Jay Fox - THE WALLS

I can hear Aberdeen snoring in the other room. I never would have thought him to be someone who snores. Then again, I can't picture him going to the bathroom or doing anything more than sitting at a table, fondling his beard, and waiting for an opportunity to say something that he believes is either curtly incisive or insightful. He is clearly the neat freak out of the trio who shares this bathroom. Tomas coughs, makes a sound as though he is hiccupping, and then groans.

It has to be Sammy Sosa. What organization issues IDs? I'm guessing Social Security Something. So it has to be S-S-Blank. What do you call a day when court isn't in session? Fuck it; I'm going with SOSA.

This is not the first time I have been entrusted with someone's life after they have drunk themselves incontinent. True, it is the first time since my third year in college, but the procedurals are no different now than they were back then. The only real goal is to make sure your patient doesn't roll onto his or her back (his now; her then). Equally important, you are not to bring up the incident very often once all is said and done.

A film from 1959? Seriously? What about this here? “Whatever” that has a D and a C in it? It's not one word. It can't be. What could be a second word starting with a C? Maybe it's three words. Maybe DONT for the second, I for the first. What about that C? I DONT C— What do you not do when you—

IDONTCARE fits. Let's go with that.

Vinati has not called. I have not called her in some time. Events transpired rapidly once the Sheeps began their set. The first song, a heavy, fifth-ridden march with the refrain, “All I know of love, I learned from you,” was a vicous attack against the father(s) of the lyricist(s), who was evidently a piece of shit. Standard issue in this day and age, but not quite up to the standard set by Death Cab for Cutie's “Styrofoam Plates.” Most of the other songs were filled with equal parts angst and rancor, an exhibition of how Punk Gründlichkeit knows what it wants to say, and says it without things like melody or something as faggy as a major seventh getting in the way. I cannot say this for all the songs, unfortunately. Tomas left for the bathroom during the fifth song in the set. He evidently ran into one of the barbacks there, who emerged from the encounter with a generous helping of vomit on his pants. Suffice to say, we didn't get the chance to see the Sheeps' sixth song, though we did manage to get Tomas out of the bathroom — which probably featured a Coprolalia, though I cannot confirm this — before the bouncer injured anything besides Tomas' pride.

Eight down has to be ORE. One across has to be a simile. Yeah, that's the only way that S can make any sense. Let's see…AS-A-blank-O-blank. Porky. Pig. Hog. FATASAHOG.

Tomas spent no more than a minute in a headlock after he exorcised some of the more mischievous demons for which his stomach had served as residence. The bouncer begrudgingly released him once Aberdeen and I offered to see him out. As we carried his dead weight through the narrow bar that stood between the Sheeps and the street I ran into someone I had met on Smith Street. He and his girlfriend came outside with us. He said his name was Rob. I vaguely remembered him until I took a good look at his girlfriend, Samantha, who had perfect eyebrows. He told us that he and his band had the next slot (a quick look to the chalkboard out front of the venue told me that his band’s name was the Ribs), but understood that we were not going to be able to stay. Tomas said something perverted to his girlfriend, which luckily resulted in a good laugh. Aberdeen groaned. “Did you get the chance to check out our myspace page?” he asked as a cab pulled up on the curb. I replied in the negative, apologized, and then said I'd try to see their next show. “We're playing her again next Tuesday,” he yelled as the door slammed shut. “Oh,” as the window came down, “And we're looking for a new bass player. You mentioned you played.” I nodded. “Yeah, our guy right now just found out that he's moving to Boston in a few weeks, so we kind of need to find someone kind of soon. I don't know, man. If you dig our stuff, you should send me an email. It’s on our myspace page.”

That's KEISTER, which means that this is FINK. 'Fink' is a bit of a stretch. How the hell did Aberdeen get ACREAGE without any letters? That makes seven down HAIRDO. So habits are picked up at NUNNERIES. Clever, Shortz.

And so this is where I find myself. I am gazing upon one of the rising stars of the art world, who has drunk himself into moribundity. I'm slightly buzzed, smoking even though I could have counted the number of cigarettes I had had in my lifetime on my fingers and toes three weeks ago, and completely wide awake because Aberdeen gave me half an Aderol and fifty bucks to watch Tomas until five in the morning (an arbitrary hour, true, but one upon which Aberdeen insisted). He also gave me his pack of Luckies, a book of La Rochefoucauld maxims, last week's Onion , a book of Brassai photographs, and a nearly blank crossword puzzle from last Saturday to keep me occupied. I am even welcome to take all of the beer I want from the fridge, which has been recently stocked with a twelve-pack of Newcastle, a twelve-pack of Amstel, a bottle of Delirium (a temptress that attempts to seduce me every time I open the refrigerator), and several sixers — Ipswich (which I didn't know was sold outside of Boston) and Radeberger, to name two. At present I am drinking a Newcastle, avoiding the desire to over-analyze the particularly lucid dream from two hours ago, and trying to come up with some new approach to this whole Coprolalia thing — between attempts at the puzzle, of course.

Twenty-one across is clearly SADDEN. What the hell could twenty-two down be? Is it Latin? Rob worked in the courthouse, I remember now. Maybe he'd know. Maybe I should save this puzzle until next Tuesday. It'll be a nice segue after we joke about Tomas.

Jeff may be right about my incentives. I am beginning to feel as though I am simply denying the future by refusing to step out of the past. I went to college without any real idea as to what I wanted to do. I figured something would work itself out. It would just click — I'd realize that there was some small, niche occupation for a person like myself that I had been ignorant of, I'd get the job, and then I'd work there for a time until whatever band I was in took off. That, or maybe I'd just stay in school even if it seems useless to dedicate one's life to writing esoteric treatises on novels or poems, to ignore the rawness of art, to end up contriving theses based on discourse in terms of sexuality or class in an era by which we are divorced by several generations. I never could stomach the idea of writing elegies for culture while ignoring the fact that I, as an academic, should be the one creating and propelling culture. Worse, I can't imagine spending my life putting words into the mouths of dead men. Then again, I haven't had much luck realizing that niche that I presumed would be there waiting for me. Even worse, I never found a band that was capable of writing music deserving of a serious record contract (I, of course, share this blame). In fact, I have learned that I am so much like every other kid who has moved to this city to make it. We're no different than the lottery junkies; we're just more self-righteous because we believe ourselves to be endowed with some type of unique, intellectual gift that will ultimately allow us to egress from the less-than-illustrious world of full-time employment. Some call us lazy, some quixotic, some delusional. Some people blame us for the end of the American Empire. Some say, correctly, that we don't value hard work, that we are so rigidly independent that we refuse to take on careers — we only take on jobs because our real ambitions are going to one day land us on the cover of Rolling Stone or People . Yes, it's all tentative. Corporations don't offer lifetime employment any longer, and we don't want it anymore. The Marxist clichés hide the fact that we could never survive in a socialist state because we pride ourselves as either artists who ought to be financed by the state or intellectuals who should be granted entry into the politburo. No, we are not Marxists because there is no such thing as post-industrial communism. It cannot exist, and we cannot imagine ourselves outside of the post-industrial paradigm. We, the so-called Creative Class, are nothing more than a byproduct of the vanity and self-absorption of the sixties, the petulant cynicism of the seventies, the greed and blind optimism of the eighties, and the corporate individualism of the nineties. We demand not only the right to be heard, but the right to have someone broadcast this message for us.