My Thoughts on 'Meet The Beatles', Song by Song

 Track 1: I Want To Hold Your Hand

The opening salvo of the British Invasion begins with a thundering two chord attack repeated three times like shells hitting the beach. The wash of Ringo’s cymbals are the sloshing boots of the troops wading ashore. The chords are IV-V,  (C to D) IV- V, IV- V, building up at last to release to the I, (G). I can't think of any rock song previous to this recording doing a two chord intro. In 1962, Green Onions begins with one three chord riff built from the one, repeated in a blues progression and transposed from the four to the five. In April of 1963, six months before IWTHYH is recorded, The Kingsmen track their version of Louie Louie which begins with electric piano one four five-minor, that last chord being minor is crucial to the wickedness of that song. But here come the British with this two chord proto-metal power chording that would be honed to more vicious effect by the Kinks a half year later with You Really Got Me. 

The riff even captured Bob Dylan’s imagination, and in June of ‘64 he uses it in between each verse of ‘I Shall Be Free No. 10’, from Another Side Of Bob Dylan. He lets everyone in on the joke in the last verse: “..aw it’s nothin’, just somethin’ I learned over in England...” Dylan would not actually “meet the Beatles” until two months later in New York. There of course he learns he has misheard the lyric “ I can’t hide” as “I get high”. Realizing the Beatles have never been high, he gets them high. 

Okay-back to the song. Landing on the one, John declares, “Oh yeah I’ll tell you somethin’...”, somethin’ lands on the five (D), then what the fuck just happened? Satan’s little monkey Paul McCartney rips a five note bass walk that takes us to the relative minor (Em) of the one (G), ...”I think you’ll understand...” now to the relative minor of the five- (Bm!!!). NO, ACTUALLY I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. This chord progression is from outer space, but it’s cool as fuck. It’s emotionally jarring to shift like this from major to minor. They do the same thing in She Loves You, just rearranged slightly...one- six minor, three minor, five. Pardon my limited musical theory knowledge, I’m basing my note numbers off a major scale- forgive me if I’m butchering this. 

The bridge is a nice break in the tension, starts with a jazzy Dm7, kinda like an F but missing the ring and pinky finger. I’m sure young John and Paul rode several buses around Liddypool to find a bloke that knew that chord. You can hear the acoustic Gibson J-160 in this part as well. It’s all chill until that two chord riff comes back with “ I can’t hide”. Nice work. Lots of cool noises on this song that get better with age on old crackly vinyl. The handclaps. I had no idea what made that sound when I was a kid, but they are good claps- really full sounding. George’s little guitar “meow” every time right at the end of the previously mentioned satanic bass walk. It’s the seeds of metal, mang. Finally the song ends with a nice flourish, a kink or bend in the chord progression- ham-mer-ing-out-the-fin-a-le--kind of show-bizzy, music hall razmataz- but it’s still cool- and you can visualize the three up front bowing in unison afterward..every time. 

Track 2: I Saw Her Standing There. Last week I went to an ENT, or otolaryngologist to look at my big tonsil. I had a sore throat and worried I had Covid. Turned out to be nothing to worry about, but I had some time waiting in the exam room where they have those illustrated charts of the gory insides of ears, noses, and throats. I was looking at the weird tissues behind our eardrums that lead to our brains. They're not sexy looking at all, like fallopian tubes, or the vas deferens, but what they all have in common is they're part of our reproduction. This song makes me think about all that tiny delicate tissue, and how the particular waves of air this song creates goes to my sex brain. The bassline Paul stole from Chuck Berry's Talkin' Bout You is sped up like the heartbeat of young me on the brink of the first time in the front seat of a first car. This is all out dance party 1963, the kind of dance party I would have gone to, not the ones I ducked in school in the mid 80s. This song sounds really killer LOUD. I heard it once over a PA between bands at the Sunset Tavern and it took me back to my virgin child ears when I first heard it. Back then everything was loud. Anyway, my point about this song is that it's the air it moves in a room that's important . That and the C chord that comes out of nowhere at the ooooohs before the title in chorus. They had a straight forward rock song and then Lucifer shows up again with a demonic C in a key of E song. Okay. Next up is This Boy. I need some time on that one.

