Larry and His Flask

Southern Oregon University,

January 17th my friends, members of Larry and His Flask, were arrested as they prepared to play a set, opening for Reverend Payton's Big Damn Band at Southern Oregon University. They were kept in jail for three days.
When I heard the story, I couldn't believe it. I have been friends with Jamin, Jeshua and Dallin for many years; they have a considerable following in Central Oregon.
As a writer of a independently published magazine in Bend, Oregon which covers Larry and His Flask I have seen them do a benefit show in honor of Colby Smallwood (who passed at the beginning of '08). They've played sidewalks, pubs, venues, bars, prisons and amphitheaters. Their commitment to community and entertainment is meant to inspire togetherness. They often play off-stage to be closer to the crowd. The crowd at SOU missed a good show.
I am disappointed at the rash action taken by your security. While feeling they acted in protection of the campus they did the opposite when they attacked my friends who had legitimacy being there.
1. Jamin, Jeshua and Dallin weren't trespassing if they were intended to play a show at the campus.
2. If the Jamin, Jeshua, and Dallin were previously banned from the campus they should of been given more warning.
Now they face the possibility of going to jail for trespassing, disorderly conduct, and harassment.
I, as well as many others here in Bend, Redmond and beyond would like to see our friends not go to jail for a trivial misjudgment. The issues and the rights of Jeshua, Jamin, and Dallin need to be taken into greater consideration than they did that night.

My favorite sauce in the world I made tonight contains the following ingredients:
*one small pumpkin bought at Nature's
*freshly ground pepper
*Eberhard's 2% milk
*Italian raw milk parmigiano reggiano
*Nancy's cream cheese
*100% non-virgin (that sounds so wrong) Italian olive oil
*Himalayan pink salt

This is all. The simplest of procedure. Boil pumpkin, blend with milk and pepper, mix in cheeses and salt to taste in big soup pot until perfect. And this is what I am eating right now after hours of preparation, listening to Regina Spektor, refreshing as a glass of purple Rhone on the beaches of Nice with new friends.
All I need is a beer. I nice, kind of cold (I am temperature sensitive) Mirror Pond.
I want to point out the Himalayan pink salt and explain why I had to buy it. It's pink salt and I don't know about you, but I still believe in the magic of eccentric foreign substances and their mysterious effect in our lives and I just had to know what that was. Sprinkling it into my sauce, stirring in the tiny little crystals I felt like I was stirring in pure love, pure exotic and unknown love.
The pumpkin soup itself is pure magic. I've been going to yoga more often again and I use to eat this every day coming home from my practice.
Now, I need to finish up this Valentine's zine and listen to Regina Spektor.

Goodnight

You can no longer sleep on the beaches at the coast.

SIlver Moon: Larry and His Flask

"I do not want to tell an untruth and feel compelled, therefore, to note that at this moment, the reporter was aware that the circumstances surrounding his story had become intrusive and significant and that, if unacknowledged, his account of the events that follow would be grossly incomplete. And his circumstances were these: the reporter was very, very drunk."
-Bill Buford (in his article Among The Thugs which can be found in nonfiction anthology New Kings of Nonfiction compiled by Ira Glass)

