The Two Ways of Dealing with Pretentiousness
An excerpt from my novel. Jamie is in search of new, actually good music. He stumbles upon a pretentious man at an open mic dutifully named INTELLIGENCE. He learns how to fully embrace the cringe.
I wouldn’t even call it an irrational fear, because it’s completely plausible, if you were to do the math, that I could, easily, run out of music to listen to one day. It was the fact that no good music was coming out and all of what I listened to was in the past, and all of whom wrote the songs were fat, old, or if they were really cool—dead.
Being able to access droves of incredible songs at your finger tips was a curse—I could barely get through a song sometimes because I was thinking about another—what we, as people, should be doing, is putting on a heavy fucking vinyl record, and stepping the fuck back, otherwise, it’s about quantity. You need to go into a record store, spend aimless hours looking for an album that might not even be there, all with the money to spend it on. Same thing with porn—it shouldn’t be accessible within a two second span. You should walk into a sex shop, in public, broad daylight, and buy those Playboy’s and humiliate yourself. There needs to be that regulation to keep you humble.
Now, everyone was exactly the same—they all miraculously started from the bottom, worked their way to the top 40 despite not being able to write a song on their own, then spent their new money on face tattoos. No melody, no chorus—unable to function without a team of 50 people.
One of my favorite things ever was The Home Recordings of Kurt Cobain—just him alone with an acoustic. In one song, you can hear the phone ring, and him get up to answer it. He lets them know his girlfriend, Terry, isn’t home—she’s at work. It’s all real. If it’s good when it’s raw—then it’s fucking good.
So here I am, in front of an open mic, looking up at the sign, not going in, because I’m still trying to figure out what the goal is here. “Support your local musicians” the Facebook group pops into my head, and I wonder, should you really, though? But, what if they aren’t good? What’s the point?
I think I was looking for something new—but I had no expectations. I mean, come on, I was spending my nights listening to High School Musical’s Bet on It, which started out as a joke, but now I found myself listening to it on repeat. Now, I was becoming genuinely attracted to the likes of Edward Cullen and it would probably be a matter of time until Christian Grey joined the ranks too (fucking kill me).
I walk in at 5:55PM, five minutes before the show starts, and go straight to the bar, like this is what I’m here for, and the music was no different than the radio.
“Hit me,” I say to the bartender. He’s polishing a glass with his apron, too, and I think I’ve really just walked into Clown World.
“What can I get you?”
“Hit me!”
He pauses. “Have you ever been to a bar before?”
“No—that’s what they say in movies though, don’t act stupid.”
He frowns. Got a beard, shaved down—the ol’ bard. Long hair, all straggly so the suit just makes him look like a wildman—in a suit. “I’ll get you a gin and tonic, how’s that sound?”
“Like a drink.”
He rolls his eyes and walks off. I don’t care. I’m pissed off he doesn’t actually have a Scottish accent like he clearly looks like he should so I already don’t like him.
I sit down, but still make sure to lean, because that’s what you do. The bar is dense wood, like I can imagine Abraham Lincoln here.
A man two seats down from me lolls his head. He has a five o’clock shadow—the whole thing. An army jacket, so he probably had PTSD. I think he’s at least forty, but is probably thirty—ten years added due to stress.
“What’re you in for?” I say.
“Whu?” he says.
“I said what are you in for?”
The bartender comes back, sliding me the gin and tonic, I guess. “You must be underage.”
“Do I answer that?”
“Well it’s too late now,” he says as I grasp the drink, and walks off again before he can see me drink it.
“Have you ever listened to Nirvana?” I ask the drunk.
“I...whu?...no, no....classic rock—”
“Well, never do. They ruined my fucking life.” I down my gin and tonic, like it’s a shot. “UGH!” I say afterwards, because it’s damn fizzy. “HIT ME!” I yell to the tender, who promptly sets down a drink that was probably meant for someone else, but he wants to see me suffer, so I down it immediately and really give him a show.
“Bleh...tastes like nail polish remover.”
“It was vodka.”
“What’s that?”
He frowns, and must realize how easy it would be to kill me right now. He could hand me anything and I’d drink it.
“Do you like hearing about other people’s problems?” I ask him.
“Not really, man.” He sets down another gin and tonic for me.
“Well neither do therapists, but they also don’t have a choice, right? Kinda in the job description.”