Track 3: This Boy .    There will be no deep dive here- only surface observations. I do not hate this song. Nor does it belong in my favorites. The vocals are fantastic, and if this was the first Beatles album you got your hands on as a 13 year old girl in 1964, you'd definitely let your romantic imagination run wild with the back cover propped up on your pillow picking out the cutest one in that cock-sure black and white line up of the boys in the Pierre Cardin suits and cuban heeled boots. Why is George stiff-arming Ringo? Halitosis? Anyway as far as mix tapes go, or the art of song sequencing, this is a perfect slot for this song. Someone at Capitol had this job, because MTB is a mix tape of sorts from the UK albums and singles previous. It goes back to the reason I will always prefer a listen to MTB as an album opposed to With The Beatles. I posted months or maybe a year back about how the cover of Meet is better than With on many levels. The all-caps urgency as opposed to the lower case understatement- The color tint of the photograph in a blue hue, and the fonts blue and brown as opposed to straight stark B&W. I guess this song means more to me as an interlude to study the fonts and pictures. The Franklin Gothic text that was so prevalent in the early sixties, Century (?) small print fonts , Some kind of sans serif bold Helvetica or Impact for the front cover...someone help me. Anyway, the song is great, but for me it reminds me of an intermission to study every last microscopic detail of the art design of this album. I read a bit about the song on the internet but I'm saving my Smokey Robinson take for later...I guess you could say this is an early peak into the dichotomy of John's rough and ready Teddy boy and sensitive  side thing, but I'm not into going there either. It hints a bit at his complicated feelings toward women that proves problematic in this time.  Always scoring honesty points, dude can't help it.   I will say John knocked it out of the park- great song, not one I would put on a playlist, but it's damn good ...but  oh my-i -i -i...

Track #4 It Won't Be Long... this song begins like a police siren...yeah YEAH yeah YEAH..so urgent and jarring. The Beatles are saying YEAH again and again to remind everyone that yeah, this is really happening. We're coming to fuck up everything you thought was normal. Sorry your president got his brains blown out in Dallas, but we're going to pick up some slack with the traumatized youth and challenge the idea of dying for a domino theory in Vietnam. Once the dramatic intro is over the verse goes pre-metal and/or punk with E to C. This is again satanic rock. You're coming home, you're coming home, as if there's some "home " these sexy beasts have established for you. There's also Lennon,  thinking there's somewhere else everybody has fun..isn't that where you are? Oh no it's not. We'll be reminded over and over again that John is nowhere anything fun is...because he's already living in his head. None of the parties or sex will ever be fun to this thoughty guy..we're going to hear about it for a while..Lennon would be a boring rapper. The descending guitar riff is again pre metal,  and my laboratory DNA test takes it back to the Everly Brothers "When Will I Be Loved"..okay  nuff said.

Track#5. All I've Got To Do. Opens with the coolest jazz chord ever. Then John begins with  "Whenever..." and from there he's all Smokey Robinson. Soon its apparent that Richard Starkey is the best drummer in the world. He'll prove it again in two years on In My Life. Listen close to how Ringo maneuvers the hi hat around the verses, and how he masters the same art of serving a song on IML. Paul too is half noting some bass notes that give this painting some dark tones beautifully. At this time the early Stones, and young Clapton, Animals etc, were blues obsessed, but the Beatles seemed to be more open to soul and girl groups of color influences paving the way to the new pop paradigm. Again throwing back in the face of America their greatest natural resource. Why have you colonists overlooked this treasure? Mmmm ing to the fade is also brilliant. This is the sexiest song on this LP. It might be a tough week to think about John, the 40th marking of his exit is Tuesday,  and I may have to remark on my memory as a 9 year old then...ok, thanks

