The Ballad of the Noiseboy and Anti-Rove
Last week while reading ekletsgo’s blog I was moved by her choice of names for her soon-to-be-born baby, due in a few months: Ramona (if it’s a girl, that is.) Pondering this led me to google the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s “To Ramona,” which pointed me down a free-associative path toward my own long-running, personal history with Bobby D, inevitably leading me to my good friend and platonic knight in shining armor, the infamous noiseboy, aka Mr. Doug ------- (last name removed to prevent unwanted google hits). Upon reading my brief post, Doug was then inspired to write up this brilliant piece, which dare I say, led my unfailingly overemoting self to near tears of nostalgic joy just before leaving work on Friday. This piece is my follow-up.
Now I gotta stop right here and say that this is exactly why I got into the blogging business in the first place. (And of course, Doug was my direct inspiration for that, as well.) Truly, this is what it’s all about, the way one post connects to another and that to the next, propelling a virtual conversation that could only arise in the otherwise cold, technocratic climate of cyberia, driven by hyperlinks and comments and google searches, yet brings warmth and happiness to the real, flesh-and-blood folks behind the user IDs and stage names.
Our relationship dates back to 1989—that’s sixteen years, my friend—which means that I’ve known Doug for longer than I haven’t known him—which translates to: damn, we’re getting old. I couldn’t have put it better than he did in his post:
I find it astonishing how our paths in life have remained more or less parallel, having survived the distance between us after I moved away from Canton. Though we haven’t lived in the same town since 1991, we graduated from baseball cards to indie rock together, we’ve both been publishers and promoters, DJs and poets, feeding off each other for ideas, egging each other on every step of the way.
Jon & Doug, two handsome devils!
It must have been the summer of ‘92 when we climbed a ladder up to the roof of my house in Morton with a cheap boombox and cassettes of Otis Redding and our significant Bobs, Dylan and Marley. This was the beginning of a deeper, more spiritual connection to the music we’d always known and loved. From that stepping stone, over the next year, he and I would begin to cultivate an interest in poetry and literature, separately, yet simultaneously, in parallel. Specifically, the works of Kerouac and Ginsberg and Burroughs and Ferlinghetti would capture our imaginations unlike any writers had before.
Certainly, the obligatory nod to the Beats is the ultimate of clichés for a couple of restless kids in suburban neverneverland who self-consciously fancied themselves nonconformists—yet neither can their influence be underestimated or brushed away so easily. The wild reverberations of Ginsberg’s Howl and Cassady’s kicks are still felt today, and they are mighty powerful elixirs to the young and young at heart. They certainly left a permanent mark on my soul, and Doug’s too.
We both took to writing poetry of a confessional nature and getting naked in public whenever possible. In ’94 we smashed Burroughs’ Naked Lunch into Kerouac’s Dharma Bums and came up with Naked Bums, the name of our little publishing company, later to morph into a tiny record label and promotion company. A number of chapbooks of poetry followed, including our first artistic collaboration, A Tincan Box Full of Goiters.
I just dusted off that thin slice of teenage angst for the first time in at least seven or eight years—it’s not often I bust such memories out—and, cringe-worthy though some (most) of its passages may be, it stands as a monument to the life and times of two high schoolers coming of age in the grunge era, trying to balance a healthy lust for life and creativity with the shot Cobain had just taken to the head. Sixteen pieces from Doug, both prose and poetry, including such classics as “Fat Man Wobbly Stool”, “Chewing Gum Sex”, and “Molle in the Musicals.” Seventeen numbers from myself: “Flicked Mosquito Mind” and “Her Breasts Inherited Thoughts That Might Lift Me Away” among them.
Here’s a brief classic from Doug:
And lo and behold, I found an old poem of mine that I actually still like (sorta):
Another one of Doug’s pieces from the Goiters book stands out to me: this one an account of our June ’94 sojourn to Chicago to see Allen Ginsberg give a poetry reading. We had Soundgarden tickets for a show at the Aragon Ballroom that same night, but when we heard Ginsberg was in town, we had to skip out on poor Chris Cornell. We spent most of the afternoon trying to unload the Soundgarden tickets, to no avail—I still have the unused stubs. So we saw Ginsberg, and I met up with this girl there whom I was doing my best to court, but she was an utter disaster. If I remember correctly, we ended up totally ditching her, leaving her to walk the mean streets of the Windy City back to her car alone. Not exactly a chivalrous gesture, but from what I recall, she deserved it, sort of. Well, maybe not. Roll Doug’s account:
Thank God blogs didn’t exist back in 1994, or Doug and I would surely have unloaded an unseemly amount of our adolescent baggage into the unsuspecting arms of cyberspace. And possibly lived to regret it.
