Sittin' In: "We Can’t Even Elegantly Bleed" by Melina Rutter, as based on the song "Failure" by Swans

I've been on and off for the past month or so, but I've got an excuse. A few of them, in fact.

1) I'm editing and contributing to a local zine. It's called ruix. Saying that ruix is a monthly zine by a collective of Dubuque musicians and artists who share the common goal of promoting and sustaining local music, art, and literature gets you close to an explanation. Saying that ruix is for those looking to capture and consider original sounds that are bent, but pure, gets you even closer. The collective behind ruix has not gathered by chance. Its brain—its brawn, too, for that matter—is borne from the natural forward motion of the arts community, the progeny of community and imagination. Everything is happening now.

If it's local and original, we want. No cover bands, no arts and crafts fairs, no bullshit. This project is consuming my life right now, editing all of the content in addition to writing original articles, show reviews, blurbs on new albums, and other odds and ends. If I've done any writing lately, it's been for ruix, which you can find on Facebook or on the plain ol' world wide web.

2) I'm in two bands, both of which are in the process of recording albums. My main project in which I play guitar and do vocals, Legal Fingers, spent most of last week recording the drum tracks for our debut sleaze rock album, No Time For Tenderness. (Featuring the hit single "(I Just Wanna Get All Right) Tonite!")In addition to that, we're breaking in a new vocalist who is talented as all get-out (and a hot chick, to boot). I'm teaching her the old ones when we're not at practice working on new songs for her to sing, and I've written four songs in the past five weeks that I hope will all make the cut when it comes around to throw her into the full-band mix. I also play bass in a street punk band called Bucket House Hooligans. I joined the band a couple months ago, and I'm still getting a handle on the tunes, which I'll be recording here shortly for the band's debut album, Dubuque (That's not me in the video).

3) I'm running a six week YA writing workshop. I've done this every summer for the past three or four years, for all the reasons anyone cites in doing something like this: teaching kids not to be dickheads who suck at writing is a good way to give something back and keep up on the basics myself, in the process learning something, teaching something, and being looked up to as a mentor. Warm fuzzy whatevers all over the place. But, as much as I love them all, it takes time to figure out what we're going to talk about, what and how I want to explain my comments on their written work, and the hour round-trip commute (and hour and a half spent in the actual workshop). They're great and it's satisfying, but I'm on week six of six here, and I'm getting to be glad my English degree has nothing to do with traditional education.

This is in addition to thirty three hours a week working as a janitor, between four and eight hours a week as a door-guy at some music bars in town, and still trying to do cool shit like meet Hacksaw Jim Duggan (and Terry Funk!) in Waterloo, Iowa. That said, I hope to get back in the OBCBYL game full-fledged once the workshop and recording process are both over. The zine is still taking a lot of time, but once we get used to deadlines and figure out the best ways to work alone and with each other, things will smooth out. Until then, here's one of my absolute favorite stories that's been sent in to me, Melina Rutter's "We Can’t Even Elegantly Bleed."

**********

We Can’t Even Elegantly Bleed

We used to have to stand in rows while the nuns checked out our fingernails. There was a kid named Shane Braddock whose father was a miner in Wyoming, and his hands were clean, the cleanest. Every day we watched the nuns shine their approval all over him because of his clean, square-cut nails, his long, tanned hands. To us, it was the way he wore his jacket, too, the dark disconnection in his glance, the bump on his nose that made him look like he’d just come up from a fight. Their approval was endless, all-encompassing. It made everything about Shane Braddock enviable, no matter how amiss it was.

He saw his father only once that year, and when the time came around we knew, because he had his pockets full of gravel that he brought out in the yard, pointing at some near-invisible sparkling flecks. It was a warm, windy day, and we were all squinting and restless. “Gold,” he said. “It’s gold my father brought for me.”

The day Shane Braddock brought his so-called gold to school was the only day that year he was punished. When it came time for the inspection, his hands were smudged black, nails full of dirt. Some of us leaned forward in line to get a better look. “That gold is dirty stuff,” someone whispered and a few of us laughed.

But in truth we were undone that day. Shane Braddock with black hands, Shane after his once-a-year-father, Shane who had special rocks dug up from the earth, was more enviable than he’d been with the nuns’ approval all over him. We looked down at our own washed-quickly hands and saw our dishonor.

* * *

We were eleven that year and had stashes of shameful, beautiful things hidden wherever we could make them last longest. We’d stolen cigarettes from our older sisters, chewing tobacco from a cousin, small nips of whisky straight from the liquor cabinet, ink bottles from the counter at the art store, ten bucks from a drunk aunt’s wallet, the key to the basement, some poker chips, baseball cards, and always the magazines we weren’t supposed to know about, a few we’d found used in a dumpster behind someone’s building, and those we’d dug a hole for in the yard and buried. There was a girl on one page called Sweet Tooth Savannah and she was our chosen one, the girl we wanted most. She lay in a bathtub filled with licorice, her eyes sullen, breasts exposed, dark hair indistinguishable from all that candy. She had black licorice ropes wound between her fingers like snakes or jewelry.

* * *

We heard about the mine collapse on TV during dinner. We knew it was Shane Braddock’s father’s mine because one of our mothers took their dresses to Shane’s mother for alterations and it was certain, tragically, unbelievably; it was Shane’s father’s mine, yes.

Some of us were stupid enough to ask about gold.

The mine was called Freedom but it was a coalmine. A coalmine, and nine men were dead underground, their faces blackened like Shane Braddock’s hands the day he was punished.

We went to sleep feeling too full from our dinners, babyish, hemmed in. We wanted to climb out the window and run the seventeen blocks to where the Braddocks lived, near the train tracks and the highway, where we could sit in the warm, dusty night on the porch and share our sleeplessness. Instead we turned over and over in our beds, unsure of what we had lost.

* * *

Shane was not in school the next day and we circled his empty spaces hungrily, in packs. The closer we imagined ourselves into his life, the more adequate we became. We took turns collecting his schoolwork for him, hoping to bring it by his house ourselves, but it was always collected by some adult or another—“the neighborhood pulls together in times like these,” was how one of our mothers put it. After some weeks it became clear to us that Shane would not return. We were told the mother couldn’t afford the city anymore, much less the school, and had moved Shane and his two younger sisters back to Wyoming.

Years later, we’d still be in the old neighborhood, just blocks from the classroom where we were made to stand in rows, compare ourselves against each other. We hadn’t seen the Badlands, the Rockies, the Snake River. We knew there were Indians who lived on all this land farther back than we cared to envision, and we’d have told our well-schooled kids about their battles and horses and visions without ever having met one.

We saw Shane Braddock one day, coming down long and loose from the elevated tracks; we knew that look of his even with twenty-five years piled on it. He was more torn up than we were, pinched, lined, underfed. He rolled a cigarette as he walked. He moved outside of the city-rhythm, any native could see that. He was there, coming down the stairs, then stopping to look far down 125th street, and then he was almost gone, his back to us, moving into the crowd.

He had gone down with his father in some pit unknown to us, he had left us, his stolen pocket money, his Sweet Tooth Savannah, who was his as much as ours; he had faded into some margin of half-existence. “Gold my father brought me,” he had said, and we could laugh for days.

But there were our washed-quickly hands, again, and there was the certainty that it was we who had given in, we who had been tricked, strung along, and we watched him go—quick in his old canvas shoes, his cuffs falling past his fingertips—again.

**********



Lyrics

Swans are a band led by Michael Gira. Imagine the pants-shittingly downtrodden and tortured you've ever felt in your entire life. That's what listening to Swans is like. They're probably the best band I can hardly bring myself to listen to sometimes.

Melina Rutter is a slender girl in Germany who writes awesome stuff at bark (a culture, literature, and art blog) and her own personal blog, Invisible Adventure. She likes tattoos and good tunes. Born on Earth, dead on the moon.

