Cool Yule 2024!

  

And we're almost through 2024.  It doesn't seem that long ago we were counting down to it, does it?  Well, I wish you a cool Yule from this longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.  Curl up with a good book (might I suggest The Front Yard War?) or jam some tunes (might I suggest Gang Of Foreigner?), but whatever you do, I hope you have a good time and take that fun into 2025!  See you next year!

First The Front Yard War Review!

 

Years ago, I took pictures of Crazy Carl Robinson's lawn when he was living in Iowa, USA.  I stopped by to see him soon after I had given a paper on the symbolism of the front yard at the popular culture conference in Chicago.  I think I was planning at the time to expand the paper into a larger work, though I didn't know then that it would be a novel.  Anyway, the pictures have waited patiently for over a decade now, so it seems fitting to finally use one to illustrate the first review of The Front Yard War (available as an ebook--PDF or EPUB--from me directly for $5--PayPal wredfright AT yahoo DOTT com-- and on Amazon; the print version is coming probably early next year--until then you can always print out the PDF, probably cheaper anyway--more ebook retailers will also be coming next year) since the first reviewer is Carl!  I like this photo in particular because of the way the dandelions were growing sideways out of the bricks.  Carl was renting then, if I remember correctly, so he wasn't in charge of the landscaping.  That would be the responsibility of his landlord, and he must have been a cool landlord at least as far as the dandelions were concerned.  Usually, just from walking down a street, you can tell the good folks from the lawns that have dandelions on them.  Probably not 100% true, but it's a good rule of thumb to go by in when you don't have much other data to draw upon.  Anyway, I'm delighted that Carl is the first one to review the new novel.  He and King Karl Wenclas--oddly enough, they have the same sounding first name--are probably the two best living literary critics, albeit unconventional ones, in America.  And though Carl may be slightly biased since I've known him for so long, but as you can tell from the review, he doesn't hold much back, so if he thought it sucked, we'd know.  Here's the review.  Thanks, Carl!  Check out his own books as well.  They're great!:

THE-MAMA’S-BOY-WHO-TAKES-CARE-OF-HIS-ELDERLY/DEMENTED-MOTHER-WHO-NEEDS-A-$7400-FERRIS-LAWNMOWER-TO-SIGNIFY-SOMETHING-TO-SOMEBODY-SOMEWHERE (AKA: A REVIEW OF WRED FRIGHT’S “YARD”)

full disclosure: i paid $7400 for a no-turn ferris riding lawnmower last spring…..my dad passed away 2 years ago and i was obliged to move home to take care of my 84-year-old mother….i have 6.5 acres of grass to cut and the rats chewed the fuel line on my dad’s 1984 wheelhorse……before his death, my dad had been paying our redneck neighbor (who-tells-every-male-that-his-son-has-a-giant-cock) $1500 a season to cut our grass…..if you’re curious, my redneck neighbor has a yard the size of a matchbook (which he could cut with a push mower in 45 minutes) yet his lawnmower costs $9300….2 carpetbagging lesbians from dc just moved in next door and they use a lawn service to cut their grass---and if my dad paid $1500 a season, i bet they pay $4500…..my high school is across the street and every country fuck driving down the road could tell you if i accidentally ran over a begonia in may…..my mom has sundowners and dementia and she wasn’t necessarily sane in 2000….she punches me in the face every 3-4 days, she calls her sisters and threatens suicide every 3-4 days and sometimes she hallucinates that i’m an evil female nurse…..in 2024, i’m down to signifying my identity as a human being on social media---and yes, there’s a picture of me in a straw hat next to the $7400 ferris…..i’d love to online-signify that I have a beautiful wife and a red, chubby-cheeked daughter…..i’d love to signify that i’m teaching at uva and turning down invitations to sorority parties…..i’d love to signify that i’m 57 and still going to football games and music festivals, but i spend my days inside the mental institution listening to my mother threaten to call 911 if i open a blind or leave pee in the toilet…..i don’t want to signify the social status attached to owning a $7400 lawn mower, but it doesn’t feel like i have anything else going on in 2024-----and i think that’s part of wred fright’s point in “yard”…..and if you want an official statement on my yard, i would like it to be green and full of bumblebees and groundhogs……and assuming my mother passes before i do (and spots in my head are more stroke-numb every day), i don’t plan on building any gazebos in the shape of my profile---my yard would be: groundhogs, bumblebees and me (if i were free)

i must confess that i’m not really in the mood to write a book review of “yard” right now, but i’m pleased that wred fright has retained the title of comic strip superhero for the working class….i’m the kind of asshole who reads the last page of a book first and i think wred fright’s afterword serves as a fine introduction to the overall meaning of his novel…..does your yard really belong to you?----it does in the sense that your social media page belongs to you…..at one point, wred fright compares the “american mania for lawns” to estates in great britain and i think that’s as good a place as any to begin to understand wred fright’s message for us…..in many respects, “yard” is more of a cultural read of america/americans than it is of our respective yards….do you notice the pink flamingos in the-creep-down-the-street’s yard?---wred fright does…..do you feel sorry for the-old-man-who-wonders-if-this-will-be-his-last-summer?----wred fright does……do you wave at the-kia-driving-bitch and the-woman-who-doesn’t-want-to-be-a-cougar when they drive through the neighborhood?----wred fright doesn’t want to, but he’s horny, so he does….wred fright can also predict how well-manicured a-woman-who-eats-cookies-on-the-toilet’s lawn will be and he knows how many days it’ll take the city of cleveland to give you a ticket for length of your weeds (per the parma township rulebook)…..wred fright knows the date/time of when rand paul fought with his neighbor over lawn care and he could write a dissertation (with 101 citations) of every time republicans and democrats went to battle over lawn care pesticides in sweet home mogadore

in a review of wred fright’s work during the bush administration, i described wred fright as a “comic strip character making his way through the wasteland of modern america”…..in a review during the obama years, i compared wred fright to fred armisen in a “portlandia” skit entitled “early onset grumpiness”……well, our loveable grumblebunny continues to fight the good fight during the terror that has been the joe biden administration (which in retrospect, might be the worst of all)……i used to assume that wred fright erred on the side of being a democrat, but now i realize that wred fright is fair/balanced in his criticism of all things (and yes, i realize that the buzz words, “fair” and “balanced” used to be associated with fox news, but kids in 2024 don’t even know what fox news or cable tv is)….you could call wred fright an old (working class) punk, but i truly believe that his perspective is as fair and balanced as that of any writer that i have ever encountered....in his most recent novel, wred fright’s critique of american lawn care comes across as a light/breezy satire of america’s obsession with all things “yard”……wred fright doesn’t pull any punches and his treatment of modern treehuggers is as valid as his treatment of trust fund babies is as valid of his treatment of a divorced couple waging suburban war over who cuts the grass in the wife’s front yard…..more importantly, wred fright isn’t mean/nasty in his depiction of the yards and/or mindsets of his friend and neighbors…wred fright (as grumblebunny) is simply going for a walk through the neighborhood and describing what he sees……his satire remind me of the work of “bloom county” creator, berkeley breathed----and seeing things through the eyes of wred fright in 2024 is comparable to seeing things from the perspective of opus-the-penguin in 1984……opus is simply telling us the truth as he sees it, but opus is never heavy-handed and the characters he meets never seem unredeemable (except maybe in a cartoon way)…..i’d like to write more, but my mom’s 2 favorite hobbies in 2024 = 1) drowning stink bugs in the toilet and 2) driving around making fun of poor peoples’ yards----and c rob gets kinda excited when 6-7 cars-on-blocks in someone’s yard pisses her off…..would cutter john pay $7400 for a riding lawn mower?----no, but steve dallas might----bill-the-cat too----and under a cartoon microscope, lawn care in ronald reagan’s america doesn’t seem all that different from lawn care in sleepy joe biden’s america…..

