Still Music Week

Deep into the new tunes for Saturday’s show at Waltz-Astoria, in Astoria, Queens, with my pals from The Faraway Nearby, The Shockers and The Beams, the three bands I’ve played in since moving to NYC in ’08. So, here’s another music chapter from “Acid Indigestion Eyes.” By the way, this is the ninth chapter of the book that I’ve put up on the blog here. It looks like a trend, so keep watching.

THE COSMIC SOUNDTRACK

I’ve often felt that somewhere out there on the cosmic radio
band, there’s a running soundtrack for the movie of life. A
lot of the time it feels like I’m mouthing the words to someone
else’s script anyway, so there might as well be a soundtrack
to go along with it. When I really try, I can tune it in.

Music has power. It can change your mood, shape your
opinions, open your mind. Or close it, for that matter. It can
take you to all the places you’ve been before, like an instant
“Quantum Leap/Sliders/Dr. Who” time machine. Only, you
don’t have to squeeze into a call box.

“Jane Says” says by Jane’s Addiction puts me back on
the best stroll of my life, down a street in Miami Beach with
someone I was about to fall in love with. We had pizza. She
whispered me secrets.

Today, I can’t listen to Aerosmith’s “Dream On” without
cringing a little. Back in elementary school, I was in
charge of spinning records over the PA system before school
started. One day, I ripped away the cellophane and cued up
the “Live Bootleg” album version. Imagine this horror: In the
middle, Steven Tyler screams a certain unmentionable compound
word beginning withM(and ending with otherfucker).
And I’m responsible for introducing an entire school to it. I
felt like crawling into my Army surplus backpack.

I bet there are songs you wish weren’t playing in the
background of your movie. The best single dance I ever had
was at a junior prom, and I’ve been replaying every aspect of
it in my mind’s VCR for years. How her white lace gloves felt
against my cheeks. How her heels clicked on the tile. But the
song? Kenny Rogers’ “We’ve Got Tonight.”

Well-picked tunes often can say the things you need
to say far better than you could yourself. A while ago, an ex
made me a road tape to listen to while I drove to and from
Tennessee, trying to get my head together. On the surface, it
was a great idea. But underneath, her selections said far more
about how she felt, and who she was, and she ever really told
me herself. It’s like a 3-D living portrait each time I listen.

I’m guilty of making tapes like that, too. Sometimes,
it’s just a line that sums up how you’re feeling, like “give me a
Leonard Cohen afterworld so I can sigh eternally.” Or “you
gave me nothing, now it’s all I got.”

Music’s power also can be used for evil. Parental evil,
that is. In my defiant teens, as opposed to my defiant 20s, my
father and I played the power game one particularly vivid
time. He got mad at me. I got mad back. He grounded me. I
sat around and stewed. He took away my comic books. I
cranked up the AC/DC. He took away the stereo. I cracked in
a matter of 30 minutes.

Music was the social life I always wanted when I was
young and painfully shy. There are as many different tunes to
hear as there are people to meet. There’s music you can play
in the background while you’re washing the dishes. There’s
music that requires that you dance around in your underwear.

And there’s music you can’t play in your Walkman at work because
you can’t keep from singing along. That can be embarrassing.
Plus, there’s nothing more annoying than someone
who sings along to a Walkman.

Take it up a notch, and there is a higher level of music.
The kind that ensnares your mind like the pied piper, and you
are powerless to do anything but sit and listen, and float with
the ebb and flow of the beat.

It’s not like this is any new information, or even much
of a new perspective. People have known about the power of
music since Aristotle. Hell, Aristotle could’ve been the first
rockstar, had he put his philosophy to music.My philosophy:
Music is the best legal drug in existence.
I inhale.

Music week

Since it’s music week for our hero, who’s getting ready for his gig on Saturday, here’s another one of the music-related chapters of “Acid Indigestion Eyes.” This one riffs on a list of the 42 songs every American should know. And offers up my own, vastly superior list. There’s a secret 43rd song hiding in the column, too. See if you can figure it out before hitting the link …

42

It reminds me of the best part of Van Halen’s “Right Now’’
video from a few years ago. In it, a guy is holding a sign that
says “Will Wrestle You for Food.’’ Some people just have the
completely wrong idea. At the recent Music Educators National
Conference, the country’s tune doctors decided to put
together a list of 42 songs every American should know. Admittedly,
a righteous endeavor. Unfortunately, they picked the
wrong 42.

Their choices were songs such as “Amazing Grace.’’
And, “America.’’ And, “America, the Beautiful.’’ And, “Battle
Hymn of the Republic.’’ And, “God Bless America.’’ And,
“God Bless the USA.’’ Sensing a pattern?
Credit: They did pick a Beatles tune (“Yesterday’’), and
a tune with a sly ’60s drug reference (“Puff, the Magic
Dragon’’). Most of the tunes bring back memories of wanting
to throw a camp counselor headfirst into the campfire and
dance around his scorched remains screaming, “I have the
conch!’’ Submitted for your approval, a replacement list of the
42 songs every American should know, and should be singing
around the campfire 100 years from now.