Such were the circumstances in which I approached my subject-matter last evening at the Silver Moon Brewery where I watched Larry and His Flask chew up the crowd and spit them out less beautiful but happier than when they came. It would be an misleading untruth to not admit the non-objectivity of the author; to claim myself as a composed journalist would be lying. A pitcher of beer (at least) into the half of the set I was doing more than taking notes, I was a part of an all out mass exorcism at the Church of Larry.
The set starts out with Jamin inciting the crowd to cheer. People mainly sat back, hooted a bit and paid attention to their beers. "We're going to work on that..." Jamin swore whipping the band into the first song of the night. By the second song you couldn't remain seated lest you be ousted by the crowd or the compelling enthusiasm of our own rapturous soul.
Standing on a chair the band was quieted as Jamin told a story of getting arrested in Newport Beach, California when playing a sidewalk show. The cops coerced Jamin to stop playing in the middle of a song. "Let's me just finish this one," he had replied still keeping rhythm on the snare and bass drum. Thinking otherwise the cops unplugged the amp and demanded again they stop playing. Suddenly confronted Jamin stepped forward to negotiate and was turned around and handcuffed. Dall rushed forward in aid and was dropped to the curb while Jessie had a similar experience when trying to deal with the situation. A confused crowd tried to step in until they were dispersed by a cop weilding a billy club like a pair of nun chucks. Jessie and Dall arrested and everyone morally crushed by the unnecessary viciousness of Newport's finest meant the show that night was over.
It's just sick when justice becomes the entitlement of weapon wielding and state sanctioned pricks with a heavy hand of anger rather than understanding. Police officers become unknowable, more punishers than distributors of justice- inspiring fear sponsored respect. A police force that enforces meaningless laws based on preemptively surrendered, uncelebrated freedoms of expression of a resigned, tranquilized population of upper class consumers. Why? Who was being hurt when Larry and His Flask played outside of the bars in Newport Beach?
For their credit Bend police tend to watch respectfully and compliment the band during sidewalk performances. Perhaps this is because spontaneity is more common in Bend than in Newport. Perhaps the cops in Newport were just so confused by the outpouring of artistic expression they could only react with a kind of flailing of violence, similar to way I react when someone tells me I have a spider in my hair.
The song devoted to that night and the police of Newport Beach, California went something like this; "Dooooown with the party killers! Dooooown with Newport Beach!" and by the last chorus everyone was singing (shouting) along.
"I have no sense of rhythm" I garbled to Michael, my dancing friend I had met that night, "I used to play the tambourine, now they hide it from me." I demonstrate by my inability to simultaneously dance and clap. "See."
As Jessie steps on the table Michael and I grab the corners grinning at one another. Pitchers of beer sway and Jessie blows into a trumpet - not bad for a kid who never took Band in High School. "Did you know Jessie burns 2500 calories in one night?" I shout to Lia who is standing, holding her beer comfortably. Jessie steps onto another table patrons are sitting at clapping, they clutch onto their swaying beers as he steps off, deeper, into the back crowd who are missing out on the intensity of the front. Three women are back there clapping and hooting wildly, they are recruited to the front where they bob and jive in practical similitude, as if members of the LAHF dance crew.
"Are we warmed up enough to get a "yee-hah?!" Jamin yells. "YEE-HAH!" the crowd replies.
My favorite, old blues cover by Blind Willie Johnson "Jesus Make Up my Dying Bed," is played with the help of the audience bellowing out strongest line, "well well well."
Larry and His Flask sing about "weakness", their commitment to friendship and not women, cancer, cops, drinking, and traveling.
Michael, the three women, and I are in the very front by the last set of songs feeling closer to each other, god, hell, life, and death than we have in awhile (since the last show I suppose). We're laughing, dancing and making up lyrics to the songs we don't know the words to. All that's missing is a sweaty hand on our foreheads screaming, "In the name of Jesus!"
I mean, have you ever had a harmonica played directly into your face, I mean so close you can feel the wind blowing through the reeds against your cheek? Have you ever had the head of an upright bass in your skull or a dress shoe on your pizza? You don't have to be angry to be loud and you don't have to drop someone to the curb to have them respect you. The church of Larry wants nothing more than to rid the devil of you: to make you less boring, to take the stick out of your ass and make you sweat, dance, sing, clap, and beat on something that resonates.