Agree with Crazy Carl?  Disagree?  Read the novel and write your own review!

The Front Yard War Available On Kindle!

I'll be sharing some cool photos I took for the lawn research project as I post about The Front Yard War.  This one is from my old neighborhood in University Heights, Ohio USA.  You can see the snow on the sidewalk.  On that block, there might have been three people who shoveled the sidewalk when it snowed.  I was one of them.  This is looking east down the block from my shoveled sidewalk, and it looks like an iceberg as far as one can see.  This was in a neighborhood where there was a bunch of people who walked to their religious services as that was their belief.  They didn't shovel either, so they were as lazy as most of the rest of the block, but then they'd have to walk dressed mainly in black at night in the street, which wasn't too safe.  Now what does this have to do with lawns?

Well, those same people who are too lazy to shovel the sidewalk, so their neighbors don't have to walk in the street at night dressed in black will call the city to complain if someone doesn't cut their grass, and they'll tell you that's because they care about the neighborhood.

Well, they might fool themselves, but they can't fool me.  If you actually cared about the neighborhood and your neighbors, you'd break out the snow shovel in the winter and not be whining to the mayor in the summer about your neighbor's lawn just because it didn't live up to your dubious aesthetic ideals about landscaping. 

So if you want some laughs about the American yard, then please read The Front Yard War.  In addition to being available from me directly for $5 for the PDF or EPUB ebook (PayPal me at wredfright AT yahoo DOTT com), it is now available from Amazon for Kindle.  I make it available there because some folks don't want to order directly from me (maybe they're shy or more likely they just don't want to have to wait up to 24 hours to get their ebook--I send them manually via email--when Amazon will beam it immediately to your Kindle or whatnot).  Plus at one point at least Kindle users had trouble uploading an EPUB to the tablet.  They could upload the PDF, but it was always kind of a pain on the Kindle.  I don't know if that's still the case, but it's not much work to just reformat another version of the EPUB for Kindle on Sigil, which is what I use to code the EPUBs (thanks, Sigil!  Awesome as always!).  Basically, I just have to upload a separate cover for Kindle, which is pretty easy.  Kindle in general is pretty easy to publish on.  I'm not sure how widely used it still is, but as long as it's easy to do, I'll keep doing it, though I prefer the independent EPUB one can just download onto a phone or whatnot.

Anyway, this book's good, so if you're complaining about what's on tv or the state of American literature or you're just bored, then please give it a shot.  I think you'll have a good time reading.  You can even read the first chapter or so through the sample on the Amazon page.  If you like it, buy the damn thing and finish the novel!  While you're doing that, I'll be working on the print version . . .

The Front Yard War Is Out!

The picture is what started the new novel.  I arrived home one night to find this little doorhanger curled up in the screen door handle and was aghast.  The city was wasting my tax money to nag me about cutting the grass!  What gives?!  I was planning on cutting the grass anyway, so that was the end of the matter (aside from calling the mayor to give her an earful), but it got me interested in the yard.  The result over a decade later is the novel The Front Yard War.  I write them so I can read them, and I enjoyed reading it.  Maybe you will as well.  It's vulgar, irreverent, thought-provoking, and funny.  It may even be controversial.  It was interesting taking what might have been an academic book and turning it into a novel.  I guess I would describe it as P. G. Wodehouse meets Edward Abbey just for a somewhat frame of reference, but, with luck, it should be its own original self.  As with most of the novels I've written, it has a different form from most novels.  The story is the most important aspect as a novel is ultimately just a long story, but the formal aspect can enhance the story if done well, and it's done well here, though the other readers will be the judges of that as well.  It will eventually have a print version (maybe even more than one since SmashBooks seem to be getting into print on demand as well) and a Kindle version and a Google Books version, and blah blah blah multiple ebook versions.  I will get those all up and running in coming weeks, and then make a permanent page on the blog for it like I have for the other novels and add to the list of novels on the Library page.  For now though, it is available only directly from me.  It's $5, though you can still try to woo a review copy from me (reviews, like readers, are hard to come by these days, doubly so for independent writers).  Just PayPal me at wredfright AT yahoo DOTT Com (if you're human, then you should be able to figure out that email address--if you're not human and somehow still reading this blog, then just use your big A.I. brain to conjure up some cash and get it to me somehow I guess) and let me know if you want the PDF version or the EPUB version (for maximum convenience, you can even use the begging bowl link on the sidebar if you're reading the web version of this blog).  I coded and tested them both myself, so they should both work great, but if you do have any issues, then just give me a yell.  I can even tell you how to upload the novel onto your phone if you need a hand (I enjoyed reading it on the cell phone a chapter a day, which is how I tend to read most ebooks).  Thanks to Sigil and Libre Office Writer for the compositional tools.  Keep in mind, I'll be emailing it to you manually, so please give me 24 hours or so after payment to get it to you; there's no A.I. Bot zipping it out automatically.  If you want that, then please wait for it to land at the ebook retailers.  If you don't like PayPal and just want to mail me $5 or something, then email me, and we'll figure something out.  I'll be hyping the novel due to excitement for the next few months, so I'll let you know when the other versions are available, but if you've been waiting to read it, then now's your chance at last.  It is done and looking for readers!

Comic: Liars Across America

Despite most consumers thinking people who work in sales are liars, there's an old saying in sales that "buyers are liars", so apparently the distrust goes both ways.  This cartoon looks at many of the creative or not so creative lies customers tell sales professionals.  To read the comic, I suggest clicking on the image and making it full screen.  You could also download it after you click on it for the primo view, I suppose.  I've also loaded the panels individually below if you like scrolling down (it works either way).

For more fun (albeit words, not pictures), read one of my novels, such as the latest, Fast Guy Slows Down!  Or if you want to wait (but why would you want to?!), the new one comes out next week.

Music Video: OH, Jeff (4 May 1970)

 

When I lived in Kent, Ohio USA initially, I wasn't much interested in the May 4th tragedy where the Ohio National Guard killed a bunch of anti-war protestors, but over the years I gradually took an interest in the subject and read several books about it.  I even had shooting survivor Alan Canfora visit my classes a couple of times to talk about the incident.  I would say the best book (though likely not the most historically accurate, though it seems to get the crazy spirit of the time the most) is Kent State:  What Happened And Why by James Michener, which weirdly seems to be out of print now.  In any case, of all the victims, I felt the most affinity for Jeff Miller because he was a fellow rock and roller.  This song was written probably a quarter-century ago now, so it's astounding to realize that the song's subject would be an old man if he had lived, so I made the video a meditative set of visuals around the retirement that Jeff never got to have.