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Next week: A story based on "Bicycle Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle" by Be Your Own Pet, as suggested by writer Kevin Wilson. (For real this time, hopefully.)

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Sittin' In: "The Falling Trees" by Samuel Snoek-Brown, as based on the song "Get Back" by Laibach

If a rough first draft that is halfway compiled into a single MSWord document constitutes as done, then the Our Band Could Be Your Lit book is done. I wrote the last three stories this past week: an 865 word story based on "Snow & Lights" by Explosions In the Sky, a 585 word story based on "Bostons" by Have Heart, and a 636 word story based on "This Charming Man" by The Smiths. I also went through and re-edited the original 33 stories in the project itself. In the meantime, I'm just waiting for comments back from Sam and Alice, my two man readers/unpaid editors, on the 22 supplementary stories, compiling a mock table of contents for the manuscript, and writing an introduction. I'm on the home stretch, though, and by mid-July, it should be done as it's going to be on my part.

For his last hurrah, I sent Sam the songs "Prince of the Rodeo" by Turbonegro, "Get Back" by Laibach, and "What's Up Doc? (Can We Rock?)" by Fu-Schnickens f/ Shaq. He enjoyed the Turbonegro song, but couldn't figure out how to write a story about rodeo as a metaphor for gay sex that wouldn't wind up sounding offensive. "I try not to write things that'll piss people off without some deeper purpose. (I don't mind pissing people off — I just need a good reason to do it.)" I was really hoping "What's Up Doc?" would have been the one, but I guess not. "And the other song featured Shaq rapping. Screw you for that one."

I should have known he'd go for Laibach. "I'm actually kind of a sucker for weird German industrial metal, and I love bizarre cover songs. You know I love Tori Amos's cover of Slayer's "Reign in Blood." This felt like doing the reverse. So it was fun." The story, too, is fun. I've known my fair share of guys obsessed with pure sound, so it hit close to home. I described it as John Cage's 4'33'' meets The Twilight Zone, a description I'll stand by.

Sam's done a great job babysitting OBCBYL, in addition to helping me edit all of the stories that appear with the OBCBYL tag. I'd feel bad making him do so much work for me, but he's a full-time writer, and for that luxury, he must be punished. Thanks, and play it again, Sam.

**********

The Falling Trees

While others were making clever overlays and mashups, he went in the opposite direction and extracted, subtracted. He said he was searching for the essence of the song, trying to strip it down to its heartbeat. He broke down all the frequencies in “Sympathy for the Devil” until he had just the bongos, and then he played them over and over. Listen to that, man, he’d say. There’s so much hope in that sound.

He started following people around with a digital recorder, stooped low with the mic to the ground, recording people’s footsteps. This is what life sounds like, he said. We’ve stepped away from ourselves and this is the sound of us returning.

But then the rhythms became too forceful, too periodic. For the true nature of sound, he would tell people, he needed the sound to be constant. Movement, yes, but movement without breaks, and so he turned all his radios and televisions to static and stared at them for hours, his ear against the speaker. Shhh, he’d say when people came into the room, and at first people thought he was silencing them even though they hadn’t spoken, but then they realized he was simply repeating what he heard.

Eventually he constructed a waterproof microphone case, from scratch, and he would walk to the river early in the morning to submerge it. If it had rained upstream he stayed home—there was too much noise in a hurried current, he’d say—but in dry periods he was down on the bank every day, squatting till his knees gave out with his arm held over the water, the microphone cord drifting like a fishing line.

He announced he had reached a discovery and would perform for the city. He wanted to share the pure nature of sound, the true music of the world itself. He took out full page ads in all the newspapers and magazines, he posted flyers on every telephone pole, slapped stickers on garbage bins and fire hydrants all over the city. Few people even knew what he’d been working on, that he even existed, and among those who did, most ignored him. But he had accrued a few dozen acolytes over the months, computer geeks and philosophy students and underground musicians, even one former Hare Krishna, and they helped him rent a small community theater and set up a stage. It would be him and nothing else. He said equipment would ruin the effect, that the truth of sound required only its own acoustics. They arranged the few dozen chairs in concentric semicircles so everyone could see.

On the ascribed night he stood on stage for four hours and did nothing. Someone coughed and was ushered hurriedly out of the room. Two people nodded off but did not snore. Several people looked at each other nervously but said nothing, worried they would miss it. And at the end of the four hours, he died on the stage.

They argued for weeks afterward about what the true nature of sound had been. Some said it was the silence of standing there. Others swore they’d been able to make out his breathing and it was his breath they’d come to hear. A small cluster of people insisted that it was the sound of his body hitting the stage that was the intended performance. Those who disagreed argued that he could have slumped on stage at the beginning, but the die-hards maintained that only his dead body could have produced the correct timbre.

But these were all just theories, and no one ever agreed to only one of them. Today, if you were to ask anyone present at the performance what the ultimate nature of sound was like, they would only stare at you. Some might move their lips as though trying to find words, but none of them would say a thing.

**********

Laibach is a band of Slovenians who look like the evil parts of American history books.

Samuel Snoek-Brown is Dutch or Scottish or something. His Beginner's Mind looks like the evil parts of American chemistry books.

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Next week: I'm back, with nothing in mind. So look for that.

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Sittin' In: "Colony" by Samuel Snoek-Brown, as based on the song "Brave As a Noun" by Andrew Jackson Jihad

For better or worse, Sam's run here at the forefront of Our Band Could Be Your Lit is coming to a close. For his penultimate performance, he's turned in "Colony." He had a lot to say about his choices this month, so let me just spew some copypasta all over this . . .

"I was listening to the sound bites in the Metavari tune and heard a deep, dense story in there about the collapse of blue-collar America and the slow decay of formerly great American cities, but also about the possibilities those cities still hold and the great promise of the middle class.

Seriously.

Which is why it wasn't coming together—it was TOO rich, and I wasn't going to be able to write the story I wanted to write in under 1,000 words and/or under a week. Maybe I never will—it's too big. But damn, I wanted to.

Anyway, so I tried the other track (Ed. note: "Jane Doe" by Converge) but it just never grabbed me (that style of music never does, really), and by the time I got to AJJ I knew I'd better like it. I actually freaking loved it. Totally checking out more of their stuff.

Plus, it helped that I'd been reading that photo blog about pretentious hipster schmucks all week, so when I got to the line about art I knew where I wanted to go with it. In fact, the story I wound up writing was as much about this blog post as about the song, because—and I'm not making this up—I was listening to the track while scrolling through the blog and I saw this post in the first minute of the tune.

So anyway, that's what all that was about.

Here's why I didn't like the story: I liked it too much. Or rather, every time I worked on it or reread it, I thought it was too fucking clever. I still do. I actually really enjoy the gimmick of this thing, but looking at it from the inside, I can't help but wonder if it's cheap. But hey, as long as you dig it, and maybe one or two other people, then cool. "

I do dig it! So, yes, all cool.

With any luck, the stories for the book will be done this week. I said last week that I hoped to have finished off three stories over the course of the week, and I ended up getting four done: a 418 word story named "God As a Jigsaw" based on ".001%" by eyehategod, a 750 word story named "This Illusion" based on "Feel" by Big Star, and two as-of-now-untitled stories, one an 843 word hockey story (sort of) based on "Crowded in the Wings" by The Jayhawks and the other a 353 word piece of meta-fiction based on "The Beginning and the End" by ISIS. I've got three left, and then it's back to the weekly grind right here. But until then, here's more Sam.