“American Pie’’: Don McLean.

“Anarchy in the U.K.’’: Sex Pistols. Although it might
take 200 years for this one, considering the opening line.

“Atlantic City’’: Bruce Springsteen.With a description
of the grim reality and failure that is urban renewal, the Boss
may have been creating the folk music of the next century.

“Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead’’: XTC. Another 21stcentury
folkie. Extra points if you can tell the young’uns who
Peter is after singing it.

“Blowin’ in theWind’’: Bob Dylan. ‘Nuff said.

“Boogie Chillun’’: John Lee Hooker. Funkiest man on
the planet not named Bootsy.

“Blue Suede Shoes’’: Carl Perkins. Considering this
song practically gave birth to rock ’n’ roll, you better learn it.

“Bohemian Rhapsody’’: Queen. Just so everyone can
pronounce the words scaramouche and fandango.

“Brick House’’: The Commodores. Mighty, mighty.

“Can’t Hardly Wait’’: The Replacements. Because
none of our passengers ever seem to bring any smokes.

“Castles Made of Sand/The Wind Cries Mary’’: Jimi
Hendrix. The latter is the best song ever to rip a line from
Sylvia Plath.

“The Divorce Song’’: Liz Phair. Because soon, we all
will be. Divorced, that is.

“Driver 8’’: REM. More 21st-century folk, one of the
first songs by Stipe that you can understand (almost) all the
words. If you could understand the words, I’d have picked
“Gardening At Night,” though.

“Flintstones Theme.’’ You know, of all these songs, the
TV themes are the ones that probably will survive, just as predicted
in the movie “Demolition Man.’’ The Flintstones probably
will win but, personally, I’m pulling for Speed Racer.

“Fortunate Son’’: Credence Clearwater Revival.Nothing
like a little patriotism ’round your campfire. Or sarcasm.

“For What It’s Worth’’: Buffalo Springfield. Nothing
like a little reality check with your patriotism.

“Georgia on My Mind’’: Ray Charles.

“Hotel California’’: The Eagles.

“I’m a Man’’: Muddy Waters.

“I’m Your Boogie Man’’: KC and the Sunshine Band.

“I Saw the Light’’:Hank Williams. More pain than the
blues. Which should take you straight to …

“I Wanna Be Sedated’’: Ramones. Immediately accessible
punk. No 200-year wait necessary.

“Imagine’’: John Lennon. On any civilized planet,
everyone should know the whole Beatles catalog. But that isn’t
practical. This may be the one song written by any Beatle, in
or out of the group, that will far outlive its writer.

“Just Like Heaven’’: The Cure. Looking for somebody
to show me how they do that trick.

“Louie, Louie’’: Various artists, the Kingsmen. Only,
you have to sing the dirty words. You know which ones.

“Message in a Bottle’’: The Police.

“The Needle and the Damage Done’’: Neil Young.

“On a Plain’’: Nirvana.

“Respect’’: Aretha Franklin.

“Rock and Roll All Nite’’: Kiss. A bunch of mimes
around the campfire. Infinitely better than “Kum-Ba-Ya.”

“Seasons’’: Chris Cornell. The true poet of Seattle.

“Sin City’’: Flying Burrito Bros.Hank’s torch.

“Sweet Home Alabama’’: Lynyrd Skynyrd.

“Sweet Jane’’: Velvet Underground.

“Sugar Magnolia’’: Grateful Dead.

“Surfin’ Safari’’: Beach Boys. You’ll certainly hear surf
music again.

“Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay’’: Otis Redding. I like
to think, somewhere, he still is.

“This Land Is Your Land’’: Woody Guthrie. The only
tune from the original list worthy to make the cut. Must be
sung with its requisite and intended irony.

“Unforgettable’’: Nat Cole. Natalie, no. Nat, yes.

“Wait in Vain’’: Bob Marley. Oh, my heart, my heart.

“What’s Goin’ On’’: Marvin Gaye. Couldn’t have
picked a better ender, alphabetical or not.

This is life as I know it.
All tunes free on the cosmic jukebox.

 

Dollar, make ya holla

In honor of the imminent approach of summer, “Acid Indigestion Eyes” is now a 99-cent book on the Kindle. Get it while it’s hot. Get it? Hot? Sheesh.

ACID BONUS: TWO CHAPTERS involving pocket change.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGE

Change isn’t good — when you try to pay for something
with it. That’s the message I’m getting all the time these
days. And yes, you guessed correctly – these aren’t exactly my
salad days.

Paying in change for something substantial marks
you as an outcast. A loser. One of the dregs. It earns you the
antipathy of fine and not-so-fine cashiers everywhere.
Lately, there’s just been no helping it. Poor is a state I
can’t pack my bags and move away from. Negative balances
between bookend paydays are following me like like that
mangy, hungry dog in the alley next to work that I feed every
day when there’s barely enough in the sack to feed me.

