inherently different

Bing Ji Ling: You Shook Me All Night Long

Being a huge fan of AC/DC, I am often disappointed by the twaddle that passes for tribute covers of their music. Most times it’s just some tired bag of estrogen (read as celine dion) screaming at the top of her lungs hoping to appear hip/young… All I can say is that Celine is shit and I wish she would just go away (much like I wish Madonna would just go away… in fact, they may be one and the same for all I know… they never appear together at the same time, which is suspect). But this version by Bing Ji Ling, a New York-based musician, is by far the most creative tribute I have ever come across.

His other tunes are also quite impressive. Remember way back when, you know, when I clued you in to Gnarls Barkley before the rest of the world discovered them? Be the first on your block to discover Bing Ji Ling and show the kids just how hip you are for an old coot.

That morning, I woke up late. Even though I lived less than three blocks from school, I would be late if I didn’t hurry. It didn’t dawn on me until much later, that my mother, who usually woke me up for school was not at home. My father, who worked two jobs, wasn’t usually home that early in the morning, so his absence wasn’t as surprising.

I quickly washed my face, jumped into my school uniform and dashed off to school. I remember being off that whole day, as if waking late had somehow thrown off everything I did. I failed a math test, dropped my tray at lunch, forgot my English homework, and struck out playing softball at recess. At 8 years old the “worst day of my life” was constantly being replaced by a worse day, but that particular day still sticks with me some 33 years later.

When the final bell rang and I was free to begin the short walk home, I still felt uneasy. I couldn’t know it, but the year ahead would present plenty of opportunity to redefine daily how much worse a day could get.

Even before I got to the front door I was aware that things were different. My father’s car, which usually didn’t take up its place in the driveway until well after 7 pm every night, was there, the engine still ticking as it cooled.

I opened the front door and my father was sitting at the kitchen table, an unopened beer in his hands, and a look of complete defeat on his face. I knew something had happened, but my small mind had yet to make any kind of observation that would be helpful. I set my book bag down and climbed on his lap.

We sat there together for 20 minutes. He too uninterested to say anything to me, I too scared to ask for fear the answer would be something horrible.

“Mom left.”

I turned to see my older brother in the hallway, leaning against the doorway to his room.

“She at school?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“No, stupid… she left. She isn’t coming back.”

My brother walked up and pointed at the note on the refrigerator that had evaded my search for clues to the mystery.

It was in cursive and might as well have been greek for all I knew. My brother pulled the note down and read it.

“I don’t know what else to do, so I am leaving. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t know what I want, but I know this isn’t it. You can keep the kids.” He put the note back, like it was one of the drawings we brought home from school, or a test we got good marks on.

“She’s not coming back. She left us. She is giving up on us.” My brother said as he turned and walked back to his room.

My father finally stirred. He pushed me off, gently, and walked to the living room. He looked confused for a moment, like he had forgotten where he was, then stepped up to the large stereo and started flipping through the records until he found one he wanted.

In the previous years, music and dancing were a large part of our family time. The stereo, purchased only a few months ago, replaced a simple record player with a tin-sounding single speaker, but the records were the same ones we had listened to over and over since I could remember. The Beatles, Jim Croce, ABBA, and Super Tramp all took turns entertaining us, but for my father, when he chose the music, it was always ELO.

No Answer was the album he had just now chosen. My father rarely shared his feelings and I wondered about his choice. Was he telling us something?

To Be Continued…

There are few people on the planet who are as impatient with human incompetence and as unforgiving of it as I am. Give me a woman digging change out of her purse for 10 minutes just to avoid having 99 more cents weigh her handbag down and I will show you how quickly I can make her feel like a bucket of shit sans the bucket.

I know, horrible right?

I just have this thing about people being either self-centered or unaware how their failures affect the human traffic behind them.

Case in point. Today, I meander over to this new noodle place not too far from our home. I walk since its beautiful, hot and sunny. As I arrive, I find that I cannot actually get in because there is a rather large dual-wield baby carriage… (you know the kind that have side by side seats for your cute as buttons sperm culture?) blocking the entrance.

I am not yet in full asshole mode. I say to the elitist and privileged young couple who sit tiredly gazing at their two carpet monkeys as they slop food all over the floor, “Excuse me, do you mind if I back this up and move it out of the way so people can get in?”

The degenerate cocksucker says, “We’d prefer you didn’t… we don’t want anyone stealing our stuff.”

Thats pretty much the limit of my patience.

I pulled the four-wheel behemoth back out of the way and pushed it on a solo flight into the parking lot.

“Better go get it then,” I said and walked into the restaurant.

“Fag!” he says.

I stop and look at him and start laughing. I begin walking toward him, his gap-toothed, trailer-raised wife, and his two wiggling toe-headed bacteria farms and thats when it hits him.

“Sorry, just been a long day!” he says as they gather up the brood and leave.

The few people outside watching this unfold laugh and snicker and one guy even says good for you, but I know what they are thinking and it doesn’t really bother me. I figure if someone can be an inconsiderate asshole to a perfect stranger, its ok for me to be a violent asshole to a total tool.

I imagine some of you will think ill of me… perhaps even cement your impression that I am intolerant and to be honest, it doesn’t bother me. Some one, some how has to stand up to the inconsiderate and privileged who take advantage of civilization’s abhorrence of violent confrontations. I am not one to shy away from confrontation and there is at least one more tourist from bumfuck kansas who knows it now too.