**********

Colony

The first one who turned up was some thick-chested guy in an open-collared shirt and khakis. He had a mustache black like the grip of a gun and an unmistakable aroma of cigarettes about him. I found him in the kitchen of the house I shared with my brother, my friend Jake, and my girlfriend. I went downstairs and there he was, sitting at our kitchen table, goddamn typewriter and everything, banging at the keys. Jake joked that he looked like Hemingway, but it wasn’t a fucking joke. This guy never said a word, just sat down there all goddamn morning typing away in the kitchen as if we weren’t even there. At least he made us all coffee.

Then Whitman showed up. He liked to sit in a wood deck chair and stare at the trees in the back, bleak in the late fall, the limbs creaking in the wind as gray and wiry as his beard. The Hemingway barely acknowledged him, but the Whitman sometimes sneaked a longing glance into the kitchen.

I thought someone was fucking with us, paying their buddies to put on thrift-store clothes and show up unannounced. My brother swore he knew nothing about it. I was a little annoyed because my girlfriend kept eying the Hemingway. He looked back at her infrequently, but enough.

Two days later, Gertrude Stein pushed through our front door. Squat, domineering, and, unlike the men, loud as hell. “The light in here is terrible the light is wan. The light is the light and needs to be lighter.” She pointed at a Vermeer print my girlfriend had hung over the couch, this big poster of a woman at a table in the sunlight. Stein pointed like she wanted to cut the thing, her finger sharp in the air. “You call this art?” she said.

I liked her immediately, but all of us were starting to freak out.

We had a meeting in the garage, where Jake discovered Kerouac sleeping in the back seat of his car, and we discussed what to do about all these writers. My brother looked over at Kerouac, sound asleep and smelling like fortified wine, and said, “I tried to kick some of them out, but Austen. She lit into me. It was so bad I got weak in the knees. I ain’t saying shit to anyone.” He ran a nervous hand through his hair. “And I am not pissing off Hemingway, man. You know what that guy is capable of?”

My girlfriend said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing you fight Hemingway.”

“Sell them,” someone said and we all yelped there in the garage. It wasn’t that we weren’t used to new voices by then, it was just rare that any of them talked to us. We crept around the back of Jake’s car and found Charles Dickens hunched on a milk crate, writing by candlelight on a stack of cardboard boxes. “Sorry,” he said. “Everywhere else was taken.”

He didn’t say much else, but we got the gist, and the other three loved the idea. So they put out ads, cleared furniture from the living room, roped off pathways like we lived in some royal manor. Come watch the authors at work, the ads said. Five dollars, and later fifteen dollars, a person. Jake moved his car out of the garage and set up tables, and sure enough, more authors came, men, women, men we’d never realized were women writing under a penname, people whose language we couldn’t speak. They rented a pavilion tent and set it up in the front yard, and more authors came.

I wanted to move out, but no one would let me. I even tried to break up with my girlfriend. She said, “What the hell is the matter with you? This is why we came here. We’ve finally got the company of writers and you just want to fucking run away.” I’m pretty sure she was sleeping with Hemingway by then.

They’d moved a bunch of the furniture into my room to clear more space for the writers and the tourists. The refrigerator was in there, the stove, both the washing machine and the dryer. A couple of hall tables. Even the other bedroom furniture. I had three beds to wake up in each morning and I couldn’t get out of any of them.

But today, I don’t know why, I’d had enough. The partying and drinking and vocalized philosophizing keep me up all night. I opened the window and started throwing out bedding, quilts floating like parachutes into the lawn, pillows sliding down the canvas slope of the pavilion tent. I disassembled each bed, even my own, and threw out all the pieces, and I tossed out all the artwork then leaned the mattresses against the wall. Out in the yard, Stein was eying the wrecked paintings then nodding approvingly up at my window. I threw my stereo at her, then I threw my brother’s television and all my girlfriend’s clothes. I shoved the appliances out into the hall and all afternoon I could hear my brother explaining, “Sorry folks, detour!” But I didn’t care. Fuck Hemingway.

I’ve cleared out everything and moved a mattress to cover the door. I had what I’d actually moved here for: an empty space, plenty of light, and a little quiet in which to write.

**********



Lyrics

Andrew Jackson Jihad is the best band in hardcore. Or, at least that's what the shirt I bought from them says. Their instrumentation--upright bass and acoustic guitar--doesn't necessarily bring to mind Gorilla Biscuits, but punk and hardcore and rock roll have always existed as the audible result of a certain kind of attitude. By these criteria, Andrew Jackson Jihad may just be the best band in hardcore.

Samuel Snoek-Brown has never been in a band, but he did buy a bass at one time with hopes of being Bobby Dall or, you know, whoever. He also refused to sing some Danzig with my band one time, though I know he could pull off a pretty mean "Blood and Tears." More time to focus on his writing, I guess, which can be read at his blog, Beginner's Mind.

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Next week: Sam's last story, as he chooses between "Prince of the Rodeo" by Turbonegro, "Get Back" by Laibach, "What's Up Doc? (Can We Rock?)" by Fu-Schnickens f/ Shaq.

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Sittin' In: "The Voice You Throw, the Blow You Catch" by Samuel Snoek-Brown, as based on the song "Little Drunk Fists" by Slobberbone

More from Sam, with my favorite story of his little series here. Slobberbone is such a cool band, possibly my favorite band at this point in time--summer jams abound! I tossed him "Rollerskate Skinny" by Old 97's and "V" by Golden Smog, making this an alt-country shoot-out. You can't pick wrong, really. I've actually based a recurring characters in my fiction off the woman in "V" already, so I was curious to see what Sam would come up with. That Old 97's song just rocks, and I think it's Rhett at his quirkiest (though lots of my friends hate the song). Sam says he picked Slobberbone as a shout out to Denton, TX (Sam's from Boerne, a scant 5.5 hour drive away, considering how big Texas is). He passed on "Rollerskate Skinny" because he "kept picturing Heather Graham in Boogie Nights, which is not a good thing." (The song was actually written about Winona Ryder.) He was all set on doing the Golden Smog song, but in talking to his wife, she mentioned something about a ventriloquist's dummy, which sent Sam back to Slobberbone. "That take on whose fists we're talking about was too cool an opportunity to pass up."

I made a bit more progress this week, despite too much time spent in book stores--I had a total of $120 spent at three different Half Price Books for their 20% off sale this Memorial Day weekend--and at shows. Both of those things rule--especially the extra James Leg show I caught on Thursday in Madison, WI and the beautiful country-tinged rocking pop of Chicago's Death Ships I was lucky enough to see in Iowa City, IA (first time I've seen them in three years, and the new songs are excellent). As far as finishing this goddamn manuscript goes, I'm two stories closer: a 1024 word story named "After I'd Read Raymond Carver" based on "A Little Longing Goes Away" by The Books (the extra words will surely get cut upon revision) and an 824 word story named "It's Been Far Too Long Since You Woke Up In Someone Else's Shoes" based on "Misunderstood" by Wilco. I'm at fifteen stories "finished"--four older ones are in various stages of revision--meaning I've got seven left. This week will be slower than normal, so I'm hoping to finish three stories instead of just two. All right, let's rock.

**********

The Voice You Throw, the Blow You Catch

Every new guy in the bar took a chance with LoAnn. From behind, she was a fox. The heart of her ass rested firm on the barstool, her body thick where it matters. The ventriloquist dummy never turned them off.

Some of the old boys might have warned the newcomers. Carlo, the bartender, could have waved them off or refused to let them buy her drinks. No one said anything. Almost everyone in there, even the married ones, had taken their lumps making passes at LoAnn, and it had become a right of passage. Any man who took his chance and still came back the next night, well, everyone knew he was one of them, that he would return every night thereafter to watch for the next poor idiot who caught sight of her.

The sad part of it was, the dummy actually lured some guys in. He was a conversation piece, or a gag. Even when he spoke out, defending LoAnn, it was a joke and a challenge. Some guys like to fight for a girl, and what a great story they’d have if they won her away from a dummy.