Doug’s mom had a key to their church, which we put to work for us. We’d sneak out of his house at two in the morning, drive over to the church, and unlock those holy gates. Oh, the things two enterprising seventeen year-olds could do at a church in the wee hours of the morning! The first order of business was taking advantage of the church’s copy machine. Too broke to fork over a measly ten bucks to Kinko’s, we printed up each and every copy of Goiters there. When we were done with the copier, the fun had just begun. We’d open up doors and cabinets, sneak food from the refrigerator, push each other around in wheelchairs, run around the sanctuary with socks on our cocks, all sorts of crazy shit.
Several times we went so far as to stage hour-long poetry readings from the pulpit. I still can’t believe we got away with this. We’d turn on all the lights in the sanctuary, put a blank tape in the church sound system, switch on the mic, press "record", and blaspheme away. We read a lot of our own stuff, along with the works of Leonard Cohen (I can vividly recall Doug’s theatrical rendition of “All Right, Edith”), Jim Morrison, and Ginsberg and Dylan (of course). This was where we first honed our spoken-word rendition of Ginsberg’s “America”, reinterpreted for two voices.
Doug, I still have three cassette tapes in my possession from these nights: The Presbyterian Church Poetry Jam Sessions, Volumes One thru Three, dated 1/8/94, 6/2/94, and 6/21/94. I’ve never listened to them, not even once, but someday, when it’s just you and me, we’ll get plastered and lend them our ears. Your rendition of “Masters of War” is on here too. Oh, I can’t wait!
One night, for some unknown reason, the pastor of the church showed up at 3 or 4 in the morning, while we were still there, up to no good. Oh my god was that a scare! Somehow, Doug conjured up some lame yet plausible excuse and we didn’t get into any trouble. This wasn’t the only time Doug’s quick thinking would save our asses—but the other time I’m thinking of is a story I still don’t want out ("Dylan in a dumpster", indeed), so ya’ll will just have to use your imagination.
More than ten years have gone by since those days of breaking into churches and reading the works of subversives. I think it’s been about that long since the last time I got naked in public. And mom, if you’re reading this, (and I really hope you’re not!) it could have been much worse—those wacky black metal kids in Emperor and Mayhem were burning churches down to the ground in Norway right about that same time.
But to the point. Doug, my friend, it’s been one helluva pleasure to know you all these years. I still have a couple of delicious tales up my sleeve, as do you, certainly, but those will have to wait for another post.
N/P - Cat Power - You Are Free
Post-script:
I borrowed the title of this post from a similar one from 1/20 on the noisereview blog: “The Ballad of Bedheaded and Darknerd.” Strange coincidence: both bedheaded’s wife and darknerd’s wife were in Doug’s and my class of ‘94 at good ol’ Canton. Now how effin’ weird and cool is that?
Now I gotta stop right here and say that this is exactly why I got into the blogging business in the first place. (And of course, Doug was my direct inspiration for that, as well.) Truly, this is what it’s all about, the way one post connects to another and that to the next, propelling a virtual conversation that could only arise in the otherwise cold, technocratic climate of cyberia, driven by hyperlinks and comments and google searches, yet brings warmth and happiness to the real, flesh-and-blood folks behind the user IDs and stage names.
Our relationship dates back to 1989—that’s sixteen years, my friend—which means that I’ve known Doug for longer than I haven’t known him—which translates to: damn, we’re getting old. I couldn’t have put it better than he did in his post:
Jon and I have a special relationship. A very unique one, indeed. It dates back to seventh grade at Ingersoll Junior High in Canton, Ill. I don't know if this is necessarily true for him, but for me, Jon was the first person that I connected with in a truly meaningful way. He understood me, and I him. And we appreciated each other as the foolish little devils we were.Needless to say, it is true for me as well. I often wonder how different my life would have been had we not shared those crucial moments in 7th grade English class. I am certain that it would be much less meaningful. Life’s weird like that, how such ordinary, everyday events of ages ago continue to wield influence and impact the present, years down the road.
