pitch, can break fine crystal through resonance waves. It can be used to image hidden objects (ultrasound and sonar) and in powerful bursts, it can destroy kidney stones in a person's body without harming the surrounding tissue. Again, it seems easy to understand how less civilized societies might consider sound magic. But, as The DNA Vibrator has said many times, we are only separated from our superstitious forebearers by polyester and Walmart. We view music the same way.
As a culture, we are only a couple of hundred years out from understanding that air is comprised of a mixture of gases, so it is no surprise that sound still contains a mystical quality for us. It will take many, many generations to bury 10,000 years of cultural training. Science, as a whole, has really only ever been an attempt to try to understand how actions happen at distances. Every major advancement in the physical sciences has grown from an attempt of some scientist to prove that action A was the result of force B acting through medium C. Sound seems to produce action at a distance through no medium. Action happens here, and a person hears it over there. The DNA Vibrator postulates that this is the underlying reason that satanic shit, magic and witchcraft have long been associated with rock and roll. The music contains power, literally, delivered at previous-to-the-rock-and-roll-era unapproachable sound pressure levels. The really sick sounding shit incorporates tri-tones, described in classical times as the "devil's interval" in music, because it sounds so creepy. So, people into magic feel that music contains a similar force. Many people not into magic believe it too, or we wouldn't have so many people blaming musicians for their uncontrollable urges. Music has always been part of rituals, again, not just because God digs music, but because people who wield power recognize the force music exerts over people, and of course, they are attracted to that---any force they can use to manipulate people....
The DNA Vibrator is no fan of the band U2, at least not their newer stuff. But to test its theory, listen to "In the Name of Love," forgive Bono his ultra gay half whispered lines, and you will FEEL the power he wields as he belts out the chorus. You are right there with him when he says, "Early morning, April 4. Shot rings out, in the Memphis sky."
The witchcraft of music is also why pop music stars are our culture's sexual icons, anti-establishment figures, teachers, prophets, and entertainers. They wield magic, and we are all still awed by their power.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/29/2006
On the Anniversary of the Death of My Father
No tool...no DNA Vibrator...just me. Five years ago, on October 28th, my Dad died. He was strong, and really, my siblings and I had convinced ourselves that nothing could kill Him. He would go when he was damn good and ready, on his own terms. At 76, he still had a strong heart, and a sound mind. We thought that Dad was going to be like one of those old Indian chiefs you romanticize about as a kid, who lives and leads his people well into his old age, and in the time and place of his own choosing, is allowed to die gracefully, becoming one with nature. Or, like Beowulf, he completes one last great task, and lives forever in song because of his deeds.
But, this was not the case with my Dad. Early in the last year of his life, he began to act erratically. He was taken by fits of anger, and found that little bits of memory were slipping away from him. At times, he appeared to have small seizures. After these symptoms became more noticeable, he finally went to the doctor. It was early June when he was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. A biopsy revealed that it was malignant. It was also large and spreading. Given his age, doctors recommended against surgery as an option. So, specialized chemotherapy and radiation were used. Although the treatments succeeded in shrinking the tumor, too much damage had already been done to the brain, and in the end, they didn't stop the tumor. It is possible the therapies had some positive effects, but it was difficult to tell, because the person who was there at the end was certainly not the same as the one who was there in June.
I could go into all kinds of detail about how hard it was to watch my Dad disintegrate before me, and I mean "dis-integrate," as in "no longer integrated," but that wouldn't really get you to feel what I am talking about. There are a couple of stories I could tell, however, from one of the last times that I saw him alive.
It was September 11th, 2001. I had taken several days off from work so that I could help my brother and sister take care of my Dad, who had grown irrational and more belligerent than ever. As I watched the replay of the World Trade Center towers falling all day, I couldn't help but think that a terrorist attack, or even an all out war against the United States, would be a welcome distraction; I could wrap my mind around an external threat so much better than I could the one that sat inside his head. I found myself thinking that if the world were ending now, that at least Dad wasn't going to be here to see it. Or if he were still here in the weeks and months to come, he wouldn't know or care what was going on, anyway.
