November 2007 Archives
November 11, 2007
Girth McDürchstein’s ‘The Return’ – Leaked!
Somebody leaked the unfinished edit of Girth McDürchstein’s ‘The Return’, and “livid” doesn’t even begin to describe my state of mind. It popped up on Tommy Janofsky’s bullshit defamation site last week, but I didn’t find out about it until just now. At first I got really mad at Tommy for releasing my unfinished shit again, but then I realized it wasn’t his fault—he didn’t leak the shit. He just posted it on a website, and in his defense, he posted it for free rather than selling it.
So now the cards are on the table. Who could have possibly stolen it? Other than the band, the only person with access to the particular stolen tape is our longtime engineer Carlos Ueberschaer, but he’d never do something so insane or stupid. I guess there’s Renal, but she’s my daughter. She’d never hurt me like that.
That leaves me with one guess: Jason Fields, the intern who went back to school on bad terms with the band. Bad enough to hold a grudge and sell illegal bootlegs? I’ll say!
How could he have gained access to the Paint Shaker so long after returning to school, you ask? Obviously he made duplicates of my keys at a time when I had more important things or people to do, then snuck in late one night to steal our tapes. He probably needed the extra money for drugs or textbooks or something.
Since the cat’s out of the bag now, I suppose I should acknowledge that yes, I had some trouble with the lyrics (though not nearly as much as Tommy insinuates). More than anything, I had trouble timing the lyrics to the music I painstakingly recorded. I had a lot to say and so little time in which to say it. I thought about making it a double album, but the deal Herc Feinstein made with our new Japanese distributor explicitly states no double albums.
You should at least check out the acoustic renditions of “Put It Where It Doesn’t Belong” and “The Love Song of Gregor Samsa.” They are as brilliant and well-crafted as anything else we’ve recorded.
Posted by Girth McDürchstein on November 11, 2007 4:30 PM
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Recording Girth McDürchstein's 'The Return'
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November 16, 2007
Renal Advice
Renal gave me a hard stare. “Why do you let her treat you like that?”
We were sitting in the minivan, in a parking space outside the Target at the Empire Center in Burbank. Margo had gone inside and forced us both to wait in the car.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“She treats you like total shit.”
I shrugged.
“Are you trying to tell me you haven’t noticed?” She put a soft arm around me. “Come on, Dad, she’s using you.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
“Remember what you told me? About Iowa?” Renal smiled. “She’s full of shit, man. She said she came there because she loved you, then she said she came there to help you nab that other chick, and it was all just to make you feel guilty about leaving her, so you’d not only take her back but finally marry her. Think about it: was anything that happened on that trip, after she showed up, your idea? What you wanted?”
“You don’t understand,” I snapped. “It’s like a yin and yang thing. She’s good for me, I’m good for her.”
“I’m not trying to be mean,” Renal said. “It’s just…you can’t expect somebody from a family of con artists to treat you like anything besides a mark.”
“Like you would know.”
Renal shrugged.
“I love your mother—”
“She’s not my mother!” Renal barked.
“Be that as it may,” I said, “you will treat her with respect.”
Still, I couldn’t help thinking… It did seem like an awful lot of the decisions made by me were actually decisions Margo made; she just made me feel like I agreed with her, even though usually I started out disagreeing. I couldn’t deny that she came from a family of grifters; however, she was a state-champion debater. She was very good at arguing. That’s why she always wins, right?
Right?
Posted by Girth McDürchstein on November 16, 2007 1:17 PM
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Don't Call Me Daughter
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November 22, 2007
Mom
I haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving since 1995. It has very little to do with the political ramifications of the holiday—though I must say that I am against anything that glorifies that massacre of Native Americans—but with the idea that this holiday is for family. I left my family and, although I have a band and a wife, I’ve never regained that sense of family. However, it occurred to me that we really are like a family—every rehearsal with Abysmal inevitably ends with one person in tears and another shouting, “I’ll see you cocksuckers in hell!” That’s like having Thanksgiving every day.
I wanted Renal to see what a real family get-together is like. All she’s had for her whole life is a promiscuous mother whose idea of Thanksgiving dinner was a quart of milk mixed with a bottle of Budweiser. Granted, I’ve had Thanksgivings like that, but I grew up in Iowa. Things are different there.
Posted by Girth McDürchstein on November 22, 2007 9:18 AM
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Don't Call Me Daughter
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November 23, 2007
Thanksgiving with the Band
We kept the decorations left over from the previous group, an outfit called Kornblum Enterprises. They had a festive holiday theme going: red, white, and blue balloons spread all over the place, with several huge banners clinging to the walls that read WE DID IT!!! KORNBLUM ENTERPRISES – NOW ISO 9002 CERTIFIED!!! Margo, Renal, and I got to the hotel around noon, checked out the room, hung out with Mom for a little while. She still seemed a bit hungover, but that changed after a few cups of coffee and a couple of custom In-N-Out 5x5s.
Read more of "Thanksgiving with the Band" »
Posted by Girth McDürchstein on November 23, 2007 11:14 AM
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Don't Call Me Daughter
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Going Home Again
“You should come with me,” Mom said as I pulled her suitcase from the back of the minivan.
“Why?”
“Some of us miss you, Matt…”
“There’s nothing for me there, Mom. I’m sorry.”
“What about Carl?”
“He’s not going back…is he?”
“He’ll be visiting a lot more.”
“I don’t want to know.”
She pecked me on the cheek. “I’ll miss you, Matty.”
“Have a safe flight.”
“I love you.”
“Yeah…me too.”
I handed her bag to a skycap, showed him her ticket, slipped him three bucks in loose change, nodded at Mom, and hopped back in the van.
As I merged back onto the street, I saw her waving in the rearview mirror. I nodded at the reflection, but I don’t think she saw me.
Posted by Girth McDürchstein on November 23, 2007 5:24 PM
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Don't Call Me Daughter
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