Crentist

If you've ever been dumped on the phone you know the terrible silence between the "it's over" and the hysterical uncontrollable sob which comes from ones throat when the realization sets in that you, you who used to be "we," is painfully alone.
This is me, seven months ago with one exception. Rather than having my ass dumped by some boy, I'm on the phone with my dentist's secretary. She's telling me I have to drive to Redmond to sign some stupid waiver entitling my new dentist to my x-rays and I can't stop sobbing.
From the beginning: my teeth are as soft as marshmallows. My friend Patrick and I call it "Irish Catholic" teeth because we are both Irish Catholic and have cavity ridden mouths, occasional white spots on our front teeth, and a shocking sensitivity to cold foods (bite into a popsicle in front of us and watch us writhe). At the restaurant I work at I've asked people requesting no ice in their water if they are Irish Catholic and a surprising amount respond in the affirmative. Unless, of course, they have a thick East European accent (German or Russian), then I know it's just a culture thing.
Okay, so my teeth are an utter mess, but not really. They are beautiful. Perfect alignment, good color (no coffee or cigarettes), but truly a disaster waiting to happen. Cavity ridden and left untreated for years, the mouth of late night handfuls of chocolate chips and never, ever flossing. Comedian Dane Cook had it right when he said the anxiety of quitting smoking is matched by the anxiety of beginning to floss. Cut up and bloody gums. Gross.
So it's no surprise when all of a sudden I am laying on my couch tears rolling down my cheeks because it feels like I've been freshly punched in the face with a tooth ache. Yeah, I probably deserve it. Deserve it because I am poor as hell and living month by month with little more than rent money in my bank account. I deserve this pain because I have been a poor steward of annual check-ups, cleanings and flossing.
Day three: waiting for the pain to miraculously suppress itself I drink so much cold water my PH levels are off and I constantly feel drunk. Cold water, for whatever reason, is the ONLY thing that stops the pain. A sipful each time the pain surfaces takes it away, but only for about five minutes. With little choice, I start making phone calls. First I call my dentist, Coppertop Dental in Redmond, who I last visited in 2006 for a $100 new patient special (including x-rays, a check up and cleaning) begging for an emergency appointment that day for "unbearable pain." They turned me down. Okay, thanks a lot you guys.
From there, I look alphabetical in the phone book calling every dentist in Bend, standing in my kitchen, sipping cold water and pressing the heel of my palm into my right cheek.
"Hi (name of secretary), my name is Rachel. I am not a patient at this office but I have an unbearable tooth ache and need to come in for an emergency evaluation today."
I can't believe how many people just said, "no" straight up. "We're all booked for today," "there are no openings," "I'm sorry Dr. (name of dentist here) doesn't give fuckity fuck about your problems and you probably won't pay us anyway so suck on an ice cube and find yourself a clinic."
The dentist section of the Yellow Pages is looking like the writing on bathroom stalls; cuss words, harsh lines scratching out the least sympathetic offices, circles around the ones that can get me in later in the week (if it comes down to that). Some helpful secretaries open the phone book and make some recommendations for dentists more likely to take patients on short notice but even the dentists advertising "emergencies welcome" turn me down. Apparently unbearable pain doesn't qualify as an emergency, I need to be hemorrhaging from a gaping tooth wound (even then I have my doubts).
I called all the way to the K's until I decided to back track and call dentists I had reached the voicemail of.
This is how I met the office of Dr. Lisa Adams.
After explaining my situation to the secretary I was turned over to the dental assistant. I explained the situation to her; I was in unbearable pain and my regular dentist wouldn't schedule an emergency appointment.
"Well that's rude!" she exclaimed more like your favorite bartendar than a dental assistant. "Who is your dentist?"
"Dr. Fixott from Coppertop Dental in Redmond..." I admit, taking a sip of cold water.
"Oh, he's weird."
I can't stop smiling. I am scheduled for an appointment in an hour. "It will only take ten minutes," the dental assistant says, "anyone can do that." All I need to do is get my old dental office to send my x-rays and BANG! we're golden.

"You have to come into the office and sign to have your x-rays released."
I'm back on the phone with my old dentist. Let's get back to me crying. Crying because I don't have time to drive to Redmond to sign some goddamn waiver, crying because I am in so much pain, because I am poor, without dental insurance, no one seems to give a shit, gas is expensive, I have to work in a few hours, and because secretaries can be such jerks.
The secretary on the line is listening to me sob uncontrollably. She just dumped me, big time.
Phil Collins songs resound in my head, "I never wanted to say goodbye," "how can you just walk away from me?" 'I thought you'd always be there, I almost believed you," "I remember all the times I tried so hard and you laughed in my face cause you held all the cards. I don't care anymore. And I really ain't bothered what you think of me cause all I want of you is just a let me be. I don't care anymore d'you hear? I don't care no more."
"Are you still there?" she interrupts.
Between chokes and violent snuffles (aren't those embarrassing?) I explain the situation. I have an appointment with another dentist in an hour. I live in Bend. I can't drive to Redmond. And I hate your guts.
"Oh, well, we can fax the paper work to the dental office in Bend and you can sign it there."
"Oh, can I? Really? It's so helpful of you to mention that!"
I love my new dentist. We make dental love every month for my monthly fillings. My dentist calls me and badgers me to come in more often. She cleans my teeth. I give her lots and lots of money and she gives me lots and lots of Novocaine.
I'm not the kind of person who likes to broadcast flagrant discrepancies. I am fair minded, undramatic, polite, and traditionally diplomatic but
Coppertop Denstristry=bad, bad, bad
The office of Dr. Lisa Adams=good, good, good
My emergency appointment lasted ten minutes (not counting paperwork time) and I received pain killers (Vicodin, which gives me stomach cramps so I didn't take them) and an anti-biotic making the pain go away in a few days. My root canal (indeed, I needed a root canal*) was scheduled for the next week just like that.
Phil Collins says it best:"when this world makes you crazy and you've taken all you can bear you call me up because you know I'll be there."

