September Boys got it bad....

However, all of the anticipation dissipated like the wind with the sound of the garbage truck.

“Hey Bender, did you take out the trash?”

“What trash?”

“This was your week to take out the trash!”

“No it wasn’t, it’s yours”

“No way. I did it last week. And the week before. And the week before that. In fact, we’ve been having this discussion for the last month! Ever since I asked YOU to take out the trash when it was YOUR turn!” I was righteously pissed. He was always pawning his work chores off on me and like an idiot, I would go and do it because if Bender didn’t do it, it wasn’t going to get done. I sighed. “OK, what will you give me in return?”

“The opportunity to do something incredibly colossal! The biggest thing imaginable! A greater task you will not find….. Anywhere”, said with the hammy intonation of a bad William Shatner Impersonator waiting for his audience to wait with baited breath.

“Oh God”, I groaned.

“You Benjamin, will have the opportunity to…..kiss…..my… ass!!!!! Uh-huh!!!! Uh-huh!!!!” As Bender said “ass”, he started doing this incredibly grotesque imitation of a hip-hop dance. I think he also included bits of the Frug, the Watusi, the MC Hammer with a heaping helping of the Chicken Dance too. This was the most hideous display of human movement I had yet to see.. this day. Bender reinvented Dancing With The Stars into Dancing With the Spastic every single day and today he certainly lived up to his usual standards. His excellent attempts at blowing off my tireless efforts at placating his ornery nature did not go unnoticed. Something Mr. Bender sensed.

“OK, seriously, I will buy you lunch for the rest of the week. Any place you want”.

“Shakespeare’s Pizza. And I get to order whatever I want. Oh I might want Jimmy John’s instead. I’m going to milk this for all it’s worth. You have a massive tab and I intend to collect it”. Bender gulps. He knew he was going to pay dearly for his misdeeds.

“OK. The bags are out back”

“Thank you!” I quickly put on my jacket and brave the not-quite-sub-zero temperatures and head to the back of the store and collect all of the trash bags. One of life’s most thankless tasks, the wind chills forced me to perform the task with even greater speed than I normally do. I see the truck stopped at 9th Street Video, less than a block away and I start treating the task like an Olympic event. Like I am a World-Class athlete trying to race against the clock. Searching for nothing less than Eternal Glory, a shot at Heroic Immortality. The truck gets closer, and closer…..I have one more bag left and I am racing to the curb.. The Gold medal is within sight… I can feel it… I can taste the sweet smell of Awe-inspiring Victory…glory is within my grasp…..
CRASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I forgot about the black ice and I wind up falling on my ass, bruising my elbow in the process. And the garbage guys are packing the bags that I had already taken. I pull myself up and proceed to the curb.

CRASH!

Once again I fell to the concrete, only this time it wasn’t black ice that handed me Bruise No. 2 - it was a dog tripping me in broad daylight. A rather pretty one at that. No one could definitely mistake this dog as a purebred that’s for sure. She had traits of a German Shepherd mixed with some Huskie. She seemed very friendly and also very lost too.

“Hi there, doggie! What happened to you, huh? You look like you’re a long way from your mommy and daddy”, I cooed. I was always a dog lover for as long as I could remember. These were creatures that were both very wise and very compassionate. Mankind could learn a great deal from the Canine Crowd about kindness, patience, unconditional love, and saliva. Yup! The stray licked my hand and I immediately thought of spit-cicles dripping from my coat sleeve. But with the temperature well below freezing, I decide that this was no place for what I still think is a stray dog . I decided to take her back to the store. Besides, it would cool for Exile to have its very own In-Store Mascot, right? HMV had Nipper, why can’t a little mom-and-pop record store in a cool college town have it’s own canine mascot? I then tried to collect the stray to take it back to the store.

“Do you want to go someplace where it’s nice and warm? You can have some food and water huh? Just stay away from the mean big guy, OK? I don’t really think he likes anything that’s animated”, I said as I stroked the dog behind its ears. I began to feel a sense of outrage. Why on the coldest day of the year was there any dog, let alone one as sweet, warm and friendly as this one, doing outside? No one would dare leave a child alone on a cold day right? Why should non-human animals be any different? I am about to take the dog back to Exile when .I am interrupted by a screaming voice.

“HEY! HEY YOU! THAT’S MY DOG! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU”RE DOING????” screamed a middle-aged guy running up to me, completely short out of breath. He looked like he just woke up and literally pulled his clothes on without so much as taking a shower.

“Is this your dog, sir”, I asked.