He gestures to the drunk, emancipated. “Tell it to your friend over there—”
“I just want to take a shit in a private jet and feel important, you know?” I gulp.
“Well the bathroom’s right over there,” he elbows the air.
“Screw you, man.”
He walks off, and promptly, the microphone shrieks.
I turn around, and there’s Billy, standing up there, leaning over an amp, his arm in a sling. He wears shorts and knee high socks, covered in donuts, a black shirt and thick black wrist bands. My heart drops.
I don’t know what kind of shit he’s trying to pull, with this look. He even takes off the sunglasses he’s wearing to reveal an eyepatch.
I don’t even try this time—I immediately throw my head into my hands, on that big pine counter. He is a ghost and he haunts me—and it’s not even that bad—it’s just that the damn repetition of it all makes it seem like I’m supposed to react some kinda way. If we didn’t move on soon, I was going to start thinking I was stuck in a cycle, like it’s all a glitch in the Matrix. And the crazy thing was—it couldn’t be disproven—it was entirely plausible in the sense that their was no evidence against it—
“How’s it going everyone?”
I turn my head like I’m peeking out of a turtle shell, and move my pointer and middle finger apart so that I only watch with one eye.
There are only about twelve people in the crowd, sitting down too, because it’s a real party—
“Today...we’re gonna play a little song for you…” he drawls, like he’s just finished an emotional set despite actually, probably, just taking a shit, without realizing all the guys in the past that talked this way did so because of things like LSD—
He suddenly has a guitar strapped over him that he’s tuning with his good arm, the other in it’s sling, so he’s taking turns plucking one string, then quickly bringing it up to the knob to tune it like an asshole. There’s three other boys behind him, who say nothing and take turns looking at each other, like none of this was part of the plan. I’ve seen them all in school. They were all in marching band. I don’t know whether I should be happy with this information or not.
“And ahuh,” he chuckles, “I wanna dedicate this to...my mother...a great lady...you know, I come from a smaller town outside of here, with just one stop light…” he doesn’t stop, making sure to tick all the boxes, “I uh, had a little fall...just the night before…had been...out on the roof, playing guitar...it’s always best when you’re looking at the stars…” he looks up at the ceiling, a dopey looking grin on his face, “Hey now, that rhymed…” I hold my gut as it gives me some primal reaction, and two voices in the crowd chuckle along with him, and I wonder how a man can manage to become a different person each day I see him—more specifically, I wonder what mental illness this can be classified as—
“And then, I got this here eye patch from a fist fight...I mentioned my darling mother—she had been crying for help...heard her from out back, with the chickens, taking it upon myself to be the family ranch hand…” I’m trying really hard to shut up and let him finish, but Jesus fucking— “A big man had been out front, stealing our mail!” A big man! Isn’t that what they call God, in the south? Two people, maybe the only same two people, gasp.
Mail?
“So...so I ran up, and I said, listen here mister—I made a deal with him—you can have my National Geographic prescription renewal, if only you’ll leave my mother’s March edition of Cosmopolitan…so he punched me...but as he ran away, he dropped the Cosmo issue in front of our gate! And the page was open to a spread, of a beautiful woman...big green eyes, plaid shirt, blue jeans, a real workin’ girl, and I knew I’d marry her one day. There really is something out there, people...someone looking out for us.”
Nobody reacts. Billy is only onto the third string, plucking it, then rapidly bringing his hand to the peg, hitting his knuckle on the wood in the process, creating an eerie reverb.
The bassist behind him is zoned out into what looks like a floor tile in front of him. The drummer is holding himself up by the arms which rest on his knees, staring at Billy’s back like he wants to kill him. Billy chirpily hands the guitarist the guitar he’s “tuned,” and he takes it without a word or glance, but a tight, forced smile, pulls it over him, and begins retuning it as soon as Billy turns back to the microphone.
My jaw is completely slacked, and my eyes might be watering, too, at least, from not blinking, or that feeling you get when the cringe is so strong, that you just want to cry, like yawning, and you yawn back. I am empathetic. I am appalled. None of the things Billy was saying were true—his mother definitely did not subscribe to Cosmo first of all, she was clearly more of an Eddie Bauer clothing type of verging-on-lesbian kinda woman—second, who the actual fuck steals someone’s mail—not even talking packages—paper mail—and punches a kid over it?