The cracks of the car seats, often enough, hide gas
money. Maybe only a buck or so, but that buck could be the
difference between sleeping in bed and sleeping in the car in
the parking lot at work.

Inside the jeans pockets, there’s usually enough to do
the wash. If you don’t mind taking 10 or 15 minutes to roll it
all up, there’s probably enough change around to pay for food
and gas for a few days in a pinch. But go to use it and, instead
of a knowing nod or a wink for your ingenuity, what do you
usually get? One: What is this? Two: Where did you get this?
Three: Get the hell out of here with this!

A few years ago, I needed to scrape up change to pay
for enough gas to sit in the Saturday drive-through line at the
bank to cash a check for some freelance articles. I found exactly
one dollar in the car. Or so I thought. A penny was masquerading
as a dime. Honest mistake, right? The gas station
owner hit me in the face with my change after he counted it.
“These pumps don’t even set for under a dollar!” he screamed,
along with some ugly expletives. He’s in jail now for embezzling
from his own business. The gas station? Demolished for
a parking lot. Karma hit him like a brick.

With that kind of grief, it almost seems better to wait
for the dumpster shift every two hours than to pay for a meal
in honest change. It’s not as if I stood out on the corner and
panhandled for it. I worked for it!

Oh, I forgot a step back there – the confirmation trip
to the manager: Can we take this? Of course you can. The last
I heard, at the base, the foundation of the American money
system was the cent, not the dollar. A dollar is still worth 100
cents, even though it doesn’t always feel that way. How much
of your pay do you want? Every red cent. How much do you
usually end up spending? Bingo.

The coin was the first money in history, if you don’t
count rocks shaped like coins. The coin is a sure sign of higher
civilization. It has survived through millennia, thousands of
feet of water, thousands of wars, and thousands of ugly mugs
from Cesar to Susan B. Anthony. Without change, what is
there to honor one of society’s greatest creations, the street
musician?Without change, what is there to toss out the window
to the kids for the ice cream truck? (Mom! Ice cream!
Throw down some money!)

Maybe it’s not hard to go to the bank and exchange
change for some of the crinkly stuff. But, who feels like being
admonished by a cranky teller for carrying a zero balance and
asking for a bank service? Not me.

Funny how I used to feel like a millionaire with a
handful of change from Pop. Every Christmas, he would pull
out the Folger’s coffee can full of pocket change from the past
year, then watch with glee as his three grandchildren split it
three ways. I always liked the silver dollars, so I negotiated
with my siblings to get at least a few. And I still have them.

Seems like I’m giving myself a Christmas every month or so
anymore, and from the exact same Folger’s can.
This Sunday, I read “The Born Loser” in the comics
section for some crazy reason. Old Brutus Thornapple walks
up to a pal who isn’t looking so hot, and asks him what’s
wrong. The poor guy lost his job, and his wife ran off with his
financial advisor, leaving him with just one silver dollar in his
pocket. “Well, why don’t you spend it?” he asks.
The guy answers, “Because it’s my lucky dollar.”

Strange how well a two-dimensional panel translates
into three. I’ve been very, very close to spending those silver
dollars from Pop many times. The only thing that’s kept me
from doing it is the face on the front. I don’t see Dwight D.
Eisenhower. I see my Pop. It really does look like him. He
had an Ike haircut my entire life. And his. No matter how
poor I get, I always have that.

ON MY DIME

The lack of jingling in my pocket was a sign I was about to
go broke again. I know the empty pocket is the universal
sign of brokeness, but for me, the empty pocket is really a severe
warning sign. Pocket change means I’ve been out burning
cash as always. No change means there’s not much left
and I’m trying desperately hard not to spend it.

So I walked my non-jingling, stomach-growling self
to the deli down the avenue. The one place I knew I might be
lucky enough to get lunch for what few bills I had in my
pocket. A quick menu scan told me I had to settle for egg
salad, no tomato no lettuce (30 cents extra per).Which would
leave me exactly 10 cents to my name. Luckily, they throw
the bread in for free.

Figured I better savor the egg salad since I might not
be eating for a while. So took my plastic plate out to one of
the stylish plastic outdoor patio tables, sat down in a plastic
chair and ate slowly.Washed it all down with the cool breeze
since I couldn’t afford a drink. When I finished licking the
plate, I took my trash to the bin and stepped up to the counter
to pay my check. Ahead of me was a slightly younger man,
dressed all in black. Thin and gangly with short hair, nearly
nonexistent beard and shiny black boots with shiny buckles.
Plenty of silver, but he was short of another metal.

“Can you lend me a nickel?”

Of course, not having any change in my pocket, I had
a dilemma. But once I paid the check, I got back that aforementioned
dime and I figured, what the hell, if you’re going
to go broke you might as well go all the way.

“Thanks man!” he said, and gave the dime to the
cashier. She handed a nickel back to me and, once again, beyond
explanation, life kept me five cents away from closing
the Old Bailey Building and Loan.