“Yes it is! She got out when I was putting out my trash. And you, YOU were trying to steal her…” he blasted.

“What? No I wasn’t! I thought she was a stray. I mean, she has no collar and no I.D. tags. How is anyone supposed to know it’s yours” I asked. A reasonable query, I thought.

“You were going to take MY dog and sell her to the University so they can do vivisection on her! You were! I just know it! You fucking heartless bastard”, he spat.

I was outraged! I would never harm a fly! I care about animals and animal rights which is why I became a vegetarian when I entered college. I mean, really. I’m the one who should have been blasting this guy for not taking proper care of his dog! In the heat of the argument, I am freezing my balls off and I’m trying to ignore the pain of two bruised elbows doing a job that Bender should have been doing himself! At this point, I start thinking about what the most expensive food item would be at the most expensive restaurant in the most expensive part of downtown Columbia.

“I assure you I was only going to take the dog back to where I work so I could get it out of the cold” I said.

“You God-damn kids. No respect for life, I tell you. And you can tell it too with the fucking noise that you kids call ‘music’ these days” he proclaimed.

“Sir, will you please listen, I was trying to help your dog”, I pleaded. By that point I decide to give up - brick walls and Bender at his worst would be preferable conversationalists than this asshole.

“You know what? I’m happy for you, You have your dog back. You really should be thanking me for finding your lost pet, but since you can’t see past your prejudices, I guess I’m going to have to…”

“What seems to be the trouble” boomed a tall, burly police officer.

“This kid was trying to steal my dog” yelled the old guy

“That’s a lie! And you changed your story” I yelled in defiance.

“He said he was going to sell my dog to the University labs so they can perform immoral animal tests” shot the old guy.

“What the hell! I would never do such a thing and furthermore I never said such a thing! I hate animal testing. I’ve protested the University for doing such practices! Sheesh, I can’t believe what I’m hearing” I shouted.

“Dog Killer!”

“You’ve fucking lost it!”

“I fought in Vietnam for your sorry ass!”

“My uncle DIED in Vietnam thank you very much!!!”

“QUIET!!!!!!!” The cop finally had had enough. He then took a deep breath and started to regain a sense of composure.

“Now I could hear the noise from down the street. I have probable cause to arrest both of you for disturbing the peace. Now let me get this straight- this argument is about this dog correct?”
“Yes sir” I replied. We all then look at the dog who is looking up at me with the most sweetly melancholic expression imaginable.

“Now, young man, tell me in your words what happened” asked the cop.

“Yeah, tell him about how you were going to steal my Sandy!”

“I said, I want to hear the gentlemen’s story in his own words” the officer said in a voice that was calm, but also had the tone of sternness. He also shot a glare at the old guy which seemed momentarily to put him in his place.

“Well, I was putting out my trash when I tripped over this dog…”

“Aha! There you have it! A motive for aiding and abetting the murder of my sweet Sandy!”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to be quiet! Please young man, continue”.

“I was taking out the trash when I tripped over Sandy. I noticed she had no collar and therefore no tags of any kind. I was just going to take her back to the record store where I work so I could get her out of the cold and get her some food and water. That’s all I was going to do”, I explained.
“Liar! You kids with your evil hip-hop and metal crap! You have no respect for anything!” I then decide to not say anything. The old guy was hanging himself quite nice, I thought.

“OK, I think I know your side of the story. Hell I imagine half of Columbia knows your side of the story” retorted the cop. “So you, sir, are running up to find your dog and you do find her with the kid. Sounds reasonable enough to me”, said the cop.

“Reasonable??? Reasonable!!!!!!!! Where’s the justice?????”

“Considering you had no collar on the dog and no ID tags, I think you’re the last person in this situation who should be asking for justice” proclaimed the cop. “All this kid was doing was rescuing your dog. I see no evidence of any wrongdoing except for the arguing.”

“You cops, now you’re getting soft and liberal just like the terrorist-huggers.” spat the old man.

“That is quite enough from you, sir. I am prepared to let both of you go” said the cop.

“That is fine by me” I said as I breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Am I free to go” I asked.

“Yes you are. And get out of this cold before you get frostbite” said the cop. As I walk away, I still hear the ornery old guy trying to pick a losing battle with the cop. I’m more calm tha I was earlier, but I’m still pretty pissed off about the whole encounter.

