It looks like I'm moving to England. My papers have gone through, so now instead of sitting around griping about the Huns, I'll be bitching about the redcoats. In about two weeks, the beer will be warm, the sausages weak and flabby, and the teeth around me like rotted tree-stumps in a putrid bog. They happen quickly, these changes in context.
Over the last few weeks I've been swapping emails with the high-powered London lawyering firm that's taking care of my visa application. You got to know when to cover your redneck past when dealing with certain types of people. I try to keep the y'alls in the closet where they belong. And I really have to bite my tongue whenever I start to bring up all those tales about Pappy getting put on the peanut farm a short trick for moonshining. You've got to pick your audience when you're bringing out the really good stories, you know. I mean, I can't even put a picture of my family on my desk. My cover would be blown:
That's Pappy in the dark jacket, just right of center in the front row. He wore shoes because it was Picture Day. How do explain that to an scone-eatin' Englishman?
I just hope my future employers don't discover that they're getting billed $400 an hour to import some backwoods north Georgia hillbilly. At least not until the office Christmas party, when I break out the banjo and give 'em a little Foggy Mountain. Then it'll be:
RUBE: "Oh, your uncle's named Earl, too? Wow, that's interesting!"
LIMEY GUY: "No, he is an Earl. "
RUBE: "I'm outta scotch, be right back."
Playing it close to the vest; that's the new Rube.
Although I'm not much of a guitar player, every now and then I learn a tune enough to enjoy playing it. I remember commercials from my youth, hawking a crash course in learning the three or four chords on a guitar which would turn you into the envy of all your friends and the object of desire for cheerleaders and candystripers everywhere. Well, I've learned at least that many chords now, and a few songs to go with them; everything I need to be the hit of parties and campfires, as laid out by those Urban General hucksters. Unfortunately, I always seem to choose songs that a) no one wants to hear, or b) nobody can sing.
A short list of songs I can play on guitar, none of which are suitable for campfires and/or parties:
- Rowboat, by Johnny Cash. It's written by Beck, and sung by Johnny, so you can rest assured that no man born of woman can hit that first note.
- Back to the Old House, by The Smiths. Campfire + Smiths = Maudlin Loser.
- Black Gold, by Soul Asylum. It loses a bit of umph when played on creaky old acoustic guitar with plastic strings; also, no rhythm section.
- Superman, by R.E.M. Bursting into shameful tears at the line, "You don't really love that guy you make it with, now do you..." is no way to impress the ladies.
- Jane Says, by Jane's Addiction. Imagine your mom with a pint of bourbon in her, belting out "I want 'em if they waaaant meeeeee!" in her best Perry Farrel screech.
- House Above Tina's Grocery, by Kevn Kinney. "Kevn who? Play Free Bird, dumbass!"
- Norwegian Wood and/or Hide Your Love Away, by the Beatles. The last four guys who had the guitar already played it, and they were better than you anyway, so put a sock in it.
- Marie's the Name, by Elvis Presley. Although this sounds like it would work, it's important to keep one thing in mind: You are not Elvis.
So, what is a good song to learn for campfires, which requires but meagre skills? I, too, would like to be the hit of the party someday.
Since Agent Bedhead seems obsessed with this knowledge, I've decided to tell the world the complete story. I present, rather un-proudly, ashamedly, actually, The Marmoset Movie.
May God have mercy on our souls. Y'know, if there was ever a reason to learn how to put little black bars over people's eyes in iMovie, this is probably it.
People who've never been to Germany fail to realize just how bad the radio is over here. Germans are notorious cheapskates, and their penny-pinching habits extend to paying for their music. Even in well-established bars over here, you'll see stacks of clumsily-labelled CDROMs sitting next to the stereo system, or a broken down old computer playing downloaded MP3s from a Winamp playlist. That's something you hardly ever see anywhere else in Europe. In Amsterdam, for example, the bars all have a standardized, computer-based music system, displayed prouldy, that gives confidence that these are indeed Legally Purchased Tunes we're listening to. Comforting, despite the fact that they only seem to have Phish and Cold Play.