“Boy, living in Florida is really kicking my butt,” the
young man in black said. “I can’t believe how expensive it is
here. Half the time, I think I’m going to have to move back to
Minnesota.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” I said with a wry
smile, flipping the nickel between my fingers. “I have a fulltime
job with plenty of responsibility and I make what looks
on paper to be a decent amount of money, but it just doesn’t
go anywhere but away.”

“Tell me about it,” he said, easing back into his wooden
chair, trying to find the least greasy spot to grab his Reuben.
“If I hadn’t made $150,000 last year, I couldn’t have survived.”

Suddenly, I could feel his throat in my hand.
My mind exploded into a split screen, one side of
which showed him taking a peaceful bite out of his sandwich.
The other showed me pummeling him into a bloody hunk of
corned beef. And I was yelling my lungs out. “What a pathetic
waste of luck you are! Somehow, you end up making in one
year what it will take me most of the decade to make, and you
blow it all to where you’re having a ask a stranger for his last
dime to cover your lunch! You idiot!”

Once the two pictures converged again, I slowly
walked toward him, my right fist clenched around the nickel.
Before I knew it, my left whipped out toward him and gave
him a pat on the shoulder.

“Just hang in there buddy,” I said. “It’ll all work out.”

And you could hear the madman laughing all the way
down the avenue.

Trailer Park

Been away from the blog for a few days because I’ve been preparing the first book trailer for “Acid Indigestion Eyes,” Finally, after flailing in the Apple software deep end, I’m proud to present “Dirty, Dirty,” now available on the Wayne Lockwood channel on YouTube.

In the “Mumbles” chapter of “Acid,” I wrote about how garbled lyrics have been a hallmark of music across many generations, just one of my efforts to give a “ce plus ca change” perspective on the whole Generation X mess back when it was bubbling up. I also wrote in the original column about the legendary supposed dirty lyrics to “Louie, Louie,” and how the things a lot of people thought they heard in the song were completely unprintable in the family newspaper. Well, thanks to these little works graduating into the book world, I was able to print one line verbatim in “Acid” (you’ll have to read it).

I also mentioned how it was one of my dreams to actually sing the entire dirty “Louie, Louie” sometime on stage. I considered it for an upcoming gig. But, my need for a book trailer made me decide to re-record “Louie, Louie” with the offending lyrics provided by my friends at Snopes and Uncle Cecil at “The Straight Dope.”

I really Uncle Steve to thank for all of it. Between GarageBand, Logic and iMovie, the trailer is ready for you all to enjoy. (For the geeks out there, 1963 Gretsch Jet Firebird/Arturia keys/Shure SM58/Avid MBox Pro/Logic 9/GarageBand/iMovie.)

Without further ado:

ACID BONUS! Here’s the complete “Mumbles” chapter.

With all the changes and rulebreakers in popular music for the past 30 or so years, from rock to punk to rap, there’s still one constant, seemingly unbreakable rule. The more unintelligible the lyrics, the cooler the song. Or, at least, the more notorious.

Some people say doing a cover version is halfway to a hit. Mumble it too, and you’re there. For the rest of your life and anyone else’s life you might be concerned with, there are going to be armloads of popular songs that you’ll love but you’ll never be able to tell anyone what they mean. From “Louie, Louie” to Mumbles Stipe, the genre lives on.

And, you know, I really like it that way. Who really cares about the crystal clear words spouted by Donny and Marie? Give me Bob Dylan. Dylan’s lyrics are so notoriously hard to decipher, just about every group to cover “All Along the Watchtower” has gotten them wrong, even Jimi Hendrix! Hendrix had to mumble out one of the lines, too. Go back and listen.

The REM of old takes mumbles to the next level. To this day, I have friends to whom the only words of “South- Central Rain” will ever reveal themselves are “I’m sorry.” Can’t say I know many more. In college, that one would come on the radio, and we all loved the song and wanted to sing along, but couldn’t. Couldn’t that is, until “I’m sorry!” And we all shouted it with glee. I sing REM songs in my notoriously bad band, and I don’t even know what the words I’m singing are half the time. I’m going totally phonetic. People come up and ask, how did you find those words out?

I just smile perplexingly.

Important thing, though, is to try. Before long, you too will hear the words that aren’t really there. I swear I can hear all the nasty lyrics in “Louie, Louie.” Hilarious, nearly un- printable things. Take that back. Completely unprintable. (In newspapers, that is. Now that this is a book, here’s one: “I shot my load, uh, in her hair.” Listen for it!) Nearly every lyric in that song can be twisted and misconstrued into a bawdy mess. My goal is to someday perform “Louie, Louie” with all the dirty words that I and others have heard over the years. There are already thousands of versions, so why not one more?

