Go to an extreme, move back to a more comfortable place

Writing Oblique Strategies #2

Dave

Dave stood there in the kitchen of his ranch-style two bedroom in Canoga Park hunched over the wok, befuddled. Simon observed from a safe distance, wondering why Dave couldn’t make his meal first. After all, it only involved scooping something from a plastic bin into an aluminum bowl. Simon and the put-upon Fern sitting in the sink window commiserated in their lack of nourishment at the expense of Dave’s culinary experimentation.

Every day Dave took another shot at making the same stir fry. He was trying to concoct the perfect old dude healthy lunch, but it was hard. The years of drinking, drugs, and little more exercise than standing had definitely given him a paunch, and the paunch meant body mass. Body mass meant he needed calories. He’d tried the starving himself diets, and it didn’t work. His best shot, he figured, was trying to find the healthiest large mass he could eat. This was, of course, insanely boring, even by his modified middle age standards. So he was working on stir fries. Baked chicken, broccoli, red peppers, celery, carrots, then one can from the store of canned Asian vegetables he kept: sprouts, water chestnuts, baby corn, bamboo. He’d tried to leave it at that, but he found he was hungry again in an hour. He tried peanuts as a protein — reasoning people used them in Kung Pao dishes, but it didn’t feel right. So, reluctantly, he’d been adding a small amount of brown rice to the dish, giving it a little staying power. He’d abandoned the House of Tsang sauces once he discovered how much sugar was in them, and these days was trying to concoct the healthiest sauce he could muster while still giving it some flavor. Currently his mixture comprised on water in place of most of the oil, a quarter teaspoon of some Omega-3-laden vegetable oil (obviously a marketing scam but he knew nothing about cooking, so the scam worked), garlic powder, onion power, a half capful of rice vinegar, a half capful of Shaoxing wine (he’d learned about it from a hot and sour soup recipe he’d tried some months back and noticed it was in a lot of asian dishes. He wasn’t sure what it did), soy sauce (a vice he couldn’t give up, but sodium levels had never been his problem), sesame oil and some hot chili oil. Yesterday’s attempt tasted pretty good, but something wasn’t quite right. He knew it was time to learn exactly what the Shaoxing wine was doing to his recipe, but admitted to himself his predilection for chili peppers made it virtually impossible for him to taste anything, and unless he could do a back and forth A/B test, he’d never really be able to tell. Okay, who was he kidding, it was the thirty years of Marlboro Reds.

Dave was mustering up the energy to break out another pan of some sort — he did not own two woks (god, even he had limits) — to A/B the Shaoxing wine. Dave was musing upon the irony that this routine was one of the highlights of his day yet he still resented the exertion of energy this particular test would require, when the doorbell rang – echoing through the living room through the archway (that he really should knock out and open the place up) into the kitchen.

“Gabriela!” He turned his neck about as far as it would go — maybe thirty degrees — and shouted towards the hallway. No answer. Oh right. Gabriela was off today. She only came in two days a week. He didn’t really see the point of hiring her at all, but his agent had foisted her on him, and she seemed too nice to let go. Two days was a decent compromise. And she brought him groceries, which was a definite plus. But she was out today, and he’d have to deal with the door himself. He stepped to the kitchen window, pulled back the flimsy white excuse for a curtain and peeked at the front door.

Two tall, slender men stood there. Perhaps early thirties. Neatly dressed in black. One was a ginger, and one of them had hair perfectly matching their dark clothes. Both were inordinately pale for the LA summer sun. Missionaries, he thought. Mormons, no doubt. Even as thought this, however, he dimly knew they both seemed a bit too old to be on their mission, and not rich enough to land such a plum assignment as SoCal. This he could tell by their shoes. Not Jehovah’s Witnesses, he reasoned, by nature of their gender.

He began to fear the worst, and resolved to dispatch them post haste. He crossed the kitchen, building up inertia as he turned the corner into the living room. He reached the door, opened it as quickly and surprisingly as he could manage. He scowled at two expectantly, without saying a word.