DEC. 8, 2020

This was the magazine I was reading on the Greyhound bus from Pocatello to Twin Falls, Idaho during Christmas 1980. My mom bought me a copy for the trip. I was going to my Dad's house in Hailey, he was picking me up. A few weeks before- actually 40 years ago tomorrow, my mom woke me up for school and told me John Lennon was dead. I was 9, in 4th grade, and had been a Beatle geek for only about 2 years. The Beatles had broken up a year before I was born- so I will never understand what the draw was, other than a past life regression- no clue. But it would have been Tues. morning of Dec. 9 when I went to school learning of the tragedy first thing. The event happened on the east coast two time zones away way past my bedtime the night before. I've often told the story that a girl sitting next to me asked me what was wrong, as I must have been glum. "My favorite Beatle died", and her response was, "what? Did somebody step on him? hee hee" It seems a lot cuter now and so innocent from a child's mouth, even clever- but that day it felt very cruel and lonely to little Gabe Millward (my name back then.) Anyway a few weeks later I'm riding the bus, reading this Newsweek cover to cover- there's a pic of a sad 17 year old Julian in there...that I remember.. When I got to my dad's house later that night I was introduced to Beatles '65, a record my stepmom owned, which my mom did not own. It was magical hearing a new set of songs from my heroes that cold snowy Idaho night in front of a pot belly stove. "This happened once before........"

Track #6 ALL MY LOVING

This song is the perfect example of Northern Songs Ltd’s ambitions and direction as a pop song factory. In interviews from 1963 it is evident that the fleeting ephemera of pop stardom is not lost on any of the Fab Four.  They all seem steeled to the fact they could soon be yesterday’s papers. Both John and Paul have a firm grip that their bankable future relies on more on their songwriting partnership than their good looks. On its face this is a perfectly innocuous catchy number guaranteed to make any teenage girl scream into her pillow fantasizing about all that loving. Thanks to the nerd world of YouTube we get a good look at what’s happening behind Paul harmonizing with himself (a first in the Beatle song list if I’m not mistaken). I watched three videos where nerds played the isolated bass, rhythm, and lead guitar parts with the similar vintage instrument: Hofner viola bass, Rickenbacker 325, and Gretsch Country Gentleman- of course! Paul’s bass work is quite stunning- it makes me realize how sucky of a bass player I am, and have always been in different projects. James Jamerson comes to mind, and I’m not enough of a Motown scholar to know which if any songs he recorded shaped Macca’s style. It’s clear he was studying bassists of color, and vocalists too. It’s also clear he was self conscious about appropriation as heard in outtakes from Anthology later, muttering, “Plastic soul man, plastic soul..”  John mastered the art of steady right hand rhythm probably as a lad in his room in Mendips- maybe before he even held a guitar if you know what I mean. I doubt I could pull off the galloping triplets throughout the verses without cramping or losing my pick. It’s a remarkable feat. Next up we have George who is straight up ska, mon, through the verses, then jumps from Jamaica to Nashville with the Chet Atkins solo. I think about this song much differently now after seeing the moving parts underneath. I would go into Ringo, but I am out of gas. I don’t know if I could sing his praise here with any justice. I leave that for the comment section below- for ye of better drumming knowledge..

Track #7, side two DON'T BOTHER ME..our first Harrisong! Well kinda, there is the only Lennon /Harrison song instrumental Cry For A Shadow recorded in Hamburg in 1961. This is fitting, because DBM reminds me a LOT of another instrumental: Pipeline by the Chantays, recorded in 1962. Both are very surfy... drenched in wet reverb and tremelo effects. Also very dark sounding with punk as fuck minor chords. George's first real Beatles song entry has all the DNA of most of his contributions besides the pop gold of Something and Here Comes The Sun, arguably tracks that belong more to All Things Must Pass. Anyhoo all of the kicked around, disrespected youngest brother's sentiments revolve around bitterness: like Think For Yourself,  Taxman,  Love You To, Only A Northern Song, Piggies, I Me Mine...dude hated being a Beatle first. And who can blame him? That's why his handful of songs are so cool..fucking off the peace love bullshit from the get. DBM kicks off his song style in an awesome way..side two..guess who doesn't give a shit already about screaming girls? A stark middle finger to the idea of commercial pop. I fucking love this song. The fact they all let him do it and include it this early says volumes about their war buddy bond at this point. What a great counterpoint to the ebullient hand holding and sweet loving John and Paul have been on about thus far. I'm guessing John must have marvelled at his little brother's lyrics,  fuck yeah, I don't want to be bothered either! I'm going to write a shitload of tunes about checking out and fucking everybody off, just as soon as I can get away with it.