Sometimes, LoAnn seemed to invite it. She’d argue with the dummy and pretend to want to make him jealous. She’d hold the dummy away from her like she was leaning out of earshot and whisper. His little jaw would fall open then slam upward in an angry clap of wood. “She already has a drink, jack, and her free hand is in my pants” was a bar favorite. No one believed the few guys who said they saw her lips move.

Maybe two or three a month would make headway in the game against the dummy, and when they did, she’d slide from the barstool and saunter outside. She held the dummy behind her back, like he was following her, and this is when his voice became the loudest. “LoAnn, why’re you doing this?” Sometimes you could see her wrist flick and his head would turn to face the poor guy following them. His caterpillar eyebrows would dip in the middle, a perfect mockery of a scowl: “Who the fuck do you think you are, buddy?” And, “You’re gonna regret this, jack.”

Everyone in the bar stopped talking, stopped drinking even. Everyone scooted forward on their stools, in their booths. Carlo leaned over the bar.

* * *

The bruises were always small, and they never lasted more than a day or two. No one ever talked about what happened between the three of them—LoAnn, the guy, and the dummy—in the parking lot. Never. Most people assumed she used the dummy like a weapon, just went batshit and chased them out of her car with that dummy’s voice screaming from her lips.

For two years this happened. At least a couple hundred guys tried their luck. Several dozen got unlucky. But everyone came back for the show.

* * *

When LoAnn missed a few nights in a row, the bar grew restless with rumor. When she’d missed a whole week, the bar went silent. A handful of guys stopped coming around. But when LoAnn returned without the dummy, the whole damn town turned out to watch.

It took maybe two weeks before anyone had the nerve to approach her, simple questions from regulars, just some people wondering if she’s all right.

The only thing she would say was “usual” as she first slid onto her stool. Sometime during the third week, one of the former abused, rubbing his jaw where he remembered old bruises, crept over to her and leaned on the bar, a few feet away, and watched her. When she didn’t look at him he dipped his cheek down to the wood and peered up at her. He was far enough away from her that everyone heard him: “You’re looking a little lonely tonight, baby. Maybe we could try again?”

From the back, a snicker. Then a few more. Soon, the whole bar was laughing. LoAnn leaned over the straw in her vodka until the glass was empty, then she slipped outside. But she was back again the next night, pulling down five, six rounds in a night, getting drunker and drunker, and the jokes kept coming.

That happened five, maybe six times, before LoAnn stopped coming around. No one had seen her in months. But about a week after she left, her dummy turned up on the front stoop of the bar, propped against the door. That first night, the bartender brought him in and everyone gathered around him, a wide circle like they’d found a wounded dog and no one was sure what he’d do. Everyone spoke in whispers. They stood like that for who knows how long. The dummy lay in a pile on the floor, limbs twisted, his face a mess. A couple of the older jilted men finally stepped into the circle, bent like pallbearers, and lifted him to the bar. Carlo set him on the highest shelf, put a bottle in his hand. A man leaned over and shut the dummy’s mouth. Then, opened it.

**********



Lyrics

Slobberbone is a band from Texas. Right around the time Uncle Tupelo called it quits, Slobberbone came around to be the new kings of cow-punk. And thank fuck they did. It takes a special band--or person, like Warren Zevon--to make rock and roll fun without being pointless, funny without being stupid. I'm not saying throw away all your Drive-By Truckers albums, because they're great, too, but if you don't have any Slobberbone albums, you're doing yourself a disservice.

Samuel Snoek-Brown is a man from Texas. I could say nice things about him like I did Slobberbone, but I'll let him embarrass his own damn self, which he does on a regular basis over at his blog, Beginner's Mind.

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Next week: More from Sam, as he chooses between "Brave As a Noun" by Andrew Jackson Jihad, "Jane Doe" by Converge, and "Kings Die Like Other Men" by Metavari.

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Sittin' In: "Sun-shy" by Samuel Snoek-Brown, as based on the song "Potted Plant" by Cast Spells

Sam's back again this week with a song based on "Potted Plant" by Cast Spells. I had originally planned on writing a story based on this song myself, but I just couldn't come up with anything that worked. So, I pawned it off on Sam, who did a fairly admirable job (though I don't know how he came up with something so much darker than such a happy song). He passed the Zappa song, because he couldn't think of any way to do it that wasn't obvious and/or an insult to Zappa. ("He rules too hard to fuck up.") He says he really dug the Integrity tune, too, but the video got in his head and wouldn't let go enough for him to come up with his own story. Just as well, we get a neat little story here that reminds me, in some ways, of a distorted Barry Hannah story--"Eating Wife and Friends" from Airships, to be exact.

On my own literary front, I made a small amount of progress since the last post: a 545 word story named "Jests At Scars" based on "Hard-core Troubadour" by Steve Earle and a 985 word story named "Ritual" based on "The Druid" by Sleep. I've got nine stories left to write, and if my yet-to-fail writing process of 400 words of fiction a day leads me in the right path, I'll be done in about three weeks. I also took some time this past week to speak to a few high school classes about creative writing, in addition to the normal schedule of band practices and full-time employment. Plus I got to catch a few killer shows, most notably the post-metal band Northless from Milwaukee, WI and funky fuzz-piano killer James Leg from Port Arthur, TX. Read Sam's story and then check out both of those great, great bands.

**********

Sun-shy

No one knew the cult existed until their bodies were found. When we first opened the house, two of our crew vomited immediately, and that’s when they brought in the rubber suits and gas masks. We suited up and each took a spotlight, prowling the area as if it were the surface of the moon, our legs slow and heavy, the sound of our breathing loud in our ears.

At the time, we thought it strange that they’d starved to death, since we discovered the whole back half of the house had been turned into a giant grow room. They’d walled in the back porch and hung the room in black plastic; they’d boarded up the windows in the kitchen and dining room in addition to hanging heavy black drapes over them. A utility closet, a mudroom, and a bathroom were all wrapped in black and all the windows in each of these rooms were sealed off, no sun allowed.

The fluorescents swinging from the ceiling or leaning on poles near the plants gave off plenty of light. There were tomatoes growing in overturned barstools, cucumbers climbing the walls, bean sprouts in the sink and potatoes in the top-loading washing machine.

We stared at it all for a long while, moving among the rows and caressing the food through our gloves, careful of our boots among the strawberries and mint.

There were six men, four women, and seven children, we think. They’d all shrunk so much it was hard to tell the adults from the teenagers. The youngest was maybe six. Later, we’d talk about how it would have been possible to fit one of our gloved hands clear around the abdomen.

People think that was the hardest part, but then I tell them about what happened when we pulled them outside, the skin flaking and blackening in the sunlight, the hair evaporating in wisps like incense. Scared the hell out of all of us when the first one went, and by the third all of us were getting superstitious. Around the sixth or seventh body, we started experimenting: one bare foot out the front door and it turned black. The rest of the body was fine. Up to the knee, the same. And so on.

Someone cut a hole in the black draping and made a kind of sun-spotlight on the floor, and we covered and uncovered it until one of the bodies was spotted like a Dalmatian.

We had no idea at the time what important things we were discovering, though we might have guessed once we got back into the kitchen and dining room and porch, started pulling down the plastic from the windows and saw the green corn flare up like tiki torches, the mint go blue in flame, the tomatoes burst and the strawberries shrivel and blacken.

We salvaged what we could, covered everything again and spent hours picking the last good fruits, sifting the ashes and the muck for viable seeds. All part of the research. Everything into cold storage, a morgue for the food as well as the cult.

So this is how it started, how we first learned what the sun was preparing to do to all of us. How our own fields would burn half the year, how the rain would stop and our skin would dry and burnish. Umbrellas sold out, laws against window tinting disappeared, and soon we all lived indoors.

The sun-shy food would not take to sunlit soil. We began to starve.

