trying to be tough in a pop music world.

i have an affection for the limp-wristed.

my first solid memory of realizing it was in junior high; listening to the smiths and feeling awkward and guilty. see, at that age, appearances are everything, and i was working hard to be hard. punk rock, industrial, and noise, the more abstract and unlistenable and difficult, the better... as far as i was concerned. it probably had something to do with the fact that i was over six feet, but didn't break 130 lbs. but those smiths, man... you couldn't deny it. gentle melodies, cascading electric and acoustic guitars, and the moz, what with his silly lyrics and falsettos. hell, my mom liked 'em. plus, i loved the fact that poor old morrissey just couldn't create a proper chorus, he'd just lay a "la la la la la di aye" or some such shit right over the top of the catchiest section of the song. awkward and retarded, just like i was.

of course, in the mid 80's, (at least here in the ol' usa) there was no short selection of catchy semi-underground sorta fey or at least sexually ambiguous bands to choose from. i can't help but remember a sad, stupid week-long obsession with the dream academy (famous for "life in a northern town", lately referred to by pedro as "the most mormon song ever written"), and not being quite sure if i could publicly admit to liking a band that had oboe solos. sheesh, back then, you could fall in love to any of number of records by japan, echo and the bunnymen, the cure, the teardrop explodes, tears for fears, the call, the church, the psychedelic furs... i'm missing an unignorable number of the others, but the point is, it was the era of that cusak jackass standing in your front yard with a ghetto blaster over his head playing peter gabriel, and it was obviously effective. so much so, that i can't help but remember quite a number of top-40 bands of that era really selling out to love, if not groping. it was howard jones and thompson twins, even with the electric guitar bands, it was the era of the power ballad. i think i teased pedro mercilessly for finding chris deburgh and double records in his collection, shit, even that sort of dreck was on the menu. it was the era when phil collins was getting paid. of course, i wouldn't ever let myself get that overly femme shit like culture club or spandau ballet... i mean really. it took a long time before i'd even listen to orchestral maneuvers in the dark, and only then because a friend pointed out that the early stuff came out on factory and was dark and techy and wasn't the sappy john hughes shit i knew best.

yeah, don't even get me started on depeche mode, then as now, i'm convinced that there are two divided camps for the synth-pop dance scene, those who thought that the mode ruled (bitches! nipple pinchers! erasure fans!), and those who found all that leather faux-disco s&m crap goofy, and worshiped at the alter of new order, a band that left your balls and your better sexual instincts intact. the folks who loved the mode back then now love "trance". enough said on that subject.

no question the love song will always sell, but is now like it was then? well, for one, i'm not fourteen. also, i have no idea what's being played on the radio and i'm pretty sure the mtv don't play any sort of music at all anymore. furthermore, i've heard all about this "emo" but no one seems to nail it down with any authority, so just when i think it's elliott smith and ray lamontagne, it's actually bands fronted by fifteen year old boys in trucker hats and pyramid spiked belts who think that punk was invented by other bands with non sequitur words and numbers in their names. whatevs, i'm sure it's no better than listening to soft cell in 1986. so to answer my own question, i dunno. this "emo" seems to be popular, but there's never been a shortage of well educated white kids singing about love troubles, and it seems that if you do it in anything other than a baritone, use literate references and enjoy the black keys, there's a strong possibility that you will come off like someone's got your balls in their purse.

so now i'm listening to ol' belle and sebastian, who define the limp-wristedness pop for our era. boy howdy, did i love this band when they first showed up. and then they released record after record, and i'm not even sure if they're any good anymore. i keep referring to such-and-such as "the new record" when two more have come since it's release. slow down kids, and let me try and absorb an album fer chrissakes! but i'm not here to discuss the carpet-bombing release schedule of b & s, i'd really rather talk about their moments of brilliance.

i was driving from portland back to seattle the other night, and i was thinking of songs that i could sing for my bro's not-yet-born daughter, and i was struck with "you're just a baby" from the first record, which is about the furthest thing from a lullaby imaginable, but apt none the less. and i dialed it up on the ipod, and found that it was in my range. and then i started thinking about "the rollercoaster ride", and "seymour stein" and even "this is just a modern rock song". i love the idea of bouncing a cute babygirl toddler around the room (with nobody watching, of course) and singing "i don't love anyone" with conviction. no matter the lyrical content, it's fun to sing to babies in gentle inflections and speech patterns, and it made me think of all the other toothless songs and bands i fell in love with, and now here we are. darla records. built to spill. the american analog set. the pale saints. saint etienne. heavenly. so many hundreds more.