Tracks #8 & 9: LITTLE CHILD (trigger warning: SHADE THROWN)

I have never liked this song. It is, mercifully, the shortest song on this record. There is too much going on here. It’s loud and obnoxious in the bad way- like Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35. Rainy Day has the distinction of being The Worst Song On My Favorite Record Of All Time. I could take up the rest of this post with Dylan sidebar, I’d rather eat the barrel of a shotgun than hear anyone sing along with that chorus. It makes one want to re-watch the ‘68 Democratic Convention riots and root for the cops. Ok, back to Little Child. The title itself is problematic and creepy. Referring to your dancing and/or potential sex partner as “child” is super weird. John Lennon harmonica is wonderful on Love Me Do and I Should Have Known Better, but here - love me don’t, and someone should have known better. The piano is not working for me either. The only moment of early years “rock out” piano I like is on “Slow Down”. (Favorite piano part in a Beatles song: I Want To Tell You) OK- Let’s talk a minute about Beatle-shade. I’m going to get my share of blowback, which I’m cool with. There’s nothing more annoying than Best to Worst, or Worst to Best lists of Beatles songs, or albums. They always drive me nuts because the Beatles appealed to too many people. Same with Dylan and the Stones- the careers and catalogs are so long and wide there’s a lot of all-comers. There won’t be a consensus, which I’m cool with too. So, COME AT ME BRO- I will not defend myself. I will meekly and wimpily just say this whole exercise is editorial, just one geek’s opinion. I would love to hear a defense of Little Child, like I heard for 

TILL THERE WAS YOU  getting this one out of the way too- this would be included in the needle lift from Don’t Bother Me to Hold Me Tight. The one cover here, and a show tune. Meh. Nice guitar work by George. This recording would stand out as one weakness in the tiresome Beatles vs. Stones argument. This song would be on one end of Paul’s broad spectrum, where Helter Skelter would be on the far other end. 

Track 10, HOLD ME TIGHT.  I love this song. It's a red headed stepchild of Beatles songs..kicked around and ignored as filler..I love the the way it chugs along like a freight train. There's no solo, just grinding guitars and Paul at his most mellifluous. It's dirty too..."making love to only you..", that's pretty explicit for 1963...they're "doing it"..what else can it mean? You don't make love by holding hands. The one four two five progression is common in country western turn arounds but in the bridge they go satanic once again with the C.."dont know..what it means to hold you tight..." and again at the coda where the freight train slows up to the station in a retard (c'mon now, this is a musical term..not being un-pc) "youuuu..hoo..oooh..youuu... oooh oooh.. I really liked the song as a kid because it was easy to figure out. Anyway, my weird ass shaded the last two tracks, perhaps unfairly, but I always champion HMT. The last impression I had as I listened again two minutes ago is the girl group seeds it has with the call and response . It cant be overstated the bulging suitcase of American music the Beatles brought back to America in the early days.. doowop, rockabilly, country, Motown,  girl groups,  R and B...this country seems to need constant reminding of its natural resources. Okay, we got two left . See you soon.

The 5 phases of Beatles:

CAVERN-BURG LEATHER DADDIES 1960-62

Perfect eye candy for a tortured and closeted Brian Epstein. Tougher looking than Teds, but a baby faced biker gang. 