What else happened that day? Well, the local gas station immediately tripled the price of the gas it was selling, the bastards, exemplifying all that is wrong with a culture that puts individual "liberty" above everything else. When things go bad in our country, individual freedom equals a fuck everyone else free-for-all mentality. What was the gas station owner actually thinking? If the world were going to hell, so much so that people would pay any price to get gas for their cars, just what would money be good for? To spend by the thousands to buy an equally price-inflated head of lettuce or can of fucking dog food? When people do not share a sense of civic responsibility, nobody cares if the gouging they do today hurts your grandmother tomorrow. Fuck her, she should have planned ahead.
So, I was glad Dad didn't have to deal with that. In that respect, cancer was a reprieve for him from all of the external stress that was exerted on us as a nation starting on that day. So while the towers repeatedly collapsed, Dad and I took a walk outside. It was a beautiful day. A warm, Indian summer breeze gently shook free the colors of fall, and because all flights were grounded, and few people were doing anything except watching TV, it was preternaturally quiet, a fitting stage for the unreal events which would occur.
We walked slowly around the house, my arm in his arm. As the tumor progressed, it affected his gait somewhat, and he needed an extra hand sometimes for balance. We talked, about nothing in particular, when he stopped short, and became upset. We had just turned the corner and were walking behind the house, when he pointed to the rose of sharon bushes which were in a long row, the dividing line between his property and his neighbor's. "Those shouldn't be blooming." He pointed an accusatory finger at the nearest bush. "It's not spring. It's the fall." He clearly was in this moment, now, and was afraid that an element of what he considered reality was shaken. I imagine it would be similar to waking up tomorrow and seeing two moons in the sky, and wondering why no one else seemed upset by the obvious incongruity with what you know should exist. He turned to me, insistent, almost pleading, "This can't be happening. These don't bloom in the fall. Why are they blooming?" I had no answer, and I actually knew so little about rose of sharon bushes that I couldn't dispute his observation. What if we had some bizarre mutant variety? What if the weird warm spell had confused the plant so that it bloomed a second time? Weirder shit had happened. It was only later that I took the time to read that, of course, the rose of sharon is a late summer, early fall bloomer. It was doing everything it was supposed to, in its own time. However, at the time, I still desperately wanted to believe that it was the world, and not my Dad, that was falling apart.
"I don't know, Dad. Are you sure they are not supposed to bloom now?" "What is wrong with you," he snapped. "Of course I know when the hell they are supposed to bloom. Here," he motioned to something to his right, "Call them up and ask what is wrong."
"Excuse me," I said to Dad. "Call them up? Call who...with....what?" We were in our backyard. The nearest phone was in the house. Again, he looked crossly at me. "With the god-damned phone!" He gestured to the same spot, the point at which for him, a phone existed. It was at this moment, that I fully realized that my Dad was going or was already gone, even though his semblance was still walking among us. I can only imagine that from his point of view, the world must have stopped making sense a long time ago, and that little warps in reality were part of his everyday existence. How frightening that must have been, when he could remember it. Sometimes the warps were very disturbing, such as a plant blooming out of season, but sometimes they fit perfectly into his world, such as when a phone would appear out of nowhere when he need to call the powers that be to confirm a question.
Although I understood this, it was still hard to "play" along. At any time, any word I may say, or any thing he might think he has seen or heard, could trigger any kind of response. That really made me uncomfortable. What if facilitating his delusion made his perception spiral into an even more disturbing reality for him? So, I confirmed what he wanted me to do. "You want me to call them and ask them why the plant is blooming?" "Yes," he said confidently, "Call them up." So, I pretended, the way I would have pretended with my toddler-aged son, Carl (named after my Dad) to pick up and dial the phone. I waited for what seemed to be the appropriate time for them to pick up. "Hello, I am calling for Carl XXXX. He was wondering why the bushes in his back yard were blooming. They shouldn't be blooming now." Then, I nodded my head a few times, said, "Oh," or "I see," and finally, "Well, thank you very much. Good bye." Then, I hung the phone up and put it back down. He looked expectantly at me. "Well, what did they say?" he demanded. "Dad, they don't know either. But they said not to worry about it. It probably has to do with the weather."