But a tiger can't change his stripes. Germans simply refuse to pony up the Euros for quality music, and nowhere is this more evident than on the radio. In contrast to the loose-cannon BitTorrent-using bar owners, the radio stations in Germany don't have the stones to play pirated music. GEMA rules the airwaves with an iron fist over here, and would swiftly visit upon such transgressions great justice. In that light, it's a perfect control group, since you can be sure that the music is legal and paid for. And when given the choice of expensive music performed by known artists or discount hootenanny doggerel fit only for a drunken choir of railway hobos, you can be sure that a German will choose the latter.
An example is in order. As I was exiting the shower this morning, I noticed a familiar melody playing from the transistor radio hanging next to the door. I stopped my vigorous towelling for a moment, and bent my ear towards the wafting notes. Something was familiar in them, yet I was convinced that it was wrong somehow. I presently recognized the tune, it being the unforgettable paean to European optimism, The Final Countdown, from the rock and roll band which, in a most rascally fit of cheekiness, decided to name itself Europe, despite the curse of naming your band after a continent . Having reminded myself of this, it suddenly occurred to me that, despite having a deceptively similar tonal and lyrical structure to that much-despised song of my youth, what I was hearing was merely a facsimile thereof. It was, in jazz parlance, a cover. At the risk of being vulgar, I feel it necessary to lay stress upon the fact that not only did some fucking band fucking cover the Final fucking Countdown, somebody fucking bought it and fucking played it on the fucking radio! Imagine, if you will, my discomfort.
I can only imagine that this decision was made in order to save money on the licensing fees. I can't for the life me think of another reason to actually buy a cover of The Final Countdown. This is typical Big Picture stuff, as I see it: The song you want costs too much, but it sucks, so you buy a cover of that song, thinking that nobody will care, because it sucks anyway. This is the optimistic view of this transaction, I might add; the pessimistic view being that whoever decided to buy it figured that the listeners were too stupid to know the difference and probably like The Final Countdown on its merits, no matter who sings it. But accepting that is tantamount to accepting the end of civilization as we know it, so I'll take the high road. So what we're left with is that somebody decided that a woefully serious cover of The Final Countdown, which means one not in the vein of Dread Zeppelin or the Pressure Boys, was preferable to four minutes and thirty seconds of dead air. This is wrong.
I woke up this morning, grabbed myself a steamin' hot cup of joe, and took a look out my frontside fourth-floor window. Instead of dully staring at the insanity of my neighborhood, which is my usual morning routine, I noticed that there were police in riot gear milling about. This isn't something you see every day, despite being a good idea, especially around here.
Thinking maybe the Beatles were coming through, I feigned interest and stared out over my windowsill. Maybe the excruciating monotony of my existence was about to be broken, if only for a few short, sweet minutes. Then, at my most vulnerable moment, my girlfriend reminded me that today is Nazi day here in Augsburg. And the troglodytes of the Ancient Order of People Who Got Their Asses Kicked Last Century But Good would be slipping out of their caves for a short march, passing right past our windows. Super, I thought, more weirdos. I considered hanging my American flag out the window, along with a poster of the Red Army capturing the Reichstag, but only for a moment.
Marching for or against Nazis is about as pointless as marching for or against foot fungus. Little fungi just love being between your toes; people hate having them there; and you're not going to change either one's opinion about the matter. But some people are attention whores, and can't pass up the chance at making asses of themselves as long as it's in front of crowds. Just look at Jimmy Carter.
But I don't want to take sides, lest I be seen as unfair. So here's a little something for our Nazi brethren, on their special day:
That's Pappy in the dark jacket, just right of center in the front row. He wore shoes because it was Picture Day. How do explain that to an scone-eatin' Englishman?