For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7" or give his latest album a listen or download at your favorite digital music site such as Soundcloud, Spotify, or Bandcamp!

New Single!: Scatological Scat

wredfright · Scatological Scat

This song is fairly sophomoric, but it makes me giggle, so here it is.  Maybe it will make you giggle also.  This area of songwriting is little explored except for GG Allin and Screaming Jay Hawkins and maybe some others who find toilet humor amusing (Zappa?).  It's mainly fake bass (low notes on a guitar with the bass turned up on the amp) and drums (including a wooden toolbox whacked with a steel pipe).  Lyrics are below.  Be aware that the song is catchy, so be careful if you are humming it at work tomorrow; don't sing the lyric unless you want to get fired or something.  

We have to talk.
There's something I have to tell you.

Better call the Marines!  There's something in my butt!
Better call the Army!  There's something in my butt!
Better call the Navy!  There's something in my butt!
Better call the Air Force!  There's something in my butt!

There's something in my butt!

Better call the Space Force!  There's something in my butt!
Better call NASA!  There's something in my butt!
Better call the NSA!  There's something in my butt!
Better call the CIA!  There's something in my butt!

Butt Butt Butt Butt Butt Butt Butt Butt and scat

Better call the mayor!  There's something in my butt!
Better call the governor!  There's something in my butt!
Better call the president!  There's something in my butt!
Better call the pope!  There's something in my butt!

For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7" or give his latest album a listen or download at your favorite digital music site such as Soundcloud, Spotify, or Bandcamp!

Edwin The Victorian Vampire Versus Elizabeth Dole

  

I was getting rid of an old notebook, and I stumbled across this old story that I don't think ever made it out of the notebook.  One of the characters ended up in My Man Gertrude, the longest Grumblebunny story, but I don't think this story itself did.  Anyway, it made me chuckle.  Maybe it will make you do the same.  Some references more obvious in 1999 may need to be explained in 2024 alas.  Anne Rice has died since the story was written, but maybe, like some other deceased authors, her publisher will get her to keep pumping out new books (with artificial intelligence, a.k.a. plagiarism machines, this is perhaps even more likely), so maybe she is coming out with a new book still.  More obscure now are The Doles.  Probably most folks have forgotten about them, and younger folks have probably never heard of them, but they were fairly prominent in politics in the late 20th Century/early 21st Century.  When this story was written, Elizabeth, or Liddy as she was often called, ran The American Red Cross and was paid a pretty large salary, though there's some kerfuffle about how she didn't accept her salary for a year or two.  After losing a presidential election, Bob made some dough hawking Viagra.  I updated the story for this post.  Liddy is still living somehow.  Perhaps she is a vampire?  Obviously, I was not a fan of the Doles at the time, but this story is still some weird sort of Dole fan fiction, I guess.  Eat a banana, like the fruit company, as Bob would say, and enjoy.  Anyway, here's some silliness.

Edwin the vampire was reading as usual in the duct system of the central blood bank when he noticed the time.  "Ah, brilliant," he thought as he ducttaped the new Anne Rice novel to the wall of the duct, "I'm bloody dying for a drink."

He turned off his flashlight and floated down the duct a bit, bored with levitation, shimmied the rest of the way, doing the swim and the twist and the anteater shuffle.  He peered through the duct grille.

Nobody home.  A drop of spit strolled down his right fang as he viewed the door to the walk-in refrigerator that held the newest blood.  He pushed the duct grille off the wall and got his growing blood belly through the hole into the room.

"Ugh.  I've got to lose a little weight," he mumbled out loud after not very gracefully dropping to the floor.  

He contemplated tearing one of his arms off.  That would take off a good chunk of weight in one go, but decided against it since that would be a bit extreme.  Instead, he sucked up his gut, opened the fridge door, and strolled into the blood fridge.  He walked down its rows of red-filled plastic bags and wanted to cry.  A kid in a candy store.  A man in a pornshop.  A woman in, well, a mall.  Let's skip the gross generalizations shall we and catch up to Edwin as he toured the vampiric equivalent of a wine cellar.

"Hmm," he pointed, "Perhaps I'll start off with some O.  I'm feeling cosmopolitan tonight.  Then maybe some B+ washed down with some A-.  Oh, and some B- for a daycap."

"I should have brought a shopping cart," he said as the bags piled up.

"Oh, well, I'll just reduce my load now," he said with a cackle.

He was about to slit open a bag of delicious O when a figure stepped from the shadows and said, "Not so fast, you blood-guzzling freak!"

Edwin halted and raised his eyebrows.  A Victorian gentleman never guzzles.  Admittedly, he does gargle with goat blood every so often, but that's only when he has human flesh caught in his teeth, which to be perfectly honest is fairly rare these days.  The blood bank is so much nicer.  It's like farming instead of hunting.

The figure moved closer, high heels clacking.

Edwin gasped as he recognized her as she emerged from the shadows.  Elizabeth Dole!

"That's right.  No more free lunches for you, Drac!  The Red Cross called me in as a special agent when they noticed that this area was always under an emergency blood supply."

"Curses!" Edwin thought.  He probably shouldn't have thrown those parties for his fellow creatures of the night.  Otherwise, he probably could have kept up his blood bank residence for years.  Nevertheless, the situation wasn't entirely lost.  After all, Liddy might make a tasty fresh snack.  Fresh food always beat frozen food anyway.

Edwin cleared his throat, looked the former head of the Red Cross up and down, and said, "No wonder that old man needed Viagra."

"You rude meanie!" Dole yelled and slashed at Edwin with her color-coordinated nails.
    
Edwin ducked and threw a pack of B+ at her.

Elizabeth caught it full in the face and fell over.

Edwin pounced and sank his teeth into her delicate faded Southern belle neck.

"Yuck!" he recoiled in horror, spitting.

A brownish liquid spurted out of Dole's neck.

"You taste like an automobile!" Edwin said in disgust.

Gears ground in Dole's neck.  She got up.  "WD30 to be exact."

She grabbed the vampire by the neck and picked him up like a doll.  "Now you know my secret No-No-No-Nosferatu!  That's why they sent me after you.  I'm an android created by Richard Nixon himself."

"But what about Bob?" Edwin choked out.

"He never knew," Liddy smiled as she pulled out a vintage placard sign with "Dole For President" on it.  

She flipped it over and Edwin saw the wooden sharpened stick point coming his way.  He used his vampire strength to swing his feet up and caught Liddy's arm before she planted the sign in his chest.  "Sorry, Liddy, but, like most dead people, I vote Democratic," he said, then executed a flip-twist-switch and planted her on the floor.

With her grip around his neck broken, Edwin let go of her arm with his legs and dashed backwards to the refrigerator door, grabbing a couple more pints of blood for later as he went out it.  As he slammed the door shut, he heard the yard sign penetrate into it, but it was too late.  Edwin was out a window and flying into the night.