*A root canal - by Jessica Judith Pickens-Prescher, CDA EFDA
When you need a root canal it is because your tooth has an abscess at the apex of your root.
So we open up your root and saw all of your canals with these little files. Sometimes pus and stink comes out**. Then, we fill your tooth with gutta percha and put a crown on it. The end.
Jessica says "I hate dentistry and dentists"

**My abscess smelled like a dead person left alone in a stuffy apartment with no windows! BAD!

Newport Avenue

I am waiting at the Newport Av. crosswalk, the one between Newport Market and Chow. This is to say I am waiting because no one is stopping.
Awhile ago, in High school, I had a friend who went to an alternative school, Brown - the school for "bad kids," but not really. The school for students that couldn't put up with the (watch my Holden Caulfield language) goddamn phonies of mainstream Redmond High School.
There was a woman, he told me, a motivational speaker, that came to the school and demonstrated an experiment by dressing grungy and approaching a nearby crosswalk of a fairly busy two way road.
She waited. And waited. Cars kept driving by. Returning to the students she changed her style and dressed in professional attire; black skirt, dress shoes, possibly a power jacket equipped with shoulder pads. Standing at the crosswalk once again time the cars came to a halt.
A truck full of fraternity "brahs" just passed by gawking at me. An SUV follows them, a woman with sunglasses, a set jaw and a McCain/Palin sticker cemented on her bumper. Four subarus at least choose to ignore me, but who's counting?
Is it my hair? Does it not have enough body? Are my bangs to stringy? My eyebrows untamed? Can the people in the cars actually see the zits on my forehead?
In the restaurant I work a very intelligent server told me a sociology experiment she did as an assignment in college while she worked a waitress job.
She told me how for a sucession of 4 weeks she changed her style. One week she was blonde with lots of make-up, the next she had brown hair, the next black hair. The final week she was black hair with brooding dark make-up. Keeping track of her tips throughout the experiment as she worked she watched her tips shrink "drastically." "I never altered my service or personality but by the end of the month I was shocked."
Still at the crosswalk I feel I can no longer blame lava rocks for the reason no one is stopping. Who knew crossing a street could be so personal? Is it my stone-wash jeans? My paint splattered red hoodie you people don't like? Am I not wearing enough make-up? Do I not look happy?
And then it happens. A woman across the street in North Face winter work-out gear (the official uniform of Bend, Oregon I believe) steps up the crosswalk with a baby stroller. A BABY STROLLER.
No surprise, cars grind to a halt, the sound of grating of lava rock is heard beneath their tires I'm surprised smoke doesn't appear.
Passing eachother we smile at one another. *sigh*

Breast Milk

"It tastes like chai, without all the spices," Donald tells me as he turns the camera on. I cringe at the cup in my hand with a healthy tablespoon of fresh squeezed bona fide breast milk. "Best drank from the source," he adds grinning.

Hayley, the bearer of 6-month old baby Lucius stands to the side with a half smile and suddenly I am afraid of offending her - perhaps by showing disgust she will feel, I don't know, like a bad milk maker. You know, how a wine maker would feel if you took a sip of their wine and totally soured up your face.

Taking the cup to my lips I take the shot down, let it sit on my tongue for a half second, swallow and proceed to spit fiercely into the sink.

I tasted breast milk.

I did it for you so you wouldn't have to try it. It tasted creamy, like creamy stomach acid.

Conclusion: Breast milk is for babies.

Recommended reading: Breasts by Genichiro Yagyu and Amanda Mayer Stinchecum

Westside Video

I roam the dusty skeleton that was once Westside Video.
"Are there any videos left?" I asked the two men responsible for shelling my favorite video rental store, hinting and hoping to possibly recover one rumored cardboard box of pornos known to haunt the basement. They shake their heads. No. Dammit. Probably ready got it in their truck.
Wall art ("graffiti") decorate the yellow and orange walls reminiscent of something Jonathan, or perhaps Omar. Where racks of comedy films used to be "ha ha ha ha ha ha" remains on the wall however, to my disappointment, the collage of photos has been taken. It feels like I walked in one of Westside video naked but with make up on.
"I owed this business at least forty bucks in late fees," I confess without prompting, "forty bucks I was supposed to pay by delivering a full Thriller dance performance." I continue to talk, "They had a party right before it shut down - I had twenty bucks. I bought a pile of VHS' this high," miming with my hands a tower of about 5 feet.
"I use to get my videos here for Christian Slater night. This was my favorite place... " my voice cracks and is cut off with a loud sob. "Why?" I look at the two men who were kind enough to let me inside to take pictures. They step back and exchange glances.
"WHY!?" I scream to no one in particular.
Dropping to my knees with my hands exalted above my head, "DEAR GOD, WHY!?!?!?" and proceed to crumple into a puddle of tears and wails where the documentaries used to be.

