I could have been a contender

The day before my birthday that just passed some rat bastard bug decided to have a taste of my eyebrow while I was asleep. I awoke to what I thought was a zit with a nasty temperament, only to have my eyelid begin to droop down to my cheek bone ala Rocky Balboa. As I began to resemble a byproduct of incest more and my old funny looking self less, I decided I needed to go to the doctors office to get an educated assessment of my optical malady. I saw two doctors and two assistants and they all started with something along the lines of "Who did this to you, or Who'd you piss of? I would have liked to have told them I was in a bar and got into a brawl in a place where there's sawdust on the floor and guys with bullets crisscrossing their chests sit at the bar talking of the nefarious acts they do for money or women. In just sounds more impressive than a god damn bug bit me. Or maybe i stopped a hold up at a Jason's Deli but not before the robber pistol whipped me. And as a reward the workers at the deli gave me my lunch for free after I regained consciousness. Nonetheless, it really just came down to a a bug and me. Bug one, Luke zero. I'm not leaving the house for a few days as I'm getting lingering looks from people that scream "Damn, who got a hold of you?" However, i went to Radioshack yesterday, and the guy that helped me had what appeared to be 10 percent of his conjoined twin remaining on the side of his head and I immediately felt at ease. I had hoped that what could come out of this is the bug bite could affect me eyesight forcing me to wear glasses thereby enabling me to realize my dream of wearing the kind of glasses worn by Elvis Costello or serial killers from the 60's. The doctor said not to plan on getting and prescription glasses anytime soon, but to get used to looking like I was married to Ike Turner for the rest of the week. I said that wasn't much of a consolation prize. I told him the glasses would offset what will surely be a head void of hair in the future and that I didn't have the gall to attempt the award winning, gravity defying come over my uncle has sported since the early nineties. He said he was sorry to hear about my uncles blue ribbon winning come over, but my Elvis Costello weren't in the cards, for now. I left his office and the receptionist looked at me and started to giggle while asking me how my day was going. At least she didn't ask who did this to me.

Luke, I could be your father, but we need to do a paternity test first. So it's a strong maybe.

In observance of the fast approaching Fathers Day, I tried to assemble a short list of songs that pay tribute to fathers. I discovered that a good number of songs recognize that some men love to haul ass out of their respective domestic situations. Papa was a rolling stone, Gone daddy gone, Papa's got a brand new bag, etc...not very flattering. So I''ll just tell you about my pops. Charlie Freteluco is a Marxist, and an avid Sam Cooke fan. He adheres to all rules established by the Catholic church and often times finds himself in the confessional telling someone he says the word fuck too much and comments on every woman's bottom he sees. Even the big ones. He is an old country western movie aficionado yet, surprisingly, he was not thrilled when I duped him into watching Brokeback Mountain. Even as I am making my way to 40, my dad still asks if I'd like various women for a new step mom. He had 10 kids, and probably would have had more but he said 10 was a good number. He could start a sports team with 10. His litmus test of how strongly he dislikes someone is when he says "I wouldn't pee on them if they were on fire." I assured him the likelihood of his ever seeing an enemy engulfed in flames, while having a near-bursting bladder was decidedly low. I asked if he would pee on someone he liked? Her said I was being silly and to knock it off. We were both in a bar in Flagstaff, AZ and as a joke, my dad asked a woman to dance with me. I danced with girls in Middle School, stepped on a lot of toes, reviled in the prepubescent awkwardness of it all. But I had never danced with a grown woman. He asked some woman who was noticeably older than me to dance with me and I was not thrilled in the least. I told the lady my hips and feet were inherently white, and that dancing was not in the cards for me. She said she wasn't getting shot down by me. I didn't like how that sounded. So I danced with her to the song that plays in La Bamba when Richie Valens dies. Its an instrumental number called Sleepwalk. While we were dancing I quickly noticed that the bar was filled with Hells Angels members. I'm not sure if they carry cards, but lets assume they do, so these were bona fied card carrying Hells Angels. They didn't seem violent, they weren't brandishing weapons or doing doughnuts on their bikes in the bar. But there was a ton of them in this bar. I always wanted to act out the scene in Pee Wee's Big Adventure where he knocks over the bikes then saved himself with an impromptu performance of the Tramps Tequila. So call yer pop's on Fathers Day.
Your Pal, Luke

There is a mix tape for every occasion.

I loved the mix tape. Consider the mix tape another antiquated piece of years gone by swept under the rug of life by the relentless onslaught of technology. I make a mix cd every Christmas season, but it's not quite as charming. The more seasoned mix tape producer could walk the tight rope that is the difference between over self-indulgence (perhaps a 10 minute Sonic Youth song) and pandering (pop songs, mostly). I was a miser of a little kid and tried to recycle my mix tapes, often times after my mom had made her own mix tape with assorted Latin band and oldies numbers on it. One time I went to a girlfriends house in a last ditch effort to keep our relationship together and I knew I had to have an assortment of songs that screamed "this man is in pain. His misery star burns bright and true and his eagerness to wallow in it with the help of Robert Smith knows no end." I didn't realize that when you record over a cassette so frequently the songs that were recorded over will eventually bleed through. So as I was attempting to convey the urgency and emotional investment in the situation, the unmistakable sound of a Mariachi bands horns and oompa oompa bass parts come crawling out from beneath the emotional wreckage of Dramarama's ode to desperation and gateway to stalking "Anything, Anything, Anything". Did my lo-fi mash-up of Latino drinking music and 80's one hit wonders kill the moment? Absolutely. Did she break up with me? Oh yeah. But she did make out with me right before we broke up, which was a distant, distant second best thing.