I find it astonishing how our paths in life have remained more or less parallel, having survived the distance between us after I moved away from Canton. Though we haven’t lived in the same town since 1991, we graduated from baseball cards to indie rock together, we’ve both been publishers and promoters, DJs and poets, feeding off each other for ideas, egging each other on every step of the way.
Jon & Doug, two handsome devils!
It must have been the summer of ‘92 when we climbed a ladder up to the roof of my house in Morton with a cheap boombox and cassettes of Otis Redding and our significant Bobs, Dylan and Marley. This was the beginning of a deeper, more spiritual connection to the music we’d always known and loved. From that stepping stone, over the next year, he and I would begin to cultivate an interest in poetry and literature, separately, yet simultaneously, in parallel. Specifically, the works of Kerouac and Ginsberg and Burroughs and Ferlinghetti would capture our imaginations unlike any writers had before.
Certainly, the obligatory nod to the Beats is the ultimate of clichés for a couple of restless kids in suburban neverneverland who self-consciously fancied themselves nonconformists—yet neither can their influence be underestimated or brushed away so easily. The wild reverberations of Ginsberg’s Howl and Cassady’s kicks are still felt today, and they are mighty powerful elixirs to the young and young at heart. They certainly left a permanent mark on my soul, and Doug’s too.
We both took to writing poetry of a confessional nature and getting naked in public whenever possible. In ’94 we smashed Burroughs’ Naked Lunch into Kerouac’s Dharma Bums and came up with Naked Bums, the name of our little publishing company, later to morph into a tiny record label and promotion company. A number of chapbooks of poetry followed, including our first artistic collaboration, A Tincan Box Full of Goiters.
I just dusted off that thin slice of teenage angst for the first time in at least seven or eight years—it’s not often I bust such memories out—and, cringe-worthy though some (most) of its passages may be, it stands as a monument to the life and times of two high schoolers coming of age in the grunge era, trying to balance a healthy lust for life and creativity with the shot Cobain had just taken to the head. Sixteen pieces from Doug, both prose and poetry, including such classics as “Fat Man Wobbly Stool”, “Chewing Gum Sex”, and “Molle in the Musicals.” Seventeen numbers from myself: “Flicked Mosquito Mind” and “Her Breasts Inherited Thoughts That Might Lift Me Away” among them.
Here’s a brief classic from Doug:
THIS NUN TOLD ME I HAD NO POTENTIAL
SOMEDAY, AFTER I COMPLETELY UNDER-
STAND MYSELF, I’LL RETURN TO VISIT AND
YOU’LL SIT, NERVOUS, AND ASK ME HOW
TO DO THE SAME.
And lo and behold, I found an old poem of mine that I actually still like (sorta):
IF IT WASN’T HERE, I WOULDN’T BE EATING IT
You obtained your accent
in a Quik Mart, midnight with money,
disguised Charlie Chaplin bigwig,
part of hair slicked adjacent
to polymercury eyeball
You put a beard on
when I wasn’t watching you,
me, over your ever-changing shoulder
and laughingstock lower lip—
let there be no sequel
for the poor one
who can’t rearrange his face.
