HURRAY FOR BEN     jizzo

The worst crime of any musician is to feel mediocre. It eats away at the soul like a devil, no quarter, no remorse, time stands still. Everytime I feel this way I want to do something fucked up, something so heinous as to jolt me out of this tele-colonic stupor I'm in.

I went to a record company function in New York last nite for the band ORGY. They are all friends of mine from the stupid old L.A. Sunset Strip Kinetiscope Days. I'm happy for them; they have all eaten shit for years, acres of shit. Now they are the so-called "darlings" of the new scene. Hmmm...I was there, years ago. I remember when I was the so-called Flavour of the Month Poster Boy for Braggidacio.

All the new saints were there at this gig, Korn, Limp Biskit, pomade and gas station t-shirts mandatory. I don't know them personally, any of them, but I do like what they represent, namely, noise. However I wish I could chuck all of their copycats into a flaming caldera and turn up the heat. Take all those low-tuned 7-stringers and blast them all to Hades. Anyway...so I'm at this gig and I meet a girl. Sara...tall, taller than me, wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt. As a joke. She is a model in the jaded "I hate Models" mode. Beautiful but cynical as fuck. We hit it off famously, like two retarded peas in a pod. In spite of being a bit hoarse and hung over from last nite's show, we talked all nite like giggly schoolgirls.

She wants to move out to L.A. 'cause of dis and dat. What was funny was all the shit she was saying about N.Y. was exactly, exactly the same shit I say when I put down L.A. the shallowness, the crime, the hatred, all we did was substitute place names and we were a perfect match. The problem, I figured out, wasn't in either city but in US, her and I. We're BORED, bored with the mundane, hashing out the same shit with the same people. And nothing ever changes; nobody rises, nobody wins. We drink to somehow elevate us to God status and all we achieve is damage and disillusionment. She asked me if I'd ever done anything outrageous in my life---

"Well, once, when I was feeling not so good about myself, I made this cross and crucified myself on the Hollywood Sign..."
"Oh yeah," she says, "What kind of wood did you use?"
FUCK...you are jaded, aren't you?

She's a painter, welder, model. She drinks, smokes, dances, she's tall, she doesn't give a shit, she kisses like a man, she laughs at the rite time when I'm on, that's good. I trust her with my life. I want to hold her under the covers of a single mattress on the floor, candles everywhere, a wine bottle next to the bed, the room smells of perfume, heat, electricity. There is no morning, no end to the moment. I don't have to go home, I don't have to be responsible, I don't have to sing or be JIZZY---

This...this is a fool's dream. The band finishes, they are flushed with the heat of being everyone's favourite new band. The singer sits next to me, I congratulate him and I REALLY MEAN IT. Not my typical pat-on-the-back PC bullshit. Jay, the singer looks at me, he knows he's on the treadmill, he respects me I think, as one who's been there, done that, seen visions of grandeur and still rocks on, albeit on a somewhat less grand scale. I wish him well. Off you go now to the vultures, perched and waiting to tear you fucking apart; let's hope you can emerge unscathed.

As I sat, drunk again, surrounded by fuck-head industry suits and bubbleheaded cunts, I swore another oath not to be MEDIOCRE, to try not to be, "'cause after all you are what you are." I guess my intent was not to sit on the fence and feel sorry that I wasn't still the end-all fuck boy, the all-nite hard-on, every girly's dream date in leather, a cross between Jim Morrison and a randy old dog, passionately panting with slick wet ears and a big red dick.

Sara and I parted. I didn't go the fantasy route with her that nite, not because I didn't want to, but because I couldn't wake up and try to negotiate three trains from Manhattan to Queens hungover and looking like a bad Iggy Pop. I...I just can't carry that cross anymore. I can't face the bright piercing rays of the morning sun and the shake-of-the-head realization that you fucked up again. The dog has won over the man. Underneath it all I'm just a good singer. That's it. Not some Bitch Funky Sex Machine. It's not that I'm too old but that IT'S too old. The thrill, the chase, the conquest. The awkward moments, so many, the life and the death of the relationship celebrated at Warp Speed and both of us plummeting off a short cliff into nothingness. Another dance, another attempt to shake off the everyday and make a stab for Olympus, but, inevitably, there is no gold, no silver...Hurray for Ben.