SUITS AND HEELS 1963-64. Brian’s cleaned them up for Mum and Showbiz, but still a tad foppy with collar-less jackets and Cuban heels. 

STONER MODS 1965-66 Losing the ties, more corduroy and suede. Shaggy but clean shaven. 

THE CLOWN SHOW 1967-68 The circus is in town, or it’s a yearlong Halloween, or they’re all in Witness Protection. 

BEARDED BURNOUTS 1969-70  All you need is seething bitterness, Ennui All Live In a Yellow Submarine., 

TRACK 11 I WANNA BE YOUR MAN. grammar, stones, perfect open with a bend.

Before India, LSD, sitars, backward tapes, this is thee first single chord drone song. This is the black and white psychedelia MK Ultra-era sound of something that wasn’t. The Rolling Stones’ version is worth spinning on the other turntable if you happen to have two, to consider some things. Both versions were recorded within the same timespan by a matter of weeks. The Stones kicked out a very garagey version in one day, whereas the Fabs version was dubbed over the course of a month or two. The difference in production is quite stark, Oldham v. Martin. The sloppy Stones version is cool- but crude, lo fi, hard for me to say whether this is the way Let It Be SHOULD have been recorded

The opening guitar bend is the same as the beginning of Back In The USSR- five years later. 

Memories of 1986

Winter

I remember astronomy class and going somewhere dark and cold at 4 a.m. and still not really able to see Halley’s Comet.

I remember Mr. Parkin telling us casually the space shuttle exploded.

I watched it over and over with morbid fascination.

I remember getting busted for Shit Comics. I remember the scene Barney’s crazy dad made in the principal’s office about how he fought in Vietnam to save America from Lenny Bruce types.

Spring

I remember walking to Driver’s Ed in the crisp high desert morning air of Pocatello. We'd pick up tardy sleepy-head Robert Galloway who lived by Franklin Jr High, and had a habit of running that four way stop at Stanford and Terry. I remember instructor Mr. Thompson puzzled by the lyrics of a Billy Ocean song on the radio. I remember the new car smell of the ‘86 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera.

Summer

I remember my trip to San Jose to be with my friend George. I remember the nearby arcade, playing Choplifter, and how fun it was to strafe and kill the men you're supposed to rescue .

I remember my trip to Boston to be with my sisters Courtenay and Adrienne living in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood. I went to a theater nearby and saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and hated it. The Twist And Shout parade scene was unforgivably corny and sacrilegious to me. I hate the film to this day.

Fall

I remember all the silliness of initiation during pride week at Poky High. I probably still have my Class of ‘89 beanie somewhere, stained with shaving cream and humiliation. “Spin Sammy Spin” upperclassmen said holding the beanie as you had to twirl underneath to make sure the eggs or whatever mess was thoroughly shampooed into your hair.. The hazing wasn’t as terrifying as I imagined, but probably on par with a hate crime these days.

I remember our family rooting for the Red Sox and watching the games. I don’t remember seeing the Bill Buckner moment.

I can’t remember my 15th birthday. I have no idea what I did.

My favorite TV show was Our World with host Linda Ellerbee.

I didn’t care for any popular music of the time.

I collected comic books.

I didn’t date girls.

I had a crush on Linda Fiorentino from the Gotcha! movie poster

I don’t remember ringing in 1987.

Go Over There and Hold The Football!

"...knuckle-head deli.."
"Cabeza de nacco!"
"That's right, Cervando, you're a cah-beh-sah de knuckle!"
Tom gripped the joysticks of the skid-steer, the New Holland track loader that could spin on a dime. He'd ended up in the Sun Valley area as a Brooklyn transplant ski bum, and brought  his east coast attitude and accent with him.

 Cervando wore the late 80's mullet latino lover boy hair and tight jeans. He lived with Cesar, Reyes, and Jose Luis in the trailer park south of Ketchum, Red Top Meadows. We all called it Red Top Ghettos. I'd been to a few parties there.