Here was my final diagnosis: Billy had what is called Munchausen's Syndrome, in which he hurts himself for attention and validation, writing it off as something to do with his terrible childhood. There were multiple goth/alternative girls in the audience, and Billy was horny. Billy was the monkey in those National Geographic videos which pretended to be lost/injured in order to make himself look unthreatening to the other males so he could fuck the females when they weren’t looking. He took all these shortcuts rather than actually making himself appealing because he couldn’t—on the inside, he was nothing. He was not cool because he was interesting, he was cool because he attached himself to things other people thought were cool. The empty husk’s of men shroud themselves in Hawaiian t-shirts to cloak their own invisibility.
“Are you okay, buddy?” I half look back at the drunk. He’s now leaning forward slightly, rimming his glass with one finger, like it’s hypnotic. He’s actually aware of my presence for the first time, but not enough for me to be humiliated.
I don’t know how to say this: “Can I...hold on to you?”
“Whu?...Sure.”
I grasp his forearm, deep in his army jacket, and leave it there.
“Well,” Billy begins, clearing his throat, “This is to everyone who said I wouldn’t make it--”
As my heart sinks, knowing he’s talking about me, knowing that was it, knowing that was his petty way of finalizing our cut-off, they jump into the worst rendition of Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water I’ve ever heard.
“We are Adolf Hitler’s Nipples, and this is Smoke on the Water…WE ALL CAME OUT TO—” he begins confidently, then falters. He looks back at the band, who keep going (who really aren’t that bad), and begins stumbling around, looking for something on the ground. The audience continues looking ahead, but after a minute or so turns heads to each other, realizing it isn’t part of the act. I’m shaking my head in disbelief. It’s unbelievable.
Nearly two minutes later, Billy comes back to the mic, holding up a piece of paper in front of his face.
“We all came out to Montroe, on the Lake Geneva shoreline...TO MAKING RECORDS WITH THE MOBILE....we didn’t have much tihahahime--”
“Oh my god,” I throw my head into my palm, because I’m watching a man die before me.
“Do you know this guy?” The drunk says, but like a child—like, ‘is he your friend? Can I be his friend, too?’
“No, I don’t know him. I have absolutely no idea who he is. I hate him.”
“BUT FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS—”
He has no idea who that is. He has no idea who that is.
In between lyrics, he heavily slaps a tambourine on his broken arm, no rhythm at all.
At one point Billy begins taking his shirt off, button by button, shaking his hips around. The girls in the crowd are loving it, to my actual dismay, and demise. This is the equivalent of strip clubs for women, and of course there’s nothing fun about it. The whole thing is making me misogynistic as it goes on.
He rips it off, only after he carefully loosens each button, and propels it behind him. I can imagine his mom’s heart breaking at seeing a misplaced seam. The drummer shoots him a wildly offended look as it lands on a symbol, but Billy doesn’t look back.
He is pale and rat-like. Not a single chest hair. He would say he is too busy for exercise, but the real reason he took his shirt off, and chose a button-down, is because there is a painting of Adolf Hitler on his chest, the nipples as his eyes, totally copying Mick Jagger when he painted a devil on his chest during a live version of Sympathy for the Devil.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN—WE ARE ADOLF HITLER’S NIPPLES—SMOOOOKE ON THE WATERRRR—”
It is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.
And it gets worse, as blood starts pouring out of his mouth at its corners.
“OHHH!” goes the crowd, like it’s a circus act. There must have been a fake blood capsule, shoved in the back of his mouth the whole time. You know what would’ve made the show more impactful? If it was cyanide.
At this point the audience has completely loosened up, clapping along even though he doesn’t manage to stay on beat himself. Everybody’s loving it, except me and my new best friend. I feel like I’m going insane.
When he finishes, he smiles ahead, like he made it, blood covering his teeth, and although it was fake, I really felt as disturbed as a church woman, and Armageddon was about to be unleashed because everyone was cheering him on, while I sat there, thinking, am I crazy, or? Am I fucking crazy, or did he just eat someone’s brains? I expected to go outside and see the sky turn black.
The thing was, the man was immune to humiliation. He was incapable of it because of how stupidly confident he was, and for that reason, he would succeed. He would have no push back. Maybe it’s because he was spoiled as a child.