Another one of Doug’s pieces from the Goiters book stands out to me: this one an account of our June ’94 sojourn to Chicago to see Allen Ginsberg give a poetry reading. We had Soundgarden tickets for a show at the Aragon Ballroom that same night, but when we heard Ginsberg was in town, we had to skip out on poor Chris Cornell. We spent most of the afternoon trying to unload the Soundgarden tickets, to no avail—I still have the unused stubs. So we saw Ginsberg, and I met up with this girl there whom I was doing my best to court, but she was an utter disaster. If I remember correctly, we ended up totally ditching her, leaving her to walk the mean streets of the Windy City back to her car alone. Not exactly a chivalrous gesture, but from what I recall, she deserved it, sort of. Well, maybe not. Roll Doug’s account:
6/10/94 in Chicagoand here i was, sitting in this majestic & ornate room with domed ceiling containing ancient great authors & tiled walls & quotes & unknown symbols on the dome, watching this energetic sixty-something perform his tricks for me. to my right was this boy whom i’ve known for quite some time now, who’s feeling odd at sitting next to a girl he’s known briefly but is trying to impress nonetheless. she feels odd at sitting next to two strange characters, both different from each other but similar in the amount of oddity they possess. she didn't take notice to more than half of the long-winded, humorous conversation that i was having with the boy on my right, and this fact bothered the boy next to me. his countenance was slanted with disbelief, for the girl, it seems, isn’t all she was cracked up to be. i pity him; for he spent many hours pondering over her existence in gay nourishing visions of the two together. but alas, in life, nothing is for certain or always as it seems, with the exception of the ball of joy bouncing across the stage with his mini-organ on his lap & his balding head & wide satirical smile & booming attention-getting voice that makes you quiver with the directness & intensity that splurts out of every syllable. and to think, i wasn’t sure if he would be an interesting guy to listen to.
Thank God blogs didn’t exist back in 1994, or Doug and I would surely have unloaded an unseemly amount of our adolescent baggage into the unsuspecting arms of cyberspace. And possibly lived to regret it.
Doug’s mom had a key to their church, which we put to work for us. We’d sneak out of his house at two in the morning, drive over to the church, and unlock those holy gates. Oh, the things two enterprising seventeen year-olds could do at a church in the wee hours of the morning! The first order of business was taking advantage of the church’s copy machine. Too broke to fork over a measly ten bucks to Kinko’s, we printed up each and every copy of Goiters there. When we were done with the copier, the fun had just begun. We’d open up doors and cabinets, sneak food from the refrigerator, push each other around in wheelchairs, run around the sanctuary with socks on our cocks, all sorts of crazy shit.
Several times we went so far as to stage hour-long poetry readings from the pulpit. I still can’t believe we got away with this. We’d turn on all the lights in the sanctuary, put a blank tape in the church sound system, switch on the mic, press "record", and blaspheme away. We read a lot of our own stuff, along with the works of Leonard Cohen (I can vividly recall Doug’s theatrical rendition of “All Right, Edith”), Jim Morrison, and Ginsberg and Dylan (of course). This was where we first honed our spoken-word rendition of Ginsberg’s “America”, reinterpreted for two voices.
Doug, I still have three cassette tapes in my possession from these nights: The Presbyterian Church Poetry Jam Sessions, Volumes One thru Three, dated 1/8/94, 6/2/94, and 6/21/94. I’ve never listened to them, not even once, but someday, when it’s just you and me, we’ll get plastered and lend them our ears. Your rendition of “Masters of War” is on here too. Oh, I can’t wait!
One night, for some unknown reason, the pastor of the church showed up at 3 or 4 in the morning, while we were still there, up to no good. Oh my god was that a scare! Somehow, Doug conjured up some lame yet plausible excuse and we didn’t get into any trouble. This wasn’t the only time Doug’s quick thinking would save our asses—but the other time I’m thinking of is a story I still don’t want out ("Dylan in a dumpster", indeed), so ya’ll will just have to use your imagination.
More than ten years have gone by since those days of breaking into churches and reading the works of subversives. I think it’s been about that long since the last time I got naked in public. And mom, if you’re reading this, (and I really hope you’re not!) it could have been much worse—those wacky black metal kids in Emperor and Mayhem were burning churches down to the ground in Norway right about that same time.
But to the point. Doug, my friend, it’s been one helluva pleasure to know you all these years. I still have a couple of delicious tales up my sleeve, as do you, certainly, but those will have to wait for another post.
N/P - Cat Power - You Are Free
Post-script:
I borrowed the title of this post from a similar one from 1/20 on the noisereview blog: “The Ballad of Bedheaded and Darknerd.” Strange coincidence: both bedheaded’s wife and darknerd’s wife were in Doug’s and my class of ‘94 at good ol’ Canton. Now how effin’ weird and cool is that?
posted by Jonathan Wright at 10:51 PM EMAIL POST