I’m so glad to know I’m not alone in hearing totally strange things and songs. Like, “there’s a bathroom on the right” in “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence. Being a wild

Hendrix fan, I’ve been hearing “Scuse me while I kiss this guy” way before the book “Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy” came out. The current grand-prize winner has to be Cobain. Hands down. I take great pride in the fact that I’m in “Heart- Shaped Box” as “Hey, Wayne, I’ve got a new complaint.” Wayne Campbell says so! Yeah, get in line, Kurt. A dark friend thinks she’s in “All Apologies” as “Mary, buried.” All the meanings in Nirvana change depending on what you think you hear. In “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” is it “hello hello?” Or “alone, alone?” Or “hollow, how long?” If it’s “life is stupid and contagious,” it’s a line of genius. If it’s “I feel stupid and contagious” it’s just kind of gross.

The topper is “Tourette’s” on Nirvana’s last album. There are no words at all. He just screams into the mic, like someone with Tourette’s syndrome.

What a critical sonic middle-finger flip. Strangely, if you listen long enough, you’ll hear words. At least, you’ll think you will.

I wish that would work in print.

More kind words

Just received a nice 4-star review of “Acid” from ForeWord magazine ahead of the book’s appearance at BEA next week in NYC. By the way, if you’ve read the book, and you’re so inclined, please give it a review on your favorite book portal, for instance, Amazon.com, BN.com, Powells.com or GoodReads.com. Or, if you’re inclined to read the book and give it a review, send me a message.

As for the ForeWord review, It’s destined for the blurb treatment out there in the bookselling marketplace, but here’s a longer read:

Four Stars (out of Five)

Americans born between the mid-1960s and early 1980s are often characterized—some would say stereotyped—by their resistance to established norms, as well as a general reluctance to be categorized. Wayne Lockwood’s “Acid Indigestion Eyes: Collected Essays and Musings on Generation X” illustrates much of the Generation X worldview, employing a personal style that maintains and celebrates that independent spirit.

Lockwood is a longtime journalist, having worked at several major newspapers. The essays in his book date from the 1990s, when Lockwood, in his twenties at the time, authored a regular column on Generation X. His essays show remarkable maturity for a young writer, and he utilizes a casual, convivial style that makes it feel like he’s talking to the reader. He discusses urban legends, music, and Slurpees, in addition to weightier subjects like the demise of the nuclear family, addiction, and “hand-me-down racism.” “I’m a racist. Not by choice. Not by education. By accidental osmosis. Bet you are too, at least to a degree.”

Such attention-grabbing statements are backed up with thoughtful writing about personal experiences that any reader, not just those born within the Generation X birth range, can appreciate. Lockwood sprinkles humor amid serious discussions, and he elevates the not-so-serious ones with vivid imagery, as when he challenges those who would spoil Halloween: “If you eradicate Halloween, you’re just shaking pennies out of your kids’ precious memory banks.”

While there are references to Nirvana and Beavis and Butt-Head, among other Generation X cultural touchstones, “Acid Indigestion Eyes” is a personal narrative that happens to echo the experience of the author’s contemporaries; it is not an attempt to encapsulate the worldview of a typical member of Generation X. Because of this, “Acid Indigestion Eyes” stands proudly with the works of Douglas Coupland and other Generation X authors. Lockwood’s book is many things, but it’s certainly no slacker. — Peter Dabbene

Avengers, Assemble (stacks of money)!

Completely, utterly happy to see how “The Avengers” is doing so much box office that it’s practically the only movie playing right now. No other movie can make any money in its shadow, apparently. Sure, tears for Tim Burton and “Dark Shadows,” which I am currently addicted to on streaming Netflix, but the resurgance of Marvel as primarily a movie company is tremendous! Stupendous! Makes me wanna go “Pow!”

Because at the time I was writing the columns that became “Acid Indigestion Eyes,” Marvel was going out of business. It had just filed for Chapter 11 reorganization, and looked like all those great characters, all of my first loves (you know who you are, Phoenix/Jean Grey and Roxanne), were going to disappear forever.

ACID BONUS! Here’s a look back at what your Marvel-less future could have become. Glad that’s staying on Earth 2 (yeah, I know, DC reference. Whatevs).

Four Color Fear

The thought of a Marvel Comics-less world frightens me a bit. But the thought of the Marvel Comics universe the way it is now might frighten me even more.

A few weeks ago, the company that owns Marvel Comics filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing a diminishing interest in comic books among collectors. As a way-back comic nut, I was a bit surprised when I read the news. No interest in comic books?

The Marvel Universe was the place to go when I was a little Web Crawler. Back then, you could depend on Marvel to capture your imagination and to push your mind, albeit in very small, comic book-ish ways. Since, oh, college, I hadn’t made too many trips there, though. There were other trips to take (legal, I assure you).

Last week, I picked up a few issues just to see what has been going on in the Marvel Universe of the 1990s. I got a bit of a shock. Reading a Marvel comic today is akin to reading a page of blank newsprint with a big blob of ketchup on it.

It’s all about the blood, apparently. Like someone took the Droogies from “A Clockwork Orange” and set them loose in four-color. How’s about a little of the old ultraviolence, eh? You’re either causing carnage and bloodshed in the name of anarchy as a bad guy, or causing carnage and bloodshed in the name of restoring superhero oligarchy. On every page!