To honor those people we found, who first hid themselves from the dangerous sun, we withdrew the seventeen corpses from the morgue and buried them in the indoor fields, in a special plot at the back, away from the food. And those bodies have sprouted. Zucchini, cabbage, wild onions, even an apple tree. They are flourishing in the warehouse field, and already they are beginning to spread, root systems and new sprouts shooting up past the cemetery fence, becoming the harvest they never had.

**********

Lyrics

Cast Spells is the newest project of David Davison of Maps & Atlases (and Hey!Tonal, who don't get talked about nearly as much, but are awesome as fuck). I had the pleasure of seeing him in a coffee shop in town, and I was taken with the conciseness of the songs, the way he was able to pack so much--melody, smart lyrics, hooks--into a two-minute song without making it sound like it was stuffed too full or, even worse, just an empty bundle of melody, smart lyrics, and hooks. Also, when I met him, we talked about David Lynch and Daryl Hannah movies, so he's a pretty cool dude outside of music, too.

Samuel Snoek-Brown constructs, but more often deconstructs, a bunch of stuff that exists mostly in his head. He has a website, including a blog, Beginner's Mind, where this all goes down.

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Next week: More from Sam, as he chooses between some songs I haven't decided on yet.

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Sittin' In: "How Many Tylenol Does It Take To Kill Myself?" by Samuel Snoek-Brown, as based on the song "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John

I've got some big stuff brewing for Our Band Could Be Your Lit: a book. The idea was brought up around the same time that the idea for the project itself was invented, but more in a "Wouldn't that be rad if you this turned into a book?" Since then, I've pictured an Our Band Could Be Your Lit print version to be spread out over three volumes. Since the idea is to write one hundred short stories, the first volume would be the first third of those--thirty three stories--along with twenty two supplemental stories based on songs of my choosing. I've had someone at a small-but-dedicated publishing company solicit a manuscript from me, which means there has to be a manuscript to submit.

So, Samuel Snoek-Brown is one babysitting duty for the next month while I finish up a first draft of the manuscript. I'm sending him three songs each week and he's picking one of them to write a song about. This week he had a choice between "Limerick" by Bardo Pond, "Jack Pepsi" by TAD, and, the song he ended up choosing, "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John. In his defense, he wanted to do "Limerick" but his ideas were too similar too his previous OBCBYL guest post, the story "Buzz" (As based on "Omens and Portents I - The Driver" by Earth). He also wanted to do the TAD song, but the narrative was already so complete. He thinks I set him up to do an Elton John song, but really, that song rules, so I don't feel bad at all. And you know what? The story he pulled from it is pretty great as well, so scroll down a bit and read it. I'll be back next week with more from Sam and an update on the manuscript. Let's rock.

**********

How Many Tylenol Does It Take To Kill Myself?

Does it make a difference if they’re children’s chewable? I have half a box of those, maybe a dozen of the adult kind. And another bottle of wine – I’m pouring the last of this one now. I say bottle. Does it matter that it’s actually a box?

She’s screaming again. She’s so damned small, the size of a carnival prize, but all those sounds she can make in the night, all that volume. Christ. Thirty minutes ago I went downstairs and unfolded the hide-a-bed, flipped the mattress up against her closed door, tried to stack the couch cushions after it but they kept falling down. I can still hear her.

If the police come, maybe they’ll find me in time. Maybe I’ll be curled up in a ball, a chrysalis in my own sweat and vomit. Pupating. Isn’t that the word? I don’t much like the image, wouldn’t want to be found that way. But it’s the only way I have left to be.

Barbara knew what she was doing. She got one look at our tiny daughter, a moment in the arms, and then she slipped away, peaceful as you please. Transformed and fluttering free from all this. I lose my wife but I still get the girl. It’s not a happy ending.

What in hell does she want? It sure isn’t sleep. I have nothing left to feed her. I changed her diaper an hour ago, and if she needs it changed again I’ll have to move the mattress from her door.

If I had beer instead of wine, maybe I’d have a clearer head.

It’s three AM. I shake the box and think I might have half the wine left. It won’t be enough. I could go outside and just leave her in that downstairs room, screaming till all her air is gone. I could just leave everything, tuck the box under my arm and swagger into the night, free as Barbara, fly away. But for a long time I can’t seem to stand up, my ass heavier than my legs. I lean over in my chair for fifteen, twenty minutes, all the blood in my face, until I manage to tilt forward far enough that I come up out of the chair and I’m standing, but I’m trapped in the middle of the room. I try to reach for the doorknob but my arms are heavier than my ass, too. I just stand there, the cries echoing and surrounding me, my body so dense I’ve achieved my own gravity, my heart the heaviest part of me and the air revolving with her voice. It’s the only sound I have left.

In the corner of my office I have a stereo, an old component system with stacks of black-and-chrome equipment. I grab one of Barbara’s cds from the wall and drop it in the disc tray. I can’t hear it eject or retract; I can only hear the cries. I turn up the volume. Now it’s four am. I can’t find the children’s Tylenol. I think I kicked them under the desk. There are maybe a dozen of the adult kind. I take four. I turn the music up. Louder, higher, play it again. Shuffle, repeat, that same chorus, over and over, and I can’t tell anymore which is his voice and which is hers.

**********



Lyrics

Elton John is a musician who really had his shit together in the first half of the 70s, but has now become known pretty much as a flamboyantly homosexual man who writes songs about Princess Diana, lions, and rock star assholes in Cameron Crowe films.

Samuel Snoek-Brown's scribblings, thought patterns, and flat-out scatterbrained ideas can be followed at his website, including his blog, Beginner's Mind.

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Next week: More from Sam, as he chooses between "Potted Plant" by Cast Spells, "Broken Hearts Are For Assholes" by Frank Zappa, and "Micha (Those Who Fear Tomorrow)" by Integrity.

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Sittin' In: "How Do I Feel For Thee" by Victor David Giron, as based on the song "Courtship Dating" by Crystal Castles

How Do I Feel For Thee

How do I feel for thee, you ask? You motherfucker. You son of a bitch. Look at my hands you prick. Look at them. And you smile, act all confused. What the fuck is the matter with you? No. I know, right? It’s supposed to be all good. You fuck me, I fuck you, you fuck someone else, but all that should matter now is how you feel for me, and how I feel for you. Because what you and I have together is supposed to be stronger than this, all this fucking, each other and others. That’s what you think, right? You say you want to participate in life with me, that these digressions are nothing more than that, that you would kill yourself for me. Well go ahead. Do it for me. Please. I hope you burn your hands for me, like I did for you, burn your head. I want to watch it. That would be smart of me. Come on. Let’s dance one last time. Let’s fuck one last time. Let’s embrace these pulsating lights we love. The gray. The black. The bass, bumping, the floor shaking, our skin, sweating, our minds throbbing. We made love to those beats. We timed our thrusts perfectly. That’s what you loved about me, you used to say, my rhythm, our synchronization, our fluidity. It was more beautiful than anything you’d ever experienced. You said that to me, panting like a little boy. Like the first time, right baby? The party on Irving Park. It was a cold night. It snowed like I’ve never seen it before. The city came to a stop. The Puerto Ricans were the first to be out shoveling and marking their spots. I saw you across the room, smoking and acting like you didn’t care. I wanted you right away. You knew I did. We danced, we were hot. I knew we were going to fuck that night. I wanted it. I knew you were going to cum inside me in that hallway, I didn’t care that others were watching. We were high, and in love right away. You said you’d never experienced anything like that. Neither had I. Let’s do it again baby. Just like that. Right now. Come on. Kiss me. I want to suck on your tongue. Lick my neck. Pull my hair. Bend me over. Come on. How do I feel for thee? That’s how I feel. What, why are you so worried now? Bring that smile back baby, make me feel diseased. You know you want it, more than I do. I’m ready to procreate, baby, with you. And then, do it for me, prove it to me, that you love me, like you said you would. Shed some skin. Stab yourself. Tear your hair out. I’ll help you. I want to see pain on your face, along with that wicked smile. Come on, please, don’t stop smiling.