That solved the problem. At least for Dad. I was unsettled for the rest of the day. It was easy to think about Dad being a changed person, when I was far away, but it was another thing entirely to have to play a part in the delusion of a man whose grip on reality was being loosened by a brain tumor. Did I do right when I "humored" his misperception, or if I would have insisted that there was no phone, would he have been forced somehow to "see" there was indeed no phone there? Did either stance matter, because it was unlikely that he would remember what we said or did later that hour, anyway? I think what I did was easier,but I don't know if emotional expediency is the best course of action in times like that.
I stayed and helped the family for several days. As I was leaving, Dad was sitting comfortably in his easy chair, generally in a much calmer state of mind. I had seen him through some good and some bad spells. Frankly, the good spells were the hardest to take, because it was during those brief moments of lucidity that Dad knew there was something fundamentally wrong with him, and he knew he did not have the capacities, mentally and physically, that he once had. In these moments, that strong man would weep, not for what he had become, but for what he could no longer be for his family. Of course, he still was everything and even more than he could have ever imagined for us in those moments, but in those moments of clarity, he only judged himself as a shadow of his former being. How could he see that the courage, and fear, and sadness, and purity, and beauty and frailty that he displayed during those times made us love him even more than we ever had before, so much so that even as his consciousness faded just a few short weeks later, even then, he knew he was loved. He may not have known by whom, but he knew he was loved. Well, that day, as I said good bye to him, for the last time in my life when he could still understand what I was saying to him, he gripped my arm after I hugged him, and as tears were streaming down his face, he said, "You will take care of her, won't you?" 'Her' was my Mom, his wife of 45 years. "Of course," I whispered back to him, because a whisper was all that would come out of my constricted throat. "You don't have to worry about Mom, Dad. Everything is okay. We planned everything out ahead of time. You have taken care of her already." Here was a moment of clarity, punching me right in the gut. And it would have brought me down to my knees, if Dad hadn't then added, "You get the plans. They are in the garage. You promise me you will get the plans, and everything will be alright." The knot in my throat subsided. His tumor induced paranoia altered reality again. I nodded my head to appease that demon, smiled and told him that the plans were safe, and that he didn't need to worry about them. Again, at that time, I so wanted to believe that Dad wasn't being psychotic, that I later asked Mom to confirm for me that there weren't some plans for some car engine or carbeurator (Dad was very mechanically inclined) that Dad had drawn up. Mom almost looked at me with derision, as if I had to be joking, but then her look softened simply to sadness. "Of course there are no plans, Roger. Of course not."
But there were. At least for a moment, there were. When Dad asked me, somewhere, in the world he lived in, he had the plans, and he needed me to make sure they were used to help his wife and family live well. Whatever it was that he created and drew up in those plans, it was enough to save us all. Maybe I helped save him a little, for that moment, when he looked at me, looked in my eyes, and saw that I was still willing to believe every word he had just said to me, like I was his son, and he was my Dad.
I love you, Dad, and miss you every day.
Permanent Historical Record: 10/31/2006
Halloween in Carbondale
Scroll down the page...and leave the serious shit behind. If you know anything about universities, you may know that at one time, SIU earned its reputation as a party school, and at one time, arguably the best street party outside of Mardi Gras was Carbondale's Halloween Weekend. Tens of thousands of people would jam onto the small streets of this otherwise unremarkable southern Illinois town, from all corners of the USA, to wear garish costumes, revel in the street from dusk until the sun rose, stay up drinking all day, and then do it again the next night. There were great bands that played all day and night long in dozens of venues, some the size of bus station lockers, others seating thousands, including the arena and the Old Main mall on campus, an open air venue, at which bands played on the steps of Shryock Auditorium. The DNA Vibrator remembers fondly when Fishbone played in the Old Main mall, and Fish body surfed out to the middle of the lawn and climbed up to the top of the statue of Delyte Morris, one of the past university presidents who really built SIU into the modern university it had become,and sang "Everyday Sunshine."
