Trash Antics, we hardly knew ye

I went to Ed's house at our usual time and they weren't there. I called The Dude and he didn't answer. I realized I don't even have a phone number for Ed. I e-mailed both of those guys asking what up. Now it's three days later and I get an e-mail from The Dude saying, as follows, and I quote, "the band is no more. good luck." What is that?

Name our band!

All right, people. I need your help. Our new band needs a name. Having once been in a band called Emerald Tiers, which we soon tired of explaining was prog and not Celtic, I freely admit my incompetence in the matter. Some candidates:

Shallow Gravy (Mmmm. This one is from The Dude)

Cat Vacuuming (Sounds naughty but just a wonky term for procrastination)

The Current (Nice Fitzgerald reference here, I think)

The New Colossus (Rejected for sounding too much like colostomy. Shame.)

Loretta As An Ornament (What I promised my teen self I’d name a band if I ever had one. Might have worked in 1982.)

Terrible Beauty (What I promised my college self, upon reading Yeats)

The Choir Invisibule (Gets the wonk vote, surely.)

Iterative Like Jello

One of the things I am really enjoying about this foray into punk or psychobilly or whatever it is The Dude and Ed Stephens and I are doing here, is how completely foreign it all is. I mean, I at least know who The Meat Puppets are. Well – I mean, I know that they’re a band. But these guys played with them.

So I was talking to this techie guy at work today. So, basically “your company’s computer guy.” I’m trying to articulate this insight I’m starting to have about the process. And this thing, this quality, this “it” that I’m trying to describe without hurting his techie brain – he just shoots it, tags it, and releases it.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he says. “It’s an iterative process, like when Jello Biafra would hum this … and the Dead Kennedy’s would strum this…”

“Yes, iterative. That’s what it is (keying in dictionary.com). Nnh-hnh.”

My very first lyrics -- Lost Generation

“What shall we do with our
Selves this afternoon?” You cried
“And the next day,
And the next thirty years?”

We paraded, masqueraded
Cultivated jaded looks
Screamed and scratched and scrawled
In composition books

We were pathfinders
Original settlers
You wanted to be F. Scott
I wanted to be Zelda
Lost Generation

“What shall we do with ourselves
This afternoon?” You cried
“And the next day,
And the next thirty years?”

Unafraid, we stood
Naked at the ball
We screamed and scratched and scrawled
Our manifesto on the wall

We were pathfinders
Original settlers
You wanted to be F. Scott
I wanted to be Zelda
Lost Generation
Generation lost

I did you dirt and you
Did me damage
We were never offstage
King and queen of the Jazz Age

“What shall we do with ourselves
This afternoon?” You cried
“And the next day,
And the next thirty years?”

We custom-made our own crusade
And played nursemaid to our best selves
We screamed and scratched and scrawled
And yawped and yawned and yelled

We were pathfinders
Original settlers
You thought you were F. Scott
I was so Zelda
Lost Generation
Generation lost