"Knuckle head deli- tried to gyp me on the price..so I knocked him on the turban with a bag of ice.." Tom finished the lyric from 'High Plains Drifter' and spun the machine around to grab another burlap balled pine tree.
"Pinche Tomás es un man-yac."
I'd been out of high school a few years and my Spanish was undergoing a renaissance, so I gathered Cervando referred to all hueros as "maniacs".
We were in a hurry to finish the landscaping to an addition to the new sewage treatment plant. The  effluent odor hung in the air, and it was slightly tolerable, like a cheerleader's fart.

Donnie was in between junior and senior year in high school. He was the construction manager's son from a previous marriage. He lived  in Boise during the school year, but we got stuck with him for the summer.
No favors were afforded him or any of us on the bottom rung. We were kind of close in age and paired together often. He had stories of trysts with older women no one believed. It may have been feasible, but only with the most dissolute of Mrs. Robinsons.

Kirby had his hands full with the backhoe. Kirby and I were tight. He was 28 and completely out of control life-wise, but he was my mentor and protector. I'd been on a few fun adventures with him outside of work, barely staying out of small town trouble. His marriage and interaction with the cops were a weekly drama, but he stood up for me, and I loved him.

Mike was my dad's age and my first supervisor at PF & Co. He was missing a few teeth and his frame went a little sideways. He drove his own truck, which is why he always smelled like fried chicken and Coors Light. I went by nothing other than "Nicky" to Mike. It spilled out of his toothless mouth like a snake at times.."Heyyy Nickkyy!" When I got some time off to go to the first Lollapalooza  he gave me a raft of shit for going all that way to see that  "Asshole-Surfers" band.

I could see Cervando, Reyes, and Mota (Cesar) down the path moving float rakes, and Tom was spinning around in the skid steer. Donnie looked lost and was heading my way. I looked up from checking a valve box and Mike and Kirby were smiling at me.
"Guess what Nicky? You got Donnie."
"What??"
"Yep, you get Donnie. Donnie needs something to do. You got Donnie."
"But I don't want Donnie."
Shit. Here come's Donnie. I have to task boy wonder.
 
 "Hey Don, why don't you go over there and help out Cervando and Reyes rake out that berm."
"Those guys are just a bunch of monkeys fucking a football!
 "Well, ..go over there and hold the football!"

What It's Like To Be Shot

 Depending on where you’re hit you may not feel a thing at first. This was the case with me. I’m sure it’s very different depending on whether bones are hit, type of ammunition, grainage, velocity, distance. It's the kind of thing you only want to go through once. The bullet that traveled through me was a 9mm ball round, meaning it was just a solid slug of lead. Bullets are available in many creative designs meant to expand on impact and tear apart vital organs and leave large exit wounds.

 I lucked out. My entrance and exit wounds are pretty much the same size, about the size of your fingertip. The  path through my abdomen traversed large and small intestine, but just missed lumbar vertebrae and major arteries. Many times I’ve told this story I’ve related the sensation to that of being touched lightly in the belly and back simultaneously, but now I believe that's embellishment.  There was no moment of “feeling” anything other than the stunned shock of a loud report. There had to be more pressure on my eardrums than any perceptible feeling in my mid-section. It gets harder to  put the events in order those first following seconds, but my first thought was that of getting in trouble with the boss.

 It was the first week of June, 1993, and Andy and I were picked to go to Lake Walcott State Park, a Davis-Bacon job near Rupert, Idaho. The Davis-Bacon Act is a law enacted in 1931 where prevailing wage is paid to laborers on federally funded projects. This progressive legislation was actually sponsored by two Republicans, during the Hoover administration, before FDR and the New Deal. This meant we would be paid $13-something an hour compared to the $8- something an hour we were normally paid.Our company got the contract for the irrigation and landscaping of the new RV campsites at the park. The phase Andy and I were called up for was laying 10” sleeves across roadways.