The first Carbondale Halloween that The DNA Vibrator experienced was in 1984. At the time, The DNA Vibrator had yet to emerge, and it didn't mind if the tool simply sat in his dorm room, read The Lord of the Rings for the seventh time, and dreamed about gathering up enough courage to talk to a girl. Awkward with women would be an understatement; bordering on the "I'm uncomfortable hanging around you for any length of time" if you were female would more accurately describe it. However, not to worry, gentle reader. The DNA Vibrator cured the tool of his problems. If you are like the tool was, then believe it or not, the answer to solve your worries with women is easy and simple. To understand the thing you want the most, to remove the pressure of any preconceptions of what should occur, remove the desire for the thing from you. Treat the thing you value the most like something you do not value at all. This is the old "treat a queen like a whore and a whore like a queen" school of thought, and to an extent, it works. The tool learned that a woman does not want to be placed on a pedestal, because that makes her a static object, and makes you a slave to keeping her on her perch. Women want many things, almost any thing, but that. Now grasshopper, lesson is over. Stick dick in hot coals and walk over here without tearing rice paper on floor, and you will have passed test.
Content as the tool was to let life slide on by, that evening, a Friday night, there was a noise that bothered him, even over the hum of the heating unit in his dormitory. Most everybody had already left to go to the Strip, the stretch of road in the center of town lined with nightclubs, bars, and food joints, and Winston, the Bagel Man. So, the dorm was pretty much deserted. The noise sounded like a TV which had been turned up too loud to a sporting event. Then the tool realized, the noise was coming from outside. It was coming from the Strip (between 1 to 2 miles away). The tool came from a small midwestern town, and didn't really understand how people could make that kind of noise. The largest assembly of people he had seen up to that time would have been at the state fair.
Down the hall, Rich, the tool's friend, popped out of his room. "Dude, you still here?" "Yeah." "C'mon, man it's time to go. I was waiting for Lisa from Bowyer Hall, but she either forgot or ditched me. Bitch," he said with a smile, so smoothly that if she were here, she wouldn't have minded hearing a bit. Rich talked the tool into going out. On the way, they met up with a couple of girls Rich knew, and without even realizing it, the tool was heading down to the Strip, with a chick, and was sharing a hip flask of Jack Daniels with them.
What can one say, but the Noise, the glorious Noise! Deafening, maddening, liberating, it coursed through you like a drug, emboldened and disguised you, condoned your bad behavior and looked the other way when you pissed on the bushes. Police officers 2o feet away watched as revelers drank themselves silly, and helped those who exceeded their limits. However, things weren't out of control. In fact, everything felt right. Many people were in costume, there were families out and about, and there were many local vendors selling everything from tie dyed shirts to pizza by the slice. Grand Avenue held the family festivities, but the Strip, the Strip was something else again. It was a writhing snake of people, as far up the road as you could see, pulsing with the movements of thousands either up or down the avenue. It reminded the tool of an ant colony, with thousands of ants in motion, all with apparently some part in the grand ball, but no individual knowing more than the next few steps ahead of it. There was some random destruction, but in all, being there was like being one of 30,000 corks all bobbing on the same sea of booze: not necessarily life changing, but worth seeing, at least once. Strangest costume: A kung-foo fighting duo of Jesus and Moses. Strangest thing that happened to the tool: After getting a slice of pizza from Pagliai's walk up window, some random, cute girl walked up to him, and while he was taking a bite of pizza, she took a bite right next to his. For a moment, he could feel her breath on his lips, and smell her candy perfume. Certainly a look passed between them. Had he only already learned his life lesson with women, that would not have been the strangest thing to have happened to him that night. But, as it was, there was a bite, a smile, and then a surge of people as they each continued to move in opposite directions.