I don’t know whether it’s the fact that it’s a Leap Year, or the fact that it’s an Election Year, or what, but everyone seems to be on such an edge. I don’t leave myself a lot of time to ponder the subject, the cold forces me to head back into the warmth of the store. As I reach the stock room, I hear a loud ruckus. “Geez, Bender, I leave you alone for the minutes and you can’t leave a customer be”, I say to myself. But then I hear a familiar voice, a female voice, fighting back. A voice that was familiar to me for the last several years.

“Bender, do you realize what you’re saying? The obvious and blatant stupidity of it? Music is music. If it’s good, why should anything else mater? If someone likes something, shouldn’t that be the only thing that matters?”

“Only something who treats music like it is aural wallpaper instead of the socio-cultural and artistic force that it is would say something that completely inane. You sound just like those hacky-sack playin’ , khaki-wearing slackers…”

“Oh, that’s rich, coming from the King of the Slackers” interrupts the girl.

Bender continues, “…who reek of incense and patchouli who follow Phish, String Cheese Incident and, God forbid, Dave Matthews and the horribly narcoleptic Sons of Dave Matthews. All of you who seem to think that musical and ethnic diversity means owning a Bob Marley CD. Well, congratulations Kelly! Because you bought a used copy of Bob Marley’s LEGEND CD, you are now the most musically eclectic and culturally savvy hippie chick on the block. what’s the matter? The Che Guevera T-shirt is in the laundry so you have to settle for the ‘Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History’ shirt, right?”

The girl turns red, not with embarrassment, but with deep rage. “Michael, that is exactly what is wrong with all of these labels of art and music. And quite honestly, I would say the EXACT SAME THING about movies and literature too. Sometimes, people like stuff because, and this may be hard for your rock-filled skull to comprehend, BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY LIKE IT, not because it fits some elitist’s narrow-minded view of what’s cool and what’s not. I don’t share your tastes or Ben’s but I am not about to dismiss them out of hand because I actually, God forbid, RESPECT the fact that you guys like what you like. Guess what, Bender, here’s something about musical tastes that you probably haven’t figured out yet: It’s all subjective. There is music that you like and music you dislike and it is wrong to use a chauvinistic point of view to attacks someone’s opinions and tastes.”

The girl? Kelly Jackson, my best friend since high school. It was moments like this that I felt truly in awe of her. She was, simply, the smartest, most well-read, the most passionate and most compassionate person that I had ever met to that point. She was always truly interested in what the other person had to say and went to great lengths to show that. Plus she was also incredibly pretty too. Despite the fact that she blushed when in the middle of a conversation (when my mind was wandering, I might add) I blurted out, “Kelly, you’re really pretty!” (After she blushed, she laughed and said, “I think you’re cute too, Ben”) I never really had a great tolerance for shallow girls. Girls concerned with the next party or the next big date seemed so pedestrian to me. Kelly had a depth that matched her sense of compassion. During a questionaire that was published in our high school year book, one of the questions asked was the following:

What would you do with a million dollars?

“I would use it to feed the hungry and end poverty forever”
- Kelly Jackson

Being something of a smartass, I replied with the following:

“’I would like to own a squadron of tanks‘ - Ron Nasty, the Rutles”
- Benji McCready

The best I could come up with was a lame quote from the Rutles; Kelly’s answer shows she actually put a great deal of thought in the matter. That answer proves that she is infinitely better than I am. I hang with record geeks who cream ourselves with excitement when we come across a 1st pressing of a Phil,Spector 45 and weep uncontrollably playing a mint condition copy of a Decca printing of TOMMY. Kelly actually cares about things, things that actually matter. Ending poverty, the environment, social justice. I never really cared about any of that, yet hearing Kelly talk about those subjects was, simply, a revelation. Never preachy, her warmth and humanity always shone brightly. Especially when talking about changing the world for the better. Sure, the only way I’ll listen to the Beach Boys if it’s on vinyl and if it’s in mono. But because of Kelly’s influence, I’m more aware of what’s going on around me.
In addition to all of that, she was the one person that I could trust with anything and she wouldn’t show any sign of any judgmentalism. We were both complete and utter nerds in high school. Yet I couldn’t have imagined my high school years without her. We shared good times and bad times together. We laughed with each other, we cried on each other’s shoulders. I truly looked up to her because she was the person I wanted to be. There is just one little glitch to this particular situation - I was madly in love with her. I always had little crushes before, but my feelings for Kelly were very different. I wanted to spend every waking hour with her, of course. I would have done anything for her because she meant that much to me. And finally, she made me want to be a much better person than I actually was.