The lights pulsated, gray, then black. Heads bobbed all around them. He left. Her eyes rolled back into her head.

**********



Lyrics

Crystal Castles are a Canadian band. Unlike fellow Canadian band Exciter, Crystal Castles sound like the music in a video game where ravers have to take a bunch of pills to save a shipment of glowsticks.

Victor David Giron is a writer who lives in Chicago, IL. He's the head honcho over at Curbside Splendor, an independent publishing company based out of Chicago that aims to publish solid writing, often with an urban tilt. He is the author of the coming-of-age novel Sophomoric Philosophy. Buy it. He's got a couple little kids who seem pretty rad and he likes The Sonics. No word yet on if he likes the restaurant Sonic.

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Next week: A story based on "Life Passed Me By" by Super Stereo, as suggested by writer Monica Rodriguez.

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Sittin' In: "Finton the Fearless" by Mike Sweeney, as based on the song "I Am A Tree" by Guided By Voices

Finton the Fearless

I am a man! cried Finton the Fearless.

I am a man who no man can break by sword or fist or lance!

Pride cometh, whispered Myrrdin.

I am a tree now.

Older than my rings will tell you for I count my age in the burdens I’ve carried not in the seasons passed.

I hate backhoes.

I was the man who no man could break, but who was broken nonetheless. Aisling Aine – the seasons still sing her name – was my love and my love was found hanging in the damp and mist on the morning of the Day Without Name.

Who could neglect a creature so?

Pain and the chill, ice in my heart, my heart to hers, dank and cold.

Finton the Fearless pressed into the bark. I don’t want to feel.

Chain saws, I also rank as obnoxious.

I really despise the sonuvabitch in the wife beater t-shirt. It’s not that he hits little Aggie. That would be too easy. For that I would sick my Sciuridae army upon him. Gnaw and feast, my little brothers would.

But he doesn’t hit.

I hit once. I struck so hard three men fell at one blow and Myrrdin said, will you be my champion?

But, Finton said, I have no use for titles or gold or glory now, stupid mage.

You have use for me, said Myrrdin. This I can end.

The manchild’s sin isn’t violence, it’s indifference. There is nothing so cruel as to ignore a love given so genuinely. It is the worst form of torture.

But I can end the agony, whispered Myrrdin.

How? asked he who once was Finton and fearless.

Take the cup for me. Protect it. Hide the prize in the world unknown and I will set you free.

Little Aggie should be set free. Not so little anymore. A score and two, I reckon. Just yesterday it seemed she was feral and wiry, innocent bare limbs scrambling over my bark to ascend, to hide away behind my ramparts, and imagine herself the queen in a land I used to know.

I would protect her.

Silly, silly, Finton, whispers the bird, the flying jackass. The mage said you wouldn’t feel. He never said you’d forget.

You have champions, said I. You have the Table and the Sword.

No more, hissed Myrrdin. Once, and perhaps again. But no more.

He wept.

I drank his ambrosia.

I crossed into lands not seen by my kind in millennia. I slew men of every color and tongue and dined on bear and dragon. Legend would’ve been my name but secrecy was my cloak.

It’s why he chose me: not for skill with the blade, but because I wanted to be forgotten.

Through the great untouched forests I walked: my mission, my salve; my burden, my salvation.

So I thought.

Bury it deep, Myrrdin said. Give it back to the soil and let the land thank us both.

It took my torment away and bade me stand watch in return.

No more.

Sub-division or strip mall? I care not.

Tell Myrrdin I’m coming.

Will he let you into the sky when you fall, asks the flying jackass.

Tell him the cup is still safe, deep in the Jersey earth, the best and most beautiful in the world. No one will seek it under a new Best Buy.

Come then, says the bird. We’re all waiting.

Smoke and oil. I wish the men who finally spill my sap were better. Have the decency to use a fucking axe.

The chain cuts my skin and Finton the Tree is not afraid.

The backhoe rears and lunges. Finton the Tree laughs.

I aim for the manchild’s new Camaro.

I don’t hear the crash, don’t see where I land.

Up. The bird leads me home at last.

**********



Lyrics

Guided By Voices is a band from Ohio. In singer Robert Pollard's quest to create the perfect pop song, he's churned out hundreds of songs with dozens of line-ups. If you want to give a record collector a boner, ask him about his GBV 7" collection.

Mike Sweeney is a writer from New Jersey. Writing his bio became impossible when Google searches for "Mike Sweeney writer" came up with 172,000 websites dedicated to some schmuck who writes for Conan O'Brien. No matter. The real Mike Sweeney likes to write absurd things, and he's rather good at it. In fact, his sort story "The Werebear Who Wished To Come In From the Rain" closes out The 2010 Jersey Devil Press Anthology, a fine book full of other OBCBYL alumni and yours truly. That means you should purchase it immediately. In my mind, Mike hangs out with Danzig, Balls Mahoney, and Kevin Smith all the time, which is the only way to make him cooler than he already is.

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Next week: Undecided. Send in some suggestions!

Sittin' In: "Double or Nothing" by Eirik Gumeny, as based on the song "Waiting For An Alibi" by Thin Lizzy

Double or Nothing

Ramirez went down in the second. A couple times. He’s standing now, on the ropes, uncertain of his footing, of where he is, but he’s standing. The referee calls it anyway. TKO.

Shit.

The room erupts, four thousand people on their feet at once, spilling drinks and tossing fight cards, shouting and calling for blood.

I grab Maria’s hand and make a break for the exit.

* * *

Outside the casino, I light a cigarette mid-stride and start, quick, toward the St. James stairs. I can hear Maria behind me, the crowd pouring out of the casino behind her.

“Val,” she says. “Slow down, Val. What the hell’s going on?”

I can hear the staccato of her heels against the boardwalk. I’ve got nearly a foot on her; she’s practically jogging to keep up.

“Val!”

I ease up, just enough to let her know I heard, but I’m still moving. Her steps are staggered by vodka and vanity, like Morse code against the salt-stained wood. She’s sending me a message, a broken S.O.S.

I’m halfway to the stairs when she finally catches up. I feel her next to me, her hand warm against mine. I can’t keep myself from slowing.

“Val,” she says.

“Maria . . .” I say.

“Valentino!” says someone else.

Shit.

“Shit.”

I toss what’s left of the cigarette, grab Maria’s arm, and start sprinting.

“God damn it, Val,” she says. She’s furious, stumbling, but she’s running. Right now, that’s good enough.

We fly down the stairs, off the boardwalk and onto St. James. I turn sharp, barrel through the door of some dive bar and collide with a table. I kick it to the side.

“Jesus, Valentino,” says Maria. She’s on one bare foot, removing her shoe from the other.

“The back,” I say, nodding toward the kitchen door.

I can hear the fat man behind the bar shouting.

Maria throws her heels in his face.

* * *

“Valentino,” Maria says, her hand on my back. “Talk to me, God damn it.”

We’re eight blocks from the bar, in the parking deck beneath some boarded up motel. I’m bent at the waist, elbows on the hood of my car, sucking wind and seeing stars. I haven’t had to move like that in years.

“Valentino.”

“We gotta go, Maria,” I say, my chest heaving. I stand, eyes still swimming. “And then you’re not gonna want to be around me, not for a while.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Things – the fight – didn’t go the way they were supposed to. The way I said they would. And now I gotta get outta here.”

I hit the keychain in my pocket, unlock the doors.

“We gotta get outta here.”

I pull open the passenger side door.

“What did you do, Valentino?” she says, her voice cracking.

It’s not fear, though. And it’s not a question. It’s anger, accusation. She knows me too damn well.