"Drat!" he thought as he downed a pint quickly in mid-air, "Now I'll have to get another copy of the new Anne Rice."

The Front Yard War isn't out yet (only one more section to proofread for you scorecard keepers at home), but the previous Wred Fright novel is!  You can read the others also!

Music Video: A Kiss, A Cheek

 

The original recording of this song was on the Let's Get Killed compilation, so I threw that album on the video.  The kisses and cheeks are courtesy of myself, my mother, and my old Escaped Fetal Pigs pal Mark Justice.  Since there is the mention of a goat in the song, I asked Steamboat Goat to be in the video, but he told me he was too busy preparing for some mysterious role in the new Trump administration, so he told me to use his public domain appearance in Steamboat Willie instead.  I thought it came out all right.  With luck, you and the other ten people who watch it will enjoy it also.

For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7" or give his latest album a listen or download at your favorite digital music site such as Soundcloud, Spotify, or Bandcamp!

Book Review: F==k Your Flag: The New Wave Of American Political Violence - Vol. 1 by Randall Fleming

 

One of the most fun zines of the 1990s was The Angry Thoreauan by Rev. Randall Tin-Ear.  I am happy to report that the former reverend is back and now writes books.  He was kind enough to send me his latest for review, and, as I expected, it's a very good read.  He takes as his subject the interesting subculture of right wing flags, primarily found in rural America, but something that can be found across the country if you look for it (the love rural America has for this urbanite is quite astounding).  Since it looks like Trump will be returning to the presidency (it's election night as I write this, so it's not official yet), it will be interesting to see if a left wing subculture of flags will develop as a resistance and that might be the subject of a sequel (I did see some Harris signs in Sandusky, Ohio this election season).  We'll see.  In any case, back to the current book.  It has many photographs of flags taken by Randall along with some excellent journalism.  I probably don't subscribe to the same cultural analysis results that Randall does (I find Trumpism more amusing than threatening), but he deserves an award for his journalism.  Anyone who reads this blog regularly or my novels probably knows that I occasionally grumble about the quality of journalism today (with some notable exceptions such as Glenn Greenwald, Greg Palast, and Matt Taibbi).  For example, the last time I bought a New York Times (earlier this year), one of the articles was one journalist interviewing another journalist in the newsroom.  I don't remember the topic since it was a few months ago, but it struck me as pretty bad journalism.  Instead of going out in the world and investigating something, the journalist was just going to interview his colleague on the topic.  There might be some occasions where that might be appropriate, but the topic of the article was not one of them.  It read instead as if the journalist was just too lazy to do any actual reporting.

Not Randall.  Apparently, the dude got shot at more than once taking his photographs.  And I can believe it.  I ran into those types when I worked for the Census, and I'm sure the folks who fly those flags have gotten more paranoid over the last few years since then.  Randall also digs into things, investigating for example the companies that manufacture the flags, which seem to be mainly made in China.  No one seems to want to answer any of his questions, but kudos to him for asking them and sniffing out when something seems rotten.  Randall's bullshit detector is working.  That is in stark contrast to most of today's "journalists" who seem content to parrot uncritically government authorities and corporate press releases.

I found all of the book compelling reading, but the chapters I found most interesting were the ones on how the comic book character The Punisher's symbol has been adopted by militant second amendment types with Disney's acquiescence, the anti-Joe Biden flags (whatever happens tonight will at least result in us being free of that disaster soon), and the flags manufacturers possibly being linked to a subtle Chinese attack on America.  As Randall concludes, "These flags are cheaply made, easy to buy, and seemingly everywhere. If any Chinese import should have a heavy tariff (a burden that ultimately rests on the buyer), it should be this shit. There’s nothing patriotic about buying desecrated U.S. flags from a hostile nation that uses buyer data to further inflame American politics."

It will be interesting to see if this subculture continues to flourish.  I did see a firefighter version of the thin blue line (police state flag) Randall writes about.  This one had a red stripe instead of a blue one, so it appears the subculture continues to grow for the time being, something that Randall clearly thinks is not a good sign for the health of the country.

The book is available from https://metrohopbooks.com.

If you want to read something else after you read Randall's book, then my latest novel is available at https://www.wredfright.com/p/fast-guy-slows-down.html.  The new one, The Front Yard War, is almost done being proofread, so look for it soon as well.

Music Video: Mary Black Mary Black Mary Black

 

Just in time for the spooky season comes the music video for "Mary Black Mary Black Mary Black".  The chorus part is a bit scary--who is that ugly guy?  Is that a ghost?  A zombie?  Yikes!  If you're unfamiliar with the legend upon which the song is based you can read about it at https://www.wredfright.com/2022/06/new-recording-mary-black-mary-black.html.  In any case, this is a good one for your seasonal playlist.  Happy Halloween!

For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7" or give his latest album a listen or download at your favorite digital music site such as Soundcloud, Spotify, or Bandcamp!  If you did, you might double his listenership--wow!

Dave Bell Memorial

A memorial for Dave Bell is being held Tuesday, October 29, 2024 at 4:30 p.m. at Loutzenhiser-Jordan Funeral Home, 366-368 S. Main Street, Greenville, Pennsylvania USA.  Dave died this week from cancer.  An obituary and more information on the service is at https://www.loutzenhiserfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/david-bell.  A good buddy of mine, Dave is missed.  I first met him in 1990 if I remember correctly.  My mom was set up at a flea market and made Dave's acquaintance.  Dave was helping his grandmother who was also set up there.  He liked cool music and was a cool kid, so we soon struck up a friendship.  We played in many fun bands together including Yeast?, Angry Housewives, Anal Spikemobile, The Lenin Spoonful, Rage Against Dabney Coleman, Ungoat, and probably a few others whose names I forget now.  We also saw many great concerts together including Nirvana, The Boredoms, Slayer, Pavement with Gary, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Guided By Voices, and many, many others.  

In addition to punk/alternative/indie/whatever you want to call it, Dave also played hip-hop, electronica, noise music, and even drummed in a polka band once.  After playing in the Pennsylvania/Ohio scene (Youngstown, Warren, Pittsburgh, and so forth), he was active in the Kent, Ohio USA music scene of the 1990s.  Some of the acts included Black Squirrel And Freaky and The Sacred Hearts Auto Club.  After that, he moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he caught the tail end of the 1990s garage rock scene that produced The New Bomb Turks and Gaunt.  Upon moving back to Western Pennsylvania, he made a variety of music on his own and played with various acts.  At one point, he was involved with the Cleveland noise music scene.  Even while undergoing cancer treatment, he was still making music.  I remember him showing me some cool beats he was making on a drum machine.  With luck, maybe we'll all get to hear some of the unreleased music down the road (I particularly loved one silly song called "I Like To Ride My Helicopter Around Town"), but, unfortunately, that's still no substitute for Dave.  He was like no one else.

If you want to hear some Dave music, then you can hear The Angry Housewives and Anal Spikemobile.  That's Dave singing on "Duster" by Yeast? as well.