I should have known. Just as cartoons are basically 30-minute commercials today, comic books are slaves to what sells as well, in a twisted way. Comic books seem to be at the mercy of video games. Considering that in the most popular games you end up drinking your opponent’s blood, it’s no wonder comic books are the way they are. Now, as a little comichead, I liked my share of violence, too. I was totally tripped out when Phoenix of the X-Men ate an entire star system and ended up having to commit suicide with a giant laser cannon on the moon before she ate the entire universe. Now, that’s a comic book! But, Phoenix didn’t rip the heads off of aliens in every panel. Not even in every issue. Back then, Marvel characters didn’t just pummel people for little or no reason. Sometimes, a comic book or two in the series could go by without a fight or altercation at all, such as in a particularly poignant series when Peter Parker—alias Spidey—dealt with his best friend’s use of LSD. Even the most violent books might have only one true fight an issue, especially when certain plot lines needed expanding.

Ah, plot. Whoever thought someone someday would be musing on the loss of plot in comic books? The best journeys in Marvel Comics back then were journeys of mind and space. The sorcerer Dr. Strange getting trapped inside his amulet and having to fight his way back against the faceless, dreaded Dormammu. The Fantastic Four having to fly to an orbiting mothership to trick the evil alien Skrulls into not taking over the Earth, using comic book clippings of giants and monsters, mind you.

Through Marvel Comics, you learned a little about science, a little about philosophy, a little about romance, a little about heroism. Just enough about everything to make you want to find out more somewhere else. In plenty of little ways, Marvel Comics helped me make me what I am today. I mourn the passing of Marvel Comics if it does indeed exit this plane. As Mr. Fantastic taught me, nature abhors a vacuum.
I can only hope something better rushes in.

Sell, sell, sell!

To close out the week, here’s a repost of Codorus Press‘ great roundup of how to handsell a book at a book fair, taken from the press’ experience at the Gaithersburg Book Festival. Excellent, indepth, inside information, here. CP really wrote the hell out of this one. Don’t miss it.

Read it here.

The most important words you’ll write

Nope, they’re not in the first sentence of your novel. They’re the nine or 10 words you’ll use to tell people what your book is about. That ol’ elevator pitch.

Now, those could be the exact words that are on the back of your book. But often, the words that read so well in a reader’s mind at a bookstore don’t work so well coming out of your mouth at, say, a book fair booth.

My Codorus Press pals spent the weekend at the most-fine Gaithersburg Book Festival refining our pitches to a razor point — sometimes pitching a friend’s book with better precision than our own. (That one serves to reinforce my creative credo to do it with your friends. The buddy system really works with this stuff.)

For myself and Mike Argento, not counting the aborted Kensington monsoon last month, this was our first book fair pitching our own books. So, even though we spent a chunk of last year pitching Scott B. Pruden’s book at fairs, there was a little bit of a learning curve for both of us. Mike’s had his “Bad people doing bad things, badly” line locked down for a long time on “Don’t Be Cruel.” But we had to work in mob, Elvis and insurance scam in there as deftly as possible, as well.

Scott hit upon the “memoir” element of my book at some point during the show, and it really worked as a way to quantify the book. It turned into “a memoir about growing up overeducated and underemployed in the ’90s.” If they needed more, especially if they were concerned about it not having any resonance with other generations, I’d pull out the big guns: “Well, in one of the columns, I practically call Kurt Cobain the grunge Dizzy Gillespie.”

If you have the well-refined “elevator pitch,” when you hand the book to someone, those words will be amplified by what they read on the back jacket.

Here’s an example for “Acid.”

Reader: “What’s that? Will it cure acid reflux?”

Wayne: “Yes. Guaranteed, if you read the whole thing.”

Reader: “What is this really?”

Wayne: “It’s a memoir about growing up overeducated and underemployed in the ’90s.”

Reader: “Oh ok!” (Takes the book and looks at the back.) “Hey, that’s you!” (And reads the following: “Get your grunge on! Former nationally syndicated Generation X columnist Wayne Lockwood collects some of his best columns, reflecting and sharing in the promise and challenges faced by those who came of age in the early 1990s. While talking heads will harken back to St. Cobain for perspective on this misunderstood decade, this collection of works — simultaneously everyman and deeply personal — aims to give a voice to those who didn’t have a guitar to scream behind.”)

… “Why does it look like a Pepto Bismol box?”

Wayne: “It’s a pop-art nod to the first essay in the book. It’s kind of a metaphor on how your eyes can burn the same way your stomach can, from the same input.”

Reader: “Ok, ok! … This is really cool!”

By the way, if you go the highbrow art route with your cover, be prepared to explain yourself. A lot.