for better or worse, i learned a sick amount about music from paul mccartney's "ram" album. when i was a small child, it was the only record i was allowed to put on the turntable (it was probably already scratched) and so i played it every night while my family ate, from as soon as i could choose until the folks could no longer stand it. and for that reason, i can conjure up the details of "long haired lady" or "ram on" or "back seat of my car" in my brain at a moment's notice. where does that leave me? lovey-shmaltz. bittersweet moments of earnest love, sung to either no one in particular, or a specific person i've never met and can't relate to. soft, easy going chord changes played on guitars. johnny marr could peg me as a mark from a mile away.

so an acoustic guitar, an idea no more grand than "gee, yer nifty" or "why don't you like me anymore?" or "i'm so clever yet girls don't respect me!". it's a recipe for success, and i seem to be a customer. that said, i do take some pride being able to smell the authentic shit through the headphones. just like "the dude", i fuckin' hate the eagles. i may like some bitch shit, but at least i got that going for me.

get at me dogs

this one, as you might have guessed, is for the dogs. i just read a post that described the loss of a beautiful labrador pal, and it made me sad, for not only the dog, it's owner, and the grand scheme of things, but also for myself, currently trapped in a difficult relationship with a messed up dog. but first, i'd like to post what i wrote about reo, a dog i loved who died of cancer unexpectedly last year:

i really liked that dog. he was supposed to be mine, you know. the way that things happen, he showed up just when my attention should have been on my old dog, amber. it was with regret and reluctance that i left him with moms and pop. i always wanted a weimeranar.

he was loads of fun to take to the dog park, and i liked the way he paid attention to you. amber would look at you and play if you asked, but reo really watched your every move. amber didn't get along as well with other dogs. i liked the way reo was easy going with everybody else. the way he stared at you, it seemed he was so emotionally involved, i felt like it would have been so difficult to leave him at home when i went to work. plus, at the time, i was living with two roommates and we had the smallest of backyards. a dog like reo was better off... well, with folks like my folks. they had the yard, and there was always someone around.

when reo first showed up, i took him for a couple of weeks, because moms and pop drove down south for their palm springs visit. he and amber were so funny together. reo out-sized and out-muscled my old dog by nearly twice as much, but he was very respectful of the old lady. she really bossed him around our apartment. he wouldn't eat until she was done. he kept a respectful distance of her and me, especially when i would first get home from work and could pay her some attention. in a way, it sort of broke my heart, it was like he knew who was the important dog in my life, and he was respectful of that. i sort of imagined him as an orphan, and still, he was like "i know i'm not your first choice...and that’s ok, I guess…"

amber died last spring. it was one of the hardest things i've ever had to do. in retrospect, i put it off for too long, but that's the type of thing that happens when you grow attached. i still miss that funny old dog. that will never go away.

but it wasn't long before then that i realized how close reo had grown to the folks. replacing amber with reo quickly evaporated as on option. girly-girl was probably the first to point out that reo liked me, but didn't nearly care as much about me as he did pop. i think i best remember my mom promising me that reo could "come home" with me whenever i wanted him. she told me that they were "taking him for me until i was ready". it really wasn't all that long before i realized how things were: this was really their dog. reo was really all about the folks, and taking him out of that environment would have just confused him, just like he must have been when he first arrived at that house in lake oswego.

better than that was how much they liked him. i really loved it when i would see dad and him go anywhere, if not just up to the store or bank or whatever, and he was pleased and excited to take reo, just as reo was really ramped up to go anywhere as well. i remember a trip out to an auto parts store when reo came along, and i really noticed dad's pride in such a well behaved, honestly good-hearted dog that was just so pleased to be invited. it didn't take long to know that there would be no prying reo away from them. of course, they are gracious people, and if i had really acted like i wanted reo, they would have given him up for me, but there would have been an insistence on extended visits and such...

so, it was all for the best. i never really saw my dad as being someone who could be connected so deeply with a dog... but it certainly happened, and i'm glad. reo really was the type of dog you could be proud of. he was handsome, well behaved, smart, and dignified. my grandmother always called him "a gentleman". he demanded enough activity to get dad out every day, and that was really good for the both of them. i hope that he decides sooner, rather than later, to try another companion.

i should say this: reo was a much better dog around dad than me. i don't have the time or wherewithal to keep a dog up on his paces, and reo was certainly better seasoned with dad's constant attention and direction then when he was hanging around me. i think that that training with my pop was good for the both of them, and i hope poppa gets to doing that again soon.