Music Video: Why Honey Sings

 

I filmed most of this in Oberlin, Ohio USA, a cool little small college town nearby.  It's probably the only little town in Ohio one can go to a noise music record store and a local bakery that sued the local college, so you know it's an interesting place.  I filmed way more footage than I needed, so maybe some of it will pop up in another video but maybe not since each one tends to be conceived of individually.  In any case, I always liked this song.  The long flower shot makes me a little dizzy, so maybe it will have the same psychedelic effect on you.  If you go to the flowers and flags spot in Oberlin early on a Saturday morning, you can find some relics from the 1960s still protesting for peace, which is wonderful.  It hasn't worked in 60 years, but they still haven't given up hope that someday our country will stop bombing peasants around the world.  I hope they're right because that's a horrible way to waste money, time, and lives.  Like the hippies, I'm for peace and prosperity.  With luck, one day we'll get it.  In the meantime, here's another cool tune to groove to and gawk at.

For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7" or give his latest album a listen or download at your favorite digital music site such as Soundcloud, Spotify, or Bandcamp!  If you did, you might double his listenership--wow!

Yip!*: Back Issue

If you read comic books in the late 20th Century, then you'll likely also enjoy this magazine, which covers comics from that era.  Similar to what Roy Thomas does for mid-20th century comics in Alter Ego, Back Issue's writers examine comics in a critical and enthusiastic light, so you get interviews with creators, retrospectives of various series, and other features that illuminate the subject.  Founding editor Michael Eury has retired, but with luck the magazine will continue to be fun.  There's some danger that after more than 150 issues that they may have exhausted the subject, but they could always expand into the early 21st-Century at this point seeing how we're a quarter-century in now.  Every once in a while, the publisher will have a crazy sale.  I picked up a number of "back issues" of Back Issue for $5 a pop each.  There are very few ads, so the magazine is dense at 80 pages or so.  They also keep their eversions available, so one can read the entire run electronically if one were so inclined.  I found it better to dip into the issues where the comics covered were of particular interest to me, but the magazine is very good, so I am more likely now to read it regularly even when that issue's theme doesn't strike me as particularly interesting.  If, like me, you deplore much of what passes for contemporary comic books (variant covers, recycled storylines, cramming everything into 6-issue arcs, horrible computer-assisted art, too many unnecessary staffers causing the comics to be too expensive, and I'll stop ranting now, though I could go on and on and on), then Back Issue is a good way to still enjoy comics as it can point the way to overlooked gems from the past and get one to reappraise works one has read before.

*Yips! are good things!  So is my latest novel, Fast Guy Slows Down!

What Wred's Reading: Despite Everything: A Cometbus Anthology By Aaron Cometbus

I used to have a large zine book collection.  I also used to have a large zine collection, but that's another story.  In any case, at some point, I tired of lugging boxes of books I would probably never reread again around and decided just to reread them and dispose of them.  There is not much left of the zine book collection, only a few books.  This is a big one, so my muscles thank me in advance for finally getting it out of my life.  Cometbus is a fun zine, but reading this all in one large chunk gets a bit numbing.  Best taken in shorter doses, Cometbus's stories of punk life are charming.  Some of them even made me laugh out loud.  If even only half of the events are true, Aaron Cometbus, the editor and main writer of the zine, is lucky to have survived some of his crazy exploits.  The book now looks to be out of print, so maybe I can sell it on eBay (say, have you been checking out my eBay listings lately?--if not, then you're just like the rest of the world as eBay appears to be near-comatose, but maybe it's just the economy in general).  I don't know if Aaron is still publishing the zine itself as it's been a few years since I stumbled across a new issue, but it might still pop up again as zines are wont to do.  If so, I'd probably read it.  I just won't hang onto it for 22 years like I did this book.

If you want to read, but you're going to pass on reading about punks dumpster diving, then please read one of my novels.  My new novel, The Front Yard War, isn't out yet, but the previous Wred Fright novel is!  You can read the others also!

Music Video: Hey, Honey!

 

The latest music video is for another track from What's Your Flow Setting, Baby?  It's a fun, happy little song, and the video was fun to make as well.  Some of it was filmed at Dominic's in Wickliffe, Ohio USA, and my buddy Shawn helped out, so thanks to him and Dominic's.  Thanks to Shawn, I actually get to appear in my own music video, which is rare, usually you just see my hand or something if you see any part of me.  I saw some videos by local bands recently and they were boring (of course, they get hyped by the local media, which is how I found out about them).  Mainly, they were performance shots with the bands lip-syncing or something.  I actually don't mind videos like that, but I prefer they be live performances.  It's cool to see how a band rocks out in person albeit by video, but if you're going to make a non-live video, I usually find the lip sync stuff boring.  That's why I try to make weird little films that fit the subject matter but are visually interesting (at least to me; others may not find billiard balls bouncing off pool table walls as appealing as I do).  

For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7" or give his latest album a listen or download at your favorite digital music site such as Soundcloud, Spotify, or Bandcamp!

Review Copies Of The Front Yard War

 

If anyone wants a review copy of the new novel, then please get in touch (leave a comment with your contact info or email me at wredfright Where it's at yahoo dott com).  I don't care where you review it.  It could be in a large city newspaper, your Facebook page, or even the bulletin board at the bagel shop.  I don't care.  As I have noted before, reviews are hard to come by these days.  I've done four albums in the past four years, and I don't think I've gotten a single actual review of any of them (maybe people think they suck and are just being polite, but it seems as if an awful lot of culture just passes by these days unnoticed).  The last novel had a couple of reviews, but that was it.  The corporate publishers can afford advertising.  For us indie lit types, it's all about word of mouth, so if you want a free book, just please agree to write a review.  You can even hate the book (though I'd be surprised if you were--so far, I'm enjoying the proofing and suspect that most other folks will enjoy the read as well); I don't care, just share your thoughts and spread the word if you would be so kind.

The Front Yard War isn't out yet, but the previous Wred Fright novel is!  You can read the others also!

New Single!: Forget Me Fondly

wredfright · Forget Me Fondly

This is a bit of a strange track (of course, to people who listen to American Idol or whatnot, all my tracks are probably strange).  Originally, I had a short song and decided to use it as the "third input" in another song (the third input being the bridge or middle eight that breaks up the monotony of the verse and chorus repeating ad infinitum), something I've never done before.  Then during the editing process, pretty much all of the main song disappeared, so you get this really weird short song.  Musically, it's an oddball as well.  I am drumming on a book, specifically Why You Like It:  the Science & Culture Of Musical Taste by Nolan Gasser, which is no doubt interesting to read maybe, but does work great as a percussion instrument since it's a thick hardback book.  Then the guitar part is played with a vintage toy Matchbox car.  Fake bass on guitar completes the process.  Lyrics are below (lyrics I ended up using anyway):

A pair of dentures.
A ratty knit hat.
A can of ginger ale.
A picture of a dead cat.

An old man's things. 

A black cane.
A paperback about World War II.
Last month's newspapers.
An empty can of beef stew.

If you forget me, forget me fondly.