However, nerdy guys like me spend much of our youth constantly in “the Friend Zone”. You’ve heard all of those worn-out cliches: “you’re so sweet, but I never saw you in ‘that way’” (read: you‘re about as innocuous as a Care Bear) “I care about you too much to go out with you“. (read:. you don’t rock her world and chances are you will never will) and my personal favorite, “you’re just like a brother to me!” (read: you are incredibly sick, gross and twisted to be even THINKING about what you’re thinking). All of those cliches are embedded in the male nerd’s DNA. We can spot the utterances of those sayings before the thoughts are even fully formed in the female’s mind. I was not only embedded in The Zone with Kelly, all of my correspondence, bills and junk mail were being sent to The Zone. I desperately wanted to escape that place.

“That is a bunch or horse shit”, bellowed Bender. “Like there is no such thing as ‘good music and ‘bad music’, it’s all part of the glorious musings of the Cosmic Deity”, whined Bender in a mean-spirited imitation of a hippie. “Well, fuck that shit, I say! There is good music and just plain bad music and if you can’t tell the difference between one and the other then you don’t deserve to…”

“Bender:, I finally intruded, “keep it up and you’re buying me lunch until Bush nukes the planet”

“What” asked Bender as if I dared to pluck a hair from his chest.

“This is a pointless argument . You’re just acting like a frickin’ idiot”, I point out.

“Thank you Ben” exclaimed Kelly.

“Oh look, Granola Girl! Your Knight In Shining Armor has come to rescue you from the Mean Record Store Guy! He’s come to defend the honor of the fair, tree-hugging maiden..” Bender sneered.

“From what I heard, sounds like she was giving back as good as she was taking it”, I point out. Kelly notices that Bender is about to make an incredibly rude remark based on what I said.

“If you even WHISPER what I think you’re about to say, I will hurt you in so many ways, you will not know which way is up and which way is down”, she said with no hint of ambivalence. You really did not want to piss Kelly off - as wonderful as she was she was also not one to suffer fools gladly. Bender, however let his ornery nature blind him to that notion. They would have arguments like this all of the time - Bender thought of them as “spirited discussions” or he would spin and downplay his barbed comments as “nothing that you wouldn’t see at a pro wrestling show”. But he did that to everyone that he deemed “unworthy” of music fan status. Although I suspected that his bluster was mostly for show, outbursts like this one really made me wonder. Of course maybe that was the point - maybe Mike Bender was the long, lost soul mate of Andy Kaufman, Jim Morrison and Lenny Bruce all rolled up in record store clerk garb.

“Anyway”, I say once I sense that the arguments have finally reached the overheating point. “What’s up, Kell?”

“Oh yeah, I knew I wanted to ask you something”, remembered Kelly “are you going to be free tomorrow night?”

“I don’t have anything planned” I answered.

“Awesome! I’m getting together with some really cool people, y’ know, progressives, who are having a meeting and discussing about the issues of the election, strategy, that sort of stuff. I think they're from Move On or Daily Kos”.

“That sounds cool, where is it and what time does it start” I ask.

“I know it starts at 7 and I have the location in my email. When I get to work, I’ll send it to you. I think it‘s at someone‘s house, but I‘m not really sure” answered Kelly.

“Sounds cool” I said. “We can go together, you know so that we don’t have to go in separate cars” I added quickly.

“Oh yeah”, said Kelly, “I wouldn’t want it any other way”, she smiled. She was outwardly warm to her friends and I always tried to elicit those smiles and laughter. However, between the short chat with me and the blow-out with Bender, she completely lost track of time.

“Oh crap”, she says looking at the clock (an old K-Tel record that was given numbers, minute and second hands and transformed into a clock), “I’m running late. And it’s my morning to pick up coffee! Hey Benji? I’ll send you that address, OK?”

“OK, Kell. I’ll talk to you later”, I said.

“For sure” responds Kelly. And with that she left the store. An uncomfortable silence grows between Bender and myself, one that is finally broken by this query.

“When are you going to tell her how you feel?” To my surprise, it was Bender doing the asking. All I could manage was a feeble “what are you talking about?”

“Dude, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Ronnie Milsap, and Jose Feliciano could tell how much you are into that girl, man! You’ve known her since, what high school? You are both in your early 20’s. You look at her like you’re some lovesick puppy.. AT some point, ya gotta step out from backstage, step up to the mic and just go for it, dewd”. (This is Bender’s kind-hearted quality that is the Yang to his prickly Ying).