“Thank you!” he yells and Nazi salutes into the crowd, who go wild, and I close my eyes, again, thinking, is that where this came from? From that pathetic, inside joke I didn’t even consent to, about a Nazi salute?
The band all still looks unimpressed with themselves. Billy jumps down the small steps off the stage while a girl steps out from a table shoved against the wall. She attaches to his arm. He raises his eyebrows in mild surprise, then grins, open mouthed. They walk to the back, behind the curtains and out of sight. It was Polly.
“Hey buddy, it hurts…”
“Oh. Sorry,” I unhand the drunk, apparently squeezing his arm like I was going into labor.
I think I had tried to think of her as more than a groupie. It was the same reason why they didn’t diagnose minors with personality disorders—but she just couldn’t help it. That really was all she was. She was a one dimensional alien succubus cartoon dramatization.
“That guy, he was kinda funny…” he says, and I turn to the drunk again, frowning.
“How many drinks did you have?” I ask.
“Just one.”
And without a sound, I’m catching on. “Oh.” The way he talked—this man was mentally retarded—not drunk. I instantly relax, totally relieved, without realizing how tense I was in the first place. Thank god. Thank god.
Then the sound of boot buckles.
Have you ever felt someone command a room with just their presence? I had never directly thought such a thing about a person, unless he was the President of the United States.
He vaped as he walked through the room to the stage, the smoke lingering in a cloud in the air right after he cut straight through it. He came from outside, like he damn well knew his cue. This man had long blonde hair, all the way down to his ass, wore black skinny jeans, black combat boots, a black oxford, rolled up at the elbows, collar flared, and black sunglasses—indoors. A single earring dangles from his left ear in the shape of a sword.
The crowd silences—immediately, as if he’s a school teacher who came into class late—or, on second thought—he had been here before as a regular, and something was coming that I was in no way prepared for.
He jumps onto stage, his gangly body light, but his boots dragging him down. He nearly throws a guitar over his shoulders, which I can’t recall being there before he made my head turn.
He stands at the mic but doesn’t acknowledge any of us, taking his sweet time tuning his guitar, silent, unlike Billy, until heads once again begin to turn to each other as it drags on, and I’m really starting to think this night is about psychological torture.
I’m just sitting at my stool, wondering who the fuck this piece of man was. I’m already on the edge of my seat, in the sense that, if I was in a car, leaning forward, the fuzzy dice on the mirror would be repeatedly smacking me in the face—and me, I wouldn’t even notice.
“Is he lost?” someone whispers in front of me, towards the back of the audience.
On cue, the man sends himself into a frenzy of a solo, if you could even call it that, because there was no song surrounding it. As he bobs his head, painfully, to some invisible beat, my guess is that he imagines it to be some sort of Eruption.
My jaw drops.
“Whoaaa…” goes one only person, and it’s the guy sitting next to me, with the -70 IQ.
It’s...not bad. In the very sense that a person who doesn’t know how to play guitar will consider it to be impressive because they don’t know any better. He sweep picks, but misses at least ten notes on the way down the strum. He two-hand taps, because it’s much easier than it looks, yet he screws it up because at least three other strings are ringing out and he misses nearly every other note. In between all of this, he continuously goes up to the top of the neck to do these little, out of place blues riffs. It all sounds like Iron Maiden if they grew up in a swamp.
When he starts speaking, I nearly wet my pants. “Fuckin’...” he begins with, “I’m Intelligence...and that was: ‘Overkill’...It’s funny. It’s fucking funny, because it wasn’t. Like, I could have done so much more. That wasn’t actually overkill at all. I could literally go on all night, but honestly, I have much better things to do than be here right now…”
The fuck planet was he…
“I’m staying at 311 Shawnee Avenue, apartment B, if any ladies are interested afterwards…” he pauses, taking in the heavy silence, “I’m just trying to be straightforward, alright? I don’t know about you fucks, but I value honesty,” he says, wildly defensive with no justification. He chuckles. It’s a little creepy. “Just keeping it real, you know?” He turns a tuning knob, the same one, and the only thing he could be doing now is trying to unscrew it, what with how many times it’s gone around.
“Play Wonderwall!” Someone in the audience chirps. It is a boy with a folded beanie and Harry Potter rimmed glasses. The two girls sitting next to him giggle, giving him away.