For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7" or give his latest album a listen or download at your favorite digital music site such as Spotify or Bandcamp!

Cover For The Front Yard War

Here's the cover for the new novel.  It's in the proofing stage, so it's moving towards when you can read it.

The Front Yard War isn't out yet, but the previous Wred Fright novel is!  You can read the others also!

The Front Yard War

So what's the new novel about?  Here's a description:

"Jane Carcrashski is getting a divorce.  Jane Carcrashski is looking for a new career.  Jane Carcrashski is getting good at hiding her nervous breakdown. But one thing Jane Carcrashski is not doing is cutting the grass. You see, her estranged husband says he'll do it, and she's making sure he keeps his word.  Unfortunately, he's real busy, so he hasn't had time to do it, but he says he'll be over tonight.  If not tonight, then the next day.  OK, maybe this weekend.  Well, something came up, so next weekend?

In the meantime, the grass is growing, and we're past No Mow May into Angry Neighbors And Government Code Violations June, and Jane is thrust into an armed standoff with local government goons fueled by a group of misfits drawn to her growing grass including a property rights extremist who maybe only loves his rights slightly more than his guns, a native plants enthusiast who feels guilty about finding dandelion sandwiches so damn delicious, a yard artist who thinks Jane's yard just needs a few more inflatable flamingos and it would look better, and a digital druid who dislikes clothing and insists on live streaming his intense naked conversations with the plants in Jane's yard.

Remember the Alamo?  Remember Waco?  Remember Attica?  Remember how the Harpers Ferry raid ended?--Also, remember when Harper's Ferry used to have an apostrophe?  OK, enough digression, let's get back to the main point--Remember when Philadelphia dropped a bomb on a bunch of militant vegetarians?

No?  Well, none of those had happy endings.  Jane's still hoping for one here, but that's only probably because she's drunk.  If you like novels such as The Monkey Wrench Gang, then you're probably on a government watchlist, but you'll also likely enjoy reading The Front Yard War!"

The Front Yard War isn't out yet, but the previous Wred Fright novel is!  You can read the others also!

New Wred Fright Novel!

I wrote another novel.  It should be published this fall.  It's in the proofing stage.  It's called The Front Yard War.  Provided I don't get run over by a bus or something, more info will be forthcoming, so please stay tuned!

If you haven't read the last Wred Fright novel yet, it is still available!  You can read the others also!

Music Video: The Calling

I like music videos, but I generally dislike the usual MTV quick cut style where image poured upon image and the viewer never really got a good look at anything (which is probably why I was one of the few who liked the "Bastards Of Young" video by The Replacements).  For this video, I tried to catch some wildlife and other nature by the lake and in the yard, and I tried to keep some extended shots going as usual while still keeping it visually interesting.  I think it came out pretty well.  See what you think.

For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7" or give his latest album a listen or download at your favorite digital music site such as Spotify or Bandcamp!

drinkdrankdrunk: "EXIT THE HANDSOME" by The Midnight Rider

i realize that the focus of this story is cashpoint, but i’ve never written a novel without mentioning the big handsome (who is perhaps my most mentally ill friend) … the big handsome’s family is rich-as-shit, but he’s fallen on hard times in 2017 and had to move back in with his mom in kentucky … in the span of about 9 months, big handsome’s father and cats died, plus he was fired from another teaching gig in colorado (and i think the death of his beloved cats hit him the hardest) … we kinda lost touch over the years, and the only reason i know anything about him now is through his internet podcast … the disconnect certainly wasn’t my fault--i flew out to denver on spring break to stay with him in 2014, and the big handsome was too high to pick me up at the airport … i called and called, and he was ultimately too fucked up to drive the hour from colorado springs, and i wound up staying with another friend, alaska dave, in boulder … i haven’t seen the big handsome since 2013, and it’s entirely possible that i’ll never see him again (and that makes me sad) … per the podcast, big handsome is seeing a psychiatrist in 2017, but i don’t necessarily know what’s wrong with him (other than being high every moment of the day from 1990-2015) … other stories from other novels dealt with big handsome calling me a “republican” for not wanting to sit in 6-month-old puke while driving to a party, and his cats using his bathtub as a giant litterbox, but this particular paragraph will deal exclusively with the life/times of big handsome while teaching at a college in louisville from 2008-2010 … there’s no real connection to cashpoint other than they paid my salary, and i came back to iowa with some fucked-up stories to tell my students … this might seem like a diversion, but i promise that the big handsome is always worth it … at the time, big handsome was teaching english at government cheese university…..i don’t know how he got the job, but he only lasted 2 years … big handsome went to colorado to party the summer after his 2nd year and never returned … as the story goes, the head of the english department started calling big handsome’s friends/colleagues/former professors in september after the big handsome failed to show for the first 3 weeks of school--there was no official resignation or notification of any kind--big handsome simply decided to go smoke doobies and assumed his job would be waiting for him when he returned … i was only on their campus once, but government cheese was a helluva nice school--100 times classier than cashpoint and the kind of place where i would give my left nut to teach … my one visit to their campus was to see a play that big handsome had written about his cats as part of some “galileo festival” (and i have no idea what the connection to galileo was other than big handsome’s life revolved around his cats the way planets revolve around the sun) … i was high-as-a-bat, but big handsome played himself, and his cats were played by 2 hot coeds in slinky cat-suits complete with ears/tails … instead of smoking doobies, the character was a writer who drank scotch and played with his cats (who would perch on the furniture while sticking their asses in big handsome’s face wanting to be petted) all day--nice work if you can get it, yeah? ... big handsome even got a stipend from the university for writing the play (which seemed to be nothing more than his own life, but with hot coeds playing the parts of his cats) … i sat with one of big handsome’s students, and she seemed to think he was some kind of eccentric genius … she seemed to like me too--until i asked her if she wanted to go outside to get high (and then she seemed terrified of me) … after the play was over, we went to a local pub where big handsome let his students buy us drinks for the remainder of the evening … i didn’t have my car and big handsome was out-of-his-mind, so one of his students offered to drive us home (and, of course, big handsome paid the kid back by getting him so high that he wound up crashing on the floor next to me) … if you’re curious, big handsome’s apartment was just like you remembered it … there were 5’ tall stacks of dirty clothes in each room (complete with q-tips, dental floss or whatever other piece of garbage big handsome decided to throw into the pile) … big handsome was 38 at the time and had no idea how to do laundry--whenever he needed new clothes, he would simply charge them to his mother’s credit card … there was no toilet paper or cleaning supplies whatsoever, and i think big handsome shat at work and showered at the government cheese gym … the only food big handsome knew how to make was pizza, so his fridge was an assortment of (dripping-out-of-the-can) sauces, pizza dough, and assorted designer beers … whenever big handsome drank a beer, he simply left the bottle wherever he finished it (and there must have been thousands of empty beer bottles strewn across his apartment) … one time, big handsome’s alarm clock buzzed and woke him up, so he smashed it with his fist and the broken glass stayed on his nightstand until i returned again the following year … big handsome didn’t like junk mail, so whenever it was delivered to his mailbox, he immediately threw it on the front steps leading up to his apartment--the pile was 2’ high during my first visit and 4’ high for my second visit (and never forget that big handsome has a phd and his grandfather had once been the attorney general of kentucky) … during my second visit in the spring of 2010, i got to meet some of big handsome’s friends from undergrad … the most interesting of the pack were the son and daughter-in-law of one of big handsome’s english professors at the university of louisville … i don’t remember their names, but the dude had worked as a male stripper to put himself through college, and the chick had been a jockey at churchill downs until she failed a drug test (meth) … the groom’s go-to story was about once stripping for jeffrey dahmer at a private party in milwaukee whereas the bride’s had to go with doing lines off the winning horse’s saddle after winning a $1,000,000 handicapped race … the couple had 3 kids, lived in a victorian mansion full-of-books, and both worked as nurses as the local hospital … they were also huge cokeheads and hooked me up with their dealer in the bathroom of a dilapidated bar in the seediest section of town--then we went to the graveyard across from their house and did lines off the headstone of colonel harlan sanders (i thought it was disrespectful, and it made me uncomfortable, but party etiquette dictates that the needs of the drug dealer takes precedence over everyone else) … (daytripper) big handsome actually refused because of what happened to len bias and because doing lines off the grave of colonel sanders would be disrespectful to the great sport of basketball--hey, i guess we all have to draw the line somewhere