reo was totally unexpected in all of our lives. we didn't ask for him, he just sort of showed up by happy accident, and really enriched us, and made us happier in this fairly shitty and depressing world. things don't really seem to be getting better in any leaps and bounds for any of us... so any sort of pure, unquantified pleasure, any real and true love, any creature that can keep you smiling while all the rest just sort of gets more and more unbearable... well, it's just so wonderful that we can hardly take full account of it. until it's gone, i suppose. there is so little pure joy in this world... so much other pleasure costs an ugly price, so when something so rich and easy and right and simple comes along, it's about the best thing ever. and when it goes, especially unexpectedly, it hurts so damn bad, it's like god himself kicking you in the nuts. sorry, mom.

i hope that we never get over this sort of thing, because it makes us all aware of how much enjoyment can be gained from “the little things”. that includes the relationships we all share. that being said, I love you all, and I hope that never goes unnoticed.

i have a photo of reo sitting right in front of me, in front of this monitor. He looks up at me with his pensive, sad doggy face, but I know that he was happy, even though his long ears, jowls and nose would never give it away. to my folks, you did a great thing for him, guys, and as much as I loved him, I loved you for doing what you did for him. let’s do it again soon.

i never really wrote a eulogy for amber, but i should have. it was all a little too painful. when i put amber down, i drank myself into an unbelievable stupor and slept on a good friend's bathroom floor for the afternoon... and then woke up stone cold sober just as the sun was setting. after that, i chose not to think about it, and though it still hurts, i think i'm better for it, at least i thought i was.

now, i have a whole new set of problems, and his name is jack. jack is a year and a half old weimeraner, and he's been with us for a little over two weeks now. jack was a shelter dog, and we are his third home. for all of the bad behaivor he displays, we speculate that he thinks that no matter what he does, he can expect the situation to change if he waits long enough.

he's pretty and strong and fun, as it were, but he's crazy and he's driving me crazy. i'm used to dogs that look you in the eye. you could probably break a 2x4 over jack's head and his tail will continue to wag while his head does a constant swivel for what interesting things could possibly be happening next. he pays me no attention at all and is constantly causing me worry. if doggies have a.d.d., this dog should be on a ritalin drip.

first, all the bad shit: he jumps, he freaks out, he's a total spaz. as soon as you wake up in the morning, he's trying to jump up on the bed, or put his paw in your face, or he's scratching at the door. he gets into the laundry and runs around the house with girly-girl's underwear in his mouth. he doesn't know any command other than "sit", and he only does that when he wants to, or you push down on his butt. he slobbers all over the place. if he gets away from you off-leash, he ain't coming back until he's damn good and ready, and even then you have to jump out after him just to get a hand on his collar. he eats out of the cat box. he's afraid of a slick spot on the kitchen's linoleum, and if he ends up on the wrong side of it, he cries and barks until you come and get him, and even then he flails, all paws in different directions. he's no good at all on a leash. he nips at your hands and clothes in a effort to get you to play with him. you can raise your voice and grab his muzzle, you can scream no over and over again, but his eyes dart about and he pays no attention to any type of discipline. he antagonizes bigger dogs at the dog park, and then runs aways when they get fed up. he tries to sleep on the couch. he tries to chew on everything, from the plastic crates that house my records to the stone fireplace hearth. the concept of "fetch" is completely lost upon him.

now, the good stuff: he has yet to empty his bowels in the house. he is fairly respectful of the cats, but probably only because they have both slashed him up good. he only barks when he feels trapped, and as far as we know, he doesn't bark in the house when we go to work. he has yet to destroy anything we care about while we are away. he sleeps through the night. he is pretty to look at. he doesn't shed. he's always happy when you come home. he's got me going out for serious walks at least twice a day, and it's giving me more energy.

and so, where does that leave us? well, i believe that in a few years, he will be the perfect companion. but it will take work, so so so much work. we are enrolled in obidience training, that starts in two weeks time. we continue to try and endear ourselves to him, in an effort to show him that we are the ones that love him, feed him, entertain him, and we should be respected.

and that's another painful part of this: i really wanted a dog to love and to love me back, but he couldn't give a leetle bag of poop about me; he's all about girly-girl. she talks to him and his tail wags, she goes to work in the morning and he cries and won't come back to bed to sleep by my side. whenever i tell him to do anything, he looks at her to see if he really should obey. i can't win. i feed him, walk him, pet his dumb doggie head, and all his attention goes to her. and i feel good for her for that, because she wanted a dog too, but i really wanted a new pal, and he couldn't care less if i shat or spun circles.

so, we'll keep on going. like i said, i think jack's got plenty of potential, but i sure would like a little reward now. just a little something to be hopeful for. i can't help but think of amber and reo, and how they were both so eager to spend time and have fun and play ball and just enjoy being around me. those times just seem further and further away.