From that night on, the tool loosened up quite a bit, drank a lot more, would hit TJ's and Airwaves for nickle beer nights as often as possible. "Hey it's Tuesday," someone in the dorm would say. "Let's get shitfaced!" Good enough reason for most.
Skip to the next Halloween, and the next, and so on. Slowly, the climate around the street party changed. There were fewer families, fewer costumes, fewer vendors, less university support, and more and more people there to get as fucked up as possible and to fuck up as many things as possible. These events became more pronounced as the university withdrew official support and refused to let alcohol vendors participate in the event. Police were there in greater numbers, and more and more often, were busting people randomly, arresting and handcuffing them right on the spot, securing them with plastic ties to the nearest lamppost, to be picked up later by large police vans. The last year the tool went up the Strip on Halloween was marked by a trip to the hospital when one of his friends was hit in the face by a Miller King Can which had been flung up in the air as high and hard as possible by a random fuckhead hanging from the retaining wall of one of the beer gardens on the Strip. It sliced open a vicious cut above his right eye, which bled profusely. They retired to more controlled and frankly, much more fun, house parties from that night on. Once The DNA Vibrator emerged, however,its music would be the soundtrack to this violence.
For the next few years, The Nightsoil Coolies, and then later, Monster Truck, and still later, Crank, played Halloween shows at the Hangar. As mayhem ruled the streets, and thousands of people paraded by, people crowded inside the club and the different iterations of The DNA Vibrator sang to all of those poor lost little fuckers. In the front row, there was someone just like the tool, overwhelmed by the sound, with a grin plastered to his face.
If memory serves, 1994 or so was the last official Halloween Weekend in Carbondale. After that, SIU took aggressive measures to dismantle the party. It took approximately six years and a variety of strategies before people were no longer arriving by the thousands to "take back the Strip" on Halloween. What a ridiculous fucking mantra that became. Take back the Strip. From whom? The CIA? Mexico? Dumbfucks. The Strip was never theirs to begin with. Like the girl who shared the tool's pizza, what the Strip had to offer was freely given, never taken. Now, the holiday passes with no more or less fanfare than what passes for Halloween in your town.
Old folks lament how only the fuckwads at SIU could have taken a nationally recognized street celebration like Carbnodale Halloween and mismanaged it into a liability and then a lodestone around the city's neck. There were several points at which the history, tradition and fun could have been restored, without compromising the integrity of the community or the institution, but instead of taking the bold, and frankly, tough steps to bring back the "glory days," the festival was abolished. The DNA Vibrator doesn't really mind. Giving up several blocks of a town one weekend each year for "controlled anarchy" is a lot like jerking off to an accounting lecture. Sure, you come, but eventually you train yourself to only get hard-ons at tax time. If the powers that be could not or would not make the event a positive part of the experience of Carbondale and SIU, then it should have been removed. Now, real anarchy, lawlessness, blood flowing in the streets, naked chicks and graven images in twister-esque poses printed on lunch boxes with the words "wish you were here---Carbondale Halloween" issuing forth from the G-stringed hips of the girls, now that kind of anarchy would be worth it. But the watered down, roided up, testosterone circle jerk that the street party had become was proof to The DNA Vibrator that as an institution, the Halloween party had become a parody of itself.
Speaking of parody, as a gentle reminder to any adults getting ready to go to an adult Halloween party: Don't. You're not a fucking kid anymore, you won't recapture some part of your youth, and you won't bang any hot chicks in sexy costumes. You'll see the same overweight and underappreciated chicks who work in the cubicle next to you that you always see. So stop dreaming. Dreaming is for children. Let them have their dreams. You just drink your martini and wonder where your dreams went. They sure aren't in a fucking costume party.
Happy Halloween!
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