The Midnight Rider prefers to remain mysterious.  You could visit his website, but he won't say where it is.  You could read his books, but he won't say what they are.  You could email him, but I'm pretty sure spam@gofuckyourself.gov is not a real email address.  In a world where everyone is repping their Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, sex tapes, line of clothing, new microbrew, virus panic vaccine status, and overall brand, I find that refreshing.  I am happy to have The Rider ride on drinkdrankdrunk.

Music Video: Canaries

 

Years ago I saw a tv series about World War I and found one of the aspects very interesting, so I wrote a song about it.  World War I is my favorite war, which is not to say that I like it--most if not all wars are pretty stupid and wasteful when you dig into them--but it is the most interesting with all the new technology being used to just slaughter people for no good reason, and all the powerful art and literature that emerged in the wake of that absurdity.  The Great War also pretty much set up the table for much of the rest of the 20th Century from World War II to The Cold War, and even the current issues in the Middle East.  Of course, the sane people such as James Joyce and the Dadaists just seemed to wait out the war out in Zurich.  We shouldn't feel too superior to those living a century ago though.  The virus panic was pretty stupid also and may actually result in a higher body count (just had a healthy friend die last month out of the blue, and I have my suspicions why).  If only we had a metaphorical Zurich today, eh?  I was surprised to find some public domain World War I footage of the women in the factories.  I thought I would have to use all photographs for the music video, so that was a nice surprise.

For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7" or give his latest album a listen or download at your favorite digital music site such as Spotify or Bandcamp!

drinkdrankdrunk: "ASSBURGERS GARY" by The Midnight Rider

 

i don’t know what story to tell about assburgers gary because assburgers gary is ultimately too neurotic to really do anything of note … that’s not to say that assburgers gary isn’t one of my dearest friends (as well as the last one left in town) … assburgers gary is 72 and received his phd from cal-berkeley at the tender age of 23 … is assburgers gary a genius?--i would say yes, but he’s also almost too “special” to be walking around amongst the proletariat (his word--not mine) … does assburgers gary really have assburgers?--not officially, but he’s old enough to have had “it” before new york invented the concept (to make money off neurotic gentiles) … is assburgers gary a virgin?--well, he claims to have lost his virginity to a swedish grad student under a bridge in stockholm circa 1965, but i don’t think there are any (living) witnesses … assburgers gary is most definitely a millionaire (the urban legend is that he has a $20 bill hidden in every book in his apartment with number in the tens of thousands), but lives like a pauper in the worst slum in eastern iowa … his neighbors are all criminals/drug dealers and my dad would say that one of them will soon “knock him in the head” and take all his money … he actually fell prey to a computer scam just last week--he was on a poetry submission site and his computer froze and a message popped up that he should call a number in canada for virus-protection--he called the number and he gave them his credit card number and they deducted $250 from his account before unfreezing his computer (which they froze to begin with) … gary then spent 36 hours writing a 14-page e-mail warning all his friends of the scam … if you want a better story:  gary organized a “co-birthday party” for wiseman and pastor ted a few years ago where we would all meet at the local movie theater for a movie and then go out to dinner afterwards … the three of us arrived at 6, but there was no assburgers gary … we waited until 6:30 and then 7 and then i tried to call him (knowing full well that assburgers gary wouldn’t pick up because the phone call could potentially cost him long-distance charges) … instead of going to a later movie, we decided to drive over to gary’s apartment and bang on his door … it’s also worth noting that, to my knowledge, no colleague of gary’s has ever been in his apartment since dean bell helped him move circa 1982 … when we knocked, gary unlocked the door, but wouldn’t remove the chain … it seems that there had been a tornado warning earlier in the day, and assburgers gary had retreated to the relative safely of a closet in his bedroom … since the tornado warning expired at 7, gary eventually joined us for dinner/drinks (and only ordered a glass of water since he was “dieting” that week) … there was also the story about the time gary almost burned his apartment complex down … he forgot that he was cooking noodles on the stove and by the time he realized it, the fireman were knocking at his door because of all the smoke … the fire marshal paid gary a visit later that week and told him that the 50,000 books (a rough estimate because i really have no idea how many books are in gary’s apartment) were a fire hazard and he would have to get rid of half of them … and much like the beaver from leave it to beaver, gary loaded thousands of books into his broken-down pt cruiser and drove them to school the day the fire marshal came back to inspect his apartment … gary also has a thing about weight (i think because he used to be heavyset as a child) … for the first year i knew gary, he would ask me at least once a week how much i weighed--he wasn’t afraid to come up and randomly say “282 pounds” in the hall either … on more than one occasion, i’ve also seen gary walk up to a random female faculty member and guess how much weight they had put on since the last time he had seen them (and i promise you that women hate that infinitely more than chubby kids--they don’t seem to understand that it’s just assburgers gary’s way of letting them know that he’s paying attention to them) … so what is gary’s life like in 2017 after the fall of shady state with no family and me as his only friend?--well, gary claims that he’s “busier now than when he was teaching” … he joined 3-4 book clubs and somehow talked his way onto the school board and the town human rights commission (not that a tiny, iowa town particularly needs a human rights commission) … he also has lunch every weekday at a different retirement home in the area … did i mention that he writes poetry and emails me 3-4 poems a day for proofreading?--once i proofread them, he sends them out to hundreds of people (former colleagues, retirees, and folks from the nursing home) to the point where i get 3-4 emails a month from his friends asking me how they can “get gary to stop sending them poetry without hurting his feelings”--and the only response is: that’s just gary, you can’t

The Midnight Rider prefers to remain mysterious.  You could visit his website, but he won't say where it is.  You could read his books, but he won't say what they are.  You could email him, but I'm pretty sure spam@gofuckyourself.gov is not a real email address.  In a world where everyone is repping their Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, sex tapes, line of clothing, new microbrew, virus panic vaccine status, and overall brand, I find that refreshing.  I am happy to have The Rider ride on drinkdrankdrunk.