Right Radio, Wrong Radio

In my life, the radio is always on. It's on right now, broadcasting Talk of the Nation; Neil Conan discussing a controversial Massachusetts law requesting restaurants to post calories on menus. Earlier, while driving home from yoga I was listening to another station, some wild card of a station I found by pressing the seek button a few days ago. I could only smirk as the hosts of the show colorfully and energetically dismissed global warming.

"Were there SUVS back in the Ice Age!?" one of them cries. "Did the dinosaurs ride around in SUVS?!" scoffing at the notion that carbon emissions from vehicles account for global climate change.God, I love the freedom of press. The wide soap box where anyone can stand up and yell lies just as loud as anyone can yell truths."Scientists are always groping with a million excuses global warming exists!"

The other chimes in, using his skills of comparison to drive home his point.

"It's like when you wake up in the morning and in the afternoon it's a little warmer. We can only ASSUME the temperature is going to get hotter and hotter during the day right?! I mean, if it's cool in the morning and hotter in the afternoon we can ASSUME by the end of the week it's going to be like a thousand degrees!"

Such an example so rich in brilliance, how could anyone believe in global warming if trends throughout our day remain consistent? Here's another good example: if I heat up some water it's only logical that if global warming is correct the water will only continue to heat up, eventually surpassing the temperature of the sun if I leave the gas on long enough. Genius.

Even as I smirk, the same little smile I gave the kid next store who told me he grinded his freshly painted skateboard on my roof and landed on my deck (which he claimed explained the paint splatters), I kind of feel like puking at the thought of some schmuck nodding his head in his big fat SUV saying "YEAH! THAT'S RIGHT! DINOSAURS IN SUVS?!?! BULLSHIT!"

And, like always, following the times when I do face extreme denial of clear and consequential evidence I put my hands together, close my eyes, and drop my head,

"Dear Obama, please please please make these stupid idiots go away or please please please give them the intelligence to see beyond ridiculous fallacies in argument and produce some kind of real argument. I swear to you, Obama, I will drive my car less, recycle, and give a percentage of my income to a nonprofit if you just make these people SHUT UP. In your name, Amen."

Valkyrie

The room is the perfect temperature. A french press of Women's Tea sits to my right, a full cup of it to my left. My stomach is full and with my Jay Rowan shrine within arms reach under lamp light I feel like writing this Sunday night.

I wanted to write about breast milk and how I tried it a few weeks ago and how it tasted like creamy stomach acid but I realize that's all I had to say on the matter, there is limited material on that topic.

There was a 4:45 showing of Valkyrie at the Old Mill today and Kevin and I walked there, taking our time, walking along the river, stopping at bridges to empty our heads of urban scurf. It's convenient to have a stretch of river to do such. Valkyrie was an awesome movie. A (failed) coup d'etat to assassinate Hitler during the end of World War II was put into effect by a conscientious group of patriots loyal to "sacred Germany," not the polluted Adolf Hitler Germany they knew would shame the German name in history.

A few main points highlighting the symbolic importance of the film was a scene midway through when Stauffenberg (Cruise) was requested by genuine villain Fromm to salute in the traditional "heil Hitler" fashion. Stauffenberg turns around slowly, clicks his heals abruptly, and throws his hand less arm above his head (his hand was blown off in a bombing while in North Africa) and yells "HEIL HITLER!"

Another scene was not the moment when Stauffenberg was executed by a firing squad and cried "LONG LIVE SACRED GERMANY" but right before that, when he stood facing the guns. Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, his assistant, stepped out of line and placed himself in between the firing squad and Stauffenberg as if to demonstrate his loyalty not only to the German name by taking the bullets but his honor for being under such a person of courage.

The Kitty Genovese Syndrome is a social occurrence when something horrible is happening and no one steps in to right it. Kitty Genovese was a women brutally, loudly and repeatedly robbed, stabbed, and raped in a suburban area and though people heard it and probably saw her assailant did nothing but belatedly call the police. Project Valkyrie was the Kitty Genovese syndrome in the reverse, it was the shame of inaction placed before fear of death. Kitty Genovese is Hitler's Germany, battered, robbed, raped, stabbed and murdered while the idling German citizens and military officials were her suburban neighbors - afraid, unsure like the rest of us standing on the sidelines waving flags for the winning team, the team of timid resignation. The team which wins when a dictator ruling on fear is in power.

I loved Valkyrie. Fabulous movie.