OK, back to the words. You might think that it’s not your responsibility/problem to come up with this pitch. Get over it. Everything’s your problem, especially if you’re a first-time fiction writer, no matter who’s doing the publishing. Anyway, having this pitch can give you tremendous focus. This is book one of the (insert writer here) brand. Better to get it right as early as you can. Like Uncle Kurt said (Vonnegut! Vonnegut!), we become what we pretend to be. So, pretend well.

ACID BONUS! Here is the Kurt/Dizzy chapter:

Generation Mutts

The evolution of the Generation X ethos has really got me down. But it’s not so much the existence lately, it’s the term. It’s popping up everywhere. Soon, there’s going to be a Generation X breakfast cereal. “X’ies! Bitter and hard to swallow!” Probably a video game. And, of course, a Saturday morning cartoon to sell it.

I’m an “X’er” – because I am. Can’t much help that. My hair, it brands me a hippie. My personal library brands me a beatnik. Who knows what my librarian brands me. All I know is I’m branded and bugged.

Here’s a little pop sociology for you. Since around the end of World War II, our society has gotten more factioned, more fractured. There’s been a lack of unifying rallying points (like world wars). As such, the group mentality has decayed. Society needs to label, sub-label and sub-sub-label so that everyone knows the boundaries on the invisible map. Boom, you get Irish-American, African-American, Mexican-American.

This goes deeper than roots. You can – and you will – get labeled depending on who you are inside (assuming, of course, you’re lucky enough to know). “Generation X” isn’t the first such label. This year’s model.

Does the wind remember the names it has blown in the past? Let’s hop in the Wayback and see.

First stop, 1940s New York City. Here beneath the signs’ seedy glow on 52nd St., rumpled musicians are changing the face of art. Then staying up all night, jamming at Minton’s, crashing in their best Zoot Suits wherever there’s a floor, couch or cot. Their iconoclastic playing and rumpled clothing leads the cultural majority to give them a name, to quantify something to which they can’t necessarily relate. Boom, you’ve got the first “hipsters.” And the music they play, it isn’t Jazz anymore. It’s “Be-Bop.” That’s not what they named it. They just thought it was music.

Wake up, Sherman. It’s 1991. Here beneath the signs’ seedy glow in Seattle, rumpled musicians are changing the face of art. In plaid shirts worn more for warmth than fashion (supposedly), they play vibrant music. And the music they play, it isn’t rock. It’s “Grunge.” No so-called grunge artist ever calls it that. The term is never used, except on sardonic T-shirts that declare “Grunge Is Dead.” And by the way, the only time psychedelic architect Jimi Hendrix used the term “hippie” was to scoff at it (see “If Six Was Nine”). It’s not so much the words anyway, it’s the connotations.

Ponder “beatnik.” What a word. In two syllables, it conjures up the intense fear of Communist oppression and slaps a set of bongos on it. Instant hate – just add vodka.

Same thing with Generation X. At first, it seemed like a catchy way to refer to a wedge of the grapefruit. Spoon on some connotation, and you taste a bunch of slacking, visionless underachievers lounging around reading Bret Easton Ellis. Or Douglas Coupland, for that matter, if he writes something good again. Four syllables – an infinity of meaning.

You can maybe lump movements and eras, but how can you lump something so complex as human beings? People aren’t lumpable like so much Play-Doh. I’m certainly not. Here on my desk (around the corner from the Wayback), I have two Kerouac novels, a picture Dizzy Gillespie signed for me, “Axis: Bold As Love” in the Walkman and an ultrayuppie credit card computer phone index.

So what am I?
Boom – I’m a mutt.
Sticks and stones still break our bones, but believe it or not, names really can hurt you. Maybe not individually. But the labels hurt us collectively, like those shaving nicks you don’t discover until you throw some cologne on them. And then they hurt like hell.

Our little group has always been and always will … until they call us something else.

I’m (NOT) Lovin’ It

A few friends (and one reviewer) have mentioned how they’d like to kind of see an “Acid Indigestion Eyes 2K,” a set of new columns looking at today with the perspective of a couple of … decades. sigh. … of experiences as a card-carrying Generation Xer. So I started thumbing through the book (or doublewide coaster, as I like to call it; I’m all about added value and utility) to see what’s changed about me or my opinions since then.

Let’s start with the first column I wrote as the adopted voice of Generation X, “The Love Song of J. Ronald McDonald.” It’s chapter 2 in the book because I figured I’d better get that little “Acid Indigestion Eyes” issue taken care of as fast as possible. And, I just love the hell out of that column. Incidentally, I once owned an original presentation manuscript of “Howl” that AG did for a friend in 1965. But I digress.

Fast food was first on my mind out of the gate back in 1994. I really was eating it 3 meals a day. I skipped my 8 a.m. first semester class in college A LOT because I was so excited to be able to drive my first car through the drive thru at Mickey D’s and get an Egg McMuffin. OK, it was never one Egg McMuffin. Usually two, with two hashbrowns. Sometimes a third as a snack after hitting the music store at 10 a.m. (and yes, skipping my second class of the day) if i was in a breakfast-til-11 zone. That 10:30 cutoff was a bitch.