Music Video: (I'm Going To) Youngstown (To Get Fucked Up)

 

I had a hankering to make some music videos again, so I'm picking up where I left off.  "(I'm Going To) Youngstown (To Get Fucked Up)" is the first song off What's Your Flow Setting, Baby? so it got the new video treatment first.  The video is basically a tribute to the late 1980s/early 1990s Youngstown art/music scene.  If you were around back then, then you might recognize an artist, band, newspaper, or venue.  I also had to throw The Gargoyle in there, though technically that club was in Warren, Ohio USA and not Youngstown, Ohio USA, but then again many of the bands were from New Castle, Pennsylvania USA or Sharon, Pennsylvania USA anyway.  That whole area kind of mushes together.  Thanks to Crazy Carl for the professional wrestling photos.  They were from a show in Youngstown in 2002.  I am not involved in the current Youngstown music scene, but I would hope there are some folks making a ruckus there still.  The Chris Yambar stuff made me a bit sad.  I always enjoyed running into him at a local comic book convention and seeing whatever crazy project he was currently up to.  I hope Y-Town has some new crazy artists making that rust belt city interesting like Chris did when he was alive.  The video is lo-fi as usual, but I hope you find it more interesting than the A.I. or lazy lyrics video I've been seeing lately.  Come on, folks, it doesn't take much to make a reasonably interesting music video.  Don't be lazy!  Come up with as something creative as the song.  Look what I did with an empty beer bottle and some old newspapers.  You can probably do even better!

For more Wred Fright music, listen to the Yeast? 7" or give his latest album a listen or download at your favorite digital music site such as Spotify or Bandcamp!

drinkdrankdrunk: "DIRT DICK AND THE MACHINE ELVES" by The Midnight Rider

if the linguistics professor at cashpoint went to my undergrad, they’d call him “dirt dick”… brotherman has a 7-year-old son from a bartender at the punkrock bar in town, a 4-year-old son from another bartender at the punkrock bar in town, and he recently married one of his students who is 15 years younger (and from colombia) … there are plenty of professors at cashpoint who think they’re playas, but this dude really is one … i walked into a strange liquor store with him one time and the girl-behind-the-counter was ready to abandon her post and go to his house in about 30 seconds--there are conflicting theories as to his popularity with women, but i’d go with:  giant cock … he’s not particularly choosy, but who i am to judge? ... he’s also a weed dealer, but in general, i’m not a fan of the sour diesel (and generally only call on him as a favor to annie’s sister) … the last time i was at his house, he broke out the dmt (dimethyltryptamine)--you know, the psychedelic compound that causes the user to see machine elves (the humanoid hallucination of an elf-bouncing-a-ball first coined by ethnobotanist, terence mckenna) … well, i didn’t see any little/green elves, but i did see a vision of cartoon/technicolor hell when i smoked/snorted the compound … before i tell the story, i should mention that if you asked dirt dick what he thought of me, he would prolly respond that i was paranoid (and you would be too if your mother was peeping around the corner watching every cookie you ever ate) … conversely, sitting in a room with dirt dick reminds me of boarding school when one of the richer/kooler kids was trying to dare me into doing something that i didn’t want to do--perhaps i cosmically believe that dirt dick is kooler, but there’s something about his personality that makes me want to keep him at arm’s length … anyway, onto the machine elves … the first time i barely hit the bowl, and when i looked down, i could see red/cartoon swirls for a few seconds … dirt dick was in another dimension for about a minute, and when he came back, he asked me if i saw “it”--when i told him what i saw, he heckled that i didn’t do enough … we smoked again in a few minutes, and i did a little more … when i looked down this time, i saw the same red/technicolor swirls plus millions of tiny dilbert-style (like for office workers) cubicles … when dirt dick came back around the 2nd time, he seemed even angrier that i hadn’t seen “it” and implied that i was a pussy … after about 45 minutes of arguing, i agreed to snort the dmt--this time it “worked”, and i was forced to make a decision … i knew that if i looked down that i would see hell--it would be a red/swirling, tex avery version of hell, but it would still be hell … i knew that the effects of the dmt were only supposed to last 30 seconds or so, but i was afraid that if i looked down that i would be stuck in hell forever … and being the pussy that i am, i wouldn’t let myself look down … i looked up instead--thereby remaining on the right/rational side of the fence … over the years, i’ve prolly done over 200 hits of lsd, but i never did more than one even when my friend, nootie was doing 3-4 … i was always afraid that i would lose my mind and never come back … since doing the dmt, i’ve noticed a few subtle changes in my consciousness (and they say once you do it, you’re never quite the same) … the first change is in my rem “sleep”--usually when my eyes are closed and i’m nodding off, the vision i see in my brain is of my eyes as some sort of vehicle “driving” down a road … since the dmt, i see darkened figures shooting off to the left/right as opposed to a road--maybe you could call these figures “neurons”?--i really don’t know … the second, small thing i’ve noticed occurs when i’m watching a ghost show or scary movie on tv … for most of my life when hearing a ghost story that i believed, i got the chills--well, i still get the same chills in 2016 when i believe, but they seem to be 20 times more intense … i know this section is ostensibly about the life/times of dirt dick, so maybe i should end with the story of his wedding (to a 22-year-old, former student from colombia) … dirt dick decided to have a “big lebowski” wedding at the local bowling alley complete with costumes and memorabilia … i did my part by wearing the costume of the cashpoint mascot i had worn the day before at the school soccer game … one of the more interesting aspects of the wedding was that all the cashpoint nuns were in attendance and one of them even read a scripture verse--and he was marrying a student who was in his class at the time! ... wiseman, giada, and i all ate special brownies, but giada didn’t tell her husband, and i spent most of the evening encouraging her to eat-more-food (so her husband wouldn’t know she was freaking out) … the liquor store was right across the street, so i snuck away from the wedding for about an hour to hang out with my buddy, rob, whose dad owns the place (we watched tv in the backroom and smoked a couple doobies) … supposedly the bride and groom got in a fight at the end of the night because the bride refused a drunk drive home (while the local police circled the block) … the groom eventually made it home unscathed, but somewhere in the mix, he left both his guitar and driver’s license (and there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest because of a 1999 trespassing charge in illinois) … when dirt dick went back to the town the following monday, he was arrested and given a future court date … i never found out what happened after that, but in retrospect, maybe dirt dick really is kooler than me? … my wedding gift to the couple was the fabulous furry freak brothers compendium, so at least they knew my heart was in the right place

The Midnight Rider prefers to remain mysterious.  You could visit his website, but he won't say where it is.  You could read his books, but he won't say what they are.  You could email him, but I'm pretty sure spam@gofuckyourself.gov is not a real email address.  In a world where everyone is repping their Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, sex tapes, line of clothing, new microbrew, virus panic vaccine status, and overall brand, I find that refreshing.  I am happy to have The Rider ride on drinkdrankdrunk.