 I had to pick up Andy at 3 in the morning of Wednesday, June 2 at the shop and hit the road. We were to leave Boise and get to Twin Falls that morning to pick up a trailer of 10” PVC. I thought the prospect of $13/hr would have had Andy at the shop on time, but I was wrong. Andy was a skinny 19-year-old, shaved head, smaller than me. I can’t remember where he lived, somewhere in Garden City. I went to his place one time after work. We drank a sixer of stubby malt liquors and listened to House Of Pain. He was one of those dudes that seemed a little shady, but relatively harmless.

 John Slaughter was already at Walcott. He had left the day before and got us rooms at the Budget Motel in Burley, right off I-84. John was the irrigation construction manager, and our direct boss. John was in his mid-thirties, Christian and conservative. He'd had a cocaine-fueled past, and his dark sense of humor made him a good guy by me. I admired him quite a bit, even though he did listen to Rush Limbaugh.

 It must have taken about five or six hours to get to the site. The first day we dropped off the trailer, and laid in a few sleeves. John ran the backhoe, Andy and I cleaned trench with round points, laid in pipe, bedded with soft dirt, then John backfilled and compacted.

 Andy had grown up in Burley. Like me he had fled a small  Idaho town for the “big city” of Boise.  After work Andy rang up some high school buddies from the motel. We had room 437, and Slaughter was down the breezeway. Around 6:00, a coterie of idiots showed up with one or two girls, I can’t remember. I went to the nearest convenience store for beer, being the only one of age. The gathering was mellow enough not to wreck my nerves by the likely trouble to come. Budweisers were guzzled, a joint was passed. I remember observing, detached, from my bed. The dudes had filtered out by ten or eleven, and one young lady stayed in Andy’s bed. I heard them fucking quietly before falling asleep.

 Thankfully that girl was gone by morning, and Andy and I headed back out to the site. It was an uneventful day of leaning on shovels under hot hardhats  until the hoe had the trench ready. Sleeve, bed, backfill, repeat. 
On the way back to the motel we drove through Burger King for dinner. They had some deal like three burgers for three bucks; a decent amount of calories for our per-diem money. We got back to the room and I hit the shower. When I got out Andy's friends had returned.


I could see my reflection in the stainless steel surfaced ceiling of the ambulance. The image was blurry, distorted like a funhouse. My only view since the EMT's put me on the gurney had been worm’s eye skyward with the scenery sort of rotating around my fixed spindle. We were on our way to Cassia Memorial and I see myself there on the ceiling looking back down at me, both of us in a blanket with an oxygen mask. A lot of the actual agony is beyond memory. The memory that agony was experienced exists, but not the physical memory of what it felt like. I can remember what the pain led me to think: Okay. If this is the end, let’s get it over already. Bring on the dark fade, or the bright light. There was no fear of death, only impatient anticipation of relief. But in the next moment I realized I existed in a world of family and friends who would be upset by this exit. So, I had to do my part and stop being such a pussy.

Soon the ambulance ceiling gave way to brief open sky, fluorescent lighted hallway,  the big lights of the ER. I was bawling and blubbering like a toddler that had fallen off a swing. Every story I’d read of soldiers slowly dying on battlefields crying out for their mothers made sense. There is a very real need for mommy that supersedes any macho imprinting at this level of helplessness.

 Damn. My first thought was "damn it, we’re all fucking busted! I’m so fucked for allowing Andy to have his friends over. I’m so fucked for buying them beer. We are so fired, a gun has gone off in our room!"

 I looked down toward my lap and noticed a wisp of smoke coming from a torn hole in the beltline of my pants. I reached around with my left hand and felt a wet spot in the small of my back. Holy fucking shit, I’ve just been shot in and out right fucking through me, holy shit. Noting the proximity of the wet spot to my spine I quickly stood up to see if my legs worked. They did. What the fuck is going on here? I sat back down. 
 “Better call 911.”
 Andy rushed the gun over to Israel, who had brought it.
 “Say you did it man, I have a warrant in Boise!” 
Israel quickly took a knee in front of me, trying to get me to hold the weapon. 
“Dude, say you shot yourself!” 
“Fucking call 911!!”