Intelligence, after a moment of what appears to be silent rage, shakes his head, slow and slightly menacing, like it was hard for him, as his neck was in need of a good oiling.
“Huh, Wonderwall…” he chuckles, looking down at the floor in front of his boot points. The air is immediately tense. We’re all just waiting. “That’s funny...funny. Wonderwall, haven’t heard that one before. What’s next, Freebird? Yeah, nod, you fucking asshole. Fucking Douchewall.”
I collapse into uncontrollable laugher.
“What’s a douche wall?” says the retarded man.
“I don’t even know!” I exclaim, wide-eyed, “But I love it!”
“See, you guys should be grateful,” Intelligence raises his voice, out of nowhere, “I don’t need to be playing at these dinky open mics, I do it for you guys. I’ve got a gig at a bar next week, okay? There’s a Facebook event for it, my email is fortunateson67@hotmail.com if you want the invite, thanks,” he catches himself, making a face, as his oddly polite demeanor shows for just a moment. “If you guys want some backstage passes or some shit, just lemme know. I could really use some…” he stops himself, once again, trying to maintain an act, without being aware, I think, that he’s even acting, “people I could trust. Tired of being around these fakes.” What he really means is friend. He needs friends.
“Do you live with your parents?” The same heckler shouts.
“LISTEN,” Intelligence points his finger directly at the boy, who must be no more than seventeen, “prick, do you have any idea how hard it is to do what I’m doing? I’m a starving artist buddy, you hear that? I’m starving. How do artists get to be where they are? They explode one day—the hard part is maintaining a living before they’re discovered—so yes, douchefuck, sometimes that means living with your parents. Look!” He snaps, making everyone collectively jump. “Look at what you did. Now I’m in a bad mood—” He flips his hair, frustrated, “Now I don’t even want to play anymore. You just ruined it for everyone, buddy, congratulations!”
“I guess you weren’t that determined in the first place!” He shouts, not timid any longer.
“THAT’S IT!” Intelligence quickly rips his guitar off himself, pauses to carefully set it on the stage, then flings himself off the stage, running at the kid, and among the various shouts, wraps his hands around the young boy’s neck.
“OKAY, ENOUGH!” The manager shouts, running out of nowhere. “ENOUGH!” He yanks Intelligence away from the boy like nothing—and if I had one recommendation, one thing I would fix about the man, it would be to wear jeans a little less skin-tight, as it made him seem a little inferior.
“What the fuck did I tell you,” the manager says behind gritted teeth, like he only wanted this to be between him and Intelligence, except everyone can hear. “No more of this shit. No. More.” His tone shifts as he changes subject, like he’s been waiting to just go off, “What the fuck is up with you and kids? First I find out you’re trying to fuck a seventeen year old, and now you’re trying to kill one? As the manager of a goddamn open mic, I’m telling you to get a fucking job.”
My jaw hangs, and my face goes red for the man as the audience, yes, made up of children, giggles at what feels like cafeteria humiliation.
Intelligence holds his mouth closed tightly, fists clenched at his sides, like he too is a child, and I genuinely think there’s a reason why teachers not only go out of their way to work with children, but some, fuck them—they are emotionally stunted, and cannot keep up with adults.
“Screw you, man!” Intelligence sneers, like he’s doing what a fourteen year old thinks is cool. “I don’t need you—guitar lessons at my hotmail if anyone’s interested! I’m mobile! Just $25 a half hour—”
“Are you seriously pitching yourself right now? I can literally report you to Children in Youth.”
“Buzzkill,” he spits, “Children in Youth are such a drag. Like, really rude over the phone. Can’t stand that shit. Goodnight New Jersey!” Intelligence, with everyone watching his every move, reaches for his guitar, then stomps out, just as he came stomping in. My adrenaline shoots as he walks past me, making brief eye contact just as he lifts his sunglasses into a headband, just when he thinks nobody will have peripheral vision of his face. His glance immediately ducks away, like he’s riddled with some kind of anxiety, but clearly not stage fright.
The manager strokes his hands together, thinking of his next move, before he walks back to where he was, and prepares for the next act.
“Scary,” says the retard.
“No,” I correct him, my eyes nearly tearing, “Just so goddamn misunderstood he doesn’t even know who he is anymore.”