History's true innovators donned beards: Kenny Rogers, Fidel Castro, Bluto, some of Blue Oyster Cult

I have a problem with commitment. I waffle on a great deal of things in life, and I'm going to conduct an exercise in commitment. I have committed myself to abstaining from shaving for 100 days. I'm not sure why I settled on 100, it just sounds official I suppose. I'm not working right now, and school doesn't resume till the summers over, so my beard won't affect my life. I've always wanted a beard any self-respecting lumberjack would grow. I'm not a lumberjack, but they're the manliest section of society I can think of, and I want a beard they'd approve of. Plus, men with beards look smarter, like they enjoy Steely Dan or can finish crossword puzzles. Two things I'm entirely incapable of. So with that, I say let the summer of hirsute love commence.

Only commies don't like Journey

I have a friend who used to be an intense drinker. He'd drink himself into fights, blackouts, one time he drank himself into the delusion of a boxing match in which his opponent was someone who he had really pissed off. I never hung out with him much, as his main hobby was drinking and mine just wasn't. One time he asked me to hang out with him on a weeknight, which was odd. I arrived at his house and he told me he wanted to go to the base of Sunrise Mountain. To listen to classic rock radio and watch the sprawling Las Vegas valley shimmer and hum, stirring and shaking the loose change out of the pockets of midwesterners. So I sat there with him, not knowing most of the songs. If the Beatles are the brains of the body of classic rock, your roadhouse bar staples ala Taking Care Of Business, Journey's entire recorded catalogue, Boston, etc.. is the butthole. I tried to persuade him to turn the dial, to no avail. He implored me to sing with him. The Journey song that goes "When the lights, go down, in the city"...came on, he really got worked up over that one. So I hummed along to placate him. I was a hostage to not only my friend, but to Rob Halford, Steve Perry, and the leader singer of REO Speedwagon that night. Maybe that's a Vegas drunk ritual I was unaware of. I surely hope someone is being subjected to Foregner, or Styx in the shadow of the Mormon temple right now.

Viva Las Vegas Vs Leaving Las Vegas

Dear Vegas, I'm leaving you. Not right this second, or next week. But inevitably, I'm leaving you. Why? Well, I kept thinking you'd change. Host better bands that aren't Huey Lewis and the News. Establish a hospitable environment for independent coffee houses. You are the guy that all my single, bitter friends said you were. And they said you would never change and that yours was to be a life of shrimp cocktails and Wayne Newton. I said , no you're wrong. He'll change. He's in a transitional phase. But I realized that you loved all you can eat, all day buffets too much and we had just drifted apart. So I'm leaving you for someone else. Their name is the Pacific Northwest, Portland or Seattle depending on some variables, tentatively sometime in 2011-12. They promised me I wouldn't have to drive a car if I lived with them and that Bumbershoot is like having Coachella in your own town. That your writing skills just blossom from the endless rain then you take on a Kerouac-ian, Plath dour tone overtime, but hey, everything is green. I'm leaving you my Ben Stiller show dvds, and one of our copies of Clerks (not the one signed by Dante and Randall, though). You can have any of the cds, just no Wilco, REM or Tom Waits. I love you and always will. You used to be Busgy's town and transitioned into Paris Hilton's town. But you'll always be my town. Sing it Crowe..."I'm leaving Las Vegas"........

I got dumped while Axl wailed

The first time I was dumped was when I was 13 and it was at the State Fair. Not my first choice of setting, but you don't really have a choice is matters like these. She did it while a Guns N Roses song was playing. Immediately following a ride on the tilt-a-whirl with her, so I was nauseous and had Axl and company singing about Mr. Brownstone in the background. She said "Luke, I'm dumping you.? I said I don't get it. I really didn't. I was a first timer. She reiterated, and so did I. So she all but took out a chalk board and a chart to illustrate how these things work. I said hmmmm. At that point, I prayed and asked my two patron saints, John Hughes and Cameron Crowe what I should do? They both agreed unanimously that I should spend the next few days sitting across the street from her house for varying periods of time. Which I did. Up until her Dad sent her out to tell me that if I didn't stop coming by that he was going to get the fuzz involved. I thought that was a bit uncalled for. In the movies, you get the girl by bringing a boom box, presumably a pocket full of double d batteries for that huge boom box, and a copy of Peter Gabriel's So. You skip Sledgehammer and Big Time because there's no room for songs like those in a situation like this, and go right to In Your Eyes or Red Rain. If time permits, throw in Don't Give Up with Kate Bush. Me? I left the boom box at home and got threatened with possible incarceration.