Deep, deep ingraining, here. As evidence, I gave my Dad a copy of the book for Christmas this year when it came out, and the first words out of his mouth were, “You didn’t write about me freezing the Burger King burgers, did you?” Yup, page 5.

So, time for the shocking reveal: I haven’t eaten a fast food item regularly since 2008. OK, it’s true, I snuck a bag of McDonald’s fries about five months ago and fairly regretted it, and I got a Shamrock Shake last year and REEEEEALLLY regretted it (the evil thing tasted like the belched smoke on the side of the New Jersey turnpike outside the flavor-development plant where it most certainly was coaxed into life by Satanic scientific ritual) and I WILL eat a Chik-Fil-A sandwich if one is put in front of me. Incidentally, I have gone out of my way to infiltrate the ONE Chik-Fil-A in New York City, which is part of a cafeteria in an NYU dorm, even wearing a hoodie and my “Paul’s Boutique” T-shirt (RIP MCA) and walking with a slouch while carrying my manbag.

Now, this end to my fast-food era might have something to do with moving to New York City, where eating fast food makes no sense, NONE!, considering how many great restaurants there are. Although, I can confirm that the first food I ate in New York City in 1982 on a school field trip to see “A Chorus Line” was a Big Mac value meal that I couldn’t believe cost almost $10. I always snicker and marvel now whenever I see a Papa John’s sign. Even shitty bodega pizza is borderline great here.

A longtime friend who tried to warn me back in the 90s used to say to me, “Don’t you know? You can only eat so much of that stuff in a lifetime, and you’re getting close to your lifetime quota, then you will DIE!” I think I really did hit the lifetime quota.

I got food poisoning from a meal at a Sonic in Myrtle Beach sometime in 2000. That was the first salvo, and it completely claimed Sonic. Never ate there, or at any Sonic, again. And this was tragic, because I’m a HUGE fan of old-style carhop drive-ins. The A&Ws in Tennessee should be on the register of historic places. In Miami from 2005 to 2008, I kind of got addicted to Pollo Tropical and medianoches, so I just sort of started to drift away from hardcore big-3 fast food. But in 2008, when I moved to the Foodie Capital of the World, what was on the corner next door to work in the wasteland of 10th Ave. and 33rd St. but a McDonald’s. This scenario had played itself out before in York, Pa,. in the late ’90s, so I knew how it was going to go down. It went down daily.

That is, until about two weeks later, when I got the worst case of food poisoning in my life. We’re talking the trapped-in-the-stall, burning-the-candle-at-both-ends, LSD-fever-hallucinations variety. THAT did it.

Cue up some Plastic Ono, ’cause I went full-on “Cold Turkey.” It only took 14 years from when I wrote, “I’m gonna kick tomorrow.”

I also stopped eating red meat. Chicken’s probably next. I’m expecting to bottom out at pescetarianism awhile, considering I’ve still got a sushi monkey on my back, but I’m starting to check out veggie-vegan cuisines. Between the fast food cease-fire, not using the Ben & Jerry’s pint as a single-serving container and walking around the city for four years, I’ve dropped close to 40 pounds, too. I’m getting closer to punk-band playing weight. And I can wear Varvatos on stage (can I get a hellyeah).

Now, I only use the McDonald’s for the 99 cent cash machine. I went in the other day and encountered some crazy redneck yelling at a Caribbean assistant manager about how he was the victim of racism, with the assistant manager yelling at him to get the hell away from his counter. For some reason, this happens a lot here. Part of me wanted to tell the guy, “Don’t you know what happens when you do this at McDonald’s in the city?” THIS HAPPENS. But, I didn’t. Because, ashamedly and gleefully, part of me wanted to see him get blindsided with an oven-cleaning pipe.

In 2012, that’s what McDonald’s means to me now. Free entertainment and cheap ATMs.

What the hell does “Acid Indigestion Eyes” mean?

What a great question!

The title of the book comes from a line I used in the first chapter of the book. I decided to tip my hat to Allen Ginsberg, one of my favorite poets, and write a tribute/parody from the Generation X perspective.

I called it “Whine for Kurt Cobain,” vs. “Howl for Carl Solomon,” in what I thought was a perfect commentary/tweaking on both Generation X and the people who kind of created the “ethos.”  Trust me, they’re not the same group. Where I come from, Generation X is a name no one would willingly self-apply.

I tried to stay true to the poem in condensed fashion, starting with “I saw the best minds of my generation working at The Gap.” I was most proud of my twisting of the line “cock and endless balls” into “rock and endless malls.”

But the title comes from the one part of the poem where I went off book. It seemed like, if I was going to even remotely do AG any justice, I would have to put at least a little something real from my life in there. So I wrote: “Who watched her Bellevue breakdowns with acid indigestion eyes and Bismol mind.” Your interpretations are welcome.

You can read the entire “Whine” chapter here, in my special GoodReads excerpt of “Acid Indigestion Eyes:” http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/2…

Or, as a preview on Amazon here.