“I fucked up, Maria. Took money from the wrong guys, told them to put it on an even worse fighter.”

There’s footsteps, echoing against the buildings across the street. Voices. They’re not happy.

Shit.

“Who is that?” she asks.

“No one you want to know,” I answer.

I hit the button for the trunk on the keychain, hear the thunk as it opens. I walk to Maria and take her hands in mine.

“I will never understand why a woman like you is wasting her time with me,” I say.

I kiss her hard. Then I give her the keys.

“You know what kind of shit is about to go down. I don’t want you here for it. I don’t want you to see it, and I don’t want them to see you. You need to run.”

“Val . . .”

“Go. You have to.”

I go to the trunk, lift the door all the way open. I stand, holding it with both hands, and take a deep breath.

“Maria,” I say, “I love you. When you’re around I’m a better person, smarter. I don’t do the kind of shit that gets me into situations like this. All I want is to be with you, a million miles from here, where tonight is nothing but a terrible memory.”

I grab the tire iron from inside the spare and step back.

“But I’ve got to get through this before I can forget it.”

Maria’s standing next to me.

“Maria . . .”

She reaches into the trunk and returns with an aluminum baseball bat.

“I love you, too, Val,” she says, resting the bat on her shoulder, “but I wish like fuck I didn’t.”

Shadows spill down the street, crawling across the opening of the parking deck. We can hear the voices distinctly now. They’re still not happy.

“I wish you didn’t either.”

I can’t keep myself from smiling.

**********



Lyrics

Thin Lizzy is the best band ever.

Eirik Gumeny is a writer from New Jersey. He runs Jersey Devil Press and knows what to do in Denver when you're dead. His book,Exponential Apocalypse, has bad words and pop culture references, which the 15-year-old in me cheers, and great writing, which the English major in me cheers. Place your orders along with the other book JDP released this year: the 2010 Jersey Devil Press Anthology, featuring almost two dozen stories in it, including one by yours truly and one by OBCBYL alumnus yt sumner. Get that one, too. Eirik's favorite pizza topping is victory.

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Next week: A story based on "Rock n Roll" by Paleface, as suggested by Mo from Paleface.

A Call For Guest Posts

Starting in November of 2011, I'll be posting a new story every Wednesday from a guest writer. Submissions are open to everyone. Unfortunately, I will not be able to accept every story, but I will try to leave unique comments when responding with a rejection.

GUIDELINES

* Stories should not exceed 1000 words, not including the title (this makes a big difference sometimes, I know).

* Stories must be sent as an attachment (.doc preferred, but I won't snub my nose at .rtf or .docx). Please don't copy your work into the body of the e-mail. If sending more than one story, it doesn't matter if you attach two individual files or combine both stories into one document.

* I'm not too picky on the formatting of the story itself, but don't be a dickhead. Shoot for 12-point Times New Roman with 1" margins unless you have a really good reason not too. I can already tell you that your story does not look better in Comic Sans or Chiller. Also, I don't care if the body of the work is single-spaced with a line break between each paragraph or double spaced with a tab at the beginning of each paragraph, as long as it's readable.

* For the e-mail itself, format the subject line like this: SUBMISSION, YOUR NAME, TITLE OF STORY. (Ex: Submission, Samuel Snoek-Brown, "Orgasm In French"). I don't need a fancy cover letter or anything, but it'd be nice if you clued me in to some information that could be crucial--simultaneous submissions, a bio written in third person, which song your story is based on, etc.

* Simultaneous submissions are totally cool with me, just make sure you let me know right away if someone else has picked up the story. I'm going to try to respond within a few weeks, but response time is usually much shorter than that. Please query if you don't hear back within a month. I'm not interested in previously published work. (And, actually, I think it'd be kind of weird if you just already had a story sitting around that was based on one of the available songs.)

WHAT I LOOK FOR WHEN I READ A STORY FOR OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIT
I look for some sort of synchronicity between the story and the song, both lyrically and musically. Sometimes it manifests itself as a glorious retelling of the narrative and sometimes it's a left-field interpretation on some parallel plane of reality. Either one, or anything in between, is acceptable, as along as it's a good story. Let one medium twist itself into another and interpret the song as you see fit. There's that one quote abut how writing about music is like dancing about architecture, and maybe whoever said it is right, but writing through music is a different thing entirely. So do that, instead.

Please send one or two of your most realized, completed attempts at capturing one of the songs below.

Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You

Roky Erickson - Two Headed Dog (Red Temple Prayer)

Morphine - Cure For Pain

Lifter Puller - Sherman City

T. Rex - Life's a Gas

Prince - Pussy Control

Floor - Night Full of Kicks

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Moya

Sleep - Dopesmoker

Dinosaur Jr - Tarpit

Earth - Omens and Portents I - The Driver (Taken by Samuel Snoek-Brown)

Thin Lizzy - Waiting For An Alibi (Taken by Eirik Gumeny)

Guided By Voices - I Am A Tree (Taken by Mike Sweeney)

Swans - Failure (Taken by Melina Rutter)

As soon as someone does a story about one of the songs, I'll cross it off and add a new one (so check back every week). When the story goes up, I'll provide a link to it.
Send away, y'all: ryan.j.werner [at] gmail.com

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Sittin' In: "Buzz" by Samuel Snoek-Brown, as based on the song "Omens and Portents I - The Driver" by Earth

It's only fitting that Sam Snoek-Brown stepped up to the plate to sit in on this week's OBCBYL, as I spent a fair amount of my time away from this project reading/editing/mocking/feedbacking the stories in a collection he recently finished. (Ten years of work, but a hell of an anthology so far and only getting better. Butthole Surfers fans, stay on the lookout.) He whipped up a killer little short short about Earth's "Omen's & Portents I - The Driver" and I did some Gordon Lish style heavy-editing to it--with Sam's consent, of course.

I'll be back next week with a story based on "Code Blue" by TSOL, but for now, enjoy Sam's story (and check out his blogs).

(Also, for anyone else interested, the list of songs featured in this post still stands if anyone would like to do a story for OBCBYL in the future. I'll always take time off if it shows up.)

**********

Buzz

There had been thunder, flat as a hand, driving in the storm behind Ray, and it had reminded him of earlier, the click and the pounce and the silence. He’d left shortly afterward and had been in the old Ford for some time, almost nine hours since, with the promise of Texas hills ahead of him.

He wasn’t sure he could sleep or if he deserved it anywhere except behind the wheel. When he saw a rest stop up ahead, he felt like he’d found a church. He didn’t need confession, he just needed sanctuary. For now, sleep. Forgiveness would come later or not at all.

He parked his car and dozed in a driving position, his head leaned back against the seat. When he woke, he did so in a flash, gripping the air with all fingers. He blinked and looked at his hands, remembering the way the white noise we all hear every day—the hum of lightbulbs and refrigerators—grew louder in his head, like a bright pang of reverb, and then snapped off in an echo.

A door opened and closed behind him. Ray sat up and cranked the car. The sun had just stuck up over the hills as the starter whined and quit. He scooted forward in his seat and turned the key again. Nothing else happened. He tried the radio. Static. Silence. Again.

He thought about the car that woke him, but when he turned in his seat to find it he saw it was a state trooper’s. He squinted his eyes and saw the seats were empty. He pulled on the door handle and eased out of his car, left his door open. Stubby cedar trees dropped down a slope behind the rest stop. A tangle of barbed wire outlined the woods.

“Can I help you?” the trooper asked from the restroom doorway, a paper towel still in his hands.
Ray swallowed and blurted out, “Battery’s dead.”

“Don’t you worry none,” the trooper said. “Got some cables, I’ll give you a jump.”

As they stood between the open hoods, the trooper’s engine running and Ray’s battery charging, the trooper said, “Arizona plates? You drive all this way by yourself?”