Just before the silence reached uncomfortable levels, the startlingly freckle-free redhead broke it. Actually, now that Dave got a look at him, his skin was perfect. And not as pale as he’d thought. “Garrett? Garrett O’Death?”

Aww fuck.

“The name’s Dave.” Dave said. “What do you want.”

“It’s you, isn’t it? Garrett O’Death? Lead singer of the Sharkbombs?”

Aww fuck.

“It’s totally him,” the brunette (can a man be a brunette? A brun?), who Dave was noticing was a shade taller, blurted out. “Er, I mean, it’s totally you.”

“I am me,” Dave allowed.

“I totally know you’re Garrett O’Death. Bartender at The Three Clubs told us this was your house.”

“Who the fuck is the bartender at The Three Clubs and what the fuck does he know?” Dave asked.

“His name’s Butt Rock. Um, I mean, his name’s Britt Rock. He said he engineered a session with you just last month.”

Ah. Fuck. Yeah. That kid. Makes sense. Not the sort of kid you usually see at the Newman Stage. Probably got an internship through his dad. And he’s a bartender. Yeah. Trust fund baby, no doubt. Dave made a mental note to give the kid a good glare if he ever saw him again.

“Aww fuck,” this time he said it out loud.

“It is you.”

“Jesus. H. What do you kids want?” He realized he was basically making himself appear even older by calling two fully grown, thirty-something men kids, but, fuck it.

“Wow, oh wow. We just wanted to meet you. Man. We’re huge Sharkbomb fans.”

“Well, cool. Thanks. It’d be awesome if there were a million more of you. Well, not standing at my door, but, you know, in the world. Anyway, good to meet you guys. Cool.”

The redhead giggled. “Mr. O’Death, I’m Sebastian, and this is Jay.”

“I’m not Mr. O’Death,” Dave said.

“Garrett, then, sorry.”

“My name’s Dave. Dave, okay? It’s always been Dave. I was Dave when I was a kid, I was Dave when I was in a rock band, I’m Dave now. No one ever actually called me Garrett O’Death. Shit, I even changed my name to Dave OD in the credits by the third album.”

“Seasons of Pain,” Sebastian intoned with solemnity.

“Fuck. Jesus. No. Seasons of Pain was fourth. It’s not my fucking fault the record label wouldn’t put Filth Torch out until 1994. We fucking recorded it didn’t we? It’s an album.”

Jay glared at Sebastian “we’re sorry Mr. O — Garr — [pause] Dave. I love Filth Torch. I have it the first pressing on Blast First. I saw you guys at the end of the Theater of Torture tour when you started playing songs off of it, saying it was coming out in the spring. It was one of the first show –”

“Great, cool. No worries. I don’t care if you know our discography. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t care about any of it. It’s in the past now.”

“Right yes. You’re a composer now. I have the soundtrack to Story of the Eye on Vinyl.”

“They made that on vinyl? Jesus I don’t even — look whatever. Even that was twenty years ago, man. I’m sure you bought the Sponge Bob soundtrack compilation album I had a track on last year too.”

“No, no I know. I have the ones after that too,” Jay rushed out. “Your minimalist album of Erik Satie’s work. I love that you rehabilitated that old Chamberlain and re-recorded the loops with nothing but the different white noises generated in the forest. Rushing water and cicadas and shit. And the album after that that you played completely on a Tibetan flute. I heard — ” Jay wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue, but pressed forward. “I heard that you actually dug up the body to get that Thigh bone.”

This was not quite true, Dave thought with some relief, but close enough to the truth that he felt some shame. He had bought the bone, no questions asked, back in his squatting days in Dalston, from a hulking bald bloke. No questions asked. It bears repeating. He still had the flute, actually. He’d recently used it, giving himself a good chuckle, on a recent episode of The Fairly OddParents.

“No. Yes. No. Look. What do you want.”

Sebastian piped up. “Do I smell Szechuan?”

“What?”

“Garlic, vinegar, chili. Smells like Szechuan.”

“I don’t know. I got something on the stove, yeah. And I should get back to it.”

“In a wok?” Sebastian asked.

“Yeah.”

“Smells like Szechuan.”

Dave debated for a second. Fuck it. “Okay, Yeah. It’s not right though. Tastes wrong.”

“Trying to make it like the Chinese restaurant?” Sebastian asked.

“Well, I’m trying to make it good.”

“And healthy?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the main reason you can’t is because what they do in the restaurant is not healthy. You don’t want to know how much oil they use. Mind if I take a look?”

“Ugh. Yeah. Okay.” What the fuck Dave thought. Maybe he could get something out of this.

The three of them headed to the kitchen. Jay looked around the ranch-style house’s living room, spacious in the 1970's, but somewhat claustrophobic by today’s standards. The house was like every other house in Canoga Park. Beige on the outside, beige on the inside. When they pulled up, they weren’t even sure it was the right house. Surely Garret O’Death would live in a crypt or an old run down mansion or something. Nope.

He looked for gold records, posters, flyers, some evidence of the rock, the dying of the light. The best he saw was two Emmys sitting on top of the particle board Lauder entertainment console, and a small MIDI controller on one of the end tables abutting the Ikea Klippan couch, otherwise covered with blue Mead spiral-bound notebooks.

Jay spoke up on the short journey across the disappointing living room. “So, Garrett — Dave. I’ve always wondered. Why don’t you guys ever reunite?”

“What?” Dave seemed genuinely befuddled by the question. “What? Why? What the fuck? Why?”

“Well, I mean, for the fans”

“What? All twelve of you?”

“I think there are more than you know.”

This was, Dave had to admit to himself, patently not true. He would never admit it, but he kept tabs on these things. Google, the message boards, Discogs, the official fan site. Bobby was more active, encouraging their webmaster Kumil to keep the project going. But Dave could tell Kumil was losing interest. He had a wife and kids now. Worked at NASA or something. If Bobby didn’t egg him on, even he’d have lost interest by now.

But he wasn’t going to say any of this to Sebastian and Jay.

“No... No. Terry died, Bobby’s a professor. We’re old. No one wants to see a bunch of old dudes play weird songs about fucked-up sex and drugs shit.”

“Terry?” Jay asked, confused.

“Jesus, Jay. Derek.”

“Oh Derek Danger.” His lapse left Jay flustered. Of course. “No, I think it would mean a lot. And you have fans that were kids when you were around — they’ve never seen you guys. It’s a dream for a lot of kids.”

“And I wanted to see the Beatles too. Sometimes we don’t get to live our dreams” — the sarcasm increased as the sentence wrapped up. Riding the fader.

“It would be easy. Get some fan kid to sit on drums to replace Derek,” Jay didn’t even bother to correct himself as his enthusiasm tumbled forth. This is what he’d come to say, and he knew he had to get it out. “You’re still a musician, and so’s Tank.” Jay immediately wondered if Tank Thomas had a real name. Dave could see the fear of offending in Jay’s eyes and he debated letting him stew.

“Tank Thomas. Thomas was his name, Tank has been his nickname since grade school. It’s cool.”

Garrett saying Tank’s name out loud gave Jay some courage. He just went for it and asked what the message boards would be dying to know. “Do you guys still talk?”

“Yeah, sure. He was over at Newman’s last month. Did a Marxophone solo for the new Tarantino score I’m working on.”

“Oh man, that’s awesome.” Jay again. “That’s so cool you still work with Tarantino. I mean, of course you do. You made those films.”

“What? Ha. Man. I’m lucky he even asked me. You do that shit for scale. There’s a million kids dying for that gig. You make your money in TV. Nickelodeon. Disney XD. They pay. I’m trying to get a Star Wars Rebels episode right now.”

Jay seemed, unsurprisingly, somewhat deflated and baffled by the injection of money into the conversation, but carried on. “Man. I can’t believe the lead singer of Conflicted Rights is going to be on a new Tarantino score.”

Right. Time to get these guys out of here. “Okay. Right. Yeah. This has been lovely but I have something on the stove.”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry. I mean, does it bother you that Conflicted Rights is so huge these days?”

Dave was on the verge of ushering Jay out of the room. Sebastian saved the day.

“Ginger. This needs ginger. And fresh ginger. Not powdered. And you should get fresh garlic, too. And shallots, not onions. Chop ‘em up, save ‘em in the freezer in some Tubberware (sic) with a dollop of oil. It’ll last a few months. Peel the ginger as you need it. And honestly, you’re going to need something sweet. I cheat and use simple syrup.”

“Cool. Great. Thanks. The ginger says it needs ginger. I’ll get Gabriela to pick some up next week.”

“We could go right now and get some,” Sebastian offered.

“I don’t have a car,” Dave was ready to get them out.

“In LA? That’s so cool” Jay gushed. “How do you do it? Uber?”

“What the fuck’s Uber? No. Where do I have to go? I work on a movie, the production company comes and gets me. My girlfriend picks me up when we go out. Gabriela brings the groceries. I score most of my TV shit in the garage.”

“We’ll go get you some.” Jay volunteered in such a manner that lead Dave to believe Sebastian was the one with the car. “But look. Just think about it, okay? It could be lucrative.”

“What?”

“A reunion.”

“Lucrative? Ha. You clearly don’t know anything about the music business these days. You think we’ve never been offered a reunion? Ten grand, that’s about the most we could get for one here in the US. And that’s from GoldenVoice. A good offer. There’s some wackjob Japanese exec who offered us $100k to play in Tokyo, but even that, after airfare and hotels and renting gear and shit, would get us about $15k each. Tank can make that in an afternoon. We’d have to practice for a few weeks with some kid that probably looked like you guys. I’d have to leave the house, Gabriela would get bored, who would feed Simon? We’d have to start a Twitter or some shit. And shit, man, Bobby couldn’t play guitar even when he was practicing. No, look. I don’t need to re-live the glory days. It wasn’t awesome, okay? I was drunk as fuck, I’ve been working for ten years to lose the tub of lard the rock and roll lifestyle gave me. We spent most of our nights passed out on shitty floors of assholes like you — excuse me, people like you that were assholes on top of that. I’m lucky as fuck that McGee ever gave me that first soundtrack gig, I didn’t know it was even a caree–”

“I always meant to ask you about your soundtrack choices. I mean, the first ones — Story of the Eye, Nausea, Kindred Raven. They were all kind of dark like Sharkbomb. But then the choices got lighter. Did you, like, stop being depressed or something?”

The very insinuation made Dave bristle. “No man, I worked hard to get that stuff. You know how often they make a movie like Eye? Once every five years. McGee saved my life, man. Once I realized I had a shot in this industry I took it with both hands, and I did every fucking thing I could. I needed to break out, to let people know I could do more than morbid existential noise music. Look it was never a lifestyle okay? Tank and I could have just as easily started a hip hop band. Shit. We tried. We couldn’t even rap. So we intoned. This music was easy to make, and the fans had some money. The booze was free, it gave you a pass to fuck chicks and get fucked yourself, and I looked good in black. That’s it. That’s it, okay? Now look. I’m old. I’m lucky as fuck I still make music for a living. Shit, I’m lucky to be alive. And if you folks don’t mind, my lunch is getting cold.”

Sebastian looked at Jay. He knew he was about to explode. This was both more awesome and infinitely more depressing than they had hoped for, downing that fourth Blanton’s at The Three Clubs last night when they concocted this plan. “Why don’t we go get you some ginger. I’ll show you how to nail this stir fry.”

“Sure. yeah. Whatever. Great. Get me some ginger.”

Sebastian ushered Jay out the door. Shellshock. “We’ll be right back.” He navigated the front door, shut it, and pushed Jay towards the Volt.

Dave looked at his stir fry. The soy sauce was burned a bit, blackening and drying against the wok’s nonstick surface. Dave knew he needed to hit the asian supermarket and buy a wok without PFOA. Aluminum was the only wok he should be using. Nonstick was for wusses.

“Jesus.”

—

The Next Card is: Define an area as safe. Use it as an anchor.

Writing Oblique Strategies is a semi-regular writing exercise dictated by the drawing of an Oblique Strategies card. You can learn more about it here.