"You got da rings in yo' ear, in yo' nose and shit?"
"Yes. Yes I do." He looks at me, almost pleading- "WHY, MOTHERFUCKER...TELL ME WHY?????"

Hmmm…never quite analysed it...guess I have such shitty fashion sense that I have to stick with what's no-brainer cool; black is never un-cool, you see. White is gay, of course, red is Sammy Hagar, green is...well...green. Best to stick with black.
"Lemme see," I told him, "I guess 'cause it makes me feel comfortable."
"Yeh, dat's what I thought," he says, shaking his head, chuckling and clicking his teeth, no doubt trying to dislodge a piece of Whopper from 1987. Then he turns to me again-
"You go to church?"
"Not really," I said.
"Me neither" he says as we walk on-"Dat's bullshit...God and shit...I don't know...." He turns, "Like, who made ME? I guess somebody had to make me...WHO MADE ME?"

I'm looking at him, honestly trying to picture someone MAKING him. God, Jehovah, whoever...this poor fucker, drunk and disillusioned. This caricature, this man with nothing, dressed in hand-me-downs, bleary, people shunning him everywhere he goes, the liquor store clerk screwing up his face in disgust but still happy to sell him his POISON, his fuel, his reason for living.
"SOMEBODY HAD TO MAKE ME!!" he's screaming now, shaking and out of control "WHO MADE ME?" he shakes his fist at the sky "WHO MADE ME? WHO MADE ME???"
"I don't know, dude," I said, "I don't know anything."
Fuck, I'm not trying to blow him off, I wish I could tell him the answer he wants to hear, I wish... I wish the Lord would either help this fucker or strike him dead, take away his misery.
Then...quite suddenly, as hoboes are oft to do, he becomes completely lucid.
"Wanna buy a phone card?" he asks.

A phone card. We've argued like two GREEK philosophers over the philosophy of life and ended up here, with him waving a greasy phone card in my face. The Alpha and Omega. No dude, I don't need a phone card. I'm just like you. I don't have a girlfriend, family, I don't need to call L.A., fuck L.A.,Fall into the ocean L.A.
Why do bums always latch on to me? I don't know. It's like we share the same pheremone, a particular scent non-bums can't smell.
I'm still walking. I'm in a shitty part of Akron. All the houses are falling apart, all the people are dying. No Hope lives here, people sitting on their porch waiting for the end. In fact, some jaded faded, bitter old fuck is sitting on his front stoop as I pass by, 40 ouncer in hand, staring at me. He looks Irish, he looks like he's fought a hundred street fights and lost every one. He's watching me like the Cheshire cat. He wants to get up. He hates the way I look, I offend him, but the chair and his BUZZ are too good to fuck with so I am spared. He'll just curse me and wish me to whatever Hell he sees fit, although mine and his hell aren't the same.
My hell is sitting at home with a Metal Edge in my hand seeing my ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend all over the cover. That is MY Hell. The roasting of one's own insecurity and anguish on a color page in every supermarket in the land.
The bum and I continue walking till we get to a fork in the road. "Which way you goin?" he asks,"to the bike shop?" No, my friend, I'm going to my job, my wonderful fucking privileged existence, my gold ring, my reason d'etre. I will go left. You, however, must go right. Right to the nearest empty park, there you will find yourself a comfortable bench and lay down, look up at the stars, feel the cool wind brushing through the trees. And it's THERE you'll try to center, try to focus on the ONE pivotal moment when the worm began to turn, to the singular most disastrous thing in your life that sent you over the edge, that culminated in your sleeping outside, here, on a cool autumn night in Akron, no money, buzz wearing off, tears forming, throat choked up. Cry, motherfucker, cry for all the lost love and fun and afternoon barbecues with kids screaming your name. Cry for the people who shun you and pretend you don't exist, who treat you like a lump of shit. Cry for the horrible alcohol disease that manifests itself in your soul and eats you up like a dragon, the only thing you get up for in the morning. Cry for the dirty cigarette ends you pick up after some rich fuck in a BMW throws them out the window. Cry and scream and punch the earth till your hands are raw and sob so hard that someone, anyone who'll listen will give you the mercy bullet and let you maybe start all over. Maybe next time, next life, you'll do ok. I want to love you, I want to help you, but I can't... I have a gig tonight.