“My wife,” he said. He had left her on the floor, head broken and limp as a single plum in a plastic bag. Her neck turned purple before he even made it out the door. Ray felt, but did not hear, the slight crunch of her throat in his hands, like a beetle under his foot. “She’s back home.”

The trooper nodded, said, “Shoot, I wish sometimes I could get away myself.”

Ray’s stomach churned. Blood throbbed in his brain, bile jumped into his throat and burned. Sweat poured from his messy, oily hair and dripped all down his arms. When he opened his mouth, he vomited in a spray that splattered the trooper’s pants and car. Ray himself fell down alongside the vomit, and nearly beat it to the ground. The trooper jumped back and cussed, then said, “Listen, sir, no offense, but you been drinking?”

Ray coughed twice, gripped the trooper’s shoulder, and pulled himself up to his knees. “No sir, I’ve just been driving all night to get here.”

“Well, I feel a little woozy after a double night shift m’self. I guess that and the heat must of done it to you.”

Ray nodded along, anything to explain himself. The tropper insisted Ray not drive just yet and offered to take him the twenty miles into town and back. Ray was in no position to decline, though he tried faintly to do so.

As they stood there waiting for the battery to finish charging, Ray stared at the shotgun perched between the front two seats. The trooper spoke into the microphone clipped to his epaulette, and he was writing something, then he opened the back door for Ray.

They pulled out from the rest stop, the sky behind the car, back west, roiling dark and thick. Little flashes jumped in the clouds and the trooper said, “It’s something, ain’t it? It’s all one system, I think. Pretty sure it started east of California, just inside Arizona. You must of been just ahead of it the whole way.”

Ray thought of his wife eyes bulged in their sockets, the vessels an absurd red. The living room furniture lay in ruins around her. Two flies moving through the dust mites.

It was so silent then.

**********

Earth is a band that used to play really loud, heavy-as-fuck power drone music until guitarist/leader Dylan Carlson took too many drugs (and then stopped taking drugs). Then all the songs became like the background music to a western made in Hell. One time, while listening to Earth 2, I thought my brain stopped working. It was that awesome. This song is from the 2008 album The Bees Made Honey In the Lion's Skull, which I played one time for a girlfriend who said, five minutes into the first song, "So it's pretty much just this for 45 minutes?"

Samuel Snoek-Brown is a Texan living in the Middle East. He owns over 400 bolo-ties. He has been known to write short fiction, with his most well-known story being "Orgasm In French." He put out a poetry chapbook as an undergrad. I think one dude bought it (collector's item, bro). Due to "a few" streaks of grey in his hair, he refers to himself as "the Anderson Cooper of literary fiction." Here's a link to some of his stories, all of which should be required reading for any writer worth their weight in free trade coffee and black berets. He runs a blog about smiley faces and I'm pretty sure I saw him wearing a Rusted Root shirt once. Everything else about him is unknown.

Our Band Could Be Your Lit on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Next week: A story based on "Code Blue" by TSOL, as suggested by writer Matt Baker.

Sittin' In: "A Short Illness" by David Maizenberg, as based on the song "Good Fortune" by PJ Harvey

If you want to be a jerk about it, you could say that I spent too much time reading comics and buying old Rod Stewart shirts on eBay, and when it came time to write this week's story, I let it slide because it was the one thing I had to do that required any actual thought. However, I encourage you to be civil and look at the facts: I worked an unusual number of hours (read: full time, like any other functioning member of society) this past week in addition to having to find time for music-related projects such as two band practices, two shows I rocked out front row at, and listening to the new albums by Heart, Accept, and Katy Perry (I'm not as surprised as I wish I was that Katy Perry's is the best of the lot).

Regardless, I wrote no story for this week. Not even a first draft. I listened to the song, got no ideas, and went back to not writing the story. I blame exhaustion. Luckily, in his attempts to help me out, my friend and fellow fiction nerd Samuel Snoek-Brown was soliciting this website out to some writers he knows. David Maizenberg thought he was taking the bait. Really, though, Dave is the one who reeled me in. He thought he was to write a story based on a song of his choosing. I blame Sam's explanation of the project, which is probably a verbatim copy of my explanation of the project. So, I blame me.

Write a story based on a song of his choosing is exactly what Dave did, and it turned out fantastic. I've been toying with the idea of having guest stories every once in awhile, though I was originally opposed to it. If the quality comes out like this every time, however, I don't see how I can stay in that frame of mind.

Enough blabbering. Here's Dave's story. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

**********

A Short Illness
(Fiction inspired by PJ Harveyʼs song and video for “Good Fortune”, for Ryan Wernerʼs song-inspiration website project. August 2010)

When I found her, in winter, she was a beautiful, starving disaster. Bundled in throws and jackets, a kaleidoscope of bad choices and artistic fantasies. When she left me, in summer, she was a wraith, on a mission, sleek black, armored by my love, in the glow of the secrets I revealed to her. God knows how I worshiped that fickle witch. And now every night is a lonely fantasy. Visions of her naked writhing, her wide mouth, her whispered visions.

She was coming off some real bad luck that winter. Her appearance was unsettling. Beneath colorful thriftstore coats and shawls she wore draped over her boney clavicles an ancient cashmere cardigan, grey, the color of her disposition and the city’s winter-blasted sky. Her hair was a mousy brown, the tips blond and red from ancient dye jobs. Her hungry eyes stared out half-hidden behind her bangs.

She’d been on some complicated missions, and they’d all failed. She was of the surprised generation. The generation that discovered it didn’t really know what it wanted after all. Unmoored from traditions, betrayed by theories, left with nothing, the party had long ago stopped.

I stripped her down, unwrapped her identities, sat her on my bed, and performed a great and intricate magic show for her. I took my limbs apart, wrapped them in my lungs, tied the whole package with my ligaments, and gave it all to her: my secret wisdom, the key to my luck and prosperity.

Winter turned to spring and she became a new woman, her hair jet black, her gaze steady and vulpine. I introduced her to my friends, hoping they would tame her, but she insulted every one. They are simple people who just want to have a good time. They feared for my safety. Nobody knew what she wanted or what she would do to me. They suspected she was prone to random attacks. And she would never surrender the tasty discipline of her starvation fetish.

By summertime she was entirely new and ready for the next phase of her life. She no longer needed me, and she told me so directly. I could not respond at first. The air was hazy and tasted full of grit. Finally I burst out “I love you more than life itself!”

I regretted saying it the moment it left my mouth. How absurd and grandiose a statement. What could such a pronouncement possibly mean in our world? Such love would make any normal person uncomfortable. In her it brought forth venom. At first she looked appalled, but then all at once she smiled, knowing now she was free for sure. She went to the window to smoke, tap her high heeled boots against the wall, and prepare a few words to mark her exhuberant departure, complete with a handbag twirling, life resetting street celebration. I had given her my mojo and she gobbled it up! What an appetite she turned out to have! And now she was heading back out into the streets from which she came.

Its a pitch black night and the apartment is empty. I go to a bar and get too drunk to stand. As she dances past the window she sees me slipping, windmilling backwards, and then collapsing, knocking over a table and chair in my fall. As my faithful friends rush to help me she just walks past, knowing she cannot be seen in the darkness.

**********



Lyrics

PJ Harvey is a svelte musician from Corscombe, Dorset in South West England. She has worked solo, with the PJ Harvey Trio, and contributed to multiple songs on the Desert Sessions series.

David Maizenberg wrote stories and scripts back in the nineties. Thankfully heʼs been otherwise occupied since then. But every once in a while . . .

(Note: Dave wrote his own bio. PJ did not.)

Our Band Could Be Your Lit on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Next week: A story based on "Your Friend and Mine--Neil's Song" by Love, as suggested by musician Bob Bucko Jr. (For real this time.)