I don’t remember us sitting down and negotiating who would say what when the cops came. The police report written by one of what Burley consider their finest says that I reported the wound accidentally self-inflicted upon his arrival. I remember saying “I’ve been shot, it was an accident!” As the cop casually strolled in with a stupid bored look on his face. For some reason I imagined cops would arrive guns drawn to a shots-fired scene, and I wanted to quickly preempt any more ‘guns drawn’. I’m guessing Barney Fife was met outside the room first by one of the kids, and told I was in there, and had shot myself. 


 My pleas for morphine were denied. Who wrote this war movie? Instead I was impaled with a catheter up my urethra and NG tube into my nose and down the throat. Somewhere I found a cooperative  attitude toward these brutes. I even reported the fact I was wearing contact lenses as they rubbed the orange goo on my belly, and shaved my pubic hair. They plucked them out before I got wheeled into the OR. Everything suddenly got calmer  there. The frantic team were now gone, and it seemed my only company was a gentle voiced man who said, “I’m Dr. Lowell Feinstein, I’ll be your anesthesiologist. Just breathe into this...”

The nurses in ICU took an icy  tone with me. They weren’t going to mommy some young man in with gunshot wounds who probably had it coming. I did get a sarcastic “Awww, poor baby” when I cried during my first wound debridement. That was the daily routine of stuffing ribbons of cotton gauze into the bullet holes with a long swab. Twice a day they’d pull out the gauze along with all the dead tissue dried to it, then stuff new gauze in. This way the wounds heal inside out. I got used to it, and it became less painful. As with most gross things about your body, you eventually come to enjoy it, like picking your nose.

The first visitor was a blurry image. Not because of the meds, but because of the earlier foolishness of having my contacts removed before surgery.
Dad.
It’s my dad who is here. I make a crack to bring levity into the ICU- something quick, from a western maybe:
 “They got me, paw!”
 There are only tears, I couldn’t see them then, but when I learned of them, the rage boiled at the motherfucker who shot me. Not for what happened to me, but what everyone else went through driving one hundred miles of uncertainty to Cassia Memorial Hospital.


 I remember sitting on the edge of the motel bed across from Andy. The guys had brought in a 9mm automatic for show and tell. I vaguely recall the fact these boys had found it somewhere, but that may have been in the police report. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was in fact stolen, or purchased illegally. I wasn’t particularly curious about the weapon, having had my share of firearm fun growing up in Pocatello. I’d had friends with every type pistol, shotgun, and assault rifle all through my teenage years, and we littered the sagebrush hills with spent casings.

 I'd also had close calls due to  “I didn’t think it was loaded” incidents. A friend in high school accidentally fired a .22 into a wall about 6 feet away from me in his front room. A year later a friend pointed his .44 magnum revolver at Madonna on TV and took out the tube thinking he’d emptied the chambers the previous weekend. I was hit with a tiny shard of glass in my arm from that explosion.

 Now Andy was across from me inspecting this piece. My  days of  gun play were passed, but not the ingrained lessons of  muzzle discipline. 
Andy’s eyes were on the gun, but not down range.
I was down range.
Andy dropped the magazine,  charged the slider, but not checked the chamber. 
It’s cool to charge a handgun. It makes some cool sounds, and it feels good.  
Andy was about to dry-fire. 
I leaned to the left, about to say “Dude! Don’t point that thing at me..”

 “DUDE-”...

Crawlspace

Crawlers never bother me. This one was clean too. Nice rat-slab.
The boss assumed too many things. This is a sloppy bid. I'm not gonna fuckin' crawl all the way back to that corner. I don't see shit. There aren't any vents. Maybe that's the difference. I'd rather belly crawl through rat shit and cobwebs and see louvered daylight somewhere.

How the fuck could the boss make a bid on a point of connection without knowing where the waterline actually is. I'm not dragging all my shit down here.
We'll find it outside.