“Oh come on, now, it’s not THAT obvious!” Oh yeah, it was. “I did a great job of restraining my emotions”. Not really, some friends in school gave me the nickname of Glow-Worm (after the children’s toy from the 1980’s - a battery-operated stuffed worm whose face turned red when you pressed his stomach). I was told it was based on how I reacted around girls I liked - something that young guys feel will forever banish them to the Zone. “Besides, I’m happy just being friends. No pressure, no awkwardness, nothing”.

“Right, and if you really believe that, than I will buy you a first pressing Beatles’ butcher cover”, retorts Bender.

“Bender! You don’t think that a guy and a girl can just be great friends without the pressures that dating brings? I had more female friends in high school than male friends…”

“You’ve spent so much time in the Zone that you don’t even recognize it anymore, dude”, snapped Bender.

“What ‘zone’”, I demanded.

“The Friend Zone, Ben!”

“And what’s wrong with that? What if, God forbid, I prefer the company of girls over guys? There is nothing wrong with that.”

“But you dig Kelly, man. And if you dig a girl that much, then staying in the Zone has got to be killing you.”, said Bender. Bender was correct, of course but I was not about to let him know that. I was always thinking, “it’s never the right time” or “I don’t really know what to say” or “I’m too shy” or “she really doesn’t see me as anything other than a friend”. The latter, I thought especially. Therefore, I thought it best to not say anything at all. No matter how strong the desire was and now matter how much it hurt inside. “Look, Bender, you have no idea what you’re talking about and you really have no idea what our friendship is like. There has never been any good time to say anything and…”

“And the longer you wait, the longer the stay in the Friend Zone! Hmm. Too bad. I do hope for your sake’s the Zone has cable with Skinemax”, said Bender.

“Thanks for your concern, Mikey. As usual you get me right”, I said as I’m point to my sternum “here”. At this point I really wanted Bender to shut up and drop the subject., but he didn’t. The door opened and it was another fellow Store Guy, Paul Schlegal.

“Guys! I got the Motherlode right here! Freshly burned on top-of-the-line CD-Rs for each of you fine Men of Imaginary Wealth and Excellent Musical Taste! It’s the SMiLE debut” proclaimed Paul.

“Oh baby! Praise God and hand over the ammunition! My day is about to get better…”

“Hey Paulie, you notice how Benji acts when Granola Girl’s around him” asks Bender.

“Jesus Christ…” I moan.

“Oh yeah, man”, said Paul. “Helen Keller would have been able to see how much he digs her, man.” I like Paul, really I do. When I feel like tearing Bender a new one, Paulie is always there to restore calm, cool and collectiveness to our insular little world. But it was right at that exact moment that I wanted to smack him.

“Bender, I said ‘drop it!’ You have no idea what we are like. Besides, I don’t know if it would be mutual or not.” Explained with studied calm and reason.

“Life is not life unless you take some chances, bro”, said Paul. “Sometimes, man, you get all excited about something Great that you want to do, man. You get right to it, look out at that giant cliff and you get scared and turn away. Every. Single. Time. You’re a smart guy, Ben. You’re a true friend, even, but sometimes I think you’re too afraid.”

“Afraid? Afraid of what” I ask.

“Afraid of taking chances. Afraid that if you put yourself on the line, you’ll fail. Which is understandable, of course. However, we put too much stock in ‘the end result’ in our world, I think. We are forced to live and breathe solely our successes and failures. But rarely is the journey toward those successes and failures ever even acknowledged. Everyone asks about reaching the finish line, but no one ever asks about the race itself and more importantly what you learned during the race. Plus you learn a great deal from your failures. Hell, I would even argue that you learn a great deal from your successes too.” With that, Paul took his CD-R of SMiLE and headed toward the stereo behind the counter.

“What the hell was that, Dr. Phil? Whose ass did you yank that rancid piece of psychobabble from” barked Bender.

“Just an observation and some friendly advice, Mikey. Nothing more, nothing less” replied Paul. Just then a customer comes in and our SMiLE listening party is temporarily delayed. It’s a good thing too because it got me thinking about what Paul was saying. Maybe I was too timid with Kelly. But it was only because I didn’t want to take advantage of her, I would never forgive myself if I came off like an overly ambitious Ladykiller. Such is life as The Nice Guy. We curse our timidity yet at the same time we bristle at blatant and transparent ambition. That’s why as a Beach Boys fan, I leaned toward the earnest Wilson brothers rather than their ambitious and driven cousin, Mike Love. There’s something to be said for subtlety, I thought. Overly ambitious guys just felt like ruthless assholes, to me.

Food for thought, definitely, but for